Happy Social Media Day!

You know you've hit it big when you have a day of the year dedicated to you.  I'm still waiting for Social Media Diva Day.  It has a nice ring to it, don't you think!

In the meantime, Social Media Day is here!  This Saturday, June 30th is Mashable's 3rd annual Social Media Day!  Started in 2010 by Mashable, the worldwide event is a celebration of "the digital revolution happening right before our eyes"!

Here's my challenge for you for Social Media Day 2012. Learn something new.

Yup, that's it.  Seems simple, huh?  And guess what!?  It IS simple! 

There are so many amazing sites that can simplify, deepen or enhance your life and your learning.  I've listed several of them below.  I want you to sign up for one of these, create a username and spend an hour digging around on the site.  Get involved in the conversation and the community.  And let me know what you learn.  I can't wait to hear about it.

http://www.facebook.com/ (really?  If you aren't on Facebook yet, we need to talk!)                  
http://www.tumblr.com/
 http://www.pinterest.com/
http://www.instagram.com/ http://www.meetup.com/                                                                                                                   http://www.twitter.com/
 http://www.digg.com/                                                                                                                       http://www.flickr.com/
 http://www.youtube.com/                                                                                                                 http://www.blogger.com/
 http://www.klout.com/                                                                                                                      http://www.reddit.com/
 https://plus.google.com/                                                                                                           http://www.stumbleupon.com/

 Bonus points:  Logon to to http://mashable.com/smday/ to see if there is a Meetup scheduled in your hometown.  You are sure to meet a ton of people and learn.   Strange enough, here in LA, our Meetup currently has no details!  But social media lovers are biting at the opportunity.   If deets aren't up soon, this is going to be a crowd sourced event!!!

Ever Committed A Twitterror!?

Eeeek! 

That feeling you get when you just hit the Tweet button and you see a glaring mistake in your 140 characters.  Or when re-reading a previous tweet you realize it could be interpreted differently. Or you calm down after a knee-jerk reaction to a snarky tweet and you’ve already let it all out into the Twittersphere. 

Twitter moves FAST.  That's one of its great features.  Just think how Twitter is now a trusted place for real-time news.  But this fact also makes Twitter a huge liability, especially in moments of post-tweet panic. 

What next?  It’s a lose-lose situation.  Deleting the tweet looks sneaky and suspicious, plus the words can live on through screenshots taken by other users.  Leaving the tweet allows it to be retweeted and spread, even if you issue another tweet apologizing.  What’s a tweeter to do!?

Last week, interface designer Oliver Reichenstein proposed a solution to this problem; give tweeters the choice of marking their tweets as “error”.  The original tweet would be edited and the “errored” words would be crossed out - indicating that the tweeter acknowledges the error and has since corrected it, probably in a follow-up tweet. 

This is still just an idea, but social media blogs and journalists have seemed to like it.  The Twitter Design Team, however, hasn’t yet jumped on board.  They think it would only be used by journalists, and aren’t convinced that spending resources on a feature that’s not universally used is a smart choice. 

Have you seen or committed a Twitterror??  Would you want to point out your errors?  Or just let them die in the Twittersphere?

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE TIMING!

A problem that is often brought up to Social Media Diva is that some Tweeters feel that their tweets are being ignored, and just sent out into the abyss and then…. nothing.  This is especially painful when you put a lot of thought and effort into constructing the best use of your 140 characters. 

It’s a difficult problem.  There are several avenues available for increasing the likeliness of retweets, clickthroughs and Twitter interaction; today lets look at timing.  After all, they say timing is everything!

Bitly, the url shortening site whose site update I blogged about earlier this month, recently conducted a study of retweets and clickthroughs based on what day and time tweets were posted. 

A pretty cool infogram from Raka Creative details their finding below.  Some takeaways: 

• Tweeting weekdays (specifically Mon- Thurs) between 1 and 3 pm Eastern will get you the most clickthroughs if you are sharing a link.   Hm!  Is it the afternoon slump or is everyone at Starbucks!?
• Fewest clickthroughs on links come after 8pm Mon- Thurs or 3pm on Fridays.

Be sure to take into consideration time zones and where your target audience is when you are tweeting!  These are all based on Eastern time zone... not sure why, west coast is the tech coast!

Tailored Trends on Twitter

Thanks to new tailoring, your trending topics will suit you even better!

“Trending topics” are valuable tools to help tweeters discover the most popular topics on Twitter but, until now, have been sortable only by geographic region. 

Yesterday, Twitter announced on its official blog that you will now be the center of its trend algorithm.  In other words, trends will now be displayed based on who you follow as well as on geographic location.

I am thrilled by this news.  Fingers crossed that it means less trending topics like “#URGhettoIf or #BeliebersUnite” --  Really, Twitter!  These are trends social diva and her BFFs find unappealing.  We want to know what our buddies are talking about most and trends early adopters are jumping on.

Of course, the general trending topics will be there if you want to check them out.  The tailored trends will be rolling out as a default setting, but Twitter reports that, if you “want to see a more general list of Trends, just change your location on twitter.com”.

Is your twitter account more au courant with better fitting trends?  Enlighten us, how is it?

The New Bitly- Like it or Leave it?

For shortening links, Bit.ly has been my go to site. I was quite surprised when I logged on last week and found the redesigned site.  It’s nothing new for social media sites to update their platforms and have users up in arms.  Anyone who has used Facebook knows this.  But Bit.ly’s update was a bit different: it actually makes the site- with the intended purpose of shortening things- much more difficult to use.  Adding to this irony, even the link’s name itself is now longer! It changed from bit.ly to bitly.com and in Twitter-sphere, those extra 3 characters are a big deal. 

If you want to dive into the new bitly and get the most of its new functionalities, be sure to spend a bit of time on the new site.  The site now lets you save and share links as “bitmarks” (like bookmarks), curate groups of these bitmarks as “bundles”, make bitmarks or bundles private or public and link all these features with friends.

If you just want to use the standard feature of bitly- shortening a url- and not fuss with all the new bells and whistles, here’s the easiest way:

1. Paste the URL into the “ADD A BITMARK” box in the top right corner

2. Hit “SAVE” ON THE POPUP

3. Click the “COPY” button next to the shortened link to copy it to your clipboard

Just can’t seem to get used to the new format?  Here are a few simpler options to shorten your links.

Ow.ly:  A URL shortener from HootSuite.  Simple and straightforward, copy the url and hit “Shrink It” Button.  Only downside is you have to enter a captcha when you shorten a link (but this also makes the site more secure).

Goo.gl:  Yes, even Google has a URL shortener.  If you are signed into a Google account, it’ s quick, simple and easy.  If you are not signed in, you can still use the site, but it requires you enter a captcha as well. 

Proof Your Work, People!

Proof your work, people!

Mitt Romney’s campaign released a new iPhone app yesterday called “With Mitt”.   All in all, a great idea for a simple app that lets you use different Mitt-promoting, stenciled overlays on the pictures you take.  Whoever you might be voting for, the designs are quite nice looking.  But that’s not what brought this app into the news today.  Let’s just say one of the overlays would have failed a standard spell check.

In the first version of the app, one stenciled overlay reads:

 “A Better Amercia”

I’m not joking.  That’s what it said.  A better A-M-E-R-C-I-A.

COMMON!

How does this happen?  That doesn’t even LOOK right!  I am not making a political statement here.  Heck, Obama’s campaign has had several blunders (57 states, anyone?).  We are all human.  Plus, I’m sure Romney didn’t write the app himself.  But, people have GOT to double check things.  Seems like a pretty big accident, don’t you think?  If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d be all up in arms about this one.

Alas, I am not. I am Social Media Diva!  So, I am up in arms about this blowing up the social media world. The biggest irony of this explosion is that the app itself encourages sharing the pictures on Facebook and Twitter.  And that’s exactly what happened.

Tumblr now has a whole page entitled “Amercia is with Mitt!” which is dedicated to the erred stencil.

Even Mitt’s promoted hash tag “WithMitt” – used initially by the Romney campaign to announce the app – has pretty much been hijacked with images of the mistake.  And to top it off, #Amercia was trending on Twitter last night and into this morning. 

And while the app might be talked about more than anticipated, I’d guess team Romney will be triple checking everything in the future. 

Friendlier Flights with Social Seating!

You could be in store for a much friendlier flight for upcoming summer trips.  That is, if you opt into “social seating”. 

Yep, social media is going up into the skies with KLM and Malaysian Airlines.  They have introduced programs for travelers to choose the people they sit by during their flights.  KLM calls it “Meet and Seat”; Malaysian Airline’s program is named MHBuddy.  Both allow confirmed ticket holders to upload and share information from Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and then view data that other participants have shared.  Then, you just search until you find the perfect travel-mate.  It might be someone with similar interests, shared friends, going to the same conference as you, or just an attractive member of the opposite sex.  Just remember, the systems send messages containing your info to whomever you choose to sit beside, so there is no ‘secret stalking’ taking place. 

The airline industry as a whole has been slow to transition into the social media scene.  You might remember a few years ago when several airlines attempted to build social media sites out of their existing frequent flier members (Virgin Atlantic and Air France to name a few).  Those didn’t fare well, but Meet and Seat and MHBuddy are different because they tap into users current social media networks, a much lower buy-in cost for fliers.

Outside the airlines, the “find a friend on your flight” concept is also gaining popularity.  Planely, a startup that launched in 2010, allows users who submit their itineraries to view the Facebook and Linkedin profiles of others who will be on flights. 

Sadly, none of these allow you to choose who you DON’T sit by (aka, as far away from potential crying babies as possible).

So, who uses these programs?  Research shows that “social seating” appeals mostly to business travelers (going to trade shows and conferences) and backpackers (looking for travel companions and shared rides).   

These scenarios make sense.  But as for me, I typically like to sleep the entire time during a flight.  Neck pillow comes out while the last passengers are boarding and I wake up just as the wheels touchdown in my destination city.  I suppose it might be fun to meet up with someone on a flight and get to network a bit before a business convention.  But then again, it might be more fun to catch up on some much needed zzzzz’s. 

What do you think? What do you typically do during long flights?  Would you use social seating?