I joined Ping.fm back in April but never got around to using it.  Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating all your social networks easy peasy.

What happened was that I changed my Twitter user profile name from @ebizmom to @AngelWickenberg and the Twiiter app that updated my Facebook profile, as well as the app that I could post to Twitter and Friendfeed from didn't work for me.

The problem was that I had also created a new profile called @ebizmom, just in case people didn't know how to find me, but also in case I didn't feel comfortable with my new user name, so I turned to Ping.fm to solve the problem.

With Ping, you can update from just about anywhere. Use AIM, GTalk, iGoogle, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS or E-mail and let Ping.fm relay your message to a multitude of social networking sites.

Ping has a "trigger system" and have broken down the services into three groups; blogging, micro-blogging and status updates.

You can control how your messages are posted as well as where. If you don't include a trigger from below in your message, your message will be delivered as your default method.

Examples:

@s message - Posts a status update
@b title^body - Posts a blog
@m message - Posts a micro-blog

 

 

Beta is still in session. To update your Facebook profile, an application key must be received from Ping.fm.

Try it, you'll like it!

/Angela Wickenberg

P.S. Follow me on Twitter:

New Twitter user name:

http://Twitter.com/AngelWickenberg

(old Twitter name: "Ebizmom")

P.S.S. Be-Friend me on Facebook:

http://profile.to.AngelaWickenberg/

P.S.S.S. My Friendfeed url is http://Friendfeed.com/angelaw

See you on the inside!

Tags: socialnetworking tips, Ping.fm, Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, AngelaWickenberg, @AngelWickenberg, social networking sites, follow me

Today, 01:07 PM

This is a progress report on my participation in the Thirty-Day-Challenge (30 DC): I just wanted to let others know that even if your main site disappears from the SERPS, you can still have a presence representing your main website. This is what happened to me. My main URL disappeared from the SERPS and I was fretting something awful. I checked with the Google diagnostic tool to see what could be wrong, but there is and was  nothing wrong with the site in that respect. (It could do with some good conversion work, among other things.) I continued working on the social networking aspects and lo and behold my URL can be found in the SERPS due to a COMMENT I made in a group! The DIGG position never disappeared. In fact, when the part of my site that was in position one disappeared, the Digg position became #1. Now part of the site is in #1 again, the Digg link is in # 2, and in both the broad phrase match, and in the exact phrase match, there are 3 positions, including the comment. Mind you, I am still very irked about my site disappearing from the SERPS. I will certainly continue to follow the conversation, make those comments and build relationships. In this way, it doesn't really matter if the main URL is in the SERPS or not because I will have many more positions there due to other links from social networking sites. http://friendfeed.com/angelaw

Tags: SERPS, Thirty-Day-Challenge, search engine ranking, disappearance from SERPS, Google, Google diagnostic tool, social networking, URL, commenting, DIGG, Digg link, AngelaWickenberg

Got positions #1 and #2 within 1 hour

Tags: thirty-day-challengeexperiences-from-30-day-challenge got-positions-1-and-2

In June, Google updated Google Trends with numbers and the ability to download results to a spreadsheet. They received a lot of great feedback from agencies and advertisers on how they're using the new version; from identifying new growth markets to optimizing their Google AdWords campaigns.

Today, Google launched Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest.

Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. You’ll also have the ability to compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.

Let's take the example of entering the term apple. You'll notice that the majority of top related and rising searches are associated with the brand Apple.

Google Insights for Search allows you to filter this query by the Food & Drink category, resulting in a dramatically different view of search volume trends and related searches of apple, the fruit. You can also use this filter to compare search terms with the category (for example, apple compared to the Food & Drink category).

Read the entire post here:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/08/announcing-google-insights-for-search.html

Tags: Google_Trends Google_Insights_For_Search Adwords Google_Adwords

Gmail has a bunch of lesser-known feature that can end up being very useful once you get to know them. The product manager at Gmail put together last year a list of his top 10 favorite features that you may or may not be familiar with.   Here's his list, which was very helpful to me in becoming more productive with Gmail and learning to use it's many features.

10. Custom "from" Most people end up managing more than one email account — some are personal, others might be for work or school. When I graduated from college, I wanted to keep my .edu address for alumni-related things, but made Gmail my primary personal address. My university made it easy to forward my .edu mail to my Gmail address, so I could read all my mail from my within my Gmail account. I was happy to find out that Gmail would actually let me send mail "as" my .edu address, so I could continue to keep that identity, while managing all my email from one place. Here's how to set that up.

9. Open attachments in Google Docs & Spreadsheets, or view as slideshow If you are sending a Word document or Excel file as an attachment, Gmail lets you easily open it in Google Docs & Spreadsheets. (In case you're not familiar with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, it's our online word processor and spreadsheet application, which lets you store and access documents online and collaborate on them with anyone.) Since other people are working on many of the docs I receive as attachments collaboratively, it's really easy to just open them in Docs & Spreadsheets and create a single document to work from, rather than constantly sending versions of documents back and forth. If the attachment is a PowerPoint presentation, Gmail will recognize this and give you a link to"View as a slideshow." This will open a window with a Flash preview of the slides. This is great for quickly reviewing slides in the browser.

8. Gmail gadget for iGoogle I use iGoogle to bring together a lot of the information I care about on the web (feeds, my Google Calendar, YouTube videos, etc). I use it as a dashboard at the start of my day to get an overview of what's going on in the world. I've added the Gmail gadget to my page to get a preview of my Inbox, which is great because it's one of the first things I'm interested in seeing.

7. Reply by chat Most people know that you can chat with your contacts in Gmail if they're using Gmail too. But there are some subtle features that make chat particularly useful in the context of using your email, like replying by chat. If you've received an email and notice that the sender is online (by seeing the little green dot next to his or her name in the conversation), you can click the button "reply by chat." What's particularly convenient about this is that the chat will be archived as part of the email thread to which you replied. I like this most because it means when I search for anything related to that thread, I find the chat transcript alongside all the relevant email messages.

6. Gmail for mobile application It wasn't that long ago that my cellphone could barely handle sending text messages. I didn't used to think of it as being an efficient place to access my email. That's changed — big time. Email has become one of my primary forms of communication when on the go. Unfortunately, on a lot of phones, dealing with email can still be a pretty annoying experience, especially if you're not using a device like a PDA. Enter Gmail for mobile. It's fast, it syncs with your online account, and it gives you virtually all of the same Gmail functionality like search, filters, and access to your whole archive of mail.

Two other little known features to get greater control over your inbox:

Here are some little-known ways to use your Gmail address that can give you greater control over your inbox and save you some time and headache. When you choose a Gmail address, you actually get more than just "yourusername@gmail.com." Here are two different ways you can modify your Gmail address and still get your mail:

• Append a plus ("+") sign and any combination of words or numbers after your email address. For example, if your name was hikingfan@gmail.com, you could send mail to hikingfan+friends@gmail.com or hikingfan+mailinglists@gmail.com.

• Insert one or several dots (".") anywhere in your email address. Gmail doesn't recognize periods as characters in addresses — we just ignore them. For example, you could tell people your address was hikingfan@gmail.com, hiking.fan@gmail.com or hi.kin.g.fan@gmail.com. (We understand that there has been some confusion about this in the past, but to settle it once and for all, you can indeed receive mail at all the variations with dots.)

For me, the real value in being able to manipulate your email address is that it makes it really easy to filter on those variants. For example you could use hikingfan+bank@gmail.com when you sign up for online banking and then set up a filter to automatically star, archive or label emails addressed to hikingfan+bank. You can also use this when you register for a service and think they might share your information. For example, I added "+donation" when I gave money to a political organization once, and now when I see emails from other groups to that address, I know how they got it. Solution: filtered to auto-delete. ive it)."

Tags: GmailGmail_features Top_10_gmail_features

Written on February 28, 2008 – 6:26 pm | by Brian Wallace |

(yes, that’s supposed to be a Twitter army )

Why Twitter is Important

(click image for full size)

To many Internet Marketers,Twitter has become important. Some people may not yet understand, but this may just be part of their journey through the social media learning curve. As with any social media application, site influencers got to where they were by putting in the time to understand the community. Twitter is no exception.

Let’s take a look at 7 Steps that Make Twitter Work:

Step #1. Twitter is more than personal updates. Sure, some people like to put in cat updates or say what they are eating for lunch, but Twitter is much more than that. Blogs used to have much the same stigma pinned on them, but one day the world woke up and understood the power of simple publishing + citizen journalism. Microblogging has reduced the time to market of content down to minutes and seconds, a huge improvement over blogs which brought it down to hours from previous forms of communication.

Twitter is a great place to:

-broadcast breaking / important news -hire people -get advice (on just about anything) -run a poll -rag on others -promote yourself -promote others

Step #2. Now that you have your head on straight, socialize. Chances are, if you participate in the social media community, people you know are already on Twitter. While Twitter doesn’t have the best way in the world to find people, sometimes the best way is to just see who your friend is following.

Step #3. Don’t just sit there, say something. Join the conversation. Without being too noisy, get in there. Nobody is going to ask you to the dance if you are just sitting around. See what people are talking about, jump in with some “@’s” (replies to a user) and perhaps some direct messages too.

Step #4. Now that you’ve said something, quiet down. Like any social media site, know the community and follow its norms.

Step #5. Know the difference between a push vs a pull mechanism. When you post a link to your latest blog post to Twitter, you are doing a push. An action meant to grab the reader. They can ignore it, but people that like what you bring to the table will check you out. Instantly. RSS on the other hand is a pull. Users will check RSS at their own pace and it will take more time to get buzz around your content.

Step #6. Fine tune, and read what’s out there. Here’s the part where you get to see where others have broken ground already, leaving valuable information for you along the way. My suggested reads: -Jeremiah Owyang on how he uses Twitter -Shana’s awesome post about 26 reasons why I love Twitter -DoshDosh put together a fine list of 17 ways to use Twitter.

Step #7. Put it all together and measure your results. As the title of the post mentioned, I promised a 438% growth in followers in a 30 day period. Here was my progression:

The notable jump right past the midway point came from a mention in Marketing Pilgrim’s initial post on Internet Marketers to follow.

After looking through this list a few times, I thought that both Twitter addicts and those that may not even use Twitter at all might be left with a few questions. Here’s my attempt to answer a few:

Q: 438% growth doesn’t just magically happen. How did you do it?

A: Well, I’ll tell you:

1 - Followed people I knew 2 - Adjusted my level of noise 3 - Thanked people for following me 4 -Kept the conversation going with those that replied quickly 5 - Instigated a few fights 6 - Chatted with better known people 7 - Unfollowed those that were bothersome / too noisy 8 - Crosslinked on my blog and other social media profiles 9 - Did a bit of brand management / data mining, keeping a keen eye on Tweeterboard stats, Terraminds info, and Tweetstats graphs 10 - Retweeted things that I felt were important that my followers might have missed from my Twitter friends

Q: Ok, so you got some new Twitter followers. If I post a link, maybe I get 5-10 visits to my blog. Why should I care?

A: The reason that you should care isn’t the direct traffic, but rather the indirect influence. If you Tweet a link to a new blog post, people will rush to submit it to social sites. This is changing the “pull” dynamic inherent in RSS (which may become passive for folks that are too busy to keep up on RSS) to a “push” dynamic through Twitter - but to people already interested in you. What’s more is that your followers may see your Tweets as a call to action, and begin to submit / vote for post you may have.

Tags: Twitterincrease_Twitter_following Use_Twitter_for_marketing