Combining these buttons with the WordPress codex is pretty easy. Insert a couple snippets of code and you can easily add the URL and post/page title dynamically to the “Tweets” and “Likes”.

The codes from the WordPress codex that we’re going to use are:

<?php the_permalink() ?> and <?php the_title(); ?>

Two lines of code and you’re all set up. Copy and paste the code below, style as needed to position the buttons how you see fit. For the Twitter Tweet button, don’t forget to replace my username with yours.

Facebook Like Button

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php the_permalink() ?>&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=21" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:100px; height:21px;" allowTransparency="true"></iframe>

Twitter Tweet Button

<a href="http://twitter.com/share" class="twitter-share-button" data-text="<?php the_title(); ?>" data-count="horizontal" data-via="robbclarke">Tweet</a><script type="text/javascript" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

Did you find this useful? Wouldn’t hurt to share it with others would it?

Note: The following blog post, while being serious, is meant to be read with a sense of humour and is not intended to be arrogant in any way, shape or form. So, put on your Serious Hat and your Humour Pants and start reading.

Your Website Might Be Outdated

It’s true and chances are that it probably is, well, not entirely at least… but probably parts of it. The web is a constantly changing environment and what was relevant and current six months, a year, two years ago, just don’t make the grade today. If you want your site to be current, you need to not only look to the future but also be prepared for change. A good web designer and developer not only has a rough idea of the upcoming forecast but they also plan for future changes. They can see shifting trends in designs and technologies and plan to utilize them properly for you.

When Was the Last Time You Got a Redesign?

Better yet, when was the last time that your competitor got a redesign? Is their site design more recent than yours? Are they taking advantage of current trends in technology? Why aren’t you?

Has it been over a year or two since you’ve had a new design for your site? If not, chances are that you aren’t taking advantage of a lot of the great new technologies out there that have been released in the past few years. jQuery, Mootools, HTML5, and CSS3 (to name a few) have taken the web by storm in the past couple of years and are major players in where the web will be going.

Was your site designed 4 or 5 years ago? You’re in dire need of a site design. Look at your competitors, chances are that they’ve had theirs done in the last little while. Now think about the two sites from a consumer’s point of view, which one are you going to gravitate towards? Exactly, the more modern, stylish design. Why isn’t that you?

You’re Using Social Media, Right?

“Social what?!” you say? Social Media sites like Twitter and Facebook, for example, are great ways for you and your business to interact with clients in real time. Prompting users to “Like” your Facebook Fan Page on your website will give them instant access to your Page and keep up to date with you and your business even if they aren’t looking on your website itself. The same goes for Twitter. Having a Twitter feed appear on your site or at least prompting users to follow you on Twitter will give you another means to connect with that user. Keep them up to date by Tweeting updates and prompting them to visit your site.

Look around my site. There are a million and one ways for you to get ahold of me and to interact with me. Why don’t you take advantage of that for yourself and use Social Media tools on your site?

Is Your Site Build Using Tables?

HTML Tables are a thing of the past. It’s not 1995 any more… and hasn’t been for about 15 years so why is your site coded using Tables? They don’t allow for easy changes done to the site. They’re clunky and messy and severely outdated. Your site should have been coded using a combination of HMTL and CSS that will allow for easier changes to be made to the layout and format of your site. View the source of your site (View > View Source [or similar] in your browser), if you see “table” “td” “th” and/or “thead”, you’re in trouble. Time to get an update!

Do You Have to Get Your Web Guy To Update Your Content?

If so, why? Why are you paying your web designer/developer each time you want to add a new news item to your site or change your contact information? Why wasn’t your website coded using a content management system which would let you update the website at your leisure without paying extra to do it? Content management systems like WordPress (for example) are becoming easier and easier to use and install. It shouldn’t have to cost you extra each time you need to change something on your site, which brings me to the next point.

How Often Are You Updating Your Website?

If you’re paying your web guy their hourly rate each time you need to update your site then chances are the answer to that is “not very often.” Taking advantage of a content management system will let you make changes whenever you want, on your own time and without having to pay an arm and a leg to do it too! Using a content management system will even let you easily install a blog onto your website where you can keep users up to date with new product arrivals, business changes, pretty much anything that you want. Hell, they can even subscribe to an RSS (really simple syndication) feed and be notified instantly of new news items or blog posts made on your site.

Flash Sucks

Not everyone is going to agree that Flash sucks, and really, it doesn’t. It’s extremely powerful and used in the right way, it’s absolutely perfect but its days of being the leading way that websites are built are in the past. As a web building tool its dying. Search engines can’t read content in a Flash file so if your website’s navigation is built in Flash then they have no way of visiting the pages on your website and therefore don’t know that they exist and therefore can’t index them which then means that they aren’t searchable to users using the search engines. See how that’s a bad thing for you? I’m not going to use any names for the following anecdote but rest assured that it’s true.

Recently we were approached because a website wasn’t showing up in search results, even when you searched the domain name itself. This was absolutely horrible for the site. What’s the point in having a website if it can’t be found, right? The problem was that the whole navigation was coded in Flash and like I said earlier, this means that the search engines can’t read it and therefore couldn’t find any of the other pages on the website. The content itself was also coded in Flash, again not readable. It was no wonder that this site wasn’t showing up anywhere. Combined with a number of glaring search engine optimization errors, the site was a disaster. After a couple hours rebuilding the framework and recoding the site it was good to go and was relaunched. Within a few days it was indexed by search engines and quickly skyrocketed to the top of search results. Its been holding steady at or near the top of the results ever since.

I ask again, why was your site coded in Flash? To do some fancy rollovers and your navigation that can be done using CSS and HTML and maybe a little Javascript? Combine that with the fact that Flash isn’t viewable on iPhones or iPads and you’ve got yourself one hell of a problem. That’s right, if I go to your website on my iPhone (which happens A LOT) and your navigation is in Flash then I hit a dead end and I can’t go any further and immediately start looking at competitors’ sites. I’m not the only one. How many people do you know that have an iPhone? Ask them to go to your site.

Maybe it’s time to re-examine why your site was built using Flash, eh?

I Can Help

I can. It’s true. I wouldn’t lie. What’s stopping you from sending me an email to get the ball rolling? Is it the lack of a contact form? I can help with that too. VOILA!

Dalby’s reflects his career as a DJ out west at The Peak in Smithers, BC. Jay’s showcases an image from his trip to Ireland.

Yeah, not an overly long blog post. Sorry. Easily the best 18 seconds of your life though, I’m sure.

@Dalby

@JayAClarke

I’ve become horribly addicted to Empire Avenue. I’m obsessed with networking and the stock prices on it. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s a brilliant way to make connections that I might have otherwise not have made. So what is Empire Avenue?

“Empire Avenue is a revolutionary online influence stock exchange combined with an advertising platform that allows individuals and organizations to convert their online influence and reach into revenue. To this end we will be connecting advertisers, consumers and influencers in a manner not as yet undertaken in the online space. Through the Empire Avenue influence stock exchange and its tracking features we will measure the influence value of individuals registered with Empire Avenue.

Influencers will be given control over the advertising they carry, and advertisers will be better able to reach their target consumer. We believe that this better targeted advertising approach will lead to better returns and leads for advertisers. Empire Avenue sets itself apart not only in its unique feature set, but also by paying influencers the majority of advertising revenue generated unlike other major advertising networks.”

In short, you or your business become a stock. As people invest in you your capital increases and you have the ability to spend more and invest in others, all the while networking with these people. The goal is to have the highest trading stock on the site and become the top influencer.

If you’re on there, check me out on Empire Avenue at e(ROBBCL).
EDIT: Seven days is what it took me to lose interest in Empire Avenue. The concept is phenomenal and the site is brilliant (I’m very jealous) but it turned into such a huge time vampire.

Last night I kicked started a Sodaless Summer campaign for what was originally going to be just Fredericton but the response has been huge so far and word has spread quickly via Twitter and Facebook and now its spread past Fredericton to much of Canada.

What’s a Sodaless Summer you ask? In short, it’s cutting out soda from your diet to start a healthier lifestyle. Myself, I drink far more soda than a normal person should so I’m cutting it out altogether and replacing it with water and juices. Why? To be healthier and to lose weight.

You can get involved by reading more about it on the website at http://www.sodalesssummer.com or on our Facebook Group.

UPDATE: This article has been featured in more places on the internet and in print than I could have ever imagined. It’s really very cool to see. Since its initial posting in November of 2009 at Noupe.com, the Commandments have spread across the internet and have been Dugg and referenced more times that I can count. Most recently they were published in the June/July 2010 edition of Chartered Accountants Magazine.

Thank you all.

There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to social media. People seem to think that every day standards and decency get tossed out the window because of the anonymity of the Internet. Unfortunately for those people, that’s not always the case. First off, the Internet is getting smaller, and by that, I mean that it’s getting easier to find out who people are. You know how the saying goes “It’s a small world.” That reigns true for the Internet, especially social media sites, as well. Everyone is connected one way or another. There’s a whole “Six Degrees of Separation” thing going on.

There are Ten Commandments of Social Media that you should always try to follow. They will not only make you a better person but they will make your followers that much more appreciative of what you have to say.

Commandment #1: Thou Shalt Not Be a Narcissist

Social media is not all about you. It’s about people. It’s about being social, hence the name. Take the time to engage others in conversation. Don’t simply sign on and post something about yourself and leave. For every one post that you make about yourself you should dedicate at least three to engaging others in conversation whether it’s Retweeting what they’ve said, commenting on their photo album or asking them how their day is. A little bit of human contact goes a long way in the social media world; after all, human contact is what the whole concept is based off of.

You need to immerse yourself in the community and become part of the conversation. Social media is about relationship building and if you’re just spouting out posts and Tweets about yourself then people will quickly lose interest in you and what you have to say.

Commandment #2: Thou Shalt Listen to What Others Are Saying

This ties in with the previous commandment; social media is all about engaging others in conversation and to do that you need to first listen to what others have to say. Actively participating in conversation helps build relationships and listening is the most important part.

There are a lot of tools out there that will not only help you listen but will also help you engage. Tools like TweetDeck are fantastic tools for monitoring and engaging the conversations that are happening. TweetDeck is fantastic because you can not only monitor the obvious Twitter but you can also monitor Facebook and multiple other Twitter accounts.

TweetDeck Interface

Commandment #3: Thou Shalt Not Spam

If you’ve been using email for the past 15-20 years then this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Don’t spam your friends and followers with links and chain letters other useless nonsense that just gets tossed in the trash or deleted. Be courteous to others. Just because you think it’s cute to show 26 pictures taken milliseconds apart of your 9 month old rolling around on the floor doesn’t mean that anyone else will.

Think about all of the things that make you roll your eyes when you read them on social media sites. Now think, do you do any of those things? If so, stop.

Shameless Self Promotion With a Side of Spam

Commandment #4: Thou Shalt Say Something of Substance

How often do you get online to find Joe blabbering on about his latest conquest at the bar or how many Filet o’Fish he’s eaten today? How many times have you seen Mary complain about how she didn’t get enough sleep last night or how her friends annoy her? Do these people really actually say anything? Usually not.

Far too often people take to social media sites to air their dirty laundry and complain about something and why? Would they be doing the same in front of a group of their friends, peers, coworkers, and prospective employers? Probably not. So why online?

Scott Stratten from UnMarketing made a great Tweet about posting on Twitter but the same applies for all social media sites. He said “Don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t want to see on a billboard with your name/face/logo/phone # and your mom driving by.” It’s true. You wouldn’t be saying half of what you say online if it was real life so why do it? If anything what is said online is worse for your reputation than saying it in person. Why? Because it’s posted online and people can find it and reference it at any time.

The rule is simple; watch what you say and whom you say it to.

Commandment #5: Thou Shalt Not Abuse Thy Neighbour

Tying in to the previous Commandment comes another Commandment that you would think would be pretty obvious but sadly it’s overlooked. Don’t abuse people online. Flaming on the Internet is just about as old as the Internet itself and it’s just as unacceptable as it has always been. No one wants to go online and be verbally assaulted for his or her beliefs and opinions. It’s not good form.

You know how the old saying goes; “If you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all.” Just because you’re online doesn’t make it acceptable to do. Chances are that you’re not going to openly mock or humiliate someone in person so why do it online?

Commandment #6: Thou Shalt Give Credit Where Credit is Due

This is a Cardinal Sin in most circles, especially on Twitter. Stealing someone else’s ideas, quotes, pictures, whatever, are incredibly taboo not to mention amateur. You wouldn’t want someone coming along and stealing your intellectual property and posting it as his or her own now would you?

Here’s an example of the proper way to give someone credit for what they’ve said on Twitter.

How to Retweet Properly

Note that it’s perfectly acceptable to truncate words or paraphrase what was said if Retweeting takes up more than the allotted 140 characters.

Commandment #7: Thou Shalt Learn How to Spell … or at least use a spell checker

This one should be pretty obvious. Learn to spell and use grammar and punctuation properly. It’s incredibly hard to take what you’re saying seriously if it’s full of grammatical errors or you’ve mixed up your to, too and twos.

It’s not the hardest thing in the world to run your blog post through a word processor like Word before you post it. It’s actually in your best interest to type the whole thing in there in the first place regardless.

For those that are Tweeting or updating their Facebook statuses try using Mozilla’s Firefox. It has a built in spell checker. It won’t catch all of your spelling mistakes and it doesn’t catch grammatical or punctuation errors but it will put a dent into your typos.

Commandment #8: Thou Shalt Use Real Words

The previous Commandment is the perfect segue into this next one. Please, for the love of all things holy, try your best to use real words. Seriously. Social media sites have turned people into absolutely horrible spellers and text and instant messaging aren’t doing people any favours either. Quit with the OMGs, the LOLs, the WTFs and the ROFLs.

Neil Patrick Harris had a brilliant Tweet making fun of people doing this. He said “Prfkt. Thx 4 L th advyc evry1. This s a way ezr way 2 cmuNik8. Un42n8ly, itz takn me 3 hrz 2 ryt, but itz much pre4d 2 gtn cut off lyk i u”. I don’t know what he said but that’s what he said. It shouldn’t take 140 seconds to try and decipher your 140 characters on Twitter. I know you’re doing it to “save time” but did you really save time? Did you actually cut seconds off of your posting time or did it really take you minutes longer to be “clever” and come up with those new words? Think about it.

Hard to read, isn’t it?

Commandment #9: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

Websites like TinyURL, Cli.gs and Bit.ly all offer a brilliant service; they take your exceptionally long URLs and turn them into short and sweet ones, perfect for the character limiting Twitter. These sites do have a downside though, they enable people to hide spam, porn or even the passé Rick Roll (yes, people are still doing that) in masked URLs.

When URLs are hidden like this users are unable to see where they’re headed and are often lead to undesirable websites. Be courteous to others and don’t hide links using these services.

That being said; these service providers do attempt to warn users of malicious websites that may be hidden in shortened URLs so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

On a related note; how many social media “experts” have you seen on Twitter that claim they know the key to being successful in both business as well as on social media sites? There are thousands of them out there. Do you know what their magic key is? The answer; our last Commandment.

Not Really Nick Nolte

Commandment #10: Thou Shalt Not Be a Friend Whore

Last but certainly not least is our final Commandment of Social Media. Don’t be a friend whore. Social media is not a contest to see how many friends or followers you have. Having thousands of followers does not make you a better person or show that you’re a better quality user.

It’s incredibly common to see people on Facebook and Twitter adding as many people as they can as their friends in hopes that they befriend them in return simply to accumulate higher numbers.

Friend Whore Follows Three Users for Every One That Follows Them

Social media is not a contest. Plain and simple.

Following these Ten Commandments of Social Media will not only make you a better user of social media sites but they will also make your friends and followers appreciate you that much more. They aren’t hard to follow. Give them a shot.

For a little over a year now I’ve been using Hubspot’s Twitter Grader to measure my Twitter “score.” While Twitter obviously isn’t a race (although some will lead you to believe that it is) this online tool helps measure influence, track followers and other stats. Combined with other tools like Twitalyzer, you can get a pretty good idea of your influence and whether or not there are things that you need to improve to make yourself more noticeable on Twitter.

I kind of went off on a tangent there…

Like I said, I’ve been using Hubspot’s Twitter Grader for awhile now and it got me using their Website Grader as well. This grader takes numerous things into account to give your website a rough score out of 100. While it’s not perfect, it does give you a good idea of things that you need to improve on with your website like your SEO, content, images, etc.

The grading system is split into five main categories, each with their own sub-categories which give you a more in depth analysis. The categories are:

I. Create Content

• Blog Analysis
• Blog Grade
• Recent Blog Articles
• Google Indexed Pages
• Readability Level

II. Optimize

• Metadata
• Heading Summary
• Image Summary
• Interior Page Analysis
• Domain Info
• MOZ Rank
• Last Google Crawl Date
• Inbound Links

III. Promote

• del.icio.us Bookmarks
• Link Tweet Summary
• Twitter Grade
• Google Buzz Count

IV. Convert

• RSS Feed
• Conversion Form

V. Analyze

• Traffic Rank
• Score Summary
• Historical Data Available

The system isn’t perfect but it gives you a good idea of what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong and also gives you a good idea of what search engines are looking for as well as users. The site doesn’t leave you hanging with just a score, it gives you tips on how to improve the different aspects of your site as well. If you have a blog on your site, check out their Blog Grader as well for tips and tricks on how to increase the visibility of your blog.

I’ve been using the Website Grader for a little over a year now and it has helped me understand a bit more about visibility of websites. My initial grade was a somewhere in the low 30s but I’ve managed to increase it to a 77. It’s not something that I’m obsessing over but it’s nice to see it increase.

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a reporter at The Daily Gleaner by the name of Molly Cormier asking if she could interview me for an article about web design and social media. Not wanting to pass up any opportunity to get exposure I said “sure”. The end result is what I think turned out to be a great article (I’m bias) with a super exaggerated headline (I’m modest).

Here’s a small excerpt:

Q: How has the Internet influenced our world in the past decade, and how will it change as we move into a new decade?

A: Whether people like to admit it or not the Internet has completely changed the world that we live in. In some places you never actually need to leave your house anymore, because of the Internet. You can order groceries online, order movies online – really just about anything that you’d need to leave the house for you can do online now.

The Internet has made the world a much, much smaller place and with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter stepping into the limelight, it’s only getting smaller.

We’re now able to communicate with hundreds, thousands or millions of people at the blink of an eye.

The full article can be read here.

Thanks again to Molly Cormier for writing the article. You can follow her on Twitter at @mollycormier or follow me at @robbclarke

There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to social media. People seem to think that every day standards and decency get tossed out the window because of the anonymity of the Internet. Unfortunately for those people, that’s not always the case. First off, the Internet is getting smaller, and by that, I mean that it’s getting easier to find out who people are. You know how the saying goes “It’s a small world.” That reigns true for the Internet, especially social media sites, as well. Everyone is connected one way or another. There’s a whole “Six Degrees of Separation” thing going on.

There are Ten Commandments of Social Media that you should always try to follow. They will not only make you a better person but they will make your followers that much more appreciative of what you have to say.

Commandment #1: Thou Shalt Not Be a Narcissist

Social media is not all about you. It’s about people. It’s about being social, hence the name. Take the time to engage others in conversation. Don’t simply sign on and post something about yourself and leave. For every one post that you make about yourself you should dedicate at least three to engaging others in conversation whether it’s Retweeting what they’ve said, commenting on their photo album or asking them how their day is. A little bit of human contact goes a long way in the social media world; after all, human contact is what the whole concept is based off of.

You need to immerse yourself in the community and become part of the conversation. Social media is about relationship building and if you’re just spouting out posts and Tweets about yourself then people will quickly lose interest in you and what you have to say.

Commandment #2: Thou Shalt Listen to What Others Are Saying

This ties in with the previous commandment; social media is all about engaging others in conversation and to do that you need to first listen to what others have to say. Actively participating in conversation helps build relationships and listening is the most important part.

There are a lot of tools out there that will not only help you listen but will also help you engage. Tools like TweetDeck are fantastic tools for monitoring and engaging the conversations that are happening. TweetDeck is fantastic because you can not only monitor the obvious Twitter but you can also monitor Facebook and multiple other Twitter accounts.

TweetDeck Interface

Commandment #3: Thou Shalt Not Spam

If you’ve been using email for the past 15-20 years then this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Don’t spam your friends and followers with links and chain letters other useless nonsense that just gets tossed in the trash or deleted. Be courteous to others. Just because you think it’s cute to show 26 pictures taken milliseconds apart of your 9 month old rolling around on the floor doesn’t mean that anyone else will.

Think about all of the things that make you roll your eyes when you read them on social media sites. Now think, do you do any of those things? If so, stop.

Shameless Self Promotion With a Side of Spam

Commandment #4: Thou Shalt Say Something of Substance

How often do you get online to find Joe blabbering on about his latest conquest at the bar or how many Filet o’Fish he’s eaten today? How many times have you seen Mary complain about how she didn’t get enough sleep last night or how her friends annoy her? Do these people really actually say anything? Usually not.

Far too often people take to social media sites to air their dirty laundry and complain about something and why? Would they be doing the same in front of a group of their friends, peers, coworkers, and prospective employers? Probably not. So why online?

Scott Stratten from UnMarketing made a great Tweet about posting on Twitter but the same applies for all social media sites. He said “Don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t want to see on a billboard with your name/face/logo/phone # and your mom driving by.” It’s true. You wouldn’t be saying half of what you say online if it was real life so why do it? If anything what is said online is worse for your reputation than saying it in person. Why? Because it’s posted online and people can find it and reference it at any time.

The rule is simple; watch what you say and whom you say it to.

Commandment #5: Thou Shalt Not Abuse Thy Neighbour

Tying in to the previous Commandment comes another Commandment that you would think would be pretty obvious but sadly it’s overlooked. Don’t abuse people online. Flaming on the Internet is just about as old as the Internet itself and it’s just as unacceptable as it has always been. No one wants to go online and be verbally assaulted for his or her beliefs and opinions. It’s not good form.

You know how the old saying goes; “If you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all.” Just because you’re online doesn’t make it acceptable to do. Chances are that you’re not going to openly mock or humiliate someone in person so why do it online?

Commandment #6: Thou Shalt Give Credit Where Credit is Due

This is a Cardinal Sin in most circles, especially on Twitter. Stealing someone else’s ideas, quotes, pictures, whatever, are incredibly taboo not to mention amateur. You wouldn’t want someone coming along and stealing your intellectual property and posting it as his or her own now would you?

Here’s an example of the proper way to give someone credit for what they’ve said on Twitter.

How to Retweet Properly

Note that it’s perfectly acceptable to truncate words or paraphrase what was said if Retweeting takes up more than the allotted 140 characters.

Commandment #7: Thou Shalt Learn How to Spell … or at least use a spell checker

This one should be pretty obvious. Learn to spell and use grammar and punctuation properly. It’s incredibly hard to take what you’re saying seriously if it’s full of grammatical errors or you’ve mixed up your to, too and twos.

It’s not the hardest thing in the world to run your blog post through a word processor like Word before you post it. It’s actually in your best interest to type the whole thing in there in the first place regardless.

For those that are Tweeting or updating their Facebook statuses try using Mozilla’s Firefox. It has a built in spell checker. It won’t catch all of your spelling mistakes and it doesn’t catch grammatical or punctuation errors but it will put a dent into your typos.

Commandment #8: Thou Shalt Use Real Words

The previous Commandment is the perfect segue into this next one. Please, for the love of all things holy, try your best to use real words. Seriously. Social media sites have turned people into absolutely horrible spellers and text and instant messaging aren’t doing people any favours either. Quit with the OMGs, the LOLs, the WTFs and the ROFLs.

Neil Patrick Harris had a brilliant Tweet making fun of people doing this. He said “Prfkt. Thx 4 L th advyc evry1. This s a way ezr way 2 cmuNik8. Un42n8ly, itz takn me 3 hrz 2 ryt, but itz much pre4d 2 gtn cut off lyk i u”. I don’t know what he said but that’s what he said. It shouldn’t take 140 seconds to try and decipher your 140 characters on Twitter. I know you’re doing it to “save time” but did you really save time? Did you actually cut seconds off of your posting time or did it really take you minutes longer to be “clever” and come up with those new words? Think about it.

Hard to read, isn’t it?

Commandment #9: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

Websites like TinyURL, Cli.gs and Bit.ly all offer a brilliant service; they take your exceptionally long URLs and turn them into short and sweet ones, perfect for the character limiting Twitter. These sites do have a downside though, they enable people to hide spam, porn or even the passé Rick Roll (yes, people are still doing that) in masked URLs.

When URLs are hidden like this users are unable to see where they’re headed and are often lead to undesirable websites. Be courteous to others and don’t hide links using these services.

That being said; these service providers do attempt to warn users of malicious websites that may be hidden in shortened URLs so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

On a related note; how many social media “experts” have you seen on Twitter that claim they know the key to being successful in both business as well as on social media sites? There are thousands of them out there. Do you know what their magic key is? The answer; our last Commandment.

Not Really Nick Nolte

Commandment #10: Thou Shalt Not Be a Friend Whore

Last but certainly not least is our final Commandment of Social Media. Don’t be a friend whore. Social media is not a contest to see how many friends or followers you have. Having thousands of followers does not make you a better person or show that you’re a better quality user.

It’s incredibly common to see people on Facebook and Twitter adding as many people as they can as their friends in hopes that they befriend them in return simply to accumulate higher numbers.

Friend Whore Follows Three Users for Every One That Follows Them

Social media is not a contest. Plain and simple.

Following these Ten Commandments of Social Media will not only make you a better user of social media sites but they will also make your friends and followers appreciate you that much more. They aren’t hard to follow. Give them a shot.

With everyone and their dog jumping on Twitter and trying to promote themselves it’s not hard to spot those that are doing it wrong. You guys stand out like a sore thumb. What are you doing wrong? I’m not only going to tell you what you’re doing wrong but I’m going to tell you how to fix the problem.

The “It’s All About Me!” User

The most frustrating and annoying people on Twitter are the ones that are into shameless self promotion. They’re the ones that get on there and Tweet a million and one times a day about themselves and nothing more. They’re Tweeting about their blog, their website, their company, their promotions but never about anyone else. If you want to lose followers then this is a perfect way to do it. Stop it.

The “Link Farmer”

Who are these people? They’re the ones that post nothing but links to other people’s material and don’t actually say anything for themselves. While it’s great that they’re out there promoting others, it’s beyond annoying to the rest of us when you flood our news feeds with links to random articles every few minutes. It’s a sure fire way to have people stop following you.

The “OMGLOLWTFBBQ” User

I know that Twitter limits you to 140 characters but honestly, use real words. Shortening some words is fine but really there’s no need to have a sentence like “Prfkt. Thx 4 L th advyc evry1. This s a way ezr way 2 cmuNik8. Un42n8ly, itz takn me 3 hrz 2 ryt, but itz much pre4d 2 gtn cut off lyk i u” (Thanks @ActuallyNPH for that jewel). There’s absolutely nothing worse than having to spend 140 seconds to try and decipher what you typed in your 140 characters. English motherf*cker, do you speak it? This is a great segue into the next one…

The “Spelling Bee Champs”

Call me crazy but Twitter has turned people into piss poor spellers. Take the time to spell things correctly. It’s always fun to try and figure out what you just typed because you don’t know how to spell. Not everyone is a great speller, I can accept that but knowing the difference between there, they’re and their is elementary… literally.

What Can You Do To Fix This?

What can you do to fix this? It’s beyond simple. Take the time to engage others in conversations. Comment on their Tweets or Retweet what they’ve said. To “succeed” at Twitter you should really aim for a ratio of about 3:1. That’s three Tweets NOT about yourself for every one shameless self promotional Tweet.

Limit the truncated words to a minimum. Not every word needs to be shortened. If your Tweet is too long then spread it out over two. There’s no harm in that. And while you’re at it, check your spelling.

Now that I’m done and you’re done reading this. Check me out on Twitter @robbclarke and while you’re at it, spread the word about this article by hitting the Retweet button.

In October I had the pleasure of meeting my wife’s cousin Craig, the Director of The Caribou Group, a Brisbane Australia based lighting company. He and I both share a fondness for Twitter which got us talking about the Twitter page for his company. The first thing that I noticed was that they were still using one of the backgrounds provided by Twitter. I decided that I would make it my mission to update their look, at least on the Twitter page. My “mission” being of course to send Craig a Direct Message on Twitter asking him if I could do it. A few weeks later he said yes and here we are.

Click on the thumbnail below for a full size screenshot of their redesigned look or visit their Twitter page here.

It seems today that Twitter is being used by just about every corner of the economy and the restaurant industry is no exception. Twitter has become a fantastic tool for restaurants to not only promote their business but to also engage their clientele and monitor feedback and chatter. I’m going to look at a handful of restaurants, most local Fredericton based and non-chained, that are using Twitter as a means to grow.

The Garrison District Ale House // Fredericton, NB

@garrisonale
The Garrison District Ale House, a great restaurant in Fredericton, NB, has been taking advantage of Twitter for the past few months as a promotional tool. They’ve been announcing specials, new drinks, different events and celebrity appearances. They’ve also introduced Twitter Beer Tasting as a way to gain more followers and get more people into the restaurant. People can only attend and participate in the beer tasting if they register via Twitter. All in all these guys are doing a great job of promoting themselves – the only this that’s missing is a fancy looking Twitter page. **cough cough**

The Blue Door // Fredericton, NB

@theblue_door
Another Fredericton based restaurant, The Blue Door has been using Twitter to announce their daily specials. As someone that can never decide where to eat when we go out, being able to see the daily specials at a local restaurant really comes in handy when making decisions. They promote themselves as one of the most progressive and forward thinking restaurants in Fredericton, using Twitter definitely helps solidify that claim.

Marked5 // Los Angeles, CA

@Marked5
The Los Angeles based Marked5 uses Twitter to announce its location as it travels around Los Angeles. It serves little Japanese “burgers” on a bun composed of pressed rice. They also serve teriyaki salmon, katsu pork, you know, fancy Japanese stuff that they don’t serve in Fredericton. Now if only there were cool lunch trucks like this that traveled around Fredericton and Tweeted their locations. There’s dozens in LA that travel around and Tweet to their followers. They get hundreds of people waiting at their future locations just to get a bite to eat.

Racine’s // Fredericton, NB

@racineschef
Though not for the restaurant itself but for the Head Chef Thomas Gimblett, the Racine’s Twitter account has been great for posting lunch and dinner specials. More recently he’s been posting looking for a prep cook/chef. Like The Garrison and The Blue Door, Thomas has been promoting Racine’s and taking advantage of the massive number of people using Twitter. Also like The Garrison, he sure could use a fancy Twitter page **cough cough**.

Even with just a few examples it’s clear to see that Twitter is helping restaurants help engage their customers and promote their restaurants with upcoming events and specials. Remember though, it’s not enough to simply post about yourself. It’s all about engaging. For every one Tweet that you make about yourself you should have 4 or 5 engaging, re-Tweeting and promoting conversation.

Before you start promoting yourself or your company via social media there’s a lot that you really need to know. It’s not as clear cut as some people might lead you to believe; that being said, it’s not rocket surgery (see what I did there?) either.

Without further ado, here are some thing that you need to know about social media before you start promoting yourself using Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.

It’s not as easy as you might think. It requires a lot more effort than just signing up for an account and making the occasional post or Tweet. Social media isn’t like the old standard of creating an ad for television or print and letting the ad do the work. You must constantly be engaging your followers and users and promoting interaction.

That being said, social media isn’t complicated. Yeah, yeah, hold the phone, I just said that it wasn’t easy so why isn’t it complicated? It’s hard work and you need to be on top of things but it’s not overly complicated at all. The underlying principles of social media are pretty simple; sharing, communication, relevance, being helpful, engaging. The major failures out there have come from people’s or company’s inability to share, communicate, be relevant, be helpful and engage their members or followers.

Things can and will go wrong. You can’t forget that things posted on the internet are visible by anyone and everyone. Social media can and will hurt companies. Does everyone remember the infamous Dominos employees in the United States that taped themselves picking their noses and putting it in pizzas? They posted that on YouTube and it immediately hurt Dominos. How about fellow East Coaster Dave Carroll? Dave spent months trying to get United Airlines to fix a guitar that they had broken, when they refused he posted a video on YouTube about the incident (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo&feature=fvst. Almost immediately United Airlines felt the hit and their stock dropped nearly 20% to the tune of somewhere near $18 million. All that because they didn’t want to replace a $1,500 guitar that they broke. Of course these are all examples of the public using social media to show how the companies had wronged them. Companies should be using social media as a barometer for consumer opinion and acknowledge concerns and try to remedy issues as soon as possible. Use social media as a way to monitor current chatter about yourself or your business. Radian6 a Fredericton based company has made a name for themselves doing just that.

In spite of some of the ads floating around Twitter and Facebook at the moment, social media is not a get rich quick scheme. Doing anything type of marketing via social media requires a lot of time and effort on your part. Personally I’ve been actively networking for about a year now and only now am I starting to really communicate with more people in my field and start to get my name out there – although my name usually incites a “who?” but I digress. Building relationships with others and users takes time and commitment on your end. With millions of people promoting themselves on social media and you need to stand out. It’s all about the quality of your relationships and posts over the quantity of followers and friends. Simply because you have thousands of friends or followers doesn’t mean that you’re doing things correctly. Are they really your target market? Did you start following them or did they start following you? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself.

Can anyone do social media? In short, no. Not everyone is willing to put themselves out there and engage users as much as they should be. Some people just don’t like sharing like others do. Organizations and businesses are often uneasy about the lack of control that social media gives them. The risk of making a very public mistake and having that mistake broadcast world wide in the blink of an eye is something that everyone must be aware of. The other day Scott Stratten from UnMarketing made a great Tweet about posting on Twitter but it applies to all social media. He said “Don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t want to see on a billboard with your name/face/logo/phone # and your mom driving by.” Sure, not everyone can commit to having a presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Delicious, Digg, LinkedIn and others all at once. Try focusing on one or two or if you’re a business, delegate different sites to different people.

Back in August I wrote an article about My Top 10 People to Follow on Twitter and I’ve decided to expand on that and narrow the field down my Top 10 people to follow in the design and web industry. This list includes designers, developers, social media folk and much more, it’s list of people that I draw inspiration and learn from on a daily basis.

I use Twitter not only as a social communications tool but also as a resource for learning more about the industry and with the amount of people posting on it, it’s very easy to keep up with the latest trends and learn new techniques. So, without much more rambling, here is my list (in no particular order).

Naldz Graphics / Ronald Bien

URL: http://www.twitter.com/naldzgraphics
Why: Naldz Graphics is a design blog for designers and design lovers. They showcase the best tutorials, freebies, inspirations and other useful and informative resources to help and give love to design community.

Smashing Magazine

URL: http://www.twitter.com/smashingmag
Why: Smashing Magazine is an amazing source for design techniques, inspiration and new lines of code. They’re always updating their Twitter with not only site updates but also useful posts from around the web. Following them has helped me improve my design skill and coding ability a lot.

Site Point

URL: http://www.twitter.com/sitepointdotcom
Why: The official Twitter for Site Point, they generally keep users updated with what’s going on on their own site, not that that’s a bad thing. Site Point is a fantastic resource for designers, developers and anyone in the industry.

Unmarketing / Scott Stratten

URL: http://www.twitter.com/unmarketing
Why: Unmarketing is the Twitter account for Toronto based marketing and social media guru Scott Stratten. Scott is always giving great advice on new social media trends.

Orange Sprocket / Bill McGrath

URL: http://www.twitter.com/orangesprocket
Why: Bill McGrath, the CEO of Orange Sprocket, is a social media addict. Being very into tech and web trends, Bill is always updating his Twitter account with industry news. Following him on Twitter has helped me keep up to date with a lot of new things in the industry.

Carter McLaughlin

URL: http://www.twitter.com/carter_vagrant
Why: The personal Twitter account of Vagrant Web Services owner/operator Carter McLaughlin. Like Bill McGrath, he’s always updating his Twitter with industry news. Following him has been a great way to improve my knowledge and skills.

LogoMotives / Jeff Fisher

URL: http://www.twitter.com/logomotives
Why: LogoMotives is the Twitter account for Portland, Oregon based designer and author Jeff Fisher. Jeff’s creations have been an inspiration for me since I started following him on Twitter and watching what he does has definitely helped me improve with my logo design.

Mashable / Pete Cashmore

URL: http://www.twitter.com/mashable
Why: Mashable’s CEO Pete Cashmore is a social media/networking guru. Following him as helped me improve my knowledge of the industry(?) ten fold. With over 1.3 million followers, the guy definitely knows what he’s talking about. If you want to learn anything about Twitter and/or social media, this is the guy to follow.

Colorburned / Grant Friedman

URL: http://www.twitter.com/colorburned
Why: Colorburned is the Twitter home of the website of the same name as well as owner/creator Grant Friedman. Colorburned is a great design resource featuring tips, tricks and tutorials. If you want to learn any of the new design techniques floating around the web, chances are that these guys can help. Check them out.

Radian6

URL: http://www.twitter.com/radian6
Why: Founded in 2006, Radian6 was created with the idea that companies need to be listening to the social web in order to effectively participate. Intelligence about online conversations is critical: companies need to know what’s being said about their brand, industry, and competitors online. So, they built a listening platform designed to help companies do just that.

Oh, and don’t forget to follow me @ http://www.twitter.com/robbclarke.

Did I miss anyone? Thoughts? Feedback?

Is Social Media a Fad?
Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?

A lot of people are hesitant to make the leap into Social Media because they just don’t see the benefits. People also said that Television was a fad… the same went for the Internet, iPods and even Blu-Ray. Yup, those were fads alright </sarcasm>.

Some fun facts for you about Social Media:

• By 2010 GenY will outnumber Baby Boomers
• 96% of them have joined a social network
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the US last year met via Social Media

Years to reach 50 million users:

• Radio: 38 years
• TV: 13 years
• Internet: 4 years
• iPod: 3 years
• Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months
• iPod Application downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months

Other Information:

• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest
• Chin’a QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services
• 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
• 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online cirriculum
• 80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and Panama
• 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices; people update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences…
• Generation Y and Z consider email passe
• In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing email addresses to incoming freshmen
• YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
• YouTube has more than 100,000,000 videos
• Wikipedia has over 13 million articles
• Studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica
• 78% of these articles are non-English
• If you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 a per hour
• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
• 54% of bloggers post content or Tweet daily
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertisements
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
• Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
• 70% of 18 to 34 year-olds have watched TV on the Web
• Only 33% have ever viewed a show on DVR/TiVo
• 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video on their phones
• 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle
• 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
• We no longer search for news… the news finds us
• In the near future we will no longer search for products and services… they will find us via Social Media
• Social Media isn’t a fad. It’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos etc) are shared on Facebook… daily
• Successful companies in Social Media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy… listening first, selling second
• Successful companies in Social Media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertisers

Still think Social Media is a fad?

What did we learn today? Companies that aren’t utilizing Social Media are going to quickly fall to the wayside when it comes to Customer Service. A large number of companies use Social Media as alerts for poor customer satisfaction and even have response teams to address issues as they arise.

Large numbers of people turn to Social Media, especially Twitter’s “Trending Topics” and Facebook “Statuses” as a source for breaking news. Large news providers like CNN, CBC and BBC are turning to Twitter as a way to keep people informed.

Did you know that many of the largest newspapers in the world are preparing to be paperless within the next 10 years?

So who can benefit from Social Media? Absolutely anyone! Small companies can keep clientele informed of specials, Realtors can post new listings, big corporations can monitor customer satisfaction, restaurants can monitor reviews… the list goes on and on.

Still on the fence? That’s your loss.

Wanna chat about Social Media? Want some advice on the subject? Feel free to drop me a line or comment below… whatever floats your boat.

Source: http://www.socialnomics.com

If you’re like me then you’re using Twitter for a lot more than social networking. Sure, I use the service for what it was intended for but I use it for more than following what personal friends are doing. I follow a lot of people that have great advice on life, coding and so much more. Below is a list of the top ten people that I follow on Twitter and why. Oh, and they’re in no particular order.

Ben Popken

URL: http://www.twitter.com/bpopken
Why: Ben Popken is the creator of The Consumerist and is always posting great financial advice. I turned my financial situation around about a year ago based on advice from his website.

Smashing Magazine

URL: http://www.twitter.com/smashingmag
Why: Smashing Magazine is an amazing source for design techniques, inspiration and new lines of code. They’re always updating their Twitter with not only site updates but also useful posts from around the web. Following them has helped me improve my design skill and coding ability a lot.

LogoMotives / Jeff Fisher

URL: http://www.twitter.com/logomotives
Why: LogoMotives is the Twitter account for Portland, Oregon based designer and author Jeff Fisher. Jeff’s creations have been an inspiration for me since I started following him on Twitter and watching what he does has definitely helped me improve with my logo design.

Unmarketing / Scott Stratten

URL: http://www.twitter.com/unmarketing
Why: Unmarketing is the Twitter account for Toronto based marketing and social media guru Scott Stratten. Scott is always giving great advice on new social media trends.

TimCAD / Tim Absath

URL: http://www.twitter.com/timcad
Why: TimCAD is the official Twitter account for web based comic series CTRL+ALT+DEL and its creator Tim Absath. Not only do I follow Tim because I’m a fan of his comic but he also has a lot of insight into a lot of great games coming to both PC and consoles… not that I do much gaming anymore… but he’s still interesting to follow.

Matt Good

URL: http://www.twitter.com/mattgood
Why: Matt Good is a fantastic Canadian musician. I’ve been a fan of him for well over a decade and not much is going to change that. Good uses his Twitter to keep follows up to date with his music and website updates. While on tour he updates quite frequently as well which can get really interesting.

CBC News

URL: http://www.twitter.com/cbcnews
Why: CBC News is putting Twitter to good use by posting breaking news as it happens. Their Tweets link back to the full story on the CBC website and it’s a great way to keep informed with what’s happening around the world as well as Canada.

Mashable / Pete Cashmore

URL: http://www.twitter.com/mashable
Why: Mashable’s CEO Pete Cashmore is a social media/networking guru. Following him as helped me improve my knowledge of the industry(?) ten fold. With over 1.3 million followers, the guy definitely knows what he’s talking about. If you want to learn anything about Twitter and/or social media, this is the guy to follow.

Colorburned / Grant Friedman

URL: http://www.twitter.com/colorburned
Why: Colorburned is the Twitter home of the website of the same name as well as owner/creator Grant Friedman. Colorburned is a great design resource featuring tips, tricks and tutorials. If you want to learn any of the new design techniques floating around the web, chances are that these guys can help. Check them out.

Chris Brogan

URL: http://www.twitter.com/chrisbrogan
Why: Chris Brogan is a marketing savant based out of Boston, Mass. He doesn’t reveal all of his good tips on his Twitter account, and rightfully so, but you can pick up a lot of good tips and tricks by following him. I’ve always found what he’s talking about to be interesting and helps me as a designer/marketer.

Honourable Mentions

Wil Wheaton @ http://www.twitter.com/wilw
Daiv Russell @ http://www.twitter.com/daivrawks
Nathan Fillion @ http://www.twitter.com/nathanfillion
Radian6 @ http://www.twitter.com/radian6

Oh, and don’t forget to follow me @ http://www.twitter.com/robbclarke.

Did I miss anyone? Thoughts? Feedback?