As engagement and sharing on Twitter, Facebook and other social tools continues to increase, many bloggers are noticing a sharp decrease in comments on their blogs.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that interest is declining.  RSS and email subscriptions, site traffic and social sharing may all be continuing to increase.  These are tracked through a variety of tools and even popular commenting system Disqus scours social networks to find blog posts being shared and displays those as “interactions”.

Increasingly bloggers are concerned that even though they know that their posts are being shared through other channels, that their communities still aren’t commenting on their posts.  It’s a completely understandable feeling.  You work hard at putting together a thought or position, flesh it out, find an engaging photo or video to help enhance your point and then publish it to the world.  A comment makes us feel good and/or helps to extend the post itself.  Sometimes the comments are even better than the post.  So, when a blogger begins noticing a decrease of comments on their blog, it can be depressing.  It can cause bloggers to start rethinking their content strategy and possibly even considering whether or not they should continue blogging.

Every time I’ve been asked whether or not a blogger should be discouraged by a decrease in comments, I immediately ask them whether or not they’ve looked at the sharing of their post through other channels and what the feedback from those channels are.  Usually they tell me that their seeing their content being shared online but they still wish they were getting the comments on their blog.

I’ve been thinking about this often.  Admittedly, I comment a lot less than I used but I share tons more now.  Google Reader trends tell me that I share around 30 articles per day through there.  I also regularly share tons more through Twitter and Facebook throughout the day.  But, I probably comment on about 75% less blogs than a year or so ago.  I know, I need to improve on that.

However, as I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve been considering whether or not the decline in commenting is actually a bad thing.  If you stop by and comment on a blog, you may extend that conversation and/or let that blogger know that you appreciate their work.  Both are great.  Consider though that the conversation will only be seen by that community which is limited by the number of subscribers and the number of visitors to that blog.  But, if you share that blog post with your community on Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, then you’re promoting that content to your social graph thus extending the total overall reach of that post.  By sharing that post with your social graph, it will extend the number of eyes that may be seeing that blog for the very first time.  Or, if they’ve ignored other content from that blog, it may be that post that pulls them in and triggers them to subscribe or share it with their networks thus continuing to grow the overall subscriber base and reach of the blog.

You may think that I’m suggesting that comments are dead but I’m not.  I love comments as much as the next blogger.  I appreciate everyone that takes the time out to share their thoughts.  I also value everyone that shares my content with their social graphs because it helps to get my content out to more people.

It’s just something I’ve been debating in my own head lately so I figured I’d spill it out into a blog post and see what you had to say and where you may choose to say it.  So, what are your thoughts?  Do you prefer comments, social sharing or a combination of both as a measure of the engagement on your blog?

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Photo Credit: premasagar

On a daily basis I will generally run through between 400-800+ feeds.  Of those, I share the top posts, usually around 30 or so, that I think will be useful for you.  Realizing that a majority of you don’t follow my Google Reader feed or may use a different feed reader, I wanted to provide another option for you to access those articles.

Sure, I push my Google Reader shared items through FriendFeed and I share a handful of posts daily through my Twitter account.  But, seeing that the majority of my community hangs out in Twitter more often than most other services, I wanted to be able to share with you through there.  Therefore, similar to what Louis Gray (@lgshareditems), Robert Scoble (@scoblemedia) and Chris Brogan (@broganmedia) have done, I have created a new handle on Twitter: @jlevymedia.  This will be, as Chris calls it, a pure stream of the content that I share or produce from around the interwebs.

Besides trying to provide you with, what you will hopefully find as a resource, what I like about having this Twitter account is that it allows me track all of the links that I share through Google Reader in Bit.ly.

While this might not be totally useful as of yet, it will still help me to gauge whether or not the info that I share is useful to you.  As time goes on I will tweak what based on feedback and stats such as Bit.ly clicks, retweets and more.

If you think it will be of interest to you, I hope that you’ll come join me over on @jlevymedia.

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Today I review Twitterville by Shel Israel.  I enjoyed reading Twitterville because Shel does a great job of telling the stories that have come to make Twitter what many of us love.  The book doesn’t provide you with a lot of tactical, go out and do it-type information.  But, what it does do is tell you stories about how Twitter has been used to form communities, trust and relationships.

I definitely think it’s worth picking up, especially if you’re new to Twitter or still don’t quite get what everyone gets so excited over it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YKaN1bez5g[/youtube]

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There has been a lot of buzz around Kogi BBQ, a Korean BBQ taco truck in LA that has used Twitter (@KogiBBQ) to create a phenomenon that produces lines that stretch around street corners to wait for the truck to arrive.  While I travel through LA around once a month, I have yet to stay in LA for any amount of time where I would have the opportunity to visit the Kogi BBQ team and try one of their tacos.

If you don’t know the story of Kogi BBQ, instead of me retelling you the story, check out this excellent video on how they started and what Twitter has done to enable them to grow so fast.  Starting out not having any sales on some days to now adding a 2nd truck and looking into options of opening brick & mortar locations is awesome to see!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMUjIVPztds[/youtube]

As a restauranter who has used to social media as a primary means of marketing my steakhouse, I love the story of Kogi.  As someone who works in this social media space, it’s always exciting to see companies that take these social tools and use them in a different way then we’re used to seeing.

Have you had a chance to partake in a Kogi BBQ taco yet?

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Since many of you probably use a third-party application like TweetDeck or Seesmic, you may not log into the Twitter homepage that often anymore.  Well, it’s worth taking a look as Twitter has finally pushed out a refreshed homepage.

Old Twitter Homepage

New Twitter Homepage

Notice that the bottom bar has 3 lines of trending topics?  That’s because the homepage now display topics that are trending right now, today and this week.

Once you log-in nothing has changed, at least as of yet.  But, the new homepage is something shiny and new on the eyes.  It will be interesting to see if this change continues on through to the profile page or Twitter Search.

What do you think of the new homepage?  What do you think should be the next update from Twitter?

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One of the primary websites that I check throughout the day is Google News.  I have been in love with this website as a source of news since it was released several years ago.  It allows me to quickly see what’s going on in the world and if a particular story interests me, I can view several other news sources who have also reported on it.  This is great for someone like me who likes to consume lots of information from as many different sources as possible.

Over the years they have continued to add tweaks to it such as being able to move around what sections appear where, adding in local news and more.  Recently Google added the ability to view YouTube videos for news stories.

This is fantastic because Google is integrating different forms of media.  They’re allowing me to consume the news in a format that I want.  I might not have time to read a full length article from the New York Times but I might have a couple minutes to watch a video posted by the Associated Press on the same topic.  By integrating YouTube, this means that I stay on the Google News page longer and am more likely to consume more information.

It serves as my central dashboard to news.  A lot of people choose to use Google Reader for this feature.  I use Google Reader for everything else but for mainstream news I turn to Google News.

I’m always thinking of what’s next.  I’m never happy with anything in its current form, even if it is serving my needs.  I like shiny.  I like new.  I like tweaking.  So, what should be next for Google News?  I think Google should integrate Twitter Searches for the news stories.  For example, I should be able to read the articles regarding President Obama‘s push for health care, watch associated YouTube videos, and then also see what others are saying about it.

Of course, this is a lot harder to manage then just adding in a YouTube feed.  Google would have to control for different topics, each in their own separate searches which are always changing based on the news day.  They would also have to have controls in place to filter spammers and inappropriate language/phrases.

There are other features that I could picture being part of Google News such as a section for blog content and the addition of Facebook Connect but I think Twitter would be the next most logical integration.  Will it happen?  If Google ever buys Twitter then I think we’ll see some variation of this concept.  Why?  Because Twitter has become an extremely powerful search engine and that itself is very attractive to Google.  If they don’t buy Twitter?  Who knows.  It will be interesting to see if Google News starts becoming more social like Google Reader has been becoming over recent weeks.

Do you use Google News?  Would this be a feature you think would be useful?  What other features would you like to see integrated into Google News?

One of the reasons why we all love Twitter is the ability to have instantaneous one-on-one conversations with like-minded folks.  Until recently Twitter was like a closed community to marketing and tech geeks but as more businesses, celebrities and mainstream media pick up on it, Twitter is seeing growth of mind-blowing rates.  Unique visitors grew from 7.9 million in February 2009 to 14 million in March 2009.  So, as Twitter becomes more mainstream, how do you wade through all of the noise and find people to follow and interact with who provide value to you or your business?

First, remember that Twitter is 100% opt-in.  Only those people that you choose to follow will show up in your stream.  If you don’t find value in that interaction, there is no rule saying that you must follow anyone.

Second, use Twellow and Twitter Grader to search the bios of Twitter users.  You can use these services to search for people with similar careers, interests, etc.  Of course, Twitter does not standardize the bio area so it is based on whatever users type in.  Therefore make sure you search different variations, especially if you’re searching job titles.  For instance, a search for “Director of Marketing” will yield different results than a search for “Dir. of Marketing”, “Dir. of Mkt” or any other similar searches.

Third, use Twitter Search to find conversations that are taking place around subjects that interest you.  From there you can see who is talking about those subjects and what else they generally have to say.  Interested?  Follow them and start engaging.  Want to really become a pro?  Try using Advanced Search…

These tools will help you to find those people or businesses that are talking about subjects that are interesting to you.  But remember that it’s up to ensure that you’re engaging in meaningful conversations.

What other ways do you use to find people to follow on Twitter?

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]]> http://justinrlevy.com/2009/05/02/wading-through-the-noise-on-twitter/feed/ 7 http://justinrlevy.com/2009/04/14/lunch-with-the-pirates-episode-1-welcome-to-pirates-tv/ http://justinrlevy.com/2009/04/14/lunch-with-the-pirates-episode-1-welcome-to-pirates-tv/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:12:56 +0000 Justin Levy http://justinrlevy.com/?p=1027

[blip.tv ?posts_id=1997625&dest=-1]

Episode #1 – Wednesday, April 8, 2009
(Episode Length: 22 minutes, 21 seconds)

Intro

• You can join us live every Wednesday at 12p ET (9a PT) over at New Marketing TV which gets hijacked and changed to Pirates TV.
• To interact with us, you can catch up with us on Twitter: @justinlevy or @crbrowning.  Also, make sure to tag your questions, comments or feedback with #piratestv.
• Lunch with the Pirates is jumping on board with all of the other live broadcasts.  Some of our friends include: HubSpot TV, Permission TV and Blue Sky Factory TV.  It is so easy to start and cheap to start a “TV show” nowadays but, are there companies that shouldn’t start a live online broadcast?

Pirate Marketing Moves

• Skittles - Was it just a publicity stunt to get conversation going?  Colin doesn’t think so.  Colin believes that Skittles was turning the conversation over to their customers.  Thoughts?
• iRoadTrip – The first iRoadTrip saw the team travel through the heartland of America to visit with true American innovators.  Next trips include an iRoadTrip sustainable innovations and education.  Disclosure: This is a New Marketing Labs project…

What’s in the Spyglass?

• New Beta FriendFeed – Is it Twitter or is it Facebook?  I tend to think that it looks similar to the new version of Facebook.  This is very interesting because there were a lot of conversations around Facebook ripping off FriendFeed when they first released the “Like” feature.  However, this beta version of FriendFeed looks very similar to the Facebook stream.

…and with that concludes our first episode.  We actually recorded a few more minutes but realized that the camera stopped taping.  Oh well, we’ll keep improving each week, we promise

We know what we liked and what we want to improve upon but now we want to hear from you.  What did you think?  What can we do better?  Did you find the topics interesting?

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As Twitter continues to grow at an alarming rate more and more people are discovering how it’s a great platform to engage in meaningful conversations.  However, the real power of Twitter is in it’s function as a search engine.  A lot of people use Twitter Search to monitor trending topics and conversations around hashtags while at conferences, events or chatting about a specific topic.  But, one of the features that I don’t hear a lot of conversation around is the Advanced Search feature in Twitter Search.

Advanced Search isn’t a new feature but it’s not very prominent on the website.  The option sits at the bottom right just below the search box on the Twitter Search site.  Once you click on it, it opens a ton of advanced search options that allows you to really discover the power of Twitter as a search engine.  Options include the ability to search different languages, search within geographic areas, filter based on whether a tweet contains a link, and a whole bunch of other ways to dig deep into Twitter to extract data.

Why is this important?  Because of the sheer amount of conversations which are taking place on the service on a daily basis.  According to BuzzGain, there are an average of 1.9 million tweets per day.  This breaks down to 83,394 tweets per hour and 1,350 tweets per minute.  Who wouldn’t want to search all of that data?  I know I use Twitter Search at least 2-3 times per day.  Usually, I will search Twitter before going out to Google.  I think this trend will continue to grow as more people discover the power of Twitter Search and/or until the Google acquisition rumors ring true.

If you use Twitter Search, how do you use it?  Do you find it useful?  Have you tried using the advanced features yet?

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One of the best parts of my day is being able to interact with all of you via this blog, Prime Cuts, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.  I truly appreciate the conversations that we’re able to have and always looking to find ways to engage more.

Thank you for all that I learn and the friendships that I continue to make.  I hope that I’m helpful to you as well.

Note: This mosaic is a list of approximately the first 400 people of my Twitter list.  If you’re not included here, you were not left out on purpose.  I value that we get to interact.

If you’d like to build a similar mosaic, you can grab the code from Twitter Mosaic.