Hello and welcome to Geek Central, an "aggregation" of all things to aid "Social Media".

It’s been a good month so far considering the club is still in its infancy. The amount of action on the forum is indicative of the necessity to engage and participate in social media in order to become visible above the general "noise" of the internet! Before we go any further, let’s just bring back the definition of what the club is all about:

1. Social media by definition is the act of sharing information via a media, in this instance the web.
2. The web (or in this instance web 2.0) has much more power than the pen.
3. Social networking by definition is the act of sharing people via a media, in this instance the web also.
4. The web (or in this instance web 2.0) has much more aggregation than the pen.

I think you’ll agree that the common denominator is "the web" and it’s various applications that allow us to achieve the above.  But let’s not forget that the web is also about people!  Barack Obama understood the philosophy of "know me, like me, follow me" and that played a significant part in putting him in the White House!  So what could engagement in social media do for you and your business?

Web 1.0 was "downloading", therefore, the physical use of a computer was "surfing".
Web 2.0 is "self-publishing", therefore, the physical use of the computer is "creating".

The amount of different skills that web 2.0 brings to bear is huge … and that is the point of social media graffiti – the club, to help you all achieve the best you can get out of all your web efforts.

However, it takes input from you to help yourself. I will lead the forums as much as I can (I am a Geek after all) BUT I need you!   No,  WE need you to interact and give your opinion – after all the point of "self publication" is to have an opinion via a blog or forums such as this.

 

 

So on that note I would like to nominate this month’s Forum top contributer:  Shea Reinke, who seems to have been "all over" the forum asking and answering questions in the true spirit of social media (sorry Thomas, you and me don’t count, LOL!). Who will get the award next month?  Well, that’s up to YOU!

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some great posts for you to engage with
- How To:

How to get the most out of being a member of SMUDGE

Twitter to Facebook: 5 Ways to Post to Both

Tweetgrid: The implications of this one are big

How to: Create custom twitter backgrounds

Geek Chart – show where you are.

HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Twitter

Social network/s organiser/s

A – Z of web terminology Let’s see your opinion on the above … social media needs your opinion, the forum needs your opinion, the web needs your opinion.

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Did you know?

ScribeFire allows you to create your blog and add all the colour, graphic, pictures, etc from size to colour in a simple "rich text" box, that then gives you "code" (that ellusive stuff which is beyond me) that you can then "paste" into your blog. Empowering you to achieve a fantastic looking blog … it’s that simple. NOTE: Thank you to Penny Power for that one. Also …

Audio Boo is an application on an i-phone that allows you to record a 3 minute burst (audio).  It then assigns a location as to where you are (via google map), allows you to assign a photo, a hashtag AND then automatically sends it out on Twitter (after you have followed the easy set up) and Facebook.  I recently used Audio.Boo to record some vox-pops from an ecademy event! Click here – to read more NOTE: Thank you to Tom Evans for that one..

Even BBC News 24 are at it … even though they have no idea of it’s potential:

The one problem with social media, well that I find a problem, is the amount of different sites you have to be on.

I suppose it’s not so much of a problem, more of a hitch.

With over 100’s of different social media web-sites and with more coming daily, keeping them organised is a task in itself.

However, help is at hand. I have found some sites that allow you to create one site (your page) and assign “tabs” to your other sites that allow you to keep them in one page.

Moreover, when you are “pointing” your “tribe” to your different sites, in stead of pointing them to multiple sites you can now point them to one.

Very handy.

Below is my pointers on the 3 that I have found so far.

read more