UpYourSocial

I’ve been a huge fan of Conan for many years now, and I am not the only one. Lots of people around the Internet are joining the I’m With COCO campaign. This campaign was started when Mike Mitchell created the image you see to the left.

This image is starting to pop up all over the web as more and more people are getting on board in supporting Conan.  It’s a fantastic example of how an idea can spread quickly through the use of social media.

To show your support, you can throw up a blog post or go join the I’m with COCO Facebook Fan Page.  That leaves me with just one question.

Who’s with COCO?

Recently, I had a conversation with @thenewsrookie about blogging and social media.  We talked about a lot of things, then somewhere in the conversation I talked about all the things I had quit doing in order to continue blogging and playing around in the space of social media.  His response to this was “sacrificing in the name of social media.”

I thought this was such a great quote that I’m turning it into a blog post.  So what did I actually sacrifice for social media?

Some Things Don’t Change

First, let me tell you what I didn’t sacrifice.  I didn’t sacrifice time with my wife and family.  The time with the people that are most important to me stays no matter what.  I’ve needed to set a schedule in order to keep this promise.

I also don’t sacrifice some of my down time.  Everyone needs a little time to unplug and zone out.  Staring at a computer at my job all day and then staring at one when I get home at night can get a little rough.  I’ve made sure to take the time to get away from the ringing iPhones and emails that need answering.

The Sacrifices

Now, it’s time to discuss what has changed.  I’ve limited my paintball playing to once or twice a year.  That’s down from once or twice a month.  It’s an expensive and time consuming hobby.  I did make a trip this past summer to a big event, but that has been the only time I’ve played in the last year.

I’ve also reduced my time playing video games.  I used to play most of the hit games and some of the not so great games.  Now, I have to really pick and choose which games to play.

I mentioned previously about making sure you have downtime.  I really believe in this, but I will say that blogging has impacted my downtime as well.  I would be lying if I said I kept the same amount of downtime.  It’s still there, but it is less than it was before.

Where I Stand

This may not seem like the most positive article so far, but I will tell you that all the sacrifices I have made have been worth it.  The hobbies I’ve had before have just turned into this new hobby of blogging and social media.  I really enjoy the challenge and am always excited to work on my blog when I get the chance.

If you are considering starting a blog or getting more into social media, I really recommend it, but just keep in mind the sacrifices that will have to be made to get truly involved in the space.

What things have you given up or changed in order to devote more time to blogging or social media?  Are you like me and think it’s worth it?

Image by Brainware3000

This is my weekly round up of social media links that I’ve bookmarked in Diigo over the past week. You can get this list every week by subscribing to my RSS feed or subscribing through email. You may also follow me on Twitter or join the Facebook Fan Page to get some of these links throughout the week.

• 10 Ways to Share Helpful Content in Social Media « Social Media Monitoring and Engagement – Radian6
• The Secret Social Media Skill | Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business | Altitude Branding
• How to Reach Out to Bloggers
• Social Media Toolkit | Social Media Marketing Strategies
• 10 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media | Brand Elevation Through Social Media and Social Business | Altitude Branding
• The Evolution of Social Media and Business | Brian Solis
• Conversation Agent: How One Mid-Sized Business is Using Social Media to Build Awareness and Increase Sales
• Top Email Marketing Tactics for 2010 – Online Marketing Blog
• DAILY SLACKR: Promote Blogs Like A Pro

This is a guest post by Alex Braz.  Alex is a blogger from Slovenia who loves internet novelties and runs the Renton Blog.

Over the past year, Twitter has moved into the mainstream, and it has taken certain services and tools like TweetDeck with it.  Most of us know the top 5 or so Twitter tools out there, but I wanted to share 10 more tools that will help round out your Twitter experience.

So let’s get started!

1. Swift FM

Let’s start with my favorite thing on Earth, music. I find myself always wanting to share songs with my friends and followers.  Swift FM lets you log in with your Twitter ID and either upload a song, post a link to it or search a vast database for the song you want to share. Pure simplicity. But if you don’t believe me, one of the founders can tell you all about it.

An Introduction to Swift.fm from Swift FM on Vimeo.

2. Tweetwally

They say 3 million Twitter messages are generated every single day. That’s over 2,000 tweets per minute! There’s no way you can possibly go through all of these messages, but Tweetwally helps you filter them.  You have four options: filter messages by hashtag, by keywords, by users that post the messages and by users that are mentioned. Messages are updated almost live, so you don’t have to refresh the page all the time. Plus, you can save your wall by signing in with your Twitter ID.

3. Snapatar

If you want to use your picture as a profile picture, but hate to go through the lengths of taking the picture, saving it and uploading it to your Twitter account, you can use Snapatar. A simple tool that will use your webcam to capture your face (or whatever you put in front of it, for that matter) and set it as your avatar in an instant.

After you snap it, you sign in with your Twitter ID and ta-da, your fresh picture is set as your avatar!

4. Chirps

Chirps lets you share a vocal message with everyone on Twitter.  Just record a sound bite and then, you can post it directly to Twitter to share with your followers.

5. Screen Jelly

If you like to help people or just give tips, this tool is for you. Imagine your friend has trouble with some piece of software and you know how to fix it, but don’t have the luxury to actually visit that friend. How would you show what you do on your computer, so your friend could follow the example? Record it and twit it! Screen Jelly will record every move on your screen and everything you say for 3 minutes. Save it and post it on Twitter (and other social sites).

6. Camtweet

What if you want to broadcast a live feed of yourself, wishing everyone a merry Christmas? Tweeple (yup, I hate this expression) could be a part of that by you using Camtweet. Sign in with… wait for it… your Twitter ID and tell everyone on Twitter that you are going to broadcast live and then the tool will do just that.

7. Twi.tt

Twi.tt lets you can upload virtually any file you want and will post a link to that file on Twitter. Upload a picture, a video, a document, an audio clip or ask people something through a poll. Sign in the way mentioned before and use a simple form to upload your files.

7. Amplify

Now, you know how to post virtually everything on Twitter, but lets say you find an interesting article that you want to share with your Twitter followers. What are you going to do? Sure, you could simply give them a link to the article, but maybe you want to show only specific paragraphs and a picture, not a whole thing. With Amplify’s bookmarklet, you can do that in just a few steps.

8. Free Twitter Designer

Free Twitter Designer lets you make a custom background for your Twitter profile without the need of Photoshop.  First you sign in with your Twitter ID and choose a background (a dozen of them). Then, you can add shapes, text and pictures, set all the colors and apply different filters. After all the tweaking is done, you can either save the outcome or export it directly to Twitter.

9. Listen To

I’ve already told you how to post your favorite music on Twitter, but the tool on Listen To is pretty useful as well. After you enter the information about the song and provide a link to it (mp3, YouTube or Meebo), it generates a page with the video and an option to tweet it immediately.

10. Listorious

Recently, Twitter added a list feature. Listorious gathers those lists and puts them into different categories. You can choose among art, news, sports, food, celebrities and so on. That way, you can find interesting people to follow, according to your interests.

Conclusion

There is a plethora of things going on in Twitterland, and there are tools to help make your experience the best it can be. I’ve shared tools that will upload pictures, broadcast live feeds, share your music or simply find someone to follow. These are only ten of the numerous services that are out there.  What are your favorite lesser known Twitter tools?  Share them with us in the comments.

Image by loop_oh

In addition to my iPhone, I got some fantastic social media books(pictured above) for Christmas this year.  I haven’t made the time to start reading any of them yet, but I wanted to share them with my readers in order to find out what books or gadgets they got for Christmas.

• Tribes
• Life After the 30-Second Spot
• Groundswell
• Socialnomics
• The Whuffie Factor

Have any of you read these books?  Which one should I start with?  What did you get for Christmas that is going to make you more social?

Disclosure: The links above are Amazon Affiliate links, but I do truly recommend these books and look forward to reading them.

This is my weekly round up of social media links that I’ve bookmarked in Diigo over the past week. You can get this list every week by subscribing to my RSS feed or subscribing through email. You may also follow me on Twitter or join the Facebook Fan Page to get some of these links throughout the week.

• My 5 Favorite Social Media Tools for 2009
• 9 Digital Marketing Mistakes I Won’t Make Next Year – Advertising Age – DigitalNext
• How to: Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet for Any Topic
• Web News and Technology Tips – InterAwesome – Where Internet and Awesome Collide

Zappos has built a great reputation as being all about customer service.  Until recently, I had only heard of their reputation, because I’ve never bought anything from them before.  Based on all the good things I’d heard, I decided to use them to order my next pair of shoes.  Once the shoes arrived, my biggest fear about ordering shoes online came true.  They were too small.

This is a fear, because returning things to an online retailer can be a big hassle.  I was in for a big surprise.

First, the return policy was great.  I had 365 days to return them.  This is great for someone as lazy as myself that likes to procrastinate.  They also left easy instructions in the box about how to print off a return label.  Suddenly, I was way less worried about sending something back.

The trouble wasn’t over yet.  When I finally went to print off the return label, my order wasn’t showing up in my account.  Here was the trouble I expected.  I was preparing myself for the dreaded answering service tree and the 2 hours I would spend on hold to get this figured out.  Right before I was about to call, I decided to change things up a bit.  I wanted to try out Zappos’ instant chat customer service feature to see if their customer service really lives up to the hype.

I was very skeptical to say the least, but after I clicked the button to get in line, I only had to wait a minute or so until I got someone to talk with me.  They quickly diagnosed the problem and emailed me a return shipping label.  They did all of this and were still extremely nice to me.  This isn’t the customer service experience I’m used to.

After my interaction with the customer service rep, I went and posted how happy I was with this experience on Twitter.  Within just a few minutes, I got a response from Zappos saying they were glad I had a good experience.  It feels great to just be listened to.  The customer service rep listened, and one of their Twitter users listened.  This shouldn’t be an amazing experience.  It should be a common occurrence, but it isn’t.

These little things have motivated me to write a post about my experience.  Now, the legend of great customer experience with Zappos will continue to move forward, and I am happy to help it move that direction.  How have brands interacted with you in the digital space?  What did they do right or wrong?  Let me know in the comments.