by Roz | Mar 30, 2013 | Blog, How to
al·ter·na·tive – /ôlˈtərnətiv/ Adjective (of one or more things) Available as another possibility. As you may have heard Google is getting rid of it’s much loved, very convenient Reader. This move comes as Google tries to consolidate its services. Google Reader will shut it’s doors on July 1, 2013. Perhaps the petition to keep Google Reader alive will work …but in case it doesn’t, please read on. Everyone is writing about Google Reader Alternatives. I typed in Google Reader and it was the first option that came up. In this post I will give a snapshot of a few alternatives that I’ve chosen: Old Reader, Feedly, Newsblur, Netvibes, and Pulse. In addition to looking at the overall usability of these tools, one of my primary objectives is to see how easy it is to share content from these tools to social networks. So, getting familiar with these alternatives now could be key if you want to avoid a disruption of your daily feed reading. And…if you read your RSS feeds in more than one place (that is, if you want to read them at home, at work, or on different devices), you’ll want to try a web-based or cloud RSS reader, like the ones listed below and similar to what Google Reader is now. Old Reader The Old Reader is a great alternative. Its design is based on Google Reader’s prior design, so it’s a good option to check out if you’re looking for something familiar. Word of caution: there might be a wait time to import your file from Google Takeout into this service when you sign up....
by Roz | Mar 22, 2013 | Blog, How to, Online Resources
“Hearing that Google Reader is shutting down is like hearing that your favorite old bookstore is closing,” writes The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman. Google is spring cleaning, first on the list is Google Reader which will officially shutter on July 1, 2013. Do you use Google Reader? I do. I am seriously bummed with it’s death. However due to declining usage, Google is putting down the Reader so we’ll need to come to terms with this. Why Use a Reader? In a nutshell, a RSS reader is a tool, a tool for getting information from other people so you don’t have to keep going to their website to get updates. You subscribe and updates are sent to your Feed Reader automatically, allowing you to read it whenever you want all in one place. Google Reader is such a tool, an aggregator or in other words a feed reader, news reader, or RSS reader and if you like all your news in one spot from headlines to your favorite blogs then using an aggregator is a great tool. Many use it to aggregate news and analysis and have used it for years. The good news is that you have until July 1st before it’s officially GONE. Before jumping onto the next reader train, let’s take your feeds from Google Reader and export them into an XML file. By doing this you will then be able to import your feeds into your new RSS reader of choice. It’s easy peasy! How to Export Your RSS Feeds From Google Reader: 1. Login to Google Reader (if you’re not already signed in to...
by Kimberly | Jan 31, 2011 | Blog, Featured, How to, Online Resources, Social Media
This post is just a quick overview of some free tools out there to help measure some of your social media efforts. 1) Facebook Insights will provide some good in-depth information for a fan page. You can download these date into Excel or you can snapshot the graphs they offer. (keep in mind though that FB data aren’t always that accurate but can provide a good overview). You will need to do a bit of analysis with these data but they can help you determine what types of content your community likes and interacts with. You can access the insights for all of your Facebook pages here: http://www.facebook.com/insights/ 2) Twitter Counter will show the growth of followers for your Twitter account the past week, month, 3 months and 6 months. This site will also graph the number of tweets per day. 3) Tweetreach will show the reach of a twitter ID, a hashtag or a phrase. The free version only offers data for the most recent 50 tweets. This is important to remember so that you run a report right after a campaign or after a certain event. 4) Wildfire has a pretty cool social monitoring tool that allows you to track your Facebook page or Twitter against competitor accounts. You can find it here: http://monitor.wildfireapp.com/ 5) Socialmention.com is a great social media search engine that will track mentions of your company, brand or a specific phrase and also provides feedback on overall sentiment of those mentions. 6) I also recommend bit.ly as a URL shortner. It is good for tracking link clicks. These are just a few of...
by Kimberly | Nov 8, 2010 | Blog, Featured, How to, Social Media, Twitter
As a Social Media Virtual Assistant, I’ve set up many, many Twitter accounts. Some for myself (I think I have 5 of them…) and many for my clients. So, it’s really second nature to me and most of the time, I don’t think twice about how to do it. However, for many small business owners and entrepreneurs who many just be jumping into using Twitter and social media marketing, it can be a bit of a daunting task. Now, setting up a Twitter account is not really that hard and most people can easily walk through the steps to get going in a matter of minutes. However, there are some important considerations to take into account when setting up a Twitter account to help your account appear professional and optimized. 1. Got to http://twitter.com and click on the big, yellow “Sign Up” button. 2. On the sign up page, it’s recommended that you put in your real name or alternatively, you can put in the name of your business. It just depends on how you’ll be using the account. If you are a solo entrepreneur or you are the person who will be tweeting, then it is generally a good idea to put in your real name. If you plan to use the account to tweet as a “business” or if multiple people might be tweeting from the account then put in a business name. Whichever, you chose, you can always change it at anytime, so it’s not set it stone. Keep in mind that this field is indexed and picked up by the search engines, so that’s something...
by Kimberly | Aug 10, 2010 | Blog, Featured, How to, Social Media, social media marketing, Twitter
There are several different options available to help you manage multiple social media accounts at once. Among the most popular are Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Hootsuite. Depending on your needs and desire for access, then you might consider each one of these for different reasons. All of them have a web version and apps for iPhone. Tweetdeck and Seesmic also have downloadable desktop versions. For everyday non-mobile use, I have found Hootsuite to be my preferred social media management tool. Hootsuite provides you with a comprehensive social media dashboard for managing multiple social media accounts and platforms all in once place. First built as a Twitter management tool, Hootsuite has grown to include the ability to post to LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook pages, Ping.fm, MySpace, WordPress, Foursquare and importing RSS feeds. With Hootsuite, you can pull in multiple Twitter accounts, multiple Facebook profiles, multiple LinkedIn accounts, etc. For Twitter accounts, you can quickly and easily view your Home Feed, your @ mentions, your sent tweets, your direct messages, plus add columns for any of your Twitter lists, columns to monitor keywords or key phrases, and a pending tweets column for any scheduled tweets. You can have up to 10 columns for each twitter account showing at one time. I typically add a few columns for monitoring keywords and a few more columns for lists of specific twitterers for different purposes. For example, I might like to keep up on the tweets of my colleagues, social media people and local friends. Hootsuite makes it easy to reply, re-tweet, send a direct message, add a tweet as a favorite, reply all (for tweets...
