YouTube Archives by Mark Murnahan

Klout: Online Influence Measurement … Like it or Not!

Klout is a social measurement tool that places a numeric value on a person’s influence within their social media circles. The service currently pulls data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare for their influence calculations, but plans to add Google+, YouTube, Facebook Pages, and others for a total of 20 networks by the end of 2011.

On the surface, it may sound positively impersonal, and even a bit absurd to make judgments based on a number, but is it really? We’ve been doing it for many years with credit scores. I don’t think it is a good idea to become obsessed about statistics such as these, but I do believe it is valuable to be aware.

Klout seems to have really honed in on a couple of interesting psychological and business needs of social media. I will explain what I mean, and how it could have a real-world impact for a lot of people, whether they like it or not.

I wrote about Klout back in 2010 in an article on the topic of social media measurement tools and what they know about you. It raised a question of what this type of service may know, and what level of accuracy or inaccuracy they may reflect. This type of data collection across multiple networks is subject to errors. Reliability is simply not guaranteed, but it is getting better.

Klout Score and Perceived Personal Worth

Klout hits on a very personal psychological need for a lot of people, which is the need to feel valuable. I think we can largely agree that we all want to feel like we make an impact. We want to know that we are being heard.

This is not to say that we are all Narcissistic for using social media, but only that it would not be so fun to communicate if nobody listened to us or acknowledged us. If that was the way we wanted it, we would just keep all of our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media thoughts to ourselves. We could keep them on our own computers and we wouldn’t need this Internet to share them.

The desire to share and collaborate clearly creates a strong psychological drive for many people. I do not think it is at all strange for somebody to feel a sense of greater personal satisfaction when their thoughts or ideas receive Facebook shares and comments, or Twitter replies and retweets. It is no more Narcissistic or bizarre than how it feels to receive applause for any job done well. In some cases, it can actually be quite humbling, like when the whole restaurant starts singing “Happy Birthday” and you just want to sink deep down into your seat as you blush. At the same time, it feels kind of alluring and it makes you smile.

When it comes to social media, it is easy to be just a bit allured by the objective measurements. I’ll be the first to raise my hand. When I see a squillion people sharing my work, I love it. It makes me happy, like sucking free grape soda through a garden hose, while eating from kiddie pool piled high with bacon. It feels very satisfying, and validating.

So, I am sure you can imagine how this psychological desire applies to Klout. Klout measures a person’s influence of others. People want to know their Klout Score, and it is pretty hard to fault them for that. This makes it easy to understand why it has had such a strong level of attention, and how it holds huge potential for continued growth.

The Business End of Klout

Far beyond the typical consumer desire to be measured as accepted, popular, or influential, there is a strong business side of Klout that is undeniable.

Thousands of companies are using Klout’s information in hiring decisions, purchasing decisions, and in their communications strategies. Whether you like it or you don’t, and whether it is right or wrong, numbers are a front-line component in our business world. Scoring such as offered by Klout is being relied upon more all the time as Internet static continues to flood into our business communications.

There is magic in numbers! I am a marketing guy, so I rely on a lot of different sets of numbers. Many of the numbers that are conventionally viewed as important don’t mean a damn thing to me. Inaccurate or meaningless data would be an easy way for a guy in my line of work to waste a lot of time, and burn through huge amounts of money. That means I need the good stuff. I want the least fallible information I can get my hands on, and that is where my attention is focused.

Klout’s data is largely based on activities across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but there is another component that allows a sort of industry-specific peer review. Yes, Klout also includes industry-specific information about an individual’s influence. In this peer review model, others may enhance a person’s Klout by clicking to give them “+K” for a given segment, and it is like a vote. The “K” is wisely limited so that a user only has five “K” to give out per day. So, if I wanted to give you a “K” because you influenced me in some way, I cannot go wild and spike your Klout score. If I really liked you, I could come back each day and give you “K”, but that would not provide unreliable data, because it would reliably reflect your high level of influence upon me.

Klout also attempts to define a style in which a person influences others. These styles provide an interesting overall view of how the individual uses their social media. There are sixteen different styles, and they are described as follows:

Klout Style Definitions
Curator: You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience. You are a critical information source to your network.  You have an amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about.  Your hard work is very much appreciated.
Broadcaster: You broadcast great content that spreads like wildfire. You are an essential information source in your industry. You have a large and diverse audience that values your content.
Taste Maker: You know what you like and your audience likes it too. You know what’s trending, but you do more than just follow the crowd. You have your own opinion that earns respect from your network.
Celebrity: You can’t get any more influential than this. People hang on your every word, and share your content like no other. You’re probably famous in real life and your fans simply can’t get enough.
Syndicator: You keep tabs on what’s trending and who’s important to watch. You share the best of this with your followers and save them from having to find what’s hot on their own. You probably focus on a specific topic or cater to a defined audience.
Feeder: Your audience relies on you for a steady flow of information about your industry or topic. Your audience is hooked on your updates and secretly can’t live without them.
Thought Leader: You are a thought leader in your industry. Your followers rely on you, not only to share the relevant news, but to give your opinion on the issues. People look to you to help them understand the day’s developments. You understand what’s important and what your audience values that.
Pundit: You don’t just share news, you create the news. As a pundit, your opinions are wide-spread and highly trusted. You’re regularly recognized as a leader in your industry. When you speak, people listen.
Dabbler: You might just be starting out with the social web or maybe you’re not that into it. If you want to grow your influence, try engaging with your audience and sharing more content.
Conversationalist: You love to connect and always have the inside scoop. Good conversation is not just a skill, it’s an art. You might not know it, but when you are witty, your followers hang on every word.
Socializer: You are the hub of social scenes and people count on you to find out what’s happening. You are quick to connect people and readily share your social savvy. Your followers appreciate your network and generosity.
Networker: You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.
Observer: You don’t share very much, but you follow the social web more than you let on. You may just enjoy observing more than sharing or you’re checking this stuff out before jumping in full-force.
Explorer: You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it”, we predict you’ll be moving up.
Activist: You’ve got an idea or cause you want to share with the world and you’ve found the perfect medium for it. Your audience counts on you to champion your cause.
Specialist: You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.

These are not handed out at random, but rather based on the outgoing and incoming data about each given profile. Although, for some really crazy but totally flattering reason, Klout measures me as a “Celebrity”. Of course, to that I’d say “Heck yeah … roll out the red carpet and pop the champagne. There’s gonna be a party!”

Is That Paparazzi I Hear Approaching, or Just More Naked Coeds Running to Greet Me?

Is Klout Accurate?

Do I think that Klout is entirely accurate? Absolutely not, but I do believe they are doing a good job. One reason is the sheer volume of their data. They are currently compiling data about more than 75 million users, and expect to include information from 20 different networks by the end of 2011. The numbers become more accurate in higher volume, but that is not enough. What about how that data is processed? This is where Klout really stands out, and pulls away from the crowd.

Klout organizes data from more sources and uses more factors than other companies trying to compile and present a numeric score. The broad diversity of data acquisition makes it much harder to cheat a Klout score, and thus, more reliable than other online influence measurement tools. If you have not already done so, it is worth taking a look at how Klout compiles scores. There is clearly a far more in-depth process than what is described, but it will give you a good overview.

Like anything else, Klout can be manipulated for an increased score, but not without a high degree of talent, and significant efforts.

Historical data is critically important in many business processes, but let’s not overlook the value of predictive data. With the right data at hand, I can imagine predictive data becoming a part of the Klout algorithm in the future, as people seek those who are on the rise. Imagine the business value of finding those with high potential who are just not on the RADAR yet.

Is Klout Good or Evil?

Is Klout good or evil? This is a question that it seems a lot of people struggle with about any company which acquires a lot of data. I think it is good, and it helps to meet some challenging needs of businesses and individuals surrounding trust and reputation.

Everybody wants to have influence, but it comes in a package with other factors. Those other factors of trust and reputation are often even harder for companies and individuals to put their finger on. Klout offers some broad insight about an individual and how others view them.

Would I weigh an important hiring or purchasing decision, or a business partnership choice heavily based on Klout? I guess you would have to define heavily for me to answer that, but in many scenarios, I would definitely have to consider it a factor.

Let’s face it, we are each measured every day. Whether it is for the style of our hair, the car we drive, the company we keep, the way we walk, talk, and even how we chew our food. Somebody will always be watching and summing us up. Klout takes it to the social web and makes well-founded estimates about us based on observations.

Perhaps the best answer, for anybody who does not like it, is to consider the other ways in which we are judged based on less reliable factors and guesswork. In the case of Klout, I don’t think it is any more an invasion of privacy or an intrusion than people-watching in a shopping mall.

In the instance of social media, if you are doing the equivalent of standing there picking your nose, somebody will probably notice. In fact, they may even share it on Facebook, and get a higher Klout score for it!

Now if you’d just go and tweet this, Facebook it, give me a Klout “+K” bump for social media, and make a lot of comments about it, maybe I will get that new dreamy offer I’ve been seeking and share some of my Klout with you.

Fine, even if you don’t give me any “K”, I urge you to check it out just to see what Klout knows about you. It may uncover people that you influence and didn’t even know it, or it may introduce you to somebody new to connect with. It’s free, so you don’t have anything to lose, and quite possibly something to gain.

Photo Credits:
Job Interview by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr
I Made It by Kirsten via Flickr

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Social Media History Shows What Success is Really Made Of

History provides some excellent lessons. It frequently tells us what works, and what does not work. This goes for aircraft engineering, brain surgery, particle physics, and social media, too!

Don’t tease me for my aging view of this topic, because sometimes an old-timer may just have something useful to offer. I have been sitting here at my computer for many years longer than your average social media expert, guru, maven, evangelist, or whatever the kids are calling them these days.

I watched Yahoo rise straight out of the dirt where we planted our fax machines and ARPANET, and I used it. I used it a lot, and my friends did, too. We told people about it. Yahoo grew, and relationships flourished.

I remember the days shortly after some bright Stanford University students named Larry Page and Sergey Brinn launched a new website to help make better sense of the growing Internet. It used a sophisticated democratic process to reflect what people like. The voting happened when other people linked to your website, and that process is still used today.

There are a few people who will read this and nod with amusement and agreement, but a lot who will never imagine a scratched MP3, or their mix tape being eaten by a cassette player. If you mention 8 Track or Quadraphonic sound systems, they are lost without those clever Stanford students who had a googol-dollar idea and named it Google.

Old-timers used Google, too, and even long before “google” became a verb, we told people about it.

Whether you consider the examples of explosive growth of social networks themselves, or anything else that becomes successful online, there are some principles which always hold true. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and even cupcakes in Topeka, Kansas all have some things in common. They have each produced something that made people want to tell others about them!

“Webmasters” and Early Online Social Media

In those early days of social media, there was actually a job status of “Webmaster”. It described somebody who had a “mastery” level understanding of the Web, including hardware, network architecture, software, programming, design, data integrity/security, and website promotion. It eventually became too much for an individual human to withstand, and those Webmasters’ duties were appropriately divided into multiple departments, and job descriptions became more specialized.

The early days of “easy online success” faded fast, and before very long, anybody with a Yahoo Geocities account or a pre-installed copy of Microsoft FrontPage Express could tag themselves as the “Webmaster”. The first generations are the people who used to actually spell things without spell check, saw programming code when they closed their eyes, and who stuck their geeky necks out to create and share the Internet as we know it.

Even back then, we had people with exceptional social media talent. They told people about great new things, they shared useful information, and they used each of the things I am about to describe. We just didn’t call it social media, yet.

The Success Tools Changed … The Rules Didn’t

Maybe you don’t think of Yahoo or Google as social networks, now that you have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Gowalla, and a squillion others, plus a squillion-squillion blogs, and an app for everything.

The way I remember it is that I met some of my best friends in Yahoo Chat Clubs, Yahoo Groups, and AOL. Yes … America Online. I met people from all around the world since back in the 1990’s, and we are still communicating on Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the evolved social networks.

Relationships Thrived When AOL Launched AOL Instant Messenger

Meeting most of my closest friends online sounded crazy to a lot of people back then. It was crazy enough that when I started dating my wife in 2000, we were afraid to tell her parents how we had met. Eleven years, three kids, and a lot of computer upgrades later, we still marvel at the community we built using social media.

If you don’t already know my online career history, my résumé certainly shows that I go way back as a “geek”. During that time, I have witnessed many online success stories. I have been very fortunate to participate in many, as well. So, let’s look at what has been historically successful, and why?

Each of the online successes you have heard of, including Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and etcetera, each had some things in common. The same things that made them successful are the things that create success today … every day. Allow me to share these observations.

Social Media Success Factor One: Usefulness With Convenience

Usefulness and convenience have a huge place in the history of social media success.

Back in the old days, and even more profoundly today, Internet users show a very finicky nature. As the Internet grew bigger, users realized that if they don’t find exactly what they want, immediately, they can find it in just a couple clicks. So being useful, convenient, and worthy of their attention has always been critical to success.

Imagine if Google required you to jump through hoops to get to what you are looking for. They knew better, so they made it as convenient as possible to enjoy their usefulness.

It really doesn’t matter what industry you are in, or what cause you are promoting. Whether you are selling cars, cigars, or surgical supplies, you must find ways to become useful. Being useful can mean that you are helping somebody learn about a topic, learn what they need to know in order to buy something, or just helping them with a hearty laugh to get through the day.

Being useful and convenient are imperative. I often watch whole industries miss this point.

Social Media Success Factor Two: Creativity

Creativity is natural for some people, but it can also be learned and cultivated.

In each of these historic instances of success, there was somebody … one person, who had an idea. They shared the idea with somebody else. Some encountered luck that they shared their idea with the right person with the right talent, but they all started with a single spark of creativity.

The people around the initial spark put fuel on it and blew it into a flame. The importance of creativity, and cultivating your creativity, should never be underestimated.

Talent is something that grows when you express it, and talent can have a huge cost. It is not easy, but if it was easy, everybody would do it. It is worth the effort if you are committed.

There are bright ideas sparking up around the world, every day. If your spark is not the brightest, it will be much harder to build a flame around it. When that is the case, the next step becomes even more important than ever.

Creativity Has Changed Since The Hampster Dance Debut

Do you remember Hampton and The Hampsters back in the 1990’s? They grew up and became more sophisticated!

Social Media Success Factor Three: Relationships

Relationships make or break social media success. The people truly are the most important piece of the big picture. Just as it happened in the days long before our exploration into Facebook Likes and Twitter retweets, people spread things they like and believe in. It happened this way with everything from religious and political beliefs to pet rocks and friendship pins.

This does not mean you need to make pals with everybody on the Internet. Social media marketing success is not just about making friends, but relationships are extremely important. When you communicate and get to know a few people who know a few people, it adds up. Those people who build good relationships often have things in common, including common interests and common thoughts.

If people like you, over time, they may begin to trust you. That can mean they trust your advice, your insights, and your motivations.

Relationships with people dictate a lot about the success or failure of anything in social media … on line, or the old school kind that happens around boardrooms, schools, churches, and elsewhere. The people are who decide if your spark will be fed, or die out in a flash. There are a lot of great ideas which meet the burdens of usefulness and creativity, but without good relationships, they usually don’t make it very far.

Sometimes the relationship is very loose and simple. For example, I wrote this, you read it, and maybe that is as far as our relationship has come so far. Over time, that may change. Maybe you will eventually feel comfortable to share this with others with your tweet, Facebook like, or reference it in your own blog.

The best relationships are a building process that happens over time … often many years. Trust can be improved upon and implied by longevity, but nothing really trumps good direct communications. Each relationship must start somewhere, so it is worth extending your hand. As relationships evolve, treating them like the treasure they really are is hugely important if you ever hope to encounter success.

By the way … if we have a good relationship, could you please tell somebody about me? I am currently looking for a new project to use my useful, creative, and relationship building abilities. If we don’t already have this level of relationship, my hand is extended. Please introduce yourself so we can get started.

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Online Contest Contest: Win Prizes and Gain Exposure

Online contests have become extremely popular, and with good reason. People love getting things for free! So I decided to offer you the “Online Contest Contest”. Yes, you read it right … a contest contest. So what do I mean by that? Allow me to explain.

I am going to give you a chance to win cash and prizes and also gain free exposure to a lot of people. Since my blog is about Internet marketing, this is both an online contest and also an article to help people think about how to better market their business. This way, you can still gain a lot of value from it, even if you do not win the contest. Yes, you still win, even if you do not “win”. While I give you the rules I will provide tips to run your own contest. Each “Online Contest Tip” below will outline this particular contest.

I hope you will enjoy this. I look forward to rewarding some very excited winners.

Online Contest Tip: Defined Timeframe

A contest should have a defined timeframe so that participants know when to expect their winnings. This contest will run from April 5th to April 20th 2010 and winners will be announced by the last day of April.

Online Contest Tip: Easy to Participate

This is a contest for the best online contest ideas but you do not need to submit a contest idea to win! I am going to give you multiple easy ways to participate and win. You do not even have to fill out a registration form or sign up for anything!

Online Contest Tip: Make it Relevant

Since prizes are a huge piece of any contest, they should be relevant to the contest promoters’ business model. For example, if you have a fishing store, you may want to give away fishing poles, but you probably do not want to give away knitting needles. It should be relevant to your industry.

As an Internet marketing guy, I help people to make their business more successful online. So, when I decided to hold a contest, I determined that it should be relevant to people seeking more success in their business. This is why I am providing ways for you to achieve more exposure.

Online Contest Tip: The Prizes

The best contests will provide value for the contest promoter as well as the participants. Nobody loses, and somebody gets a great feeling of winning along with some cool free stuff, like money! Here are the prizes of this particular contest:

Cash Prize – The first place winner will receive ten percent of any new marketing contract that I accept during the contest period, referred as a result of the Online Contest Contest, plus ten percent residuals for the first 12 months from any contingency contract. Note that I do not sell $.95 knitting needles, and this could be big.
Win a Blog – The first and second place winners will each receive a custom WordPress blog setup including ten hours of customization and SEO services, or equivalent redesign services.
Business Exposure – Gain more exposure to your business! Each winner will receive spotlighted exposure in a blog post here at aWebGuy.com in a winner’s announcement, plus all participants will receive recognition in the comments and reactions on this blog post. This can add up.
Brain Food – Top ten participants will win a copy of “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends“.

Online Contest Tip: Let People Win

If you run a contest, try not to exclude people. You should make it easy to join in and win. In this case, I am making it really simple to participate. Since my blog will add social media reactions in the comments, it will be really easy for you to show your participation and gain exposure, too.

Everything that appears in the “Comments and Reactions” for this blog post will have a chance to win. For example, my blog is set to include social media “reactions” from FriendFeed, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Hacker News, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Picasa, Flickr, TypePad, Movable Type, BackType, UberVU, and other services. These are just the services that are set up to automatically appear in the comments and reactions. You can also add comments directly. Remember, everything that shows up has a chance to win!

Online Contest Tip: Make the Rules Easy to Understand

If it is easy to understand, it becomes easier to win. In this case, I am using a point system. Winners will be determined based on a simple points system, and can choose how to get more points. Some of these are really easy! Here is how to get points:

250+ Points (New Contract): I will award two hundred fifty points to the referrer for each new client who contracts my SEO and social media marketing services during the contest period from April 5th to April 20th 2010. That is 250 points per new contract, and it adds to the cash prize, so don’t be shy! They simply must express that they heard about it from you.
100+ Points (Contest Ideas): If you submit the Contest Idea that receives the most “likes” (note the “like” button beside each comment) you will receive one hundred points plus five points for each “like”. You surely have friends to help you, right?
100+ Points (Blog Points): If you blog about this contest with a link back to it, you will receive one hundred points for the blog post (or other website) plus one point for every 10 unique visitors linked directly to this page coming from your blog / website during the contest period as verified through a Clicky Web Analytics referrer report. I suggest adding a comment here on this blog to claim your article. I will also provide a “dofollow” link back to your post.
50+ Points (Comment Points): If your individual comment here on the contest page other than a Contest Idea receives the most “likes” (note the “like” button beside each comment) you will receive fifty points plus five points for each “like”.
50-550 Points (Digg Points): If you Digg this article and include a Digg comment, you will receive 50 points. If the article reaches the front page of Digg.com, each person who diggs the article will be awarded an additional 500 points.
25-45 Points Daily (Twitter Points): If you send a tweet, you will receive 25 points, and if it is retweeted, you will receive an additional 2 points for each verifiable retweet up to a total of ten (for a possible 45 points per day). Twitter points will be calculated based on tweets which appear at TweetMeme.com.
25+ Points Daily (FriendFeed, Reddit, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Picasa, Flickr, TypePad, Movable Type) Reactions aggregated and appearing on this blog post as reported by BackType and UberVU across these listed social media sites will be awarded 25 points each, with a limit of 25 points per network per day.

Online Contest Rules: The Fine Print

Every contest needs some rules, but the fine print should be easy to understand. In the case of this contest, I have tried to make it as easy as possible to understand, and to win. See the Contest Contest Official Rules.

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Social Feed in Google Search Results

Do you see your Twitter updates or recent blog posts in Google? Well, of course you should. I would be pretty surprised to write a blog post and not see it show up in Google … at least at some point. However, it is taken up a notch with the near-real-time “Latest Results” section in Google search results.

What do I mean? Here is an example Google search for “murnahan“. Under the “Latest Results” it will show you what I sent on Twitter just a moment ago, instead of only a link to my Twitter account.

I heard it stated in a recent talk at Integrated Marketing Summit in St. Louis, that Google and Bing are the largest users of social media. It is true that when you break it down, their algorithms base results on community popularity. When something has a lot of incoming links, the ranking improves. The success of a site’s Bing or Google ranking is largely based on people voting it up by linking to it.

Social media really is a basis for search engine rankings, even when it is not as immediate or as conversational as you find with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and etcetera. It is still social media.

I have heard some people say they like this this, some said they do not, and others on the fence. In my opinion, it shows that Google is working very smart to keep up with the massive explosion of real-time social media, and doing a nice job of it. I think it may also help to remind people just how interconnected the many social media sites really are, and remind them to watch what they do with their social media presence.

Where do you stand? I would like to hear your thoughts on Google’s addition of Twitter and other social media feeds in search results. Please add your comment here on my blog.

Social Media Objectives: Popularity or Profits?

What do you seek from social media? Do you know? Are you wasting time?

In a recent conversation with a friend, I asked him why he spends so many hours per day using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social networks. I asked him if he had achieved any considerable objectives, and whether they were personal or business objectives.

I was really asking him these things to help him consider his objectives, and to gather his opinions. After all, gaining others’ perspectives is a huge benefit of social media. My friend works for a living and counts on new business to keep a paycheck coming in. So there is presumably a business hope for gain. He admits that he has hopes that it will help him meet some future business goals, but it has thus far been unfruitful. He also is a very friendly and social person, so there is clearly a gain there. He meets a lot of cool people. I wanted to know how his gains measure up with his expectations and his goals, or if he even considered any goals, or what action he was taking to address them specifically. Without actually having a set goal, all of the greatest social life of an arena rock star will not get you there. You must know what it is that you are after in order to achieve it.

I approached this subject with my friend in part because I really wanted his honest answers of how he believed it would benefit him to be what I call a “popular information gatherer”. There are many people who do this, but seldom do they actually have an answer for their reason, and even more seldom do they actually find any benefit for all the time and energy they spend. Plus, there are a lot of services that do this, so the “service” they render of shoveling content back and forth across their networks is not a whole lot different than that friend you have who emails you jokes sixty times per day.

I believe that is it very important that if you spend a lot of time with anything, you should have a good idea why you are doing it. The reason can be anything you like, but there should be a conscious purpose for the time you spend. Otherwise, you should perhaps spend more time with your children, cleaning house, or a hobby. Time is your most precious resource, and once you use it, you cannot have it back. Spend your time well, and know why you are doing it.

For some, social networking is a hobby, and it certainly has some interesting appeal for many people. There can be many different benefits to a good social network. Social networking is great for meeting friends. Friends can help you to find customers. After all, if you are my friend, I will do my best to send people your way when they need the product or service that helps you to earn a living. Don’t you do this for your friends if given the opportunity? There are a lot of great benefits, but it seems common that I ask people what they are after and they either truly do not know or they are going about it completely wastefully.

A more serious question was in how much time my friend spends trying to be popular. Being popular is not so bad, but it can also be a bit of an addiction. For example, I know a lot of people will use Twitter to send rapid-fire messages about the funny video they just found or the amazing news article that just broke. They will monitor Digg.com, Alexa Hot URLs, Google Trends, and dozens of RSS feeds to find the coolest and latest trend and hope to be the first person to make the story popular. So this begs the question of what they are really after. A common answer is that it will help them become more recognized in rating services that rank users with various standards. If they are the “top user” in their city, state, region, or country, that is awesome! It will help more people find them and watch what they have say.

Here comes the wasteful and arrogant part. When these people do this, they often completely neglect the fact that if they are popular with knitting grandmothers, but the people they really want to reach are a completely different group, they may be wasting a whole lot of time.

The other side of this is that networking is nearly always good. Meeting the knitting grandmother is great. She may become your good friend. There is also an outside chance that she will introduce you to her daughter who is in the same field as you or is single and really right up your alley. There are many possibilities that are opened up with networking and knowing a lot of people. The possibilities are hard to count.

There must be a balance! If the popularity contest is what you are after, there is a huge likelihood that other areas of your social media hopes or expectations will suffer greatly. If all you want is to be popular without any reason, you are probably lying to yourself and others. Being popular in itself is not a meaningful goal. Being popular in order to spread a purposeful message or to meet an objective such as earning a living can make a lot more sense. Popular by itself is really pretty shallow and meaningless, don’t you think?

So, when you set out to become popular by spending hour after hour Tweeting, Digging, Facebooking, and FriendFeeding every last “useful” piece of content, why not take a look at your message and find a place for quality in the equation. If all you are doing is passing along the story you just found, perhaps consider why. What is your objective? Is it to make somebody laugh? That is fine, but how many hours are you spending, and what might you be missing during all those hours?

If you are really clever and resourceful, perhaps you may try creating some content for a change. Then, if you are really … I mean really good at it, there is a chance that the unique message you have to share can take on a quality tone over and above quantity. Best of all, it can set a tone of your own, and not just like that of the dog who drags a dead rabbit to the porch to impress their master.