Social Media and Me

This post is about which social media sites I’m currently on and which tools I use for my social media presence. I’m very interested in your view and suggestions about where to be and tools to use.

My hardware is a laptop with Windows, an iPhone 3Gs and an iPad 1 (no camera).

My blogs and sites

I intend to be more active in my blogs, I will post there and share it from there to the social media sites. That means I’m building on my own property, should a social media site disappear the content still remains in my own sites.

Key Coaching – Coach Wendel is my business site in English. The blog there is about topics related to leadership, coaching, mentorship, personal development, business and networking. I also have a business site in Swedish that covers the same topics, Key Coaching – Coach Wendel.

Bengt’s Notes is my personal hub. It has links to my sites and online profiles. There is also a blog with the tagline “Discover Your Self”. Core topics are about body mind spirit, self development, presenting and presentations. I also post resources, tools, tips. Occasionally I post about music and fun stuff.

Twitter

On Twitter I have a personal profile at Bengt Wendel and a business profile at Coach Wendel. My activity is currently mainly on my personal profile, the business profile will be more active in the future. Still, my focus on Twitter is my personal brand and profile.

On my laptop I either use the Twitter site in my web browser or TweetDeck. I’m looking for a replacement for Tweetdeck since I’m not keen on Adobe Air that it runs on.

Tweetbot — A Twitter Client with Personality

I noticed that a friend uses Tweetbot for iPad and I got curious. There’s also Tweetbot for iPhone, which is how they started.

After reading some reviews of Tweetbot I was hooked and bought their version for iPad. It’s love at first sight, Twitter becomes fun again now that I have a great tool for it. As it says in one of the reviews I found, Twitter’s own apps are targeted towards new users while Tweetbot is targeted towards power users.

Tweetbot reviews
I found some reviews: Tweetbot for iPad review at TNW, Tweetbot for iPhone review at TNW and Tweetbot — A Twitter Client with Personality for iPad.

Facebook

On Facebook I have a personal profile at Bengt Wendel and a business page at Bengt Wendel – Coach and Mentor. I’m fairly active on my profile, mostly about me and my interest, but need to be more active on my business page.

The tools I use are native, the Facebook site itself in a web browser and Facebook’s apps for iPad and iPhone.

Google+

My personal profile is at Bengt Wendel. Google+ is rather neglected by me, I ought to post more often and connect more there. I really like the site but still, my presence there could be better.

LinkedIn

My profile on LinkedIn is at Bengt Wendel. It’s so far used for building a network. What I intend to do is use it’s status line more, with focus on business related things.

Xing

My profile on Xing is at Bengt Wendel. This site is low priority, I was active in its forums but at present it’s a rather stale profile.

Flickr

On Flickr I have a photostream. It’s not used much though, I should be more active and share my photos here too. I have donwloaded the Flickr app but have not used it yet. See photo sharing below for how I solved my photo sharing problem.

YouTube

My YouTube profile is at btwendel. There’s no media created by me, it’s videos I’ve found and like.

Photo sharing

I got Instagram because I wanted an app that easily allowed me to share photos at several sites at once. Instagram is now set up for Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

I also got Hipstamatic for iPhone but have not used it yet. Instagram works smoothly and that’s what matters for me.

Multi-site tools

I just bought Sociable for iPhone which enables posting to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr accounts at once. It works well, it’s now simple to post to Twitter and Facebook at once. I will add LinkedIn later.

I have tried Hootsuite on the web and on the iPad but I don’t like it.

What about you?

Which social media sites are you on, which ones do you focus on?

Which tools do you use?

Digg Digg Social Buttons

WordPressI have tested several plugins for social bookmarking but found many of them far too bloated and big. The functions included in Jetpack are too basic, otherwise that would have been a great option since I have Jetpack installed already.

I ended up with Digg Digg which has a really nice floating option. It’s set up to only show on pages and singe posts. I changed the positioning of the floating buttons, from -120px to -85px.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

TweetMeme Button WordPress plugin

WordPressI have installed the TweetMeme Button on this blog. It’s a nice WordPress plugin that is focused, it’s about retweets and nothing else. The plugin shows a button and the number of retweets so far.

I used Tweet This before but it had too many features compared to what I want.

Update.
I have switched to SexyBookmarks for WordPress

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book Now Available for Download

TwitterMashable posts that Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book Now Available for Download. It’s sponsored by Adobe so the guide book requires Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9 for viewing.

You can read it online at Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable which is described as:

a one-stop shop for getting up to speed with everything Twitter, from managing your Twitter stream to promoting a business. We’ve also included the latest Twitter lists and news from Mashable, plus community reviews of Twitter and related services from our sister site, Blippr. The Twitter Guide Book will be cultivated, maintained and updated to bring the latest tips and tricks as Twitter evolves.

Read more:
Twitter Launches a Twitter 101 Guide for Business

How Twitter is Changing the World of Professional Poker

TwitterReadWriteWeb has an interesting article about How Twitter is Changing the World of Professional Poker. Professional poker players are using Twitter during tournaments, commenting on the game as well as providing information about themselves and their intensions. But just as in the game of poker they might be bluffing.

The article mentions PokerRoad as a site that uses information from Twitter.

As example of a professional poker player that uses Twitter they mention Doyle Brunson, @TexDolly. There are more professional poker players on Twitter, like Gus Hansen @gus_hansen.

New versions of Tweetdeck, Seesmic square off

TwitterAt cnet is a post about New versions of Tweetdeck, Seesmic square off.

I use Tweetdeck and there are two new features that I look forward to, synchronization and multiple account support. Synchronization means you do not have to recreate groups and search queries on other computers if you use Tweetdeck on several ones. I have several Twitter accounts and it will be nice to manage all with Tweetdeck.

TweetMe, tweet when you publish a post

WordPressTweetMe is a WordPress plugin that creates tweets when you publish a post in your WordPress blog.

TweetMe is a simple WordPress Plugin that posts a tweet to Twitter when you publish a blog post. You decide what format the tweet takes by modifying sample string like below. You have access to 2 special tags #title# and #link# which are replaced with the post title and the condensed link respectivly.

I have installed TweetMe on this blog and will see how it works out.

For current plugins at this site: see WordPress Plugins I Use.

Update September 29, 2009.
Since Twitter changed its Term of Service, mentioning they don’t approve of automatic tweeting, I have removed TweetMe from my blogs. Instead I use the Tweet This plugin for WordPress and tweet selected posts manually.

5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter

TwitterMashable has a post about 5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter. Under some of those ways there are several services listed, in all there are about a dozen.

In the comments someone mentions SnapTweet that works in combination with Flickr.

Personally I am not keen on giving my Twitter password to other services. That means I will most likely provide a link to a Flickr photo instead of using any of the services listed at Mashable.