I updated my site yesterday. It has lighter colors, a cleaner look, fonts that are easier to read, topics drop down in the navigation, and the ability to subscribe to my blog via email. It’s free daily updates (well daily if I were to blog daily). Plus I’ll be doing a few holiday give aways this month. First come first serve. You wont want to miss this.
I’ve fully embraced country living. I can sort of lift a bail of hay, lead a horse, and I made buddies with a stallion named Ole. He’s sweet. I bring him an apple every day, so we are good buddies. Even got in his pen and brushed him out, he’s a unique looking guy. I think they call him a Fjord, so he’s bigger and more unique looking.
I took some pictures of my adventures today, I’ll add them to http://desaraev.posterous.com and Facebook.com/Desaraev as soon as I can get Aperture to stop stalling out on me.
Sophie is also seeming to enjoy country life and all the extra attention. There are two other big dogs here, who seem to tolerate her. A cat that she plays with and as far as the horses, I try my best to keep her away from them. I’m hoping I scare her enough that she avoids them, but she is a brave little midget. I think she is more scared of the dark then of other animals.
Needless to say we are having fun. I think I may extend my stay here. This part of my little adventure is fun. Plus I’ve been helping do chores and I can definitely feel the effects on my muscles. Some days my arms and legs are super sore others it doesn’t seem to bug me.
Country life is so relaxing. I know that seems ironic considering I’ve been doing more lifting and manual work in a day here than I normally do in a month of city life but it’s mentally not as stressful or draining. The only thing I really think about now and again is trying to find some geek events to go to in the city and maybe a random client to help me make some extra cash. If you hear of anything let me know. I would love to just work on social media part time remotely for a big company but we’ll see if I can find something. I’ve also really been looking into government jobs at http://jobsearch.usajobs.gov
Ok, well I think you’re all caught up.
AIM, is now AOL Lifestream a support aggregation application for modern social services Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Flickr, and Delicious. Lifestream offers users the opportunity to managing their incoming friend feeds and outgoing streams via the hardware of their choice. AOL Lifestream is supported on an air desktop app, mobile applications for the iPhone or droid and via your web browser at http://lifestream.aol.com
I downloaded the iPhone app on my iPad, and have been testing out the desktop application. It’s perfect for instant messaging but since I have a larger number of followers on Twitter and Facebook the application is hard to sort out my contacts. For fast browsing or updating your status quickly on multiple platforms, it’s perfect, if that is what you want to do. Keep in mind each one of those social networks are likely to have different demographics, so sending out one blanket message may not always be the answer unless you are in a hurry.
If you are a power user (anyone with over 1,000 followers/friends), I’d still recommend using Hootsuite, TweetDeck or Tweetie because they will help you sort users and manage metrics. I currently still use Hootsuite (for metrics and multi client usage), Tweetie on my iPhone, and Lifestream for fast browsing of all these services.
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As Chris Brogan likes to say, “you have two ears and one mouth,” so use them in proportion. The following article has a few tips on how to listen on Twitter: http://www.twitip.com/listening-on-twitter/
I’d like to add that using Twitter search or a tool like Radian 6 you can readily track your name, company and sentiment. Consider using this to track happy and angry costumers so that you can respond in real-time accordingly.
How are you listening? What metrics are you considering?
The primary objectives in comment moderation are to prevent spam comments from being seen, get a heads up on negative feedback and remove anonymous “trolls.”
Who are Troll Commenters?
Online trolling is when some random reader decides to take it upon themselves to be a negative nancy. This troll hates life, your blog, and your post and just wants to complain for no good reason or they come up with some fake reason. Whatever the case may be, they don’t have the gumption to say any of these hideous comments and attach their sullied name to it. You see a lot of trolls with fake YouTube accounts, but some still use their real names, basically they are just assholes. Feel free to not post their comments, and responding to a troll will probably only make it worse, so leave it up to your community to deal with them or just remove their selfish banter. Think of them as an online bully with nothing better to do.
Aww the Dirty, Nasty, Annoying Spam Types
I tried to keep my thoughts on spammers as clean as I could, but I just don’t have a lot of nice things to say about these people. Spammers may be bots built by humans or just people who are bored in their mom’s basement. They are the India SEO people, who are trying to sell a range of products from SAT products, to men’s pills, to essays for term papers. These people leave sales/marketing type messaging as a comment and generally add 2-20 links to all their dumb sites. These people are basically leaches on a good community base. I’m not saying adding a link into a comment is bad, by all means add it with your signature, but you had better have something to add to the community with that comment.
OH NO! I just got my first negative comment, now what?!
If you write long enough eventually someone will disagree with you. They may love your writing, have always hated you, or maybe you flat out made a dumb statement. Negative comments are not the end of the world. I remember when they used to almost give me an ulcer, because I would over think the criticism. Don’t take it too personally. The difference between a troll and a negative comment is intention. A troll just hates life, while a negative comment is relevant and might even add value to your community. You can’t be right about EVERYTHING, although I sure wish I could, so these people add their two cents. I say they may be adding value because allowing them to diversify your comments shows that your moderation isn’t over stepping any boundaries, you still allow your community to have a voice and start conversations. You never know maybe their thoughts may change your opinion on a certain post.
When to respond to negative comments
Let’s start with Trolls, I’d say don’t waste your breathe. I’ve had the full gammit of comments on my YouTube channel and all my blogs. People have told me I look hot, slutty, stupid, that my opinions are worth sand, I’m a hack, or that I should just shut up. If they really think those things.. I’m not sure why they waste the 5-10 minutes out of their day to watch my whole videos and then comment on them. Now on the other hand if they tell me my lighting is bad, I look cheesy in a certain outfit, or that I have a spelling error that is something valid and constructive. If it is an opinion you may want to address it and allow it to be posted. If the comment is about spelling you may just want to fix it and not post that comment publically.
Photo Credits: by Laughing Squid & by itslefty
Hope that helps, feel free to leave me a comment. The best kind are the constructive kind, ones that add value to the conversation or expand on what I just wrote. Not just, “Hey great post.” Add what you REALLY think, why you loved it or hated it.
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