Helping friends and Building Influence with Paper.li

Recently I noticed I was featured in a paper.li daily by @morgaine. I went and checked it out, thought it was a pretty interesting site. Being the web 2.0/Social Media tinkerer that I am I could not help myself so I created an account and started playing around with my own dailies. I found some extremely beneficial aspects to the service but I am going to focus on 2 of them for now:

1. Helping Friends
2. Building Influence

Helping Friends

Since your paper.li papers can be about lists, people or hashtags – there is great opportunity to help people. How is that you ask? Well if I make a Joe Hackman daily, it will feature my tweets and the tweets of my followers to generate the article content, videos, etc for the feature. Being mentioned in a daily, or anything, is almost always good for a Twitter user (unless someone is complaining about you!). The other thing it does is build back-links to your sources articles and blogs. We all want to be found, being linked to will benefit your sources SEO. When you start to think through the list feature, hashtags, etc, you start to understand how there are many ways to help your friends achieve the mentions and back-links for better SEO.

Building Influence

This point is fairly simple, people like to be featured in your paper for the reasons above and for another important reason. It is great to have your content recognized and shared. In this case you will receive recognition for following others. How? By following anyone on Twitter they have a chance to be featured on your paper, if they are feature and they actually are paying attention they are likely to appreciate it. This means that if you produce a paper.li your sources on Twitter are more likely to be recognized and recognize you. That is influence. Of course you could also record a cool video and write about it in your blog then direct people to read about it. I think that might add a bit of influence as well.

Be sure to watch the video for additional tips and subscribe to my Youtube Channel if you enjoyed this post. I’d also love to hear your tips about how to utilize paper.li.

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Tags: Joe Hackman, Paper.li, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tips, Twitter, Youtube
Posted in SEO, Social Media Strategy, Tools, Twitter, Video | View Comments

Donating my 40th Birthday to Charity #40thpledge (Video)

I’ve thought of a lot of things to do for my upcoming 40^th Birthday this Saturday, here are a few of the ideas I had:

Each idea had its perks and this is a pretty major birthday for me, but today I had an idea while driving on highway 24 west bound towards downtown Oakland. I was thinking about the Vegas trip idea and listening to Counting Crows “Carriage” cranked up and I caught a view of the bay bridge, San Francisco and fog seemingly stalled at the edge of the SF skyline. I was feeling exceptionally grateful and fortunate for my life, family and “where I am at” and thought a trip to Vegas while fun lacked the kind of meaning that I want my this coming chapter of my life to have. The idea that popped into my head was donating my birthday to charity.

How do you donate your birthday?

I know it sounds like a strange idea, but the next step for me was thinking about all the projects my Rotary Club, District and PR group have that I could work on. I also thought about the blogs, websites and Facebook pages that all sorts of local non-profits that I’ve supported, helped or been exposed to over the past couple of years. More importantly I thought about the volunteer opportunities that might exist to donate some time to help others.

Action Plan

The plan involves 4 steps:

Steps 1 to 3 being done offline or already complete, that left me with a list of things to do if no-one has hands on opportunities or requests.

Default Go-to Activity List

Kind of a short list, but it’s also an ambitious list by itself. If you’re interested in following the effort I will tag everything I do with #40thpledge so you can search via Twitter, Google or even as a Tag on this blog.

Update 8/29/2010 – One of my friends over at Amplify.com was asking me about updates on this effort. Here is how my day went (quick summary I want to record a video later)

1. Many of the 11 non profits responded, 2 of them had tasks for me for Saturday.
2. One task was to talk to husband of the founder of the Booker T. Washington Empowerment Network about using Social Media (Youtube and Facebook mostly).
3. Another task was to help Sonrise Equestrian Foundation with Ranch Cleanup.
4. Since this was only part of the day I planned to work on a website for Rotary in the Valley, a group of 6 Rotary clubs regional effort.

Booker T. Washington Empowerment Network

I spoke with Anthony on my drive to Sonrise Equestrian. We discussed how to use the Facebook pages, Causes and some best practices for Facebook and Youtube. Anthony is pretty sharp he knew the right questions to ask and I am confident that he will be able to effectively execute. If not I’m prepared to advise them on an ongoing basis.

Sonrise Equestrian Foundation

The founder of this wonderful organization is Melanie Burke, after she spoke at my Rotary Club earlier this year I invited her to be on my Podcast. You can listen to that interview here. I spent 4 hours at the Charles Wilhelm Training Center – the ranch that hosts Sonrise. I was teamed up with a few other volunteeers carting in broken down asphalt into the back yards of the horse stables. The challenge with this job involved clearing the thresholds and the stuff is heavy and difficult to spread. I learned it helps with drainage in the rainy months. We also repaired one of the stables with some plywood sheets. Evidently sometimes horses lay down too close to one side of the stall and don’t realize they can just roll over so they panic and kick the heck out of the wall. Wow I would not want to be anywhere near that when it was occurring. My time working with the Sonrise volunteers was the highlight of my day. She has a very supportive group of people that help her, and when you meet Melanie or hear her story you will probably understand why.

Rotary in the Valley

Since I was out of requested tasks to do I looked at where I could have the most impact using my skills. I can navigate my way around WordPress fairly well and there was a site that needed to be built for Rotary in the Valley. It is still a work in progress but you can check it out here. This site is a team effort of the 6 San Ramon Valley Rotary club’s PR chairs. I happen to the PR chair for the Danville/Sycamore Valley Rotary for the 2010-2011 year. Our fearless leader is none other than THE Bill Randall, our District 5160 PR Chair and Alamo Rotary past president. Bill drives the bus and we all do our best to support his efforts. Rotary is very important to me and the benefactor of the majority of my community service outreach time.

Summary

Ultimately I do what I do for my benefit, but I am always thinking about my son and the importance of setting an example for him. I learned about the importance of serving others through my mother. She used to bring me and my other siblings to visit elderly people in the local convalescent hospital. I know she also volunteered throughout her life and the things I do know about probably only scratch the surface. My mom passed away 10 years ago and I suppose for me being able to give back and follow in her footsteps to some degree is really a celebration of her good example. I hope as a result that this has somehow inspired you.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James

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Tags: #40thpledge, Joe Hackman, Video, Youtube
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Joe’s Idea Farm – Proposing a new Web 2.0 Idea

The Idea in a Nutshell

It is a simple idea, I promise. You propose changes to any website, the intermediary website will allow commentary and a preview of what the proposed changes would look like. That content can then be used by the target of the proposed changes.

An Example

For example, let’s say you visit a blog and you read an article and really like it but have ideas how it can be improved. If you provide proofing services this could be career oriented outreach. You use the browser add on for the proposing website and it brings you to an editable version of the page. You make the changes you would like to “propose” then tweet it out to Twitterverse, Share via Facebook, clip via Amplify, etc. The blog owner may notice a trackback, a google alert or some analytics data. They can organically discover the modified version of the article. They can even grab the proposed changes and insert them in the blog, preferably including some citation to the individual that modified the content. This could be enforced via some type of embed option. There could be a social network built out of the proposing website, voting on the best changes, recognition, prizes and awards.

Provide input

Now that I’ve shared the root idea, would you like to propose features to improve this idea? Or maybe you want to ship me chests full of money, armies of interns and great advisers to try it out, either way I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Tags: Idea Farm, Joe Hackman, Joesgonesocial, Social Media, Web 2.0
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A 2 Dollar Communications Solution

Update 9/3/2010 The title of this article has changed, it was crowd sourced on Amplify.com and via comments on the post. The winner is “A 2 Dollar Communications Solution” which was inspired by @mediacollective and finalized by @mistrtim. I want to give a special thank you to the Amplify community for their participation in this effort. Please check out the entire thread if you want to see how engaging and helpful they were! Below is the original post:

Today was a crazy day, even for a Monday. Monday’s can be a little challenging you never know what can go wrong with technology over the weekend. People arrive to their businesses to discover that one of their computers won’t power on, or perhaps there was a sustained power outage and something isn’t working. Typically for that reason I don’t schedule appointments on Monday, they sort of schedule themselves. Today was an exception, I had 2 things scheduled – a meeting with a new prospect at 11:00AM and an Amplify.com community chat podcast at 1:00PM.

When I got to my desk at 7:45AM I noted that extra issue #1 had already arrived via Email, within 10 minutes I was on the phone with one of my clients about a computer that had been moved and was not quite functioning right. By a little after 8AM the immediate issue was resolved but I had added another stop to my day for 10AM. By 9AM I received a call from another client, evidently one of their machines did not check in to work. I now had zero time windows long enough between 10AM and 2:30PM to run to Oakland to see to this latest issue. While in route to my 10AM I called to confirm the Amplify.com community chat with Eric Goldstein, thank goodness Eric wanted to postpone – there were big changes due out Thursday and we rescheduled the chat to Thursday afternoon. The next couple of hours were just a flurry of activity. By the time I realized I had to notify everyone on Amplify, Plancast and Blogtalkradio of the change I was sitting in line for a quick on the go lunch at Burger King.

Being the IT tech guy that I am I hopped out of my car and grabbed my backpack out of the trunk and set it on the passenger side floor of my car. I pulled out my small netbook, a USB cable and made sure my Droid Phone was handy. With my laptop tethered to my Droid phone I powered it up. My passenger seat was not the best desk but it would have to do. After jostling around while still inching forward in the drive through line I managed to type in my super complex password.

“Warning …. Low Battery Life…..”

Oh snap, you’ve got to be kidding me. I would have to find an alternate solution. While driving on the 680 Corridor I did a voice search on my Droid for a Peet’s coffee, why Peet’s? Because their wifi doesn’t require a login, just a simple code that is provided by the cashier. I have not tested Starbuck’s since they went free wifi, so it may work the same way. Didn’t find a local Peet’s that way, so I tried Panera Bread. Same story. Finally while driving through LaMorinda I used the Places app and chose Coffee Houses. There’s a Peet’s! Thank goodness Honda’s let you plug stuff into the Navigation while driving, I pulled off the freeway and had the address set before I got to the stoplight. It was right around the corner – Score 1 Location Based Search.

Needless to say Peet’s was a welcome environment I was able to plug-in and get all the updates put into place and quickly get back on the road. It cost me $2.00 for a coffee that I didn’t need but I thought to myself as I was driving down the road I could always buy a shirt that says “Powered by Caffeine”.

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Tags: Crowdsourcing, Free Wifi, Joe Hackman, Joesgonesocial, Office Space, Peet's Coffee, Poll, Powered by Cafeine
Posted in Amplify, Lighter Side of Things, Polls, Productivity | View Comments

Adding the Twitter Tweet Button to WordPress

Update 8/13/2010 – there is now a plug in called Twitter Tweet Button 1.0 that can be installed and enabled via WordPress Plugins. I am still using this original method described below because for me the formatting is off with the button.

I recorded this screencast for people who don’t want to wait for a decent plugin for the Twitter Tweet Button. There are some ways to add this to the single post template manually but with my template it was a complete nightmare to do. Until a plugin is released I this might help you add the new button to your WordPress blog:

This video does provide information on how to use the append plugin to add code or text to every page/post or both:

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Tags: Dave Yankowiak, Hotwo, Joe Hackman, Lift Development, Tweet Button, Wordpress
Posted in Technology, Twitter, Video, Wordpress | View Comments

Interview Sean Kennedy Good News in Oakland (Podcast)

Tonight I interviewed Sean Kennedy and Stephanie Geter on Blogtalkradio. It was inspiring to hear about all the positive things that are going on every day in Oakland, CA. Sean is the Executive Producer for Good News in Oakland. He is also highly recognized in the community in his role as Co-Chair of the City of Oakland Cultural Affairs Commission and for his innovative internet based TV network, “Good News In Oakland.”

You can check out Good News on Youtube or visit their Facebook page.

“The chips can be stacked against you but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it.” – Sean Kennedy

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Tags: allhiphop.com, EOYDC, Facebook, Good News in Oakland, Joe Hackman, Joesgonesocial, Pandora, Sean Kennedy
Posted in Inspiration, Interviews, Podcasts, community | View Comments

Getting the most from Blogtalkradio.com as a listener

It seems like it should be simple, but there are a couple things that you should do if you plan to listen to a podcast on Blogtalkradio.com in advance of the episode you plan to listen to. It is really important to register in advance so you can easily participate in the chat channel that exists for most Blogtalkradio programs. I personally use this chat extensively for audience interaction and questions for my guests.

Sign up for an account

Before you navigate to Blogtalkradio.com to create your account login to Facebook if you have an account there. It will definitely save you time because you can “Connect with Facebook” option instead of the full blown manual account creation. Once you are at Blogtalkradio.com choose the Create Account option in the upper right hand corner of the landing page. That will bring up the registration page where you can use Facebook to connect or manually add the information. If the Facebook option doesn’t work or if you don’t have a Facebook account, just go ahead and fill out the information in the sign up form. You will need to confirm manual setup via Email, the system will send you a message to your Email address from service@blogtalkradio.com to the Email address you provided. Once confirmed you can login and complete your profile.

Using the chat, favorite programs, adding friends

Once you are authenticated to the system you can access the podcast(s) you want to and participate in the chat. While logged in you also have the benefit of favoriting shows, becoming friends with other users and even setting up your own free podcast. If you’d like to connect with me at Blogtalkradio visit my show’s page.

No Internet Access during the episode? No Problem.

Every episode has a dial in number that you can call. Just keep in mind the free accounts have a limit of 5 callers so you may have issues getting through. My program is upgraded and allows up to 50 callers so if you get a busy signal the first time you might want to keep trying.

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Tags: Blogtalkradio, Howto, Instructions, Joe Hackman, Podcast
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Joe Reviews Thumbtack.com (Video)

I ran across a reference to Thumbtack on Chris Brogans blog earlier today and followed his link to Thumbtack.com. I think it is a really powerful tool for people providing freelance type services but I suppose you could utilize it for other things as well. I recently blogged about On the Fly Expertise connections and consider it a related subject. Please let me know what you think via comments.

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Tags: Chris Brogan, Joe Hackman, Joesgonesocial, thumbtack.com
Posted in Social Media Strategy, Technology, Tools, Video | View Comments

Interview Diane Rayfield Harp Social (Podcast)

Tonight I interviewed Diane Rayfield of Harp Social on Blogtalkradio. I invited Diane because I wanted to integrate more social media related guests into my podcast. Diane is the founder and CEO of Harp Social where she leads a team of social media, SEO and online marketing professionals to strategize, manage and evolve integrated online marketing for businesses. I met Diane at Amplify.com a social networking site that I have blogged about frequently. I always enjoy talking social media with people like Diane because I learn from them and the energy is upbeat and inspiring. Diane and I really covered a lot of ground during the interview, but her area of expertise is Strategy, Metrics and Inbound Marketing – “Getting Found”. Here are some highlight areas you can expect to learn more about if you listen to the entire episode:

1. Location Based Marketing (Yelp, Foursquare and Gowalla)
2. Monitoring/Metrics (Radian6, Google Alerts, Social Mention and Hootsuite)
3. Amplify.com
4. Facebook Pages
5. Video Marketing (Including Youtube)
6. Social Media Policies
7. LinkedIn (Including Answers, Groups)
8. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
9. Turning Point Autism Foundation

You can follow Diane on Twitter @dianerayfield or visit harpsocial.com to learn more about her company.

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Tags: Amplify.com, Diane Rayfield, Facebook, Harp Social, Joe Hackman, Joesgonesocial, LinkedIn, Turning Point Autism Foundation, Twitter
Posted in Amplify, Blogging, Facebook, Interviews, Podcasts, SEO, Social Media Strategy, Tools, Twitter, Wordpress | View Comments

Never miss another Amplify.com Community Chat Second Friday of every month at 11:30AM Eastern @amplifytheweb

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Tags: Amplify, Blogtalkradio, community, Eric Goldstein, Joe Hackman, plancast
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