Category Archives: Social Media

Spreading Influence In More Ways Than One Online

Yes, once again I’m talking about this topic of influence. It’s been an interesting last month or so and it just seems like it’s time to talk about it again because, believe it or not, it’s not all about me.

Of course having said that I’m still going to start with something that is about me, that being an interview I did with someone who comments here often, Carl, on his blog Webmaster’s Blog. It was a long interview and a lot of fun, and I hope y’all check it out and give him some love. Just so you know, it seems you have to have a Facebook account to leave a comment. I don’t normally go this route but in this instance, since I was the guy it was about, I made an exception. However, I’m still waiting for someone to tell me how or where it shows up on Facebook.

I’ve spoken about how I wanted to spread my influence more because I equate more influence with more opportunities for a great income, as well as the ability to potentially have a say in what goes on. Well, one doesn’t go places on their own. To whit, I’ve conducted some interviews on some of my blogs in the last couple of months that I think deserve way more attention than they’ve received. I’ve also put out a lot of offers to people here and there for interview spots on some of my blogs because, as I said, it’s not only about me. I think it’s a good thing when you can bring someone who deserves it to the attention of others.

I’ve also tried to go out of my way in the last month to retweet and talk to a lot of people I’ve never communicated with before. These are people in my Twitter stream, people who for the most part haven’t really reached out to me, but I don’t blame them because I hadn’t really reached out as much either. The best thing about using the cellphone for Twitter is that I can use it anywhere, and it’s relatively easy to go way back and zip through a bunch of messages.

In the movie The Secret they talked about this concept of giving to bring positive things in your life, and how giving when you may not have all that you want is sometimes the best giving of all. Just last night I went to the store and while there in line grabbed a ticket off the counter to donate $2 to feed children. I do that often, thinking that for a lousy two bucks I can help to feed someone or allow someone to have a place to say for one night. It’s a small thing but a big thing, and for the first time ever, the checkout clerk thanked me for my donation. I thought that was pretty special, and I thanked her for saying it.

So, just for a recap, I’d love to reissue some links that I’d love you to check out that highlight others on this blog and other blogs; hey, it’s a great way to start a Monday:

Interview – Yasmin Shiraz

29 Black Social Media Influencers

Interview – Issac Bidwell

21 Black Social Media Influencers

Interview – Marelisa Fabrega

Interview – Still Eye Rise Media

Interview – Issac Bidwell (different interview than above)
 

G+ Activity Seems To Be Dwindling

Have you lost your love or enthusiasm for Google+ yet? When I wrote my post last month titled The Fuss About Google it was really new, not even a month old yet, and I talked about some of the things there that I felt people should know about.


by Shadow Byrd via Flickr

Since that day Google+ has jumped in members, to the point that there’s now at least 25 million people over there. That’s just phenomenal growth, no matter how you look at it. Then again it’s Google, a very well known technology company, and it was easy to promote and hype so it should have shown tremendous growth.

However, at this juncture it seems that the initial enthusiasm is starting to wane for a lot of users. Sure, there are all these articles out there on how to get a lot of Google+ followers and how it’s going to be an important social media tool, but right now, I almost hate to say it this way, but it’s boring.

Yup, there you have it; boring. Even the people who started out posting links like gangbusters, which I found really irritating, have slowed down. There are fewer images being put up, which pleases me because of all those moving .gif files that I kept having to mute.

What’s the problem? In a weird way the problem is the same complaint people have had about Twitter and Facebook; no real engagement. I have 8 circles set up and I’m starting to see maybe 3 or 4 new posts a day on most of those circles. The circles where I only have 6 or 8 people I can understand, but one of my circles has 30 people in it; one would think more of them would have something to say.

Many do have something to share, but you don’t see any real proof that anyone’s paying attention. Yeah, here and there you see that someone has given a 1+ thumbs up, but it’s a rare thing to see someone actually commenting on something, and then it’s even more rare to see that person get a response.

Frankly, with that kind of engagement I’d rather be on Twitter, where every once in awhile when you retweet something or respond to something someone wrote or posted you might get a response back. Actually, the same goes for Facebook; you at least will get 2 or 3 people, if not more, commenting on something you put up.

Not to say we haven’t had some conversations going on, but for the most part it’s just not something you see. Well, the A-listers are seeing conversations, but they’re not all that participatory, which is a gripe some people have about them on their blogs. Hey, you can only talk to so many people and still get work done, right?

But maybe I’m not being fair, so I’ll throw it out to you. Who think Google+ is the greatest thing since chocolate cake (I know you were wondering why I had a picture of chocolate cake lol)? If not, what do you think it needs to make it better or exciting?
 

29 More Black Social Media Influencers

Yup, I’m back again with another list of black social media influencers. Of course, like last time, I have some things to say before I post this list of very qualified people.

Why 29? The first time I did this I wanted to find 50 people to create my list. However, once I got started I found that the search was more difficult than I had expected it to be, and thus I could only come up with 21. The search was difficult this time around as well, but mainly because I pumped the parameters up a bit.

Once again I had my set of rules, and this time I stuck with them. I used Klout to help me select people and the lowest Klout score I was allowing was 60. Also, every person had to have a blog, and I had a couple of decisions to make about that.

One, About.me isn’t a blog but more of a resume service, if you will, so I excluded those.

Two, I don’t consider Tumblr a blog either. I’ve never seen anyone use it as a blog, but as a place to put a lot of pictures and quick thoughts. Sorry, that’s not really blogging, per se, although a couple of blogs here that deal with fashion have lots of posts that are mainly photographs, but some of their posts are actual posts as well so there’s a differentiation. I also included blog platforms I don’t particularly like, which I did last time as well. However, sticking with my own rules about the types of blogs I won’t subscribe to for new folks, it means some of these folks I only follow on Twitter.

Three, as long as it took me to put this thing together, if I had to go off and research to find out who someone’s real name was or to find a blog, I just wasn’t doing it. This left some folks with really high scores off the list but so be it. I can’t figure out why people won’t put either their websites or blog links on their Twitter page. I did check out business pages looking for blogs if one was listed, but some folks linked to their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter pages. I mean, what the heck, why are you linking to your Twitter page on Twitter? People are already there and see what your Twitter link is! 🙁

Four, no “real” celebrities. That sounds odd on the surface until you see one of the names I put on the list who’s kind of a celebrity and kind of not, at least at this juncture of his life; Hey, I got to make the call, right?

And five, I stuck with my rule about no group blogs. At least I don’t think any of these are group blogs. They can be business blogs, but the idea was to highlight individuals, just like last time.

I will say this. The previous post got a lot of response, and I was happy about that. It was great finally giving a group of people largely ignored some well deserved press. I hope it goes as well this time around but truthfully, I’m expecting it to drop off. That’s too bad, but history shows that the first “Dream Team” always outperforms the second Dream Team, even if the players are just as good. But who knows, since Ileane will probably help push this baby strongly; after all, many of the people on this list are on a list on Twitter she created and talked about in a comment on the previous post, Black Social Media Heroes.

So let’s get to it. Very short descriptions, much shorter than last time, and links to people’s blogs to make it easy for you to get there. And for those of you who know that I normally write my articles very fast, this post took me 4 hours including research. This will be the last time I do a list like this; I’ve hit 50, so now someone else can take up the cause. And, like last time, I’m not going out and telling any of these folks I put them on the list, so I hope some of y’all will let them know; I’m tired! lol

Rohan @365thingstododc 63
Writes about the happenings around Washington D.C.
http://district365.com/

Anise Smith @AniseSmith 73
Writes about online and offline technology
http://anisesmith.com/

Tami Highbaugh @AriesGDIM 70
Writes about graphic design, internet marketing and the internet in general

Home

Baratunde @baratunde 74
He writes about politics and happenings around the world from a comedic point of view
http://www.baratunde.com/

Carolyn Edgar @carolynedgar 68
Writes about her life and opinions as a lawyer
http://carolynedgar.wordpress.com/

Rene Syler @ReneSyler 60
Writes about relationships and life in general
http://www.goodenoughmother.com/

Monique Neeley @InspiredMomma 68
Writes about social media
http://moniqueneeley.com/

Mark Anthony Neal @NewBlackMan 61
Writes about civil rights and diversity issues
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/

Mike Street @streetforce1 61
Writes about entertainment
http://http://greasyguide.com/

Adria Richards @adriarichards 69
Writes about the internet and technology
http://butyoureagirl.com/

Marshawn Evans @marshawnevans 62
Writes about media
http://marshawnevans.com/blog

Patrick Allmond @patrickallmond 68
Writes about search and social media
http://allaboutfocus.com/the-full-blog/#

Elon James White @elonjames 75
Writes about black issues from both a serious and funny angle; creator of videos “This Week In Blackness” on YouTube
http://bccostudios.com/blog/

Candice N. Mackel @CandiceNicolePR 63
Writes about fashion, entertainment, and public relations
http://www.candicenicolepr.com/

Danyelle L. @TheCubicleChick 70
Writes about relationships, pop culture and even HR issues
http://www.thecubiclechick.com/

Kris Cain @LittleTechGirl 67
Writes about technology and lots of cool stuff
http://littletechgirl.com/

Brent Leary @BrentLeary 63
Writes about business & CRM (customer relationship management; had to look that up)
http://crm2.typepad.com/

Kevin Powell @kevin_powell 69
Writes on social issues, and as a sidebar is one of the original Real World folks
http://www.kevinpowell.net/blog/

Sharnell Tull @therealSharnell 63
Writes about music, poetry and art
http://therealsharnell.com/

Charlie Gilkey @CharlieGilkey 64
Writes on business and being successful
http://www.productiveflourishing.com/blog/

Alicia Gibbs @LaFashionChica 64
Writes about fashion
http://www.chica-fashion.com/blog.html

Olivia Brown @OliviaBrown82 61
Writes about entertainment
http://oliviabrown82.blogspot.com/

Jose Vilson @TheJLV 70
Writes about politics, education and race
http://thejosevilson.com/

Kimberly C. Ellis, Ph.D @drgoddess 71
Writes about politics, media and entertainment
http://drgoddess.com/

Miranda Parker Dee @deegospel 62
Writes about literature
http://www.mirandaparker.com/blog/

Douglas Idugboe @douglasi 71
Writes about social media
http://www.smedio.com/

Denene Millner @MyBrownBaby 70
Writes on family issues and black parenting
http://mybrownbaby.com/

Stanford Smith @pushingsocial 63
Writes about blogging and social media
http://pushingsocial.com/

Rosetta Thurman @rosettathurman 68
Writes about nonprofits, leadership & motivation
http://www.rosettathurman.com/
 

Talking Privacy – Part Two

A year and a half ago I asked the question Do We Deserve Privacy Online? I took on the issue after reading a news story that basically said privacy is gone and we should get over it.

mozilla privacy cupcakes! DSC_6407.JPG
Roland Tanglao
via Compfight

At the time I had mixed feelings about the issue, and I find myself 18 months later still having mixed feelings about it. I’m taking it on again after reading a post by a guy that called himself Blog Bloke titled Social Media Profiling: Is Our Privacy Under Siege? His gripe is with the new Google+ site and some of the information they’re requiring to participate in the process. In particular, he’s against their rule which says one can’t use avatars, instead saying people have to use pictures of themselves.

For those of you who aren’t going to go check out his post or his blog, Blog Bloke is definitely a throwback to the old days of not trusting anyone; I doubt he’d disagree with this. Privacy is a major thing with him, and he doesn’t want his image out on the internet in any way. This is a right everyone has by the way, and I’m certainly not going to beat him up for that. As a matter of fact, he’s pretty much made his avatar his trademark, and many people know exactly who he is once they see that; kind of like Dennis and his magic DE logo.

Do I understand his position on privacy? Yes. Do I fully support it? Mixed feelings. Do I have things I don’t want to share? Absolutely. Do I use those things that require information I don’t feel like sharing? Nope; I just go on about my business.

Why did I bring that stuff up? If you check his post you’ll see I commented on it and I said there’s no obligation for any of us to participate in social media services whose policies we don’t support; social media is a right, not a privilege. That’s why I don’t play many games on Facebook, and why I’ve downloaded very few apps onto my smartphone, because I don’t feel like giving up some of my information so it can be sold to someone else. His position is that it is pretty much a right and that these companies (Google, Facebook, etc) really don’t have a right to ask us for any of it.

I’ll attempt to make my position clear here and see where you fall into things. He has a blog and gets to set his rules. I have a blog and get to set my rules. We’re both part of social media; so are all of you. I’ve decided on my blog that if I don’t know you already I’m not accepting names I can’t identify; ergo, no keyword names. I could care less if the rest of the world knows you already, until I know you I’m not allowing it. My blog, I pay for it, my policy. I don’t know what his is, and I don’t know what yours is. However, based on responses I’ve received on some of my posts, it seems that a majority of you would support this kind of thing because you can relate to it.

There’s the big boys, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. They all have policies as well. Some of them end up being very invasive, others not so much. There’s absolutely no right any of us have to circumvent those policies. Well, that’s not totally accurate. We do have the right to boycott, fuss, stomp our feet, write about it in our blogs, on and on and on.

But none of them have to change a thing. They’re not obligated to us. They’re paying for it in some way, we’re not. I thought about it over the weekend as I got an invite and took some folks up on joining the Google+ community. Then I thought about following it on my smartphone and it turns out that one of their rules is that if you access the page on your smartphone you must allow them to track you to find out where you are.

I’m somewhat hinky about that type of thing. I already know Google’s tracking me because I have a HTC phone, and it’s their product. I know that even after shutting down the Google location service they somehow know where I am; sigh. However, once you sign up for location tracking on something like Google+ or Facebook, it then starts telling people where you are at the moment you’re writing, and I’m not up for that. So I declined the offer; I’ll have to wait until I’m on a regular computer or laptop and play that way instead. I know, you’re probably thinking “hey, it knows when you’re at home”; that I can handle since my home is also my business.

International Spy Museum Handbook of Practical SpyingÂ

I asked my friend Sunny, one of my younger friends (who really needs to list her blogs somewhere so people can find them all lol) what her thoughts were, and people around her age, on the privacy issue. She said she felt that we’re all being tracked to some degree but if people are at least thinking about what they’re putting out about themselves that they can protect themselves a little bit.

I had to think about that one some because I realize that for the most part the genie is out of the bottle for me. Anyone can find out where I live by looking it up online because it’s also my business address. They can probably find my phone number for the same reason. They can find my picture and pictures of my wife, who has her own website as well. In other words, privacy is totally gone; I didn’t even make the chase interesting.

The same can be said for my friend Blog Bloke in a way. He’s been around at least 14 years online. We can know where he lives, and we can get his phone number. We know where his business is. The only thing we don’t know is what he really looks like. Does that matter? To him it does; to me it doesn’t. What matters is that we each get to decide just how private we want to be, but we can’t hide. If you want to prove it look up any name and see how much it costs you to get a wealth of information about that person.

By the way, I do have this thing about how some people hide themselves from others. I really don’t like fake commenter names and images, and some of you know my position on news commentary as it appears on news stories in online newspapers. I feel all those people should have to register their names and addresses with the newspaper and should have to use at least their real first name if they have something to say so there’s some type of decorum on those sites. Privacy in that instance isn’t a right; if you feel you have something to say, be an adult about it or keep your stupid thoughts to yourself; yeah, I said it.

Will I take up the privacy cause? No, it’s not my fight; I have other things I think are much more important to my life. I’ll let Blog Bloke & our federal government work on some of those things on my behalf. What I will say, once again, is that you need to protect yourself, your information, and your reputation. Once you’re associated with something in a certain way based on your actions, it’ll be hard to overcome. Be smart in what you do, be honest, and be careful. That’s all I have.

21 Of The Top Black Social Media Influencers

I know a few of you are saying “hey, didn’t Mitch do something similar to this at the beginning of the year? Actually yes, in December I did something I called 8 of the top Black Individual Blogs. That was a tough one to research based on my criteria and the fact that I didn’t really have a place to start. This one’s a little bit different.

Before I tell you what I did, I want to tell you why I did it. This year, I’ve seen a lot of lists from people that announce the top blogs or top influences or top social media whatever for the year.

There are tons of lists telling you “this is someone you should follow.” I think that’s a wonderful idea, because it’s always great giving a bit of love to people that deserve it. Where my gripe is in that almost never are there any black people on the list. This week was a great example. One list came out highlighting 25 women bloggers you just have to know; the other was 50 social media influencers you had to know. Neither list had a single black person on it. Asian sure, but black person; not one.

The argument one gets is “I don’t know any of those people”. Sorry, I’m not buying it. That argument pretty much says “I don’t care to know any black people” because we’re here. Heck, I’m here. This blog’s been out 3 1/2 years, and my business blog has been out at least 6 years.

Why is this important? Beyond the fact that everyone deserves being known if they do pretty good work online it’s also got a monetary consideration behind it. When people are known for their influence they get invited to conferences, whether to speak or just to participate. Often they get paid; who’d turn that down?

Do we need another list with Chris Brogan, Gary Vanderchuk, Darren Rowse or any of those other top guys that are already millionaires on it? Maybe, but not today. Today is the 10th anniversary of my being in business, so I get to do it my way, to help highlight some folks I believe really deserve it.

This is a group that needs a list But I didn’t want to just find any ol’ people and put a list together. I wanted a list that had some kind of meaning after all. I had to have some standards, and I think the one I, and the person I’m naming first off this list, came up with.

Her idea was to maybe do something based off Klout. I wasn’t sure, as I’ve written about Klout twice before. And yet, it’s an easy measurement to track. Pretty much like other stats that people either believe or disbelieve, the better your number is the more influence you probably have. There may be flukes that keep you ranked lower but there’s no fluke that ranks you higher.

So Klout it is, but I still had to have some standards. I wasn’t about to try to go through every person in the world that’s on Twitter; I’m not crazy! What I did was go through people I’m connected to on Twitter. Now, Twitter isn’t the only determinant for Klout influence. They have a connection with both Facebook and LinkedIn now. So, that means that their algorithm is supposed to be an amalgam of all of these, although LinkedIn is pretty new for them so it probably has little influence thus far.

And they’re still not connected to blogs. I used that as a major gripe when I had a chance to talk to a Klout representative during a Twitter chat session once, and the lady said that was something they’re working on. I tend to believe that many people would greatly benefit if our blog rankings were included, or the number of blogs we have meant something.

So, here were my rules. One, I looked at people I’m connected with already in some fashion. Two, every person except one that’s on this list had to have at least one blog; I’ll name the person when I get to him. Three, no celebrities; sorry Shaq and Oprah, you don’t count. And four, as much as I could determine, you had to be an individual; no group bloggers on this list. Sometimes that’s hard to know, but so be it.

I don’t make any claim that this list is perfect. If someone’s missing it either means no blog or I’ve never heard of them; believe it or not all black people don’t know each other. I hope you visit these people and I hope you find something to comment on so you can tell them they’re on this list. I even personally know a couple of these folks; they’ll probably be shocked to see their names on the list. Actually, I’m wondering how many of them will pay attention to find out they’re on this list in the first place; hmmm…

Oh yeah; I thought about creating a badge of some kind, but I really have no creativity when it comes to that type of thing and didn’t want to create something I consider cheap like last year, so all I have is what you see above; it’ll have to suffice. And I know I’m missing some folks, but man, it took almost 3 hours to find the folks I did; seems the plugin I used to help me get it done slowed things down considerably. So, I apologize to those of you who should be on this list that I missed.

And in case you were wondering, as a point of comparison as I’m writing this my Klout score is 63. Now, to the names:

Ileane Smith @BasicBlogTips 53
It was Ileane’s idea to put a list together with this kind of criteria, so I thank her for it. Ileane’s got a very highly ranked blog and it gets lots of attention so she definitely should be showing up on people’s radar. http://basicblogtips.com/

Scott Williams @scottwilliams 69
Scott talks a lot about leadership and social media, with a religious background. http://www.bigisthenewsmall.com/

Wayne Sutton @waynesutton 69
Sayne talks a lot about social media and technology. http://socialwayne.com/

Justice Wordlaw IV @justicewordlaw 67
Justice is a young guy that talks a lot about social media and internet marketing. http://justicewordlaw.com/

JAWAR @jawar 65
Jawar is the only guy on this list that doesn’t have a blog, but he’s got over 111,000 tweets and is kind of a multimedia mogul, so there’s no way I could keep him off this list. http://www.jawarspeaks.com/ Update – turns out he does have a blog, which you can find here.

Ronald Jackson @ronaldjackson 63
Ronald talks about historical issues as they apply to minorities and he’ll keep you on your toes if you’re strong enough to hear it. http://nowandthen.ashp.cuny.edu/

Fields Jackson, Jr @fleejack 62
This one’s pretty easy; Fields talks a lot about diversity issues. http://racingtowarddiversity.com/blog/

Jill Hurst-Wahl @jill_hw 62
Jill is a local celeb of sorts in that almost anyone that knows anything about social media knows who she is. Her background is in library science, and she travels the country giving presentations at many conferences. http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/

Faydra Deon @faydra_deon 60
Faydra is a former officer in the military that’s taken social media and internet marketing by storm. I have a story in a book that she’s marketing on Amazon. http://myqotd.com/

Rachel Rodgers @RachRodgersEsq 58
Rachel is a lawyer, hence the “esq” after her Twitter handle. You don’t get a lot of lawyers that blog; I like that. http://rachelrodgerslaw.com/blog/

Tami Gaines @tamicgaines 56
Tami talks about a tough subject, premature births, and gives counsel to parents of those children. http://www.preemieparents.com/

Shallie Bey @ShallieBey 53
Truthfully, Shallie hasn’t written anything in her blog in a long time, but she should. She’s a small business coach with lots to offer, but maybe needs more time and encouragement to blog more. http://shalliebey.blogspot.com/

Yasmin Shiraz @YasminShiraz 52
Yasmin’s going to be big, and probably already should be there. Books, movies, speaking engagements… she’s got energy to burn and a lot to share. http://www.yasminshiraz.com/

Kelvin Ringold @kelvinringold 51
I’ve known Kelvin about 12 years now. He’s moving into the direction of motivational speaking but also knows a lot about marketing. He has multiple websites and a motivational daily newsletter, along with this blog. http://ringoldnet.blogspot.com/

Darnyelle A. Jervey @darnyellejervey 51
Darynelle is a business coach and consultant who’s also a published author. I’ll admit that some of what she writes feels above my head, but other stuff is right on point. http://www.darnyelle.blogspot.com/

Andrea Amir @AndreaAmir 50
Andrea talks a lot about ways of saving and managing one’s money, along with help in getting out of debt. http://smartmoneychicks.com/

Lisa Irby @2createawebsite 50
Lisa Irby has the highest ranked blog on this list, so high that I’m stunned her Klout score is only 50 and that she’s not being invited to every social media conference that’s out there. http://blog.2createawebsite.com/

Marlee Ward @marldble 49
Marlee talks about online and internet marketing and gives a lot of great advice through her usage of video; great stuff. http://marleeward.com/

Leesa Barnes @leesabarnes 46
I’ve known Leesa the longest of anyone that I met online, as we originally talked when we were both on Ryze. She talks a lot about making money virtually, while also being a favorite at a lot of events in Canada. http://virtualeventsuccess.com/

Vernessa Taylor @coachnotesblog 47
If you look to the left and see the image for my book, Vernessa made that for me. She does online business development and coaching and talks a lot about technology. http://www.localbusinesscoachonline.com/coachnotes/

Beverly Mahone @bevmahone 45
If you read this blog often you see Bev’s name here a lot. She’s a media consultant, helping people learn how to get known in a variety of ways to help increase visibility. She also has multiple blogs and websites that you might enjoy. http://www.beverlymahone.com