Top 10 newbie online social media resources - Web 2.0 - Social Communities

Top 10 newbie online social media resources

Hi all. Do you want to start your own business or pursue an idea and have no clue about Social Business? Social Media? Social Marketing? Online tools? I'm certainly no expert in any of these areas, but I mentioned in my last post that I'm keen to start some direction in my research and learning with view to being able to become more aware of social online marketing and to at some point potentially make some money from something I both enjoy, am interested in, have a limited level of understanding in and want to improve my understanding of. I've mentioned blogging as being a potential area for interest and inevitably revenue. People read things with many expectations and within varied contexts and I would hope that some people read my blog for three main reasons - 1) The blog content is interesting to them, 2) The blog content makes them laugh, and/or 3) My blog inspires others to take action on some of their thoughts and ideas (which could in reality be the next 'google', the next 'facebook' or next 'eBay' - these all started off as ideas that people acted on)!

I have ideas that I'm taking action on, but if YOU haven't yet and you'd like to have a starting point for which resources to use to learn and research to enable to you to do this better this post may be of use. As promised in my previous blog article, I've come up with a list of some of the most useful items and online social or business resources that I've either been using actively or plan to use. I'll try to keep each item as short as possible here as I really could go one forever to explain each (I could write a 100-page website on each).

1. Godaddy

I've chosen godaddy for three reasons really. Firstly, this is widely regarded and reputed to be one of the best domain name and hosting providers available in the world today. They're big, have their fingers in a lot of pies and are in absolutely little or no danger of going bust / out of business. Second, everyone seems to tell me that these guys are the best and easiest to use, including resources/people that I list later on in the blog. They are so widely used that there are lots of instructions and tutorials on how to use their domain name registration and hosting services. Third and finally, godaddy are a facility that directly allow you to literally act on your ideas by registering a suitable website name and hosting your website to start talking to people!

2. Google

I honestly can't speak highly enough about google! From MY experience, all of the products that I use of theirs are highly tuned and of very good application and use. They've also got their fingers in a lot of pies which again means that they'll be hard pushed to fold. Particularly useful products include gmail, which is good for storage, spam filtering and manages your mail well, google analytics, which tracks your website / blog's statistics in terms of visits, visitors and the associated demographics, and another key product is adsense which enables registered users to access marketing activities inward (making cash from placing other peoples adverts) or outwards (actually advertising via google in various formats). If you own a website or blog, you HAVE to be useing Googles products. There are many more that I use and I will discuss these in much more detail soon, but the ones I've mentioned are key.

3. Youtube

I'll let the video do the explaining...

I like youtube because it brings TV the masses. In a business context, it's free advertising so long as the content (and traffic) is there. If the content is shit, the content won't be re-blogged, re-linked and become viral, but on the other hand so long as there are items that a viewer want to see or are compelled so see, they'll view (and in turn make you money if you're savvy;D ). OK, youtube is good for many reasons and it really is down to your perception as to how it can be used best in a business way, social way or any other way for that matter. I like it for two main reasons really, 1) because it's easy for a user to, errr, USE and 2) because it is something that can be monetised easily.

I've been recently taking a listen to what Edzjohnson and JeffBT have got to offer in terms of advise. I've also been doing a great deal of laughing at the now rather critically acclaimed Shane Dawson. Check them all out, hopefully they'll link to me and scratch my back a little.

4. Blogger (Google product)

I use Google's blogger to make this blog. I haven't got a lot of experience in using many other tools for 'wizarding' or facilitating the making of a blog or website (and it's something that I'm researching), but my experience with blogger has been a relatively good one so far. It's also allowed me to integrate many or all of the other tools that I describe VERY easily. I'm not at all technical in terms of using the internet or barely even a computer, however due familiarising myself with blogger I've been able to learn a lot about web, social media and all the other associated 'media' and marketing tools. Blogger is very easy to use.

You can sign up and have a blog made within 5 minutes, because there are loads of templates and free widgets for structuring things on your blog. Blogger is also well integrated with other Google products which I actively use which helps for ease and convenience. It's the time and care that you take toward making, editing and marketing your content and articles that will make the difference on it's success. I try to take a lot of time proof reading, editing and re-editing my content before I actually submit it for people to read (publish the article). OK, so I'll make the odd spelllling or grammar errorrr but on the whole I hope reading my articles is a good experience for people. Let me know your feedback on the content and layout in the comments section if you agree or disagree!

5. SEOMOZ

SEOMOZ is basically a glorified blog in itself, but someone is making ALOT of money from this! What this website provides are tips, advise, guides, tools and expertise on all things SEO (search engine optimisation) and SEM (search engine marketing), as well as the associated essentials for web marketing.

For a start, the site is very well optimised as you'd expect and a huge amount of people link to it (which is always a good sign as to a websites usefulness). They send marketing advise in a not too 'spammy' way, which as a result of reading has continually expanded my learning experience. You have to pay to use a number of 'premium' features on the website, which I'm sure would be value for money, but I'm yet to test these. I'll do this at some point and blog the results (yes, I'll be your Guinea Pig!). I suppose it's tough to really explain how really useful SEOMOZ actually is because without actually READING the articles, you won't understand, but take my word for it I've so far found SEOMOZ rather tasty. Oh my main reason for liking it is that they're very honest in they're content! They don't hold back too much and pretty much just let you know in layman's terms 'how it is'! Try them out at

6. Technorati

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. By June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. The name Technorati is a blend of the words technology and literati, which invokes the notion of technological intelligence or intellectualism. You can use Technorati to search good blogs and research your topic of interest, or (and crucially for bloggers) submit your blog post for others to find. There are lots of these website types around but Technorati is one of, if not THE, market leader and has many accolades to prove this. It can be used to add credibility and/or traffic to your blogsite.

7. Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the ultimate blog. Advert-free, and arguably the most useful tool on the internet. Imagine having over 17 million articles of information right at your computer, free and accurate. OK, so it's not always accurate but they run a very tight verification process for all articles submitted so if things are not referenced properly then they get flagged and removed quite quickly. Wikipedia is the ultimate student resource. Most of my high school and university work can be attributed to Wikipedia, so I think it's worth mentioning a little 'thank you'! I continue to use (and often plagiarism) Wiki, even in my blog, which is why it's in my top 10!

8. Facebook

Over 500 million active users. Over $800 Million in revenue (2009). Alexa rank 2. Just 1700+ employees and still growing. I've written about Facebook a lot in my blogs, not nearly enough as I've got the time to, because it facinates me. It also provides me with the tools necessary to keep social in a busy lifestyle and from a business perspective it allows be to take my ideas to the masses quickly. I use it everyday, YOU use it everyday, Will Smith uses it everyday. I can't say I've learn't very much from Facebook, so this isn't the reason why I've added it here. It's just that I can really see the potential in business application in the longer term from Facebook. Their advertising products are still quite young, so are still in the developing phase, but clearly there are a lot of applications (in both senses of the word) for Facebook socially and in business.

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9. Linkedin

I've used Linkedin for around four years now and it is absolutely fantastic for 'linkin' to business contacts. I call it the facebook for professionals! It's basically a way justifying using 'Facebook' at work. In all fairness, you can do TONS of things in linked in, much like with facebook and google, such as advertise, create and publish to the masses your content of all types and, what I find most fascinating, bring together groups of communities with ease. If you work in an environment were you have a lot of contact with people, get on linkedin. More recently, Linkedin has become more like Facebook because they've simplified much of their user interface and linked to other social media websites etc. Linkedin has over 80 million members as of Sept 2010 so it's big. Linkedin is also really easy to use which goes some way to explaining why it's been popular.

10. Wordpress

Wordpress is RAVED about! Basically it is another 'Google blogger' type tool, only that it is for making both Blogs and/or Websites. Now, I've not actually used Wordpress just yet - this is on the list, but I've seen enough Wordpress-made websites and heard enough good feedback to know that it's the tool that I'm going to use a huge amount more in the future. I'll be reviewing more about this I'm sure in the future. Hopefully I'll also be able to show some of my Wordpress examples too!

If you've enjoyed this or found it useful, please subscribe to me, resend a link to my website to your friends, comment your opinions and more importantly for me your ADVISE as I'm keen for feedback.

Email for enquiries, ideas, opinions and proposals. Don't forget to comment your voice, follow me and tell you friends about me. MachineDaena. /machinedaenaPosted by MachineDaena at 21:27 Labels: best online social media, blog, Blogger (Google product), blogging, facebook, Godaddy, Google, Linkedin, online marketing, online research, sem, seo, SEOMOZ, Tendorani, Wikipedia, Wordpress, Youtube

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