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There are so many sites out there that discuss social media issues. I’m often asked which ones I frequent on a regular basis so, in no particular order, here are more than 20 of them. Enjoy and if I’ve missed out some obvious ones, please let me know in the comment form. Why 23? Because I couldn’t cull them any further! [Read more...]
One of the facts that gets quoted every now and then by people advising bloggers on how to write articles is that the top bloggers use the word “you” more often than “me” or “We/Our”. So I thought I’d take a look and see if this is true, or another Social Media Urban Myth.
As a starting point, I took the blogs of 8 of the top Social Media Bloggers and looked at their percentage use of “I”, “We”, “You” and “They”. In each case, I collected at least 5,000 words, which for most equates to between 6 and 8 articles.I know it’s not a very large sample of writers or words, but I wanted to see if any patterns emerged. And they did!
| I | We | You | They | |
| Chris Brogan | 4.89 | 0.93 | 3.07 | 0.32 |
| Karen Skidmore | 0.70 | 0.18 | 5.80 | 1.80 |
| Louis Gray | 0.71 | 0.53 | 1.06 | 1.19 |
| Marko Saric | 2.05 | 0.22 | 4.10 | 0.33 |
| Mitch Joel | 0.89 | 0.35 | 1.60 | 2.13 |
| Nick Tadd | 2.42 | 0.00 | 4.67 | 1.53 |
| ProBlogger | 2.16 | 0.00 | 5.14 | 0.00 |
| Seth Godin | 1.42 | 1.02 | 5.84 | 0.70 |
Louis Gray blogs more about developments in SM and emerging technologies, so I had thought that perhaps he would have used “me” more often, as he is often giving his opinion. But he still managed to use “you” more often than “I” and “We” combined
Chris Brogan uses the first person singular a lot in the sample tested but there’s a good reason for it – among the posts that I sampled were several explaining how he uses mind mapping, how he doesn’t use LinkedIn as he feels he should etc.. I’m going to go back and examine his more general articles to see the pattern there.
As can be seen from the table, all of the others use “you” almost twice as often as they use “I”, the exceptions being Seth Godin who uses “you” 3.5 times as often as he uses the word “I” and Karen Skidmore who uses it a whopping 8 times as much!. This is entirely consistent with SM articles being about engaging with other people and drawing them in. With the exception of self -disclosure articles of the type Chris Brogan has been writing recently, most of us would soon get bored with, and probably stop reading, writers who used “I” twice as much as they use “you”.
There’s a lot more I’m going to be analyzing, such as percentage of past, present and future orientated words, the percentage of nouns vs verbs etc
The conclusion? These people are some of the top in their field – anyone wanting to be up there with them needs to be looking at their writing style. The small words matter. You will find another article here that examines the subject in more detail, and announces a new service for writers.
In a recent Blog article, Mitch Joel argued that the new range of smart phones are less about being a phone and more about “A computer that is in every person’s hand that connects them to information and everyone else in the world.” This corroborates what Deni Kasrel said to me about a conversation she had had with an Apple Support employee about the iPhone was told “It’s really 10 percent a phone and 90 percent a computer.”
The iPhone, the Palm Pre, the latest HTC, the Nexus One are all, to a greater or lesser extent, powerful micro pcs. And people are racing to adopt, and then vociferously defend, their chosen device. But at what cost? Firstly, you are pretty much buying into a platform for life. For example, spend a few hundred (or more) pounds on Google apps and even if you fancy a change of phone 3 or 4 years later, you are unlikely to want to wave goodbye to all of that money and start again on a new platform. Is it really a great idea to tie yourself into one manufacturer like that?
The race seems to be on to include features on these smart phones that were cutting edge on PCs of only a few years ago: the ability to multi-task; Google Maps (or something similar); fast processors; lean, stable and fast operating systems etc.. My question is: Do we really need all of this on a mobile phone? I’ve read all of the arguments about mobile communications being so important, and I agree, but don’t netbooks and small format laptops fulfill that function?
I can understand the benefits of push technology and being able to access your emails on a smart phone but once it comes to browsing websites and looking at images, the small screen on a smartphone is really limiting. Add in the problems for anyone who is long-sighted and it can be a recipe for frustration!
I am seriosuly considering going back to a phone that’s a phone, that is based on high quality sound and using my 13″ laptop for mobile computing – I almost always have it with me so why duplicate the technology? It will avoid all of the synching across 3 machines that I hear people complaining about. It may also prove to be the most efficient way of managing my on-line social networks.
Go on, convince me I’m wrong!
I’m sometimes asked to recommend a book on social media and social networking and thought I’d post a few ideas from some of the social media experts here; these are all books that I’ve read in the last 12 months!
 | Trust Agents – Chris Brogan, Julien Smith This is in some ways similar to Penny’s book in that the focus is clearly on creating trust. Because trust is key to building social media reputations, the authors define those who understand the value of, and set out to create, trust as “trust agents.” It’s a mixture of the theoretical and the practical and is well worth a read, if only because it is written by authors with over 10 years of online social media experience |
 | Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me is different from the other three social media books. She uses her experience as a co-founder of ecademy (I often describe this as my ‘base’ on the internet) and the trials and tribulations it went through to make important points about her belief that social media offers a better way for business people to meet, connect and help one another solve problems and expand their businesses. It is written in a warm, very personal style and is a great read. If you want a book that goes into details about how to make use of the many social media tools out there, Mitch Joel’s book would make a great companion read to Penny’s book. |
 | Crush it – Gary Vaynerchuk That said, the checklist in appendix a is worth the price of the book alone, for those who are new to social media or who what to make sure that they have covered everything. |
 | Six Pixels of Separation – Mitch Joel Whilst I have listed the books in no particular order, this is my favourite of the four when it comes to social media’how to’. It’s a great book written in a relaxed style that covers everything you would want to know about social media, and more! Mitch emphasises that he is not a technical person, he is just one of us. It takes on an ambitious task, to unify the concepts of Personal Branding, Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship, and achieves it in a clear, fun and provocative manner. Full of case studies to illustrate the points he makes, this book offers a complete set of social media tools, tactics and insights to empower individuals to reach a global audience and consumer base with a few clicks of the mouse, and almost all of them for free. |
So, my recommendations? I enjoyed all four and think anyone wanting to find oute about more about social media will benefit from reading any or all of them. And recommending books is always difficult as it’s so much a matter of personal preference and each of these books has much to offer.
All of the books are written in easy to read styles offering examples of best practice for everyone to emulate.
However, if I had to make a recommendation, it would be to buy Mitch Joel’s book and if you want to add a semi-autobiographical account from a woman who’s been there, read Penny’s too. Then get on the internet and watch Gary V’s videocasts and hop over to Chris Brogan’s blog (one of my favourite blogs) for a full set!
However, to repreat what I wrote above, any and all of these books make a great read for the social media afficianado, as are the authors’ blogs each of which features in my list of favourites.
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