August, 2008 | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Doggy Dip and the Start of Volleyball

This post falls in the personal category, but just illustrates some of the fun you can have with social media.

On Thursday night my daughter Rebekah’s volleyball team (she’s a senior co-captain) started their season with a non-conference loss. Two years ago they were something like 5-20, and last year they improved to 15-14, the first winning record in a long time. This year, with lots of returning seniors, expectations are high.

Naturally, I’ve started a Facebook “booster” group to upload video and photos (and to link to local newspapers’ on-line stories), just as I did for last year’s state tournament team in basketball. Here’s a video from Thursday’s match which I uploaded to YouTube; it shows some of the team’s strengths:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81fZngdOIuA]

Unfortunately there weren’t quite enough points like that on Thursday, but tomorrow they get a chance to even their record.

Meanwhile, last night was the third annual Doggy Dip at our Austin, Minn. municipal swimming pool. The day before they drain the pool and close for the season, the city opens the pool to the dogs for $2 each. It’s quite an event. Our dog, Gideon, who is a direct descendent of Shadow from the Homeward Bound movies, was much less dignified than his great-grandpa.

Gideon spent the first few minutes running around and barking. The guy next to me said, “Oh yeah, now I remember him.” He (Gideon, not the guy) also was pretty timid about jumping into the water until I shoved him (again, Gideon, not the guy) into the pool. Here’s the action:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0TP6aQPuuU]

As you’ll see in the video response I uploaded, after a while Gideon got very comfortable jumping into the pool. I was bummed that the batteries on my Flip ran out long before Gideon lost the energy to chase his toy and bring it back barking for another run.

The Austin Daily Herald also ran a story about Doggy Dip.

All part of the interesting life in Norman Rockwell’s America.

Assignment:

Let’s play the “Who’s farthest away from Austin?” game.

Here’s where you’ll find Austin on the map:

I’m inviting the first commenter to indicate the city from where you are reading this (e.g. Chicago, Ill.)

As others read it, if you are farther away than the previous commenter (or think you might be about the same distance), leave a comment with the name of your city.

The goal is to show just how far away people are seeing this video.

Yeah, we know that theoretically the reach is world-wide. But just for fun, let’s prove it.

Chancellor RAQ: Creating Facebook Pages

This is the start of a new occasional feature at SMUG, in which we’ll answer publicly some of the questions that are sent via e-mail. I thought about calling these FAQs, but a question doesn’t need to be asked frequently to be worth sharing the answer publicly. It could be that others just haven’t thought to inquire. So we’re creating a category for them called Recently Asked Questions (Chancellor RAQs).

This first question actually does fit the the frequency criterion, too, since I’ve had it a couple of times in the last week:

Q. How do I create a “fan page” for my organization in Facebook? Do I first need to create a group? I can’t find anywhere on the Facebook site where it gives any instructions and apparently I’m not quite cool or hip enough (yet!) to figure it out intuitively!!

A. You’re right: not about your lack of coolness or hipness, but about the relative obscurity of the method for creating a new Fan page for your brand. If you look at the bottom of any Facebook page, you’ll see an “Advertisers” link. When you click that, you will learn not only about Facebook’s advertising options, but also will see, on the right side, a description of Facebook Pages (along with a button you can click to create a new page.) Or if you want to take a shortcut, just click here.

This assumes you already have set up your own personal profile in Facebook. Someone has to be the administrator for the Fan page, so you can’t create a page until you have an individual profile.

This leads to a follow-up:

Q. I want to set up a page for my volunteer organization. Shouldn’t I just set up a separate profile for the organization (instead of a Page), so that when I rotate off the board someone else can take over? I don’t want to be forever connected to this Page through my Facebook account.

A. No. Individual profiles are for real people. Pages are for brands and organizations. Once you have created your organization’s Fan page, you can add others as administrators; for example, we have two administrators for the Mayo Clinic page. Be careful when adding administrators, though, because anyone who has admin rights can do everything with a page that you can, up to and including deleting the page. But when you leave the organization, you can just have yourself removed as an administrator for the page.

In a future post, I will go through the steps of creating a Facebook page as part of the Facebook curriculum. For now, hopefully the answers to these RAQs can help SMUGgles get started.

Blogging 107: Typepad Pros and Cons

Chancellor’s Note: This post was written by Associate Professor Jan Husdal, the newest addition to the SMUG Faculty. Please join me in thanking him for this contribution, and also check out his excellent Typepad vs. WordPress blog.

For someone setting out to become a blogger, choosing the right platform is important. Once chosen, it is very difficult to reverse to a different platform. Not because it is not possible (since in most cases it is possible to fully export and import posts between blogging platform), but because every platform works differently and you get used to doing your blogging in a certain way. Apart from that, different blogging platforms cater to different audiences, so it is important to choose the platform that suits your needs.

Comparing “the big three”

In brief, although many may disagree here, my division is this:

Blogger
If all you care about is a quick set-up and a free platform for making money
WordPress
If you want a free platform with a lot of functionality and if you are in it for the blogging, not for the money
Typepad
If you want a platform that is easy to use and that can be customized for business

So, what are the disadvantages and advantages of choosing TypePad for blogging?

TypePad – Pros

An interface that is easy to use and understand. The TypePad user interface is intuitively set up an easy to use. I had no problems finding out where which function was.

The ability to add scripts. This allows you add or embed practically any desirable widget you want, since most widgets are scripted. This means that TypePad can easily be integrated with other services.

The ability to have AdSense or other scripted ads. Since most ad content is scripted, with TypePad you can build a so-called make-money-blog or an affiliate website, e.g. for amazon.com

The ability to customize your blog theme. This is possible from The Plus level and up. For more information, see this post: How to build a TypePad theme from scratch.

A wide selection of themes. TypePad has some 200+ themes to choose from and they keep adding new themes all the time.

Unlimited number of Photo albums. TypePad is the only blogging platform that has integrated photo albums. Not the best I’ve seen, but it beats Flickr or other services.

TypePad – Cons

TypePad costs money. Their Basic account starts at $4.95/mo and although that may not seem like much, you can get a lot more functionality for free in WordPress or Blogger. The Plus level, which is the minimum I recommend for TypePad, comes at $8.95/mo. The Pro account at $14.95/mo gives you full control over your themes CSS and HTML templates, but as the name suggests, it is better left to the “pros”.

Very few integrated widgets. Although the upside to TypePad is that you can install any widget you like, the downside is that you need to hunt for it yourself. Many of these widgets come in free ad-based and paid ad-free versions. That adds even more costs to your Typepad blog. On a side note, in my opinion any blogging platform should come with an integrated search form, contact form and default Error 404 page. Only WordPress does that.

Limited number of blogs in one account. If you want to create more than one blog, you need to Plus account. If you want more than three, then you need the Pro account.

Conclusion

TypePad is a blogging platform that is easy and straightforward to use, and it has a vast selection of themes to choose from. It is fully customizable and also allows commercial content, which means that you can make money with your blog. But, TypePad comes at a cost, and there are free systems, like WordPress, that offer more functionality for free.

Here is a post I’ve written that hightlights some of the major differences between TypePad and WordPress: wordpress.com – not for serious bloggers? Many of the WordPress “pros” in the post are at the same time TypePad “cons,” adding to the above.

Obama, Biden and a Call for a SMUG Associate Professor

It turns out that mainstream media still got the scoop on Sen. Obama’s choice for VP, despite the campaign promise to break the news to supporters first via SMS and e-mail. Here’s the AP story:

Obama’s decision leaked to the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to know who Obama had chosen. The campaign scrambled to send the text message after the leak, sending phones buzzing at the inconvenient time of just after 3 a.m. on the East coast.

I guess if you’re a strong enough supporter to give your cell phone number to a political campaign, you’ll probably forgive both the broken promise and the 2 a.m. CDT message disrupting your sleep.

I hardly ever get into politics on this blog, but I was a political science major and worked for 14 years in politics and government. It’s hard for me to fathom that an announcement like this — the most important one of the campaign — would be leaked accidentally to the media after the campaign had made such a big deal about texting the choice to supporters first.

Disclosure: My political background is on the other side of the aisle, and I’ll be voting for the “Wrinkly, White-Haired Guy.” And I’m thinking our Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty, will be his running mate.

I have been interested, though, in how Sen. Obama’s campaign has used social media, but I haven’t wanted to give my e-mail address or cell phone number to the campaign to experience it directly. You can’t even get into his Web site without providing your e-mail.

So this is a call for someone to join the SMUG faculty as Associate Professor and do an analysis of the Obama campaign’s use of social media. I’m sure that among our 150+ SMUGgles we have several who received that early-morning SMS. If you’ve experienced the on-line Obama campaign first-hand and would like to write a post about what strategies and tactics you think have been most effective, you can become an Associate Professor in the SMUG Department of Political Science.

If anyone else wants to write a post about Sen. McCain and the RNC’s use of social media, or any of the other campaigns’ activities (such as Ralph Nader’s or Cynthia McKinney’s), those would be welcome, too.

Ground Rules: This will not be a discussion of the merits of candidates or their policy positions. There is no lack of sites where those debates are already taking place, both on the right and the left. The SMUG discussion will about how the campaigns and their supporters are using social media tools.

Apply for a Associate Professor position via e-mail at the address listed in the “Contact the Chancellor” sidebar item.

If you just want to share your brief impressions of the campaigns’ use of social media, you can put those in the comments below. Same ground rules apply.

Month: August 2008