This image is linked to where you need to go to claim your own username.

When Facebook made the announcement last week it caused some discussion which prompted many Social Media Marketers to share their thoughts.

There are, according to Facebook statistics

• More than 200 million active users
• More than 100 million users who log on to Facebook at least once each day

That is mind boggling. In my humble opinion, I do not think that 100 million users will all be logged in at the same time wanting to claim their Vanity URL. I could be wrong.

What do you think? Will you be sitting at your computer with countless others choosing a username?

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Firstly, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Basically, this is published content from a website or blog with a feed enabled. In order to be able to receive this feed,  you will need to have an account with one (or more if you like) feed reader or aggregator. There are many options available and I will tell you about these later. Let’s take a look at what an RSS Feed is in this Slideshare presentation.

Let’s recap Renee’s points in this presentation.

1. We have established that an RSS Feed is published content which is made available via a website or blog and in so doing,  distribution is automated.
2. Before you subscribed to a feed, you would have to seek the content yourself via google search, visit sites and/or find it in newsprint.
3. After you have subscribed to a feed, you can read the content of interest to you via your feed reader.

Now it’s time to explore the wonders of Google Reader.

Google Reader

Google Reader is the most favoured of readers to have your chosen feeds delivered right to your desktop everyday. When I open mine, all my favourite blogs are updated and fresh for me to read. Not only can I read the feeds, Google Reader also allows me to share, share with a note or email any posts I feel would be useful with my friends.

This image is linked to my public shared items which you are welcome to browse through and subscribe to in your reader.

Social Networking has allowed me to make connections from all kinds of Social Media sites and the one thing I have found in common is that they all have a Gmail account. What this means is when I add them as a contact in my GTalk, they are automatically added to my sharing friends in Google Reader. To connect with me and share your items, add me, angesbiz[at]gmail.com and send me an invite.

Clint Maher, WordPress specialist who is also an author on this site has made two tutorials on How to Use Google Reader which I have embedded here. These videos explain how to set up your reader and the options available.
How to Use Google Reader Part 1

How to Use Google Reader Part 2

Like Clint mentions in his video, you may want to subscribe to your Social Media feeds for various reasons. I discovered when I went into my reader and searched for Ange Recchia the feeds which were available on this list included not only my Social Media sites such as Twitter and Friendfeed, but also any blogs I had added comments to. This can be a very useful tool for Internet Marketers. You can tack almost anywhere you have been on the web!

Other Readers You May Subscribe With

Other readers you may consider subscribing with are:

• Newsgator
• Netvibes
• My Yahoo
• iGoogle
• Pageflakes
• iTunes, PodNova and Odeo are for podcast subscriptions.

All of these other feed readers are excellent although they do not have the Social features of Google Reader.

How To Decide Which Feeds To Subscribe To

You may want to subscribe to hundreds of feeds. If you think this sounds messy then don’t worry because with any feed reader, you can sort your subscriptions into folders. If you are organised, the minute you subscribe to a feed you can automatically add it to an existing folder or create a new folder for it. This way you can immediately find the feed you are searching for, and take my word for it, it really is a good idea to sort your feeds.

My interests lie in many areas and if you’re like me, you find most of your information on the internet in which case, I have a category folder and file each subscription into the relevant folder. Much like I do with my bookmarking sites.

In my case, my categories are split into the following folders:

• Travel and Fabulous Journeys (who doesn’t love to travel?)
• Regular Everyday Recipes (always in need of new recipes)
• Investing in the Stock Market (I know how to hand chart a stock!)
• SEO (for my own sake as a blogger)
• Web Business/Internet Marketing/Affiliate Marketing
• Scrapbooking (so I know what latest items to buy for my niece’s hobby)
• Social Networking/Social Media (this goes without saying)
• Personal Development/Self Improvement/Mindpower
• Health and Wellness (because no reader is complete without some health topics, especially if it’s about chocolate )

I even have a friend who’s an Aussie Cop and blogs his experiences so I like to keep up with how he copes on the job. Makes for an interesting read.

Feel free to visit these blogs and subscribe to them if they are to your liking. Now that you know what some of my interest are, please feel free to suggest some blogs that are your favourites for me to subscribe to in the comments below so I can add them to my reader.

RSS Icons

RSS Icons have become more fanciful since they were born. My Billboard icon at the top right of this page is where you need to click in order to subscribe to the Social Networking News Daily feed, so if you haven’t already, please do so to keep up with the latest trends in Social Networking and WordPress.

I found a variety of icons you can download and use on your site depending on what kind of site you have if you want to be a little more creative. This RSS Button Collection is one of the most comprehensive I’ve come across. You’re bound to find the right one for your blog here.

RSS Directories for Content Publishers

As a content publisher, you will want to syndicate your quality content over a far reach. In other words, reach as many readers as you possibly can. Here is a list of 55 directories to promote your RSS feed to. I didn’t want to add the whole list here so please visit Mahesh’s site to grab this. He has done a fabulous job so there’s no need for me to duplicate it here.

I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you know what to do and remember to leave your links in the comments for me to subscribe to. TTFN!

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Youtube have now come to the party and made themselves a full blown Social Bookmarking Site. This is welcome news for you Social Networking and Social Media enthusiastists.

My friend Chris Lang put this video together to show just how easy it is to share with your friends.

Social Bookmarking

When it comes to Social Bookmarking, there is an unspoken etiquette if you like, where if your content is good enough, your readers will bookmark it for you. That makes sense and shows gratitude for your work. If you really want to, you can submit your own links however, it always has more of a chance to be popular or get more votes, if someone else submits it. So let’s take a look at some Social Bookmarking sites to get an idea of how to use them and what kind of posts or videos you will bookmark where.

We should all be familiar with the bigger sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller, Kirtsy (a sister site to Digg), and Sphinn.

Twitter, while not being a bookmarking site as such, still has a very big potential for making your links go viral. As an Internet Marketer or a blogger, that’s what we all ultimately want – our work to go viral and be seen by as many visitors as possible.

But how do you decide which goes where Ange…
there are so many sites I get confused.

Okay, so let us take a look at a breakdown of sites and their suitability for bookmarking. I will list them under headings to make it a little clearer for you. Remember also that with any submissions and voting, it counts more so if you do it from the page of the actual article and not by  voting from inside the bookmarking site itself.

Voting Sites

This is where submissions are made and the community will vote up or down on what you have shared. They can also leave a comment or review if they so wish. If you are using any of these sites listed here and you are the submitter (ie: first to add a particular item), then it is your responsibilty to give the first review. Preferably in your own words rather than copy and paste from the original piece.

I know we can all be guilty of not writing our own words and that’s okay. I have found that if it is your words rather than the first sentence of the piece, then it seems to get more attention. You could even try to be humourous if it suits. I’ll leave that up to you.

1. Digg
2. Reddit
3. Stumbleupon
4. Kirtsy
5. Propeller
6. Sphinn
7. Mixx

Management Sites

These are more of an organising place for your bookmarks. In these sites, you can add tags to make it easier to then go back and search for a particular site, article or video which you liked. You could also leave a comment about why you liked about it too and this will alert other members to what the bookmarked item is about.

1. Delicious
2. Faves/Blue Dot
3. Diigo
4. Mister Wong
5. Feedly
6. Twine
7. Google Bookmarks
8. Blinklist
9. Yahoo Bookmarks

Feedback is Golden

We all love to have feedback and I would certainly invite your comments and ideas about this post and about your thoughts on YouTube as a Social  Bookmarking site. Whether this has made it easier for you to share your content with your friends and peers and even if you are new to social bookmarking, how has this post helped you in using social media.

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It seems there is little else on people’s minds and Twitter has been a buzz where thousands of tweeps keep micro-blogging the efforts of help and millions of dollars raised for the victims.

Fire still burning at Steels Creek. Photo: John Woudstra

Whole communities have been wiped out and some of the victims were burned alive trying to flee in their cars. These google maps show where the fires have been focused and while they are quite a distance from where I live, the whole ordeal has been surreal to me as I have had no physical sense of this ordeal.

One of my Twitter friends @RicRaftis has set up a site where you can leave personal messages of support at Victorian Bushfires Dot Com which is proving popular. @Wonderwebby too has put up a page of resources with her Scorched Saturday story.

Other tweeters like Darren Rowse aka @Problogger and @Sitepointdotcom were putting their heads together yesterday to come up with this amazing offer where all funds raised from the sale of 5 ebooks for the price of 1 will be donated to the bushfire appeal. As a result of his tweet about the sale, this is what happened next.

He was thanking his followers for this:

I too was humbled by the response. Well done Darren and the guys at Sitepoint for this awesome offer!

Bullhunter Pledges $10,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal

Wonders will never cease! This morning I learned that a very good friend and mentor of mine Sean Rasmussen has donated $10,000 to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal. I am a very proud Aussie today.

These references were all found via Twitter. It IS a very POWERFUL tool if you want to get your message out there. I know there must be countless other stories equally inspiring and please mention them in the comments. I would love to know more.

EDIT: Please note that @sitepointdotcom has put out a request – Hey RT army! Pls consider dropping the # from bushfires in the 5 for 1 relief sale RT from now on we’re flooding the tag. Thankyou for your help and support.

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There are many lists out there on the web like Meg’s effort on Dipping into the Blogpond to keep the Top 100 Australian Blogs list updated, and Leigh’s list of the Top 100 Australian Women’s Blogs however, no-one has posted the Top Twitterati from Australia… so Nick took it upon himself to Be The One to do it… and why not seeing as Twitters growth is escalating at a very rapid pace.

Originally, he thought to list 50 of the top Aussie Tweeters and once word got out, they all came out of the woodweb and left their ID’s or were recommended in the comments. Hence, it has become a list of Australia’s Top 100 Influential Twitterers.

EDIT: This list is no longer updated. Please visit Shifted Pixels (use link above) to see this list. Alternatively, visit Twitter Grader and use search term for Australia. Thank You.

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