The Next Corner

How are you sharing great content online with people on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter? Automatic sharing through social media can be annoying for your followers IF you don't curate what goes on your feed. First off, I hate the rapid fire sharing some people do, why share 12 posts in just 20 seconds? I hate if you share every post of a certain blog, without even reading it, even the ones that don't make any sense whatsoever! Over the last couple of months, the I've been trying out new ways to streamline my work, my life and the workflow that comes at me on a daily basis. After turning myself into a San Francisco Hipster, starting a new job at Airbnb with the new ways of being productive and GSD, I was looking for ways to continue to share great content. Sharing the content in a way which would not turn off those following me, while being able to curate the stuff that is being shared.

Automated Sharing of Curated Content

The system below here was thought out and created over the course of the last couple of months, where I've been using the content discovery, reading and automated tweeting through Flipboard/Zeit, Pocket and Buffer since last year September. IFTTT is the heart of the system. If This Than That recipes can help you manage the different connection you need to set up between the different tools outlined below here. A number of the IFTTT Recipes I use in this setup are embedded in throughout this post for you convenience.

The different steps to build this automated sharing system for curated content are:

1. Use Flipboard to push content into your Pocket app with the easy sharing functionality. More on this below.
2. Similarly use Zeit to discover new content on specific topics you are interested in, and push these to your Pocket app for easy reading when you have the time
3. Set up simple or advanced RSS feeds, and have the content automatically delivered into your Pocket with an IFTTT recipe
4. Set up an IFTTT recipe to grab all your archived articles in Pocket
5. All archived articles are pushed into your BufferApp to be automatically shared
6. Buffer schedules the tweets according to the schedule you have set up
7. Another IFTTT recipe grabs all the buffered tweets, and pushes these into a running log in a Google-doc on GDrive
8. If you really would like to push all the content also on your GooglePlus page, you could hook up the IFTTT recipe in 4 to your Hootsuite, which is able to update your GooglePlus page

3 Internet Tools to Stitch the Web Together

1) IFTTT; IFTTT is a service that lets you create powerful connections with one simple statement: If This Than That. The IFTTT App could be the future how the Internet of Things will get stitched together, which might be why the the VC firm Andreessen-Horowitz invested in the company. Other than that I love their service, I really like their socks. I've started to connect the different apps I use online, and now I've even started to use IFTTT for the connections between my iPhone and the apps or devices offline. This way I can switch the lights next to my bed on-or-off through the IFTTT App using the WeMo light switch.

2) GetPocket; Pocket is the way I read stuff which I find online. It's my vault to anything that I come across. Which means pretty much I don't read anything in a browser anymore, as Pocket has dedicated apps for the iPad, the iPhone and the laptop OS. I can easily put content in my Pocket, and read pull up the app when I'm standing in line somewhere. The apps are syncing the content across the different devices, which makes it easy to always keep the list current. With the simple browser bookmarklet, you can even easier put webpages in your pocket to read later. Furthermore the browser bookmarklet adds a easy to add to your pocket link on sites like HackerNews. So when you scan an articles headline, it just takes one click to add to your reading list.

3) BufferApp; Getting tired of the rapid fire tweeting from your friends. Why do people think it's a good idea to send 10 tweets within 1 minute with the content they find interesting to read? Why not spread it over the course of the day? If you agree, then Buffer is your friend. It allows you to spread the scheduled tweets according to a pre-determined schedule. You can hook up your Bit.ly URL shortner, so that the clicks on the tweets are all recorded in one place. Buffer also has its own analytics for Mentions, Retweets and favorites. Here you can see who of your followers has interacted with your tweets. One thing I would like to see from Buffer, is to make these analytics downloadable. These three allow me to optimize the stuff that I read, organize the way I share the most interesting articles with the people I connect with online through Twitter and archive the content I've read over time for future input in posts or analysis.

Where I Find Good Content

1) Zite; the interactive magazine for your iPad and iPhone has slowly become the number one choice for me to discover new content on a topic. Just recently I picked up an interest for 3D printing, where I can easily set up a new interest within Zite to provide me with content. The App becomes smarter based on the way you interact with it's content. And with an easy click of one of the sharing links, you can put a new article you like into your Pocket App. Back in 2011 CNN bought the Zite app, and made it its way to capture data how people interact with the news. Smart move IMHO.

2) Flipboard; for a long time, I was using Flipboard to keep up to date with the news. Now that I have Zite, I primarily use Flipboard to keep current of what my Twitter gang is sharing. Just like with Zite, the articles being shared by the people I follow are presented in a beautiful magazine format, with easy sharing functionality to my Pocket app, to keep my reading list topped off. Check out how easy it is for me to add this post originally shared by Eventup Twitter account, to my Pocket:

3) RSS Feeds; With RSS feeds you can track some great stuff, if you know how to create the right RSS. Obviously, I just can get the latest new blog posts from some of my favorite blogs delivered into any reader, but what better to actually use the system here to get content delivered from any RSS feed into my Pocket reader. Right, you can do that with an IFTTT recipe. Like I have every new blogpost from Copyblogger send directly to my Pocket for later consumption. With some advanced search operators, you can get the latest of your favorite NYTimes newsgraphics delivered straight into your Pocket for sharing. I posted the recipe below here for your convenience. This way, your pocket is turning into a true substitute for the late Google Reader.

Where do I Publish these Content Gems

1) Twitter; My number one social tool is still Twitter. I can't keep myself from not using it, and interact in 140 characters max with the people I follow and who follow me. A quick jump in and out of the stream can give you some great insights, share some good content or keep up with a relationship of one of your industry peers. The way I share the content on Twitter has changed, where I now let Buffer tweet for me the list of blog posts I really liked.

  2) Google Plus; There is a big misunderstanding of what Google+ really is, and if people us it. If your friends are not there, and you don't interact yourself with people on Google +, I can understand it seems like a ghost town. Hearing how many active users there are on Google + makes for a lot of eye rolls. However, there are some lively communities on Google Plus, especially the photography vertical is pretty active. No wonder if you know how much marketing Google+ is doing to keep these photographers on the platform. BTW, did you know all the pictures you upload on Google plus have a big chance to be used by Google in their products like Hotel Finder..! Yeah, you should really read the Terms & Conditions before you start uploading your whole portfolio.

3) GDrive; to keep track of what I've shared, I've hooked up the Buffer stream to Google Drive with a recipe of IFTTT. This way, I keep a running log of all the tweets Buffer has placed on my stream, with the timestamp when the tweet was scheduled and when it actually was tweeted, the text and the bit.ly url. Having the running log in a Google Doc, will allow you to analyze the tweets over time, and easily create list posts based on keywords. Just export the Google doc in excel, put some filters on it, and search for tweets containing your target keyword.

The IFTTT recipes you would need:

Bonus Recipe

As an extra added bonus to the system, you could even start pushing those articles you really liked to your Evernote. Just use this IFTTT recipe which allows the system to pull the article from Pocket when you favorited it, into your Evernote.

Is it just me, or do we see more and more blog posts being published questioning the good, the bad and the evil of Google? Where the Mountain View search company has been a long time darling for so many, where they couldn't do any evil, I see more critical posts about Google these days than any other company in our space. It's like Google has become the Microsoft of the decade!

Today, Martin MacDonald published a long article around the account management sales teams at Google which make critical mistakes, and even break Google's own terms and conditions. Followed up by Barry Adams at StateofSearch, with even more explanation what is wrong at Google for such a long time already. Read both of these here: #GoogleGate, Can you trust Google? and Google Account Manager Caught Breaking Terms of Service on Voicemail. Although these two describe the paid pat of the house at Google, more posts are describing the way Google is handling the organic results. Here described by Michael Gray; How Google Continues to Kill Organic Results. Or here, where it is described Google Tells Court You Cannot Expect Privacy When Sending Messages to Gmail by Consumer Watchdog. And when it comes to a trial, because Google was spying on UK users in Safari, Google Lawyers just request the trial will be moved to the US... Guess why they would request this..? Argument; Google cannot be held accountable under UK privacy laws.

Google believes that U.K. privacy laws do not apply to the company, and so British consumers that want to take the tech giant to court are facing a losing battle, or should book their tickets to the United States.

The last couple of weeks, the tweets I shared which got the most clicks and retweets were tweets critical about the Google practices described in posts like these mentioned above.

Why are these tweets getting shared more often? Because people agree with the sentiment of the content!

Let's just look at another example of Google hypocrisy. Link schemes and paid links... The war on links which is changing the true nature of how the Internet works.

• Guest posts, No PageRank for You
• Widgets, No PageRank for You
• PR messages, No PageRank for You
• Blogger Reviews, No PageRank for You

Google is beginning to resemble a character of one of my favorite shows; Seinfeld's The Soup Nazi.

Where we cannot manipulate search rankings with any link we get for our websites as stated in the Webmaster guidelines;

Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.

Google is pushing the work downstream to the webmaster to police their backlink profile, which results in a flood of link removal requests. Isn't it Google's job to optimize their algorithm for relevance? Why are the webmasters put to work to put a no-follow on all those links. Majority of mom-n-pop webmasters don't even know what a no-follow link is!

So if all those links are so evil for Google's search algorithm, where we as webmasters are supposed to no-follow all the links, why is Google still taking ads on search queries like these below here? Soon we will be begging for one more Soup, but there is No Soup for You..!

Is it just me, or do we see more and more blog posts being published questioning the good, the bad and the evil of Google? What do you think?

We have seen it before, a brand which commits brand suicide on social media by reacting insensitive or just plain stupid. What usually happens, is that the brand fires the social media agency, posts an apology and is done with it. But have you ever seen a partner of a large brand commit murder on social media? Brand murder..? This is what just happened to Virgin Mobile USA. Let me explain...and let this be a lesson kids...

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Virgin Mobile USA as partner of Buzzfeed

We all know Buzzfeed, the pageview hording, social media pushing, meme aggregation website started by former founders of TheHuffingtonPost. From Wikipedia:

BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of "the viral web in realtime". Co-founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti (who is also cofounder of The Huffington Post), BuzzFeed is located in Manhattan, New York in the Flatiron District.

In itself a strong concept, where the platform of Buzzfeed combines clever ways to use social network sites to get more visitors to their content. Facebook comments are very well integrated, where the comments are directly placed on people's wall. I use these here as well, so feel free to leave a comment.

Brands can partner with Buzzfeed to sponsor a page for their brand, where the right navigation bar is showing the brands latest Facebook and/or Twitter posts. This could work out for a brand, if they are in need to get more visitors of Buzzfeed to like their Facebook page, or follow them on Twitter. This is what Virgin Mobile USA is doing, apparently the company is a partner for Buzzfeed, where there is a page full with articles. So far so good you would think...

But what happens if you let the editors of Buzzfeed place any article on the brand page of their partners? And what happens when those articles are automatically promoted/sponsored on Facebook by the brand? Right, you could get a horrible mismatch between how a brand might want to be perceived by the users of its products, and how it actually portraits itself. Let's have a look at the following Facebook Sponsored post by Virgin Mobile USA I spotted today;

Yes, you are reading that right, the post Virgin Mobile USA is promoting on Buzzfeed is mocking people for not being that pretty, handsome or cool, so we hope we will never see those people to promote themselves on OKCupid. Let me repeat this, Virgin Mobile USA is promoting the discrimination of people based on how these people look like! And yes, Virgin Mobile USA is prominently placed right next to the offensive article on the Buzzfeed page, just check out this screenshot:

Luckily, this all plays out in social media world, where the brand now can get immediate feedback on their Marketing campaigns. And with this one from Virgin Mobile USA, people are for sure letting the company know they disapprove of the endorsement of the Buzzfeed article! Here are a few:

• Anybody else think it's a little unprofessional for VM to be making fun of people? You're a phone company FFS
• This is totally inappropriate for a nation wide company to be doing! What if one of those people was your own customer???
• What kind of jerk company puts up insulting and degrading advertisements like this? Poor judgment...
• I really hope Virgin Mobile has the permission of these 20 people to be bashing them publicly. Because if they don't, it's not only wrong, but VM can have the living hell sued out of them for this.
• Screw you all. These people may be ugly, but they deserve love and they can use their money how they feel.
• Is this a joke? Really?! How about this for a post: One Person Who Will Be Cleaning Out Their Desk at Virgin Mobile Tomorrow.

This time it was not the brand itself committing suicide, but the partnership with Buzzfeed really put Virgin Mobile USA in a bad light. Any brand should pay attention to their sponsored posts that go up on Facebook, and what kind of content they associate their brand with. Unless you want to use the "insult" hook to get people to "love" your brand, you better stay away from such insulting content!