Now, I haven’t really complained about Facebook recommendations before, because hey sometimes they’re actually relevant and have led me to find new interesting pages or new articles it can depend.

In all honesty though, take a look at the related page – FarmVille Sheep - WTF? There are over 2,000,000 (yes, 2 Million) who Like this page. I get if you like the game or whatever, but the sheep themselves…people need to find new hobbies.

More relevant though are:

1. How are Bing & Farmville Sheep even comparable to be recommended with eachother?
2. I have hidden all Farmville related things from my news feed.
3. I have never played Farmville.

So why dear Facebook, are you giving me ads related to things I have obviously indicated negatively towards?

Does this happen to you? Tell me your most ridiculous recommended page or friend via Facebook!

Related posts:

1. The Problem With Facebook Connect
2. You Can’t Get Everyone
3. Social Media Is Ruining The News

Pai, the Portuguese term for, “Dad”, is the man! A man of few words, many actions and always on the move, this man is the influence in my life, and has been a great role-model and coach. His passions, ambitions and aspirations to do everything in his power for his friends and family has been my inspiration to be the best man I can be, and for that I am thankful.

Right now, he’s following our home country in the World Cup, Brasil!! So, time to share in some great bonding memories.

Love You Velho!

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1. @Cord – Cord Silverstein – EVP Interactive and Social Media at Capstrat.
2. @GwynneMurphy – Probably the best example of someone you would want working for you. Just from Twitter I can tell she’s smart, knows her way around, and that she’s who you want working for you.
3. @KristinEDziadul – Along with myself and other students, she was featured at the Student Branding Blog for her phenomenal work as a student personal brand.  A strong writer and a smart woman!
4. @DavidBThomas – Social media manager for SAS in Cary. Great guy who loves his foods & wines. Listen to him and you just might learn something.

That’s it for this week!

Related posts:

1. #FF Follow Friday 16-04-2010
2. #FF – Follow Friday 05-14-2010
3. The Tools I Use

At Appalachian State, we have a great resource that not many other campuses have. Most universities require a student to buy their textbooks, whether from Amazon, second hand, or any cheap way they can get their hands on. We all know that us a students are probably the most thrifty when it comes to money. We sacrifice good beer with cheap beer, good soup with Ramen noodles, the list is endless really.

While options exist, like Craigslist or re-selling on Amazon or eBay to make your money back for the hundreds you dump on textbooks every semester, eCampus offers a unique solution. Textbook rentals from online. As one of the only services that does this you’re saving money at the beginning of the semester which gives you a better deal at the end of the semester when you’re really strapped for cash.

Lets thing about this logically, over at Amazon, the textbook Sociology in Our Times is on sale (New) at $95.97, the used book price is around $70-$75. The same textbook over at eCampus is, $62.10 for the full semester (130 days), Free Shipping and Free Return. So, even if you buy from Amazon and re-sell at the average used book price, you’re saving around $10/per book, that’s a couple runs to CookOut after a night out (If you’re from NC, or any place with a CookOut you know what I’m talkin’ about).

How it Works

eCampus revolves around their plan of the 4 R’s.

• Rent
• Receive
• Read
• Return

Simple plan, simple solution is the way I see it. You find the book(s) that you need, you order them, pay, use them, when your rental time is up, you log in to their book return, and print out your return ticket for UPS (you’re up to package it though. I feel like I should add more to this process, but that’s it…really.

Besides just renting textbooks eCampus offers the opportunity to buy textbooks as well as college apparel or DVDs & Blu-ray.

Have you used eCampus? What was your take? Would you use this? Leave a comment, let me know!

Image by Anonymous9000

Related posts:

1. Budgeting for the College Kid
2. Taking Advantage of Free
3. Back to College Life

Twitter Tools

Hootsuite

My prime online web-base Twitter manager. The ability to control various profiles, set up columns, team management, and best of all the speed at which it runs is absolutely amazing. I have used other tools, AIR based like TweetDeck, and Seesmic (online also), but HootSuite by far has won my approval as my Twitter manager.

search.twitter.com

The easiest and simplest way to search Twitter and get optimal results by filtering through the noise. search.twitter.com is just as quick in its updates as is the online web stream from the Twitter homepage. The best way to use Twitter Search is by using the operating filters. Go through the list and understand the ways that those operators help you.

Example; Social Media AND Case Study filter:links – This will return Tweets with both “Social Media” & “Case Study” with a link available.

Tweet Grid

Tweet Grid was coded by a friend of mine @jazzychad, and I have used it since the day he launched it. I love this site because it allows you to open up one browser window with a grid size of up to 3×3 and 1×10(scrolling) to control your own feed, Direct Messages, and searches. Great for big screens if you want to up the grid size, and amazing for small screens at the 1×3 setting.

Twitter RSS Results

With Twitter Search, you have the option of saving the search as an RSS feed. Now as a student the best thing is being able to “just read it later”. Well by saving a search as an RSS feed, you do have that ability. Once you have entered your search query, on the top right corner there will be an RSS icon save/import that feed into your RSS reader and you’re good to go!

ReFollow

ReFollow is a tool that allows you to see, who you’re following, who follows you back, who you’re following that isn’t following you and other combinations. Allowing you to follow whoever you choose to, or to unfollow if the user has been too inactive. With all the options in ReFollow it’s the best tool for me to manage followers.

Blog Tools/Plug-ins (WordPress)

Networked Blogs

An application for your blog to connect with Facebook with statistical tracking. Also allows you to follow other blogs. Networked Blogs is great for bringing in your blog to Facebook without losing traffic to the Notes section of Facebook.

All-in-one-SEO Pack

Easy to run SEO plugin, changes meta data and optimizes urls for search engines. Download the Plugin here.

Disqus Comment System

Manageable comment system integrating Facebook and Twitter logins. The plugin is simple to use and you can find your comments through your blog website, or the Disqus website.

Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP)

Adds related posts to the end of the current blog posting. Based on tags, meta data, and context of the previous posts. Download here.

Reading

Hopefully to give you more insight on what I skim through on a daily basis to find blog topics, ideas, and keep up on research that happens every day in the online world. Probably the most integral part of developing a brand and learning social media marketing, reading is the Number One way to learn new ideas and strategies.

See my shared RSS feeds.

My Social Media and Branding Feed.

My Business Feed, (includes Harvard Business Review & Inc.com)

My Tech Feed, (includes TechCrunch, Mashable, et al.)

I hope this gives you a clue to what I use and how you can use them too. Suggest any that I might not know, leave a comment I’ll check it out!

Related posts:

1. SAS Student Solutions
2. Student Branding vs Professional Branding
3. Shut Up & Listen

Almost like having a place in someones heart the ability to be meaningful is a special connection that you have between yourself and everyone else who reads what you have to say. The best part about being meaningful is that this extends way beyond the blogging world.

To be meaningful to someone or in a business shows a wealth. Not a monetary wealth, nor an insane ability to be able to do something incredible, but instead to be able to perform well, to be consistent, and to make actions on your words.

Take others into consideration, how can you help them? Are you benefiting others besides yourself? Give yourself a leg up, be meaningful, to yourself, to others, everyone. Give them a reason!

Image by B℮n

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Do you think scalability matters when it comes to your social media campaign? Can it wait?

I will be the first to admit that scalability matters. Whether you’re Pepsi Co, IBM, SAS (Social Media Blog by @davidbthomas), or if you’re The Pit BBQ (@ThePitBBQ) out of Raleigh, you must start with what’s available and by giving people a way to get to you.

The problem is, many small businesses or start-ups are over worried about their scalability when it comes to a Social Media campaign. My opinion, wait, wait until you’re too overwhelmed by sitting on Twitter or having too little time to spend with your family or your business. Until you reach that extreme tipping point in your campaign, I can almost guarantee to you that scalability won’t be a problem.

Although you have to do your best to give back to those customers, the community you build around your brand, the scalability factor isn’t a problem. Follower counts, Facebook Fans, those are just numbers. But when it comes down to focusing on your personal interactions with these people, that is your scalability.

As a company or an entity of any kind, being able to scale is important in the end run. But if you cannot dedicate the time and effort into social media without worrying about scalability first, why even try if you’re going to doubt it?

Reactions, Disagreements? Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear your opinion!

Image By Gafo | Tokyo Blues

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Many times we go about our lives with expectations of certain products, places, services, just about anything we come across when we go or do anything. Take for example, a new hotel you’re trying out for business travel. You’re an avid Hilton fan, but this time you branch out into a more independently owned hotel. You expect entirely that you will have the phenomenal accessories that are offered 100% of the time at previous hotels. You expect that the customer service will be exceptional and they will cater to your needs in a timely matter with the utmost courtesy and efficiency. Later on in your stay you realize, the internet is flaky; a poor connection with a very slow transfer speed. The lighting in the room is too dull for you to get any work done because they used 60W bulbs in stead of 80W or 100W.  Surely these are things anyone can complain about, but the simple fact that your expectations were higher allows you to build a higher level of confidence with your hotel.

Does this mean that we should lower our expectations every time we try something out of the routine?

No.

Does this mean the products, services, etc. that we use should increase to our expectations?

Not 100% No.

The key, is adaptation. The understanding to be able to adapt our choices and our expectations to what we know and understand. Much more importantly we need to change our own personal references and relate the unknown opportunities to the future rather than experiences in the past. Granted we cannot predict the future, but we damn well are able to make a good judgment of our choices to benefit us.

In this ever-changing social media world, we should be able to understand the we need to build our expectations based on the future possibilities, and the past results of the known and unknown. It’s a different way of thinking, but in the end, the result is a more positive attitude and a better understanding of our expectations vs. what the business expects of us as consumers.

What do you think of expectations? Are you building them appropriately?

Image by atelier/Ed Brodzinsky

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Quite simply put, failing sucks. In the end though, it’s worth it. Unless you so happen to be gambling and losing an entire fortune or doing something incredibly stupid, well then you’re screwed. In this sense I don’t mean failing on a “epic-proportion” kind of way. But not hitting the deadline, not doing what you needed to do, letting someone down, a relatively small fail, but when in the heat of the moment it’s about the most despicable thing you have ever done in your life.

Trust me, the feeling is mutual.

We all know what it’s like to fail. My thing here is, was it worth it?

Your failure is always a learning point, hopefully a point in time where you learn to change yourself or maybe an opportunity to re-think your operational schedule. The sinking pain of a failure is one that every human being has come to know and unfortunately get accustomed to. We acclimate ourselves to thinking that failure is abnormal and that it serves no purpose in our day-to-day lives. That’s where the error is. Failing is amazing, you can learn. Your mind becomes opened to a land bound of mental opportunities and options for you to get back on your feet in a new way. By doing something so great for yourself you change your own aspect, mannerisms, habits, and hopefully for the better!

By all means don’t go out there and listen to a deadline whoosh-by, but rather, enjoy it. Think about the ways that failing that deadline, letting that person down would change you. What can you do to be better?

Dare to be better.

Image by AlmazUK

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It’s been hard trying to find a balance between getting required writing done. Keeping up on my personal obligation to this blog as well as ensuring my studying gets done for my academic career. Which this semester even though my workload has been significantly less than that in the past two years of college, turned out to be much tougher.

Universities abroad, especially in Europe, structure their classes and exams much differently than what I am used to in America. Adjusting to the small change of having your entire course hang on one exam rather than projects, or multiple exams is for me, intolerable.  For me after two years of having a usual style of exams and studying habits, this semester has really just bitten me in the ass, blindly.

Within the next few weeks I will begin posting again on a regular basis with consistent and more focused content. My recent writing I feel has been all over the place and I want to commit myself to a better blog for my readers and not just for myself.

I hope you stick around and keep hearing what I have to say. Comments are always appreciated as well as constructive criticism, or even just criticism. It means I am doing something right.

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