John Ryan

My original post in late June was based on two weeks of using Ulitzer and Ning.  I've added additional thoughts after two months of use. The obvious point for me is that the sites have two different objectives for the writers.  For Ning, the writer is trying to be involved in a niche social network from scratch.  For example, I have built my own social network for marketers and salespeople called BuyerSteps.  I created BuyerSteps as a way for other professionals to join in a conversation around the 21st century buyer.  So, Ning represents a way to build a community. In the case of Ulitzer, as a writer I am focused on getting readers from within an existing audience.  There are already thousands of readers coming to the Ulitzer site, so if they are interested in my topics such as marketing, they will find my articles as well as others.  Ulitzer allows the writer the ... (more)

Twitter, Linked In, Ning and Ulitzer: Easy Personal Branding Strategy

Social Media on Ulitzer I use all of these social media tools and although they haven't put me on my own island in the Caribbean yet, I'm very pleased with the combined results. 1. Twitter – It’s the fastest way to share that you have created something of value. As a bonus, Tweetdeck or CoTweet are good ways to manage your Twitter efforts and research. Huge audience with lots of active participants. There are a few shady characters on Twitter but just like being at Grand Central Station, you just step aside and keep moving. It doesn't mean you eschew the benefit. Micro-blogging is... (more)

Ulitzer vs. Ning - a Quick Review

Having used both sites for about two weeks, there is still a great deal I am learning to do with both Ulitzer and Ning, but a reader asked if I would do a quick comparison, so I will. The obvious point for me is that the sites have two different objectives for the writers.  For Ning, the writer is trying to be involved in a niche social network from scratch.  For example, I have built my own social network for marketers and salespeople called BuyerSteps.  I created BuyerSteps as a way for other professionals to join in a conversation around the 21st century buyer.  So, Ning repr... (more)

Twitter 101 Guide for Business

Twitter on Ulitzer As more and more people are using Twitter, there is more effort being made by individuals and businesses to leverage Twitter as a business tool. Twitter recently published a Twitter Business Usage Guide.  There are three sections to this guide that include Getting Started, Best Practices and Case Studies. Here is the usage guide intro from Twitter, I encourage you to read the actual guide. Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses... (more)

The Complete A to Z List of Networking and Social Bookmarking Sites

This is the complete list of Networking and Social bookmarking sites that was a study I had broken up into three parts, but for the benefit of new readers or if you wanted the complete document, I'm posting it as one article. On the market research part of this, I used Alexa, Compete and Quantcast to reflect sometimes similar metrics and sometimes differing opinions. I put some description of these services at the end. Some of Quantcast’s estimates were rough which means the website hasn’t registered with Quantcast. The demographic profiles of the users also came from Quantcast so ... (more)