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The Ultimate Inbound Link Building Guide

Do people trust your tweets? Twitter seems to have mushroomed overnight. The social network, famous for its mini-blogging format, has grown from a novel way to make it easier for your friends to keep tabs on you to a frequently accessed source of information. As people begin to get more and more information through tweets that are posted by strangers, concerns about credibility have begun to grow, as well. A new study from Carnegie Mellon took a look at how Twitter users determine whether or not a tweet is credible. They found that as people begin to rely more heavily upon search engines to locate relevant tweets from people they do not usually follow, they begin to be wary of trusting the content they encounter. The researchers culled their findings to come up with ways you can make your tweets more credible. The investigators began by doing a general study to determine how people use Twitter, what sort of tweets they find credible, and what criteria they use to determine credibility. Then the authors followed up their original findings by conducting two more tests in which they changed key features of tweets to see how the changes affected the posts’ credibility. They found that people find it hard to tell whether a tweet is legitimate just by reading it. As a result, users base their decisions about the credibility of a tweet on things like user names and whether or not the post has been retweeted. Study participants were told to conduct a Twitter search for information about a political candidate. They were asked to narrate their search, describing what they were doing and why. Assistants encouraged this process by asking about the tweets that were found, including such questions as whether the searcher thought the tweets were written by the candidate or came from legitimate news sources. Even though participants typically knew about such Twitter features as user biographies that help to establish credibility, they tended to pay attention only to features that were displayed on Twitter’s user interface. These include the content of the tweet itself as well as the author’s name and picture. To determine how these three tweet features influenced the way users viewed tweets, the study’s authors created tweets with varying levels of authenticity. Then they tried different types of user names and pictures representing common examples found on Twitter. For example, researchers varied user pictures for the faked tweets by inserting Twitter’s default picture, photos, avatars and logos. Their aim was to see what combination of user name type, pictures and content would be viewed as most credible by users. The researchers suggest that individual users who want to raise their credibility scores choose photos of themselves, rather than using the default picture or an avatar or logo. Topical names were viewed as the most credible, followed by names that appear to be ordinary first- and last-name combinations. Names that read like email addresses were viewed as the least credible. Keeping all tweets on the topic suggested by the author’s user name enhanced credibility, as did maintaining a strong geographical connection between the writer and the topic. For example, an author writing about the Indy500 who appears to be near the track will generally impress readers as being more credible. Using non-standard grammar and misspellings undermined credibility more than any other single factor. The authors caution, however, that in some industries or groups, non-standard usage may actually increase credibility. Other suggestions include amassing followers, posting content that stimulates retweets, including the URLs of your sources and retooling your bio to heavily reflect your topic of focus. From most effective to least effective, here is a list of features that are common to tweets that participants found credible: Tweet is actually a retweet from a trusted poster. The author appears to be an expert on the subject of the tweet. The writer is one the reader follows. The reader was able to click through a URL that was included in the tweet. The reader has heard of the author. The poster’s account has a verification seal The writer regularly tweets on the topic. The author often posts content that is similar. The tweeter uses what appears to be a personal photo as a user image. Other posters frequently refer to the author or post retweets of the author’s tweets. The researchers also noted some tweeting habits that tended to make authors appear less credible. Listed from least damaging to most harmful, here they are: The writer uses a logo as a user image. The poster follows a large number of authors. The tweeter uses a cartoon image or an avatar as a user image. The author failed to replace the Twitter default image with a more personalized one. The tweet contains improper grammar and punctuation.

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Dos and Don’ts of Twitter Credibility [Study]

Written by Natalie Hunter The adoption of social networking sites has been nothing less than spectacular. While once Google and other search engines reigned as kings, sites such as Facebook and Twitter attract more attention and more hours each day from nearly a billion users. Visits to Facebook and Twitter are at an all-time high. It has been reported that over 1 billion people are using social media sites, with Facebook in the lead. Most people that frequent social media sites have more than one on which they post. As of today, Facebook alone has about 750 million active users. This puts the nation of Facebook, if there were such a thing, as the third largest country in the world. Social Media’s Impact on Young People There are some harmless results of social media that take the kind of shorthand used in SMS’s, to the messages used on the web, to e-mails. Initialisms such as BRB (be right back), LOL (laughing out loud) are becoming spoken acronyms and creeping into other written forms of communication. This is changing the shape of the English language and, according to some, creating its own new dialect. This isn’t just affecting a small number of young people, either. According to the Wall Street Journal , 38 percent of 9-12 year olds are using social networking sites. In addition, an amazing 77 percent of 13-16 years olds are frequenting these types of sites. How does this impact their social interaction? In many ways, their privacy is lowered. Sharing secrets on the playground or in the lunchroom can be subject to gossip on a small scale. Sharing personal information on line that may be sensitive or embarrassing leaves these children exposed to all of cyberspace. Sometimes, this has devastating consequences. Cyber-bullying has resulted in suicides in more than one case. Regular bullies may bother a child at school, but cyber bullies are able bother them wherever they go in much more insidious ways. As well, many young people become highly reclusive, preferring to interact with people in video games and go to online schools as opposed to going outside and actually speak with other people. Society is still coming to grips with these unanticipated impacts on social interaction. Social Networking Enables Social Interaction People who are less mobile, such as the elderly, can find great comfort in meeting others online. People with disabilities, who are shy, or have limits on their ability to travel all have their social lives enhanced through social networking . Those that live in remote areas or areas far from others with shared interests may also find new friends and enjoy enhanced lives through interacting long distances on line. Where once, a local stamp collecting group may meet monthly with a dozen or so members, these same people can meet with millions around the world on a daily basis to share exponential amounts of knowledge. Loving relationships can even blossom online, as evidenced by the boom of online matchmaking sites. These types of interactions are considered to have a significant positive impact on society. Yet there can be risks to making friends with people whose faces you have never seen. One such risk is that your friends may not be who they say they are at all, and may even be trying to scam you. When you meet friends at a party or public place, there is often a social group that will recognize you and create a record if you meet and leave together. Online interactions have no such “audit trail” and relationships can go on for months or even years without having a clue about each other’s true identities, and without anyone else actually knowing. After establishing trust, online stalkers and predators will set up meetings with unsuspecting victims and the results are sometimes front page stories. There are some excellent tips for safely meeting a cyber-friend in person here . Social Media’s Impact on Political Involvement Those of us that may have strong political ideas have traditionally kept to ourselves or voiced them within a small social group. Our voices would not be heard on any large scale and the result of our thoughts, no matter how earth-shattering, were insignificant. The only people that could get a voice about political issues, were professional politicians with financial backers and qualities that people found appealing. This is no longer the case. The average person is able to gain a voice and join with others to make their political and social statements heard. Instead of idle chatter with a few friends over coffee, those with social change in mind are meeting in virtual town squares by the thousands and even millions to demand change and solidify their power. This was never possible until social networking arrived. Twitter and Facebook have been so powerful in creating change in Iran and Egypt; countries like China have banned these social sites completely. With the advent of social media, otherwise disconnected people are able to connect and organize at levels frightening to many governments. A Force for Good On Feb. 12, 2009, 202 cities around the world took part in Twestivals. This was an online event to raise money for “charity: water.” Charity: water helps to provide drinking water for people around the world in need. They dig wells or find the best solution for the situation. They’ve helped millions so far. The Twestival event raised more than $250,000 for the cause. There was also a “Tweetsgiving,” a project by Epic Change that managed to raise $10,000 in 48 hours for a school in Tanzania. Beyond that, there was a 12-hour “Tweetathon” that raised money and awareness for “Water is Life.” The “Well Wishes” campaign enacted by Laura Fitton utilized Twitter to raise over $20,000 for charity: water by asking just $2 from each of over 12,000 people. The low amount was possible because of the great number of people on her list of followers. Since social media has the ability to contact so many people, events like fund raising and helping others have become much easier to organize and promote. Some of the events become viral and don’t require the usual meetings, flyers and bulk mailings that were needed before. In this way, those that act for social good have had their social interactions revolutionized by social media. Accepting the Good with the Bad Social networking is here to stay. Twitter, Facebook and other leading social networking sites are growing at 2-4 percent each month and more. New applications are springing up all the time that continue to revolutionize social interaction. The impact of the prevalence social media in our lives can be a mixed bag. Sometimes there are suicides, and sometimes entire countries are liberated. As when humans first came to handle fire, we have to accept the dangers with the benefits, and take the time to understand how best to handle these innovations. Related posts: How the Academic World Is Using Social Media Is Social Media the Next Tech Bubble? Perry Hewitt on Harvard’s Social Media

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The Ramifications of Social Media On Actual Social Interaction

Written by the SEO experts of Nick Stamoulis and SEO firm, Brick Marketing, this free SEO best practice guide provides the most important best practice tips to increase website visitors from the major search engines: Google, Yahoo! and Bing. This SEO best practice guide includes white hat SEO tips that include: content development, keyword research, on site optimization, link building, SEO ROI measurement tips and much more! Also with this free guide you will receive FREE SEO & Search Engine Marketing Tips via email each week. Request Free!

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SEO Best Practice Checklist Guide

I’m pleased to announce the launch of our free custom search engine to help people find free online courses, guides, videos, e-books and audiobooks. With the exception of audiobooks all of the contents in the search engine should link to learning materials, from free university courses, right down to short instructional videos. We love it, and we think you will too. Feel free to play with it, and come often because we’ll be updating very regularly. Relieve the frustration of navigating spammy results in general search engines.

Bonus: If you are a webmaster and want to add this engine to your website or blog to provide an extra attraction, you can do so easily and quickly by adding the code here to your page(s)