''Part of the beauty of such a system is that people are going to write stuff other people don't agree with.''

Medium was largely talked about a couple of months ago. Another social network, which is a kind of compilation of Blogger and Twitter, is a baby product of Evan Williams and Biz Stone, former employees from Blogger and Twitter. The service was  opened in beta version for some early subscribers about 2 weeks ago.

And I happened to be one of them. Woohoo!  I haven't been excited about the idea itself that much since Pinterest launched. While Pinterest compelled to my consumption-self (come on, it's not really about lofty matters), Medium compels to my high-quality-self.

Overview

Basically it's a writing and reading platform with nothing extra.  It's as simple as Twitter is but with a new format. While Twitter limits you and makes you think carefully about what you want to say, Medium gives you freedom to express your thoughts just the way you like.

Everything which is simple easily becomes addictive for Social Media maniacs. It's not a sensational thought but you might keep it in your mind before investigating Medium deeper and being caught in his powerful network of simplicity and information richness.

When you log in with your Twitter account (quite an easy way, ha?) if you hover your mouse to the letter “M” on the top of the page you can see a brief menu where each point is logical and quite understandable.  However, some may turn to be key points for personal and professional use. Read more »

''Oh, cut out my heart. Throw my liver to the dogs.''

Henslowe, ''Shakespeare in love''

Just to make sure that I've made it clear enough for everyone and from the very beginning. THIS is not a Pinterest social media strategy.

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Do you remember how scared you were when you first learned how to swim? Do you remember how exactly your body attempted to move and react to a changing surrounding? First you were probably panicking, and then you were trying to move just as if you were touching the ground. Finally you gave up and learned to do it quite the other way round. You developed a new muscle memory and realized that swimming and walking have very little in common but both activities can be equally fun.

Practically any social media strategy has a resembling life circle. Firstly you don't have a clue what's this all Twitter/Facebook/Google+ is about and want to run away to cold-calling, constant spam emails and sales pitches like my-name-is-Jeff-and-we-guarantee-you-number-one-position-in-Google-in-two-weeks-or-your-money-back. Then you're trying to do Social Media just as if it were any other old traditional type of Marketing, but the problem is that it's not old, it's not traditional and it's not straight-forward. Eventually you learn how to do, what I personally call, the right thing and become more or less decent in Social Media, but that's not what I am going to talk about.
The transition from each phase is painful, scary and soaked with sweat. The goal of this article is trying to understand what we are or were all doing wrong on the second base (I mean SMM, not love affairs).

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"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

                                                                       Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Social Media has made a lot of buzz this year. It has proved its power, its unpredictability and a plethora of hidden opportunities. While marketers scream out loud about the undiscovered gems of Social Media, only a minority learnt how to control masses and even a smaller percentage managed to use the viral character of Social Media phenomenon for the sake of good.

Managing your reputation on the web is like managing your reputation at high school: you can be whoever you want to be if you have guts to make the right impression and turn even disadvantages to your advantages. We are who people think we are.

Like it or not, but Social Media will continue to be a hot trembling topic in 2013 and learning from somebody else’s experience can help you save your time, money, healthy psyche and your brand/personal reputation.

Today we'd like to talk about the five most interesting examples of social media success in 2012. Read more »