Technical Tidbits™

This post will probably affect maybe 1% of our readership, but I felt it worthy of posting anyway.

I have been having problems for quite some time using HootSuite for my social networking in both Firefox and IE 8 browsers. I finally found that it worked best in IE8 if that was the only thing running. Meaning, I didn’t have other tabs open like I so often do with Firefox. And, I can run IE 8 with HooteSuite while having my Firefox open with all the tabs I want without interference.

This morning, I made an amazing discovery! I had HooteSuite running in my IE and I had opened Firefox to log in to my BlogTalk radio show. Panic set in!

BlogTalk radio would not load properly and even when I tried to call in to the switchboard, the phone call would not connect and my switchboard items became dimmed out.  (Now why the calling part would be related to the online switchboard I don’t know.) With less than 3 minutes to show time, I started panicking!

I don’t know what made me shut down IE and HootesSuite, but as soon as I did, I was able to connect to the BlogTalk radio switchboard and my call went through!

When I decided to write this post, I went back to each page – HooteSuite and BlogTalk Radio – and looked at the page sources to see what might be conflicting.

Both sites use JavaScript but I’ve never had a problem having multiple tabs open with JavaScripts running on each page. Even the most complex JavaScript doesn’t seem to be resource intensive by any means.

The problem appears to be Flash. I don’t know whether each of these sites are so Flash intensive that the browsers (both IE and Firefox) can’t handle it, or whether there is a conflict with the resources being used by each and the way the browsers manage it.

Even now as I type this post, I have the radio switchboard open in one tab and HooteSuite open in another and I’m getting a lag in the typing here in the WordPress blog tab.  It seems to happen when either HooteSuite is updating the tweets, or when BlogTalk radio refreshes the page for the advertising at the top. Which appears to be handled by JavaScript so I’m really confused!

Anyway, I wanted to put this out there so anyone who might be having a problem using HooteSuite might benefit from knowing that you may have to restrict using it with other resource intensive sites.  At least until we can upgrade to such a powerful computer that it won’t matter how resource intensive a web app is for the browser! (Where is an affordable terabyte processor when you need one? )

So, if you’ve been kicked out of our radio show chat or lost your sound during a show, make sure that you’re not running HooteSuite in the background while you’re listening to the show live. I bet you won’t experience any problems during the show!

BTW, I know that friend of the show, Charles Taggart, uses TweetDeck during the show and he has never reported being kicked out of the live chat nor losing sound. (Yes Charles, I’ve heard the chirps over our phone conversations! LOL) So, whatever the difference is between how TweetDeck and HooteSuite is programmed to work, is where the problem is.

And I’m not going to blame the browsers on this one! Are you surprised? (GRIN)

My technology strategies for reigning in information overload on Twitter! Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Lacy, Author of “Twitter Marketing for Dummies” and co-founder and CEO of social media consulting and training firm Brandswag,  gave us a full hour of outstanding tips for using social media as a marketing tool!

And it’s official! Kyle Lacy acknowledged publicly that I am too nice of a person! (SMILE) While that’s some what of an honor to be told that, it’s definitely not a plus when you’re trying to market yourself! (But this also gave me a great idea for an upcoming show topic! How to write for yourself about yourself! And we have the guest scheduled for that!)

Here are some of the highlights in case you didn’t take notes or missed the show!

The guidelines for tweets:

• For every 6 tweets you put out, 4 should be retweets of your followers, 1 of your own (can be promotional) and 1 tweet about your industry.
• Never synch all your accounts. (My bad!) Always have different content for each type of account. (To learn more about the types of twitter accounts listen to the replay!)
• Dedicate 30 minutes a day to all social networking sites.
• Don’t auto DM! Kyle did share the perfect auto DM on the show to illustrate the exception!
• Use tools like Hootesuite, Tweetdeck, or Cotweet (corporate).
• DO NOT synch your FB & Twitter accounts. (To find out why, listen to the show!)

The 5 Tips that Kyle shared on the show for effective social network marketing:

1. Listening – Listen to your clients, competitors, and the industry you’re in.
2. Content & Stories – Provide valuable, related content and stories about your business.
3. Following & Tracking – Follow and track your clients, competitors, and industry in social networks.
4. Building Fans – Use tools like twit greater, klout, and other such tools to find people with klout – influencers – in your industry. After you’ve established a relationship with them, it’s ok to DM them and ask them to retweet an important message for you.
5. Be genuine and authentic!

Hear the Replay! Technical Tidbits on BlogTalk Radio

Advertising Disclaimer: Please note that BlogTalk Radio puts ads in the show archives which is why we are looking for a sponsor to upgrade our account. I DO NOT recommend the current advertising that is unfortunately being broadcast from the beginning of the show!

See larger image Twitter Marketing For Dummies (Paperback) By (author) Kyle Lacy List Price: $24.99 USD New From: $7.17 In Stock Used from: $6.50 In Stock