With Twitter going up and down so much today, I thought I’d weigh in my $0.02 here in a slightly more than 140 character statement.

Twitter is awesome, let’s get that straight. But sometimes, it really draws you in and takes you away from getting things done.

So, how do you keep Twitter at bay? Here are a 5 things that I do to preserve sanity:

Greet your followers. I reply (@) to just about every non-bot that follows me. This is a great way to reach your audience while keeping active on Twitter at the same time.

Pick a time. As with anything in your day, perhaps finding some “alone time” with you and Twitter might be the way to go.

Find time even when you don’t have time. It’s all about life streaming or whatever nonsense buzzword of the day. Your blog readers want to know what you’re thinking and feeling. Express yourself. Even if you don’t have time, you aren’t brain dead so just say a few things.

Integrate Twitter in your workspace. User adoption is usually a tough thing for companies to break in to. Getting an app like Twitter to be easy to access as part of your daily routine is the key to success for them. So if you like to text, use SMS messaging. Firefox fan? Good, use Twitterfox. Thwirl is a great desktop app made on the Adobe Air platform.

Pick your poison. If you’re going to be on instant messaging and Twitter, the number of inbounds can be alarming. Sometimes it’s easier to just have Twitter act as your instant messaging platform since you can direct message with others there.

It is my hope that this mental health checkup will allow you to lead productive lives again, good citizens. Best of luck to you.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

With me today is Glen Allsopp (yes, I checked the spelling unlike everyone else that trips up on the n’s, l’s and p’s ). Thanks for joining me.

Thanks Brian, that does get quite annoying but I’m assuming it’s an american thing to use the 2 n’s. Glad to be doing the interview.

1 - Cool. So tell us a little about yourself. Most of us that have been keeping up with you know that you’re one of the younger members of the social media revolution (although Adam Fuhrer has got you beat, he’s 13) and have heard about your travels between your homeland of the UK and South Africa. Tell us a little about yourself and what got you interested in social media in the first place?

Basically I had just turned 16, was in a rubbish part-time job and wanted to earn some money on the side so I could quit and focus more on college. I started building websites in order to sell them, and as anyone will tell you, the value goes up substantially if you can show a large number of backlinks and decent traffic stats. I originally started out focusing on SEO and had some great results earning over $1,000 in a month just from online wages, which wasn’t bad at 16. I then continued this and setup ViperChill when I was 17, offering services to others from what I had learned in the past.
I found social media just to be a great way to get involved in building traffic from blogs and the social news sites. I setup a ‘test’ site to further my experiments, in the first month I had a link from 4 of the Technorati Top 100, was featured on Techmeme and built up over 2,000 links.

2 - I find that many folks try to get into social media, but try as they might, they don’t seem to get it. There is often a misunderstanding of “using a community for traffic” vs. “being a valuable member of the community”. Can you give us an idea of how much time you spend per day on social media?

There is definitely a misunderstanding of social media, which usually occurs when people blank out the word social and just think it’s all another marketing tool, I’m glad to say that those people probably don’t get very far. Regarding how much time I spend on the sites, really depends on the definition, for example I wouldn’t say I spend more than an hour a day on Digg / Mixx but always leave Google Reader open to be able to check on new stories. As far as StumbleUpon I’m not much of a friend user I just submit whatever I find interesting and see what happens from there, usually what I find interesting is related to internet marketing though so my on site ‘friends’ enjoy the content as well. At max that would be 1-2 hours per day, but I definitely class blogging as social media so that goes up a bit. As an example a post I’ve just wrote for search engine land took me over an hour, and some of my own blog posts can easily take 30-60 minutes so it can add up.

3 - You’ve recently made a decision to join up with a marketing company to handle their social media, rather than only continue on in your own company, ViperChill. While I can fully respect any confidentiality here, can you tell us a little bit about doing social media for yourself (your company) as it compares to working in more of a corporate environment for someone else? Also, how do you split out your time on your blog vs. Viperchill clients?

To start things off, I no longer take on clients for ViperChill, I will usually refer them elsewhere to someone like Jim Tobin for Social Media or the SEOmoz recommend list for SEO. When I did do work though it’s certainly very different, the clients I could pull on my own weren’t usually large (a couple were) and didn’t really have the resources to create Facebook applications, blog widgets or videos for a YouTube campaign. I actually find it hard working from home, my concentrations levels can be down especially when I have friends asking me to go out all the time. What I try to do is get as much out of the way as quick as possible, even if it’s working a 20 hour day just so I can have a bit of lenience to blog and network online knowing that I don’t have as much work to worry about. My schedule isn’t great and it’s something I’m working on as my plan for 2008.

4 - Any advice for folks that are trying to enter the social media arena? What networks should they start on first and why? Or, should they start on a single network? Also, do you think that it is a necessity for them to at least start with a blog?

It really depends on what people are trying to get out of it, whether it’s for personal gain or client gain. I absolutely hate Reddit but I know it can drive traffic so it’s still something I get involved with, and I’m slowly moving away from Digg on a personal level because I just don’t enjoy the community as much and using the site. If it’s for personal reasons like promoting a blog I would use StumbleUpon, add friends who are submitting content they find interesting and basically promoting the content of other sites in their niche. It can be easier to start with just one site if you are new to the whole thing, I would define Mixx as StumbleUpon’s community and Digg’s system so that can also be a good place to start, whatever the user prefers using.

5 - What would you say that your best personal strength is in social media? I’d say you’re a stats man, but I don’t want to compartmentalize your talents.

I would say it’s more in creating linkbait style posts, although i don’t do enough of them on my blog. I only did the stats posts because I knew people would find them interesting, they were a lot of work but the results were worth it and i think it showed some clear facts about the sites. The StumbleUpon stats post received 53,776 visitors from StumbleUpon in 1 month, whilst the 1 about Digg made the Digg homepage. While my stats posts have done well I would say it’s just a part of creating content that people would find interesting. Although anyone can be known for creating interesting linkbait, the likes of yourself, Lyndon and Maki it’s still a good quality to have.

6 - No doubt you’ve heard by now the recent Digg revolt. For those that haven’t heard, early am this Thursday many of the top Diggers were fed up with the recent Digg algorithm change that effectively handicapped the top users by making their submission stay in upcoming until around 200 diggs. An organized boycott was coming into place, right on The Drill Down.

What’s your stance on all this? Do you think that having Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson jumping in on The Drill Down is too little, too late?

You know its rather funny and nobody will believe me but I have a post going live tomorrow that is called ‘Digg’s $300m Mistake - Reputation Management’ which basically highlights all their communication issues. I added a little update to it today (I created it on tuesday) that links to Tamar’s post on the subject. I definitely think its too little too late, they still didn’t answer why they don’t respond to emails, that in itself is disgusting in my opinion, and dodged a few questions if I’m correct?

That you are. I can understand that the sheer volume of emails Digg must get could be heavy, but ignoring its loyal user base is a mistake.

It shouldn’t have taken all of this to happen just to get them to answer some questions, they really do lack in reputation management skills and that is costing them badly.

7 - How do you think Digg will end up now?

Digg will still have a large community and be a popular website, the issues people have been talking about have been around for a while and it’s usually the marketers complaining (unless it’s about bannings). I for one have lost regard for the site and it’s owners and I’m sure a lot of others have aswell but it’s certainly going to take a while for them to lose their huge amount of traffic and stop being the leader in this field.

8 - You say that they eventually will stop being the leader in this field. Any predictions as to who will be successor to the throne?

I think they that IF they stop being the leader it’s not going to happen overnight, it’s not like they have suddenly started banning users / sites and started ignoring emails. I’ve sent emails over a year ago that never received a response so they do have issues but many are nothing new. As you can probably tell from the tone of this interview I would love Mixx to be the successor I’m just not sure they have the brand that can stop them being seen as another ‘Digg-clone’, which is a shame because they offer a lot more. I think everyone was surprised when StumbleUpon announced they had over 2 million members (double Digg at the time) so its definitely doing better. To keep things on the homepage voting style sites though I would love Mixx to be the king if you like, but that’s unlikely for quite some time.

9 - Great stuff! Any final thoughts?

For people getting into social media, don’t just do it because you want to drive traffic or do work for clients. Do it because you enjoy doing it, I’m using Digg less and less because I’m starting to grow to not liking using it but it still has great potential. Start a blog, network with others in your niche and see how things go from there. And remember, it’s never too late to start. I’m only 18
and although I’m in a good position and have a good understanding, I’ve seen 40+ year olds make as much a success of their efforts.

Thanks for the interview Brian, I enjoyed doing it.

Thanks for stopping by, Glen. Really enjoyed it, and looking forward to more of your posts on the Viperchill blog and Collective Thoughts!

As you probably noticed, I am a big fan of interviewing others on my blog.

And why not? Aside from the fact that I get to exchange ideas with brilliant people, it gives the blog a different, more conversational flavor. Here are 10 reasons why you should think about doing blog interviews, too:

1 - Mix things up. It is difficult to be a news beacon, constantly finding the latest of what’s going on before others. Even if you’re great at it, you have to sleep sometime. Someone else may have the inside scoop.

2 - Create a real conversation. Some of the top diggers have done a good job of every post being a conversation in their weekly podcast, the Drill down. They make a point to have regular guests as well. Social Blend does a fine job of this as well.

3 - Paid reviews seem cheap. It comes off as more believable to have an interview over a paid review any day.

4 - Interviewing will get you links. You’ll get links from the interviewee at a minimum, potentially along with part of their audience as well.

5 - Other people will get the idea and interview you. Since you will now serve as a forum for others to get noticed, people will want to interview or quote you as well.

6 - Become an influencer. If you interview a software company, you should be on their list of private beta testers. This will allow you to get a head start in the next new new thing.

7 - Bring in a new discipline of expertise. No matter what your blog focus is, you can bring in folks from all sorts of disciplines. Squareoak had a good example of this recently, considering that they write a social media blog and interviewed an economist.

8 - Freeze writer’s block in its tracks. Can’t think of anything meaningful to blog about? A good back and forth interview will not only produce a sweet piece of content (the interview itself), but will also get you thinking about follow up questions and new post ideas.

9 - Beef up your journalism skills. Show the world that you are more than a borderline crazy person / ranter with some solid journalism skills. Doing some background on the interviewee and verifying sources goes a long way, and shows that you know your stuff.

10 - It helps you get new gigs. Regularly doing interviews brings such a fresh source of content that you will reach your blog goals more easily, be it RSS subscribers, consulting, or new blogging gigs.

Recommended Interview Posts:

Interview with Chris McGill, founder of Mixx.com
Interview with top banned Digger cGt2099 (Greg Davies)
Interview with Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit
Interview with Darren Rowse of Problogger
Interview with Shana Albert of Social Desire and Collective Thoughts
Interview with Tim Nash

If any of you out there happen to be in the neighborhood of Louisville tonight from 6-8pm, I’ll be at the inaugural meeting of the Social Media Club, Louisville Chapter.

Here are the details:

Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Greater Louisville, Inc. (Chamber of Commerce)
Street: 614 West Main Street

It is shaping up to be a pretty cool looking crowd, featuring Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Rob May from Business Pundit, and Todd Earwood just to name a few. WebProNews will be there making some videos (weather permitting).

Looking forward to seeing my friends and new faces as well!

While I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, I do have a list of my 10 blog goals for 2008:

1 - Reach 1000 subscribers. I’m about 1/4 of the way there, but still think that this is easily reachable.

2 - Not only do more interviews, but be interviewed as well. Appear on podcasts as well.

3 - Form more strategic partnerships. This could be overlapping specialties, or blogging in other places.

4 - Start doing paid reviews. There are plenty of good products out there that should be reviewed.

5 - Sell advertising slots. While this blog has been virtually ad-free, I’ll be dropping in a few tastfully placed ad spots.

6 - Post Frequency. Try to post a minimum of 2 posts per week.

7 - Guest Bloggers. I’m not crazy about guest bloggers, but MikeonTV was really good last time around, so I may have him back on.

8 -Big links. Would like some more mentions on sites like Techcrunch, Mashable, SearchEngineLand, and Download Squad. A mention on BigList would be great as well (hint, hint)

9 - Use Twitter to get the word out. Watch Twitter closely this year, my friends. More on this later.

10 - Avoid social media burnout. Things like being away from the computer and with family come to mind