For regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed a new widget I placed on each blog entry.  It is a retweet widget related to the social networking site, Twitter.  It easily allows you, if you like an article, to click on it and to resend it through your network on Twitter.

It looks like this and is not located to the right of each entry.  What you may have noticed is that the numbers are low of the RT’s.  This is because it was just installed.

If you like the article, it is a fast and easy way to spread the word.  There are two other widgets which you should know about as well.  If you are  not signed up for

Twitter, you can go here and create an account.

The RSS feed allows for each of my blog posts to come directly to you.  So you don’t have to come to this web site each time.  When a new post is made, the RSS feed pushes it directly to you.  Just make sure you have an RSS feeder set up.  It is terrific for people on the go, but don’t forget to come back to the site.  Why?  I put up a lot of useful links on the right hand rail.  Recruiters, conferences, jobs, sports management programs, they are all listed with live links.

Finally, there is the share button.  It is a lot like the like the retweet for Twitter button, but if you click on it, it allows you to share it with others on a much larger scale.  I believe there are about 50 different social media platforms where you can forward any one of these blogs.  The goal on this blog and for all of social media is to be able to share information easily.

Moving forward, this blog will stay mainly with sports themed topics.  You can find more of business topics on a new blog on my business site:  Coast 2 Coast Experts — www.coast2coastexperts.com or just click on the link.  There is a new blog site up and running.

Today is a bit different from my usual writings concerning American sports or social media as I am blogging from Paris, France.

First thoughts since I arrived yesterday — while I did not bring my computer, trying to type using french technology can be a bit of a challenge.  I am a hunt and peck kind of guy.  Although I think I use about four or five fingers, I am pretty quick from the office, beating up on the keyboard as I type out my thoughts.

Here, many of the letters on the keyboard are in different places which might make blogging from Paris a real challenge.  I will do my best to spell check but if something looks a little Greek, then it slipped past the sensors.

This is my first visit to Paris in a few years.  Not much has changed about this amazing city.  And my tastes remain the same.  When someone asked me on Twitter if I have had escargot or frogs legs, I quickly answered no.  However, the baguettes, cheese and wine have made it to my stomach and I am no worse off as yet.

Since I have been here often, the ancient buildings, crowded streets and historical landmarks now seem like a home away from home.  Another strange feeling.  I landed yesterday but not trying to give into jet lag? I tried to stay awake through the evening before falling asleep.  I walked around the city and past the famous Notre Dame where the tourists were lined up by the hundreds.  I will add pictures later if I can figure how to on this French computer.

August in France is usally a time when the locals skee-daddle and the toursits take over.  French usually take off the entire month for vacation and find places in Europe, the far east or even the USA to visit.  It makes me think how Parisians would adjust to working for the New York Yankees or any other baseball or sports team for that matter.  Taking a day off much less a 30 day vacation would be seen as treason.

Time for another meal.

Bon Apetit!

Does your company have social media policies in place for employees?

Are you employees engaging with others under your brand name with little or no guidance or standards?

Here is my point of view of what is being done today.

Last night, I was teaching a graduate level sports management class at Long Beach State.  A student posed a question about how to differentiate themselves from others when trying to look for a job in sports.

As one example, I took the time and explained the benefits of Twitter, the flavor of the month in technology and sports media.  It allows you to connect with people, have real discussions, learn and share ideas.  Not many of them were buying into the idea.  A few had tried it, signed up, but no one was a real believer of this new media.  Many of them asked the question, ‘What do I have to say that would make people follow me?’  So I showed them the impact Twitter can have by asking a question to people that do follow me.  In the middle of class.  With Twitter live on the screen for everyone to see.

I stopped class and posed this question:

I am tweeting while teaching my sports mgmt class at Long Beach State tonight. Any advice for students that want a job in sports?

Almost immediately I received the following responses from people that believed it was worth the time to comment for the class.

I have cut and pasted the comments for you to see as well.  If you do not know Twitter, the information at the beginning is the users name, followed by my handicap (sportsinfo101) and then their comment.


Meaghery@sportsinfo101 For pro,encourage sales training, be comfortable selling on phone. For college, learn NCAA rules. (via @SteveDittmore)1 minute ago from Tweetie 

  
  




Jumpingje@sportsinfo101 so awesome you are incorporating twitter into lectures! I wish my professors knew more about it!about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




Liz_McFarland@sportsinfo101 My advice may be too late – but it is to do ANYthing even if it is on a volunteer basis. Let people know you.about 1 hour ago from Twitterrific in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




The_Xman@sportsinfo101 Love the sport you pursue for work. Love working. Otherwise, there are other fields to pursue.about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry 

  
  




alancassinelli@sportsinfo101 get an internship and treat it like the job of your life. Recommendations>Resumesabout 1 hour ago from web in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




joelkatte@sportsinfo101 Tell your students to stretch, think outside the batter’s box, step in & face the heaters & not be afraid when brushed backabout 1 hour ago from web in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




businesswonk@sportsinfo101 I have sport MBA.So whay? U have to take ur lumps. Figure out early where in sports u want to work and specialize. #sportsbizabout 2 hours ago from TwitterFon in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




SoccerMarketer@sportsinfo101 Gain experience via internships, build relationships, and use social media platforms to maintain contact with sports execsabout 2 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




SteveDittmore@sportsinfo101 For pro, I encourage sales training, be comfortable selling on phone. For college, learn NCAA rules. Compliance is essential.about 2 hours ago from TwitterGadget in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




nickhorder@sportsinfo101 be persistent and build up plenty of contacts, am looking to forge a career in sports mgt in Australia after 10yrs in financeabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to sportsinfo101

  
  




bgcduke7@sportsinfo101 be flexible but ambitious, do whatever u have 2 but be creative enough to prove your worth, embrace the biz not as just a fan

So incredible and instant gratification for all.  The students could get answers right away to this question and much more.  My only hope now is that they put the example to use and sign up and begin building their own brand.  By reading this, I hope you do too.  Have a terrific weekend.  For those of you that know the lingo.  #followfriday.  Enjoy!

Social media and social networking.  The terms are all the rage these days as products and brands look for more real interaction with consumers.  

Major social networks you probably know include LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.  All very popular and all seem to be thriving.  However, what are you going to turn if you want to create your own social network site?  Who can help you with building a site and getting it up and running in a hurry?

 Ning.  No, that’s not a typo.  Ning.  Rated as the 55th most popular web site in the America by Alexa, it has more than 12,000 incoming links.  The company was founded in late 2004 and bills itself as an online platform that empowers people to create and discover new social experiences.  The company also says it has close to one million social networks on the Ning Platform, which would be the largest number of unique social networks on the Internet.

You many know about other companies that build social networks for companies. Pluck, for example is a Texas based company that bills itself as a leader in Social Media.  In addition to USA Today and Whole Foods as customers, Pluck also has a few sports clients which include the National Football League (NFL), the Dallas Cowboys, Livestrong.com and Men’s Health.

Stats are verified by Compete.

But let’s come back to Ning.  Ning is a Do-it-Yourself Social Media site.  Look at the consistent growth over the past year.  In April of last year, the site had more than 1.7 million unique visitors and by March of 2009, that number had exploded to more than 7 million monthly unique visitors and climbing.

While it might take a bit more hands on time than just hiring an outside agency to build the site, the advantages include:

1)    More affordable

2)    Quicker to bring to market

3)    Easy to scale

Ning says owns can choose public or private, members only social networks, moderation options and things like invitation engine.

A friend of mine used Ning to build his social networking site and it so far, satisfied.

Happy building and good luck.

If you have sports related questions, feel free to send a note via the comments section at www.sportsinfo101.com and we will do my best to have the experts answer them.

Our first question is from Steve and he is asking media and technology.

Question and Answers

Q:  

I’d be interested to see pieces on how the internet is changing how the news business and sports leagues interact, particularly with regard to images – still and video. Technology has caught up to old rules, and anyone inside the stadium can do a live broadcast. Be interesting to see some of the talent in sports communications opine.

– Steve

A:

The NHL’s Minnesota Wild and Xcel Energy Center have taken a very pro-active approach in regards to our web operations and use of photography and video. We have tried to connect our fans and woven our television, radio, and photography with our website on a daily basis. Wild TV and our radio pondcasts on our website www.wild.com are perfect examples of using our broadcast resources to bring our fans closer to our players while also achieving great success in driving additional fans to our website. We use daily feature videos and still photography to enhance the site on  a daily basis through the NHL and Wild season. Technology is changing and so is the use of our website. We have also tried to use MySpace, Twitter and Face Book to tell stories and direct message our fans in the new world of social media. The Wild feel this is the best way to reach our younger fans, while still giving the casual fan something different everyday and a reason to visit www.wild.com.

 Bill Robertson

Vice President of Communications & Broadcasting

Minnesota Sports & Entertainment

Friday is technology time and I thought this week we would look at the top Social Media networking sites by rank.  Sure everyone probably knows in overall website traffic Google is number one in the world, but where do you think MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Digg rank?  While not social media sites, Yahoo is number two. and YouTube (considered social media?) is #3,  Want to know more?  read on…..Instead of using this site’s claims, we turn to www.alexa.com for their over site rankings lists.  In order of social media, here are the current rankings by popularity.

Please note the links are not to the sites themselves but to the Alexa stats on each site….

Here we go.

No. 4   facebook  The site was ranked number five three months ago.  Users spend more than 25 minutes per visit on the site and 268,000+ link to it.

No. 8 Blogger.com   Has been online since July 31st, 2000, though users spend much less time on the site than no. 4  

No. 9  MySpace  Down from No. 2 three months ago.  Media reports more than 200 million users around the world.  Alexa says 68%+ users come from the United States.

No. 12 Word Press — Yet another site that enables millions to blog.  

No. 33 Flickr  The five year old company specializes in online photo sharing.  Visitors average a little less than five minutes per day on the site.

No. 50 Twitter:  If you read this site you know I am a fan of Twitter and the micro-blogging site’s rise has been nothing short of amazing.  Consider this according to Alexa.  Three months ago, it was ranked #441.  Users spend nearly 10 minutes a day on the site and less than half of all users call the U.S. home. 

No. 94  LinkedIn.  The professional networking site has just 55,771 links to it (several more than this site! :>) but am a bit shocked.  Based on the economy and people’s need to network and locate job listings, I would have guessed higher.  I use this site and I think it is very valuable.

If you would like to see Alexa’s Top 100 sites for the U.S. only, then here is a different link.    Some sites that rank in the Top 100 here but not in the world include Blogspot (No. 55) Digg (82), Yelp (84)

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to check out Top U.S. Sites when it came to sports related subjects as well.  Here is what Alexa says

No. 18 ESPN

No. 63 cbssports.com

No. 70 Fox Sports

No. 81 Major League Baseball (MLB.com)

No. 96 NBA (NBA.com)