Linda Sherman

Social Media Tool Tips, Health and Well-Being Fitness Tips, Twitter Extensions

Disturbing Trend in Infographics

Producing a valuable infographic requires a significant amount of work and talent. It is worth it because the company that commissions the infographic has a vehicle to drive traffic back to their website. Infographics are published in such a way that when they are used by others, they link back to the originator.


The disturbing trend is to link together several existing infographics and list the original links to give the producer credit but wiithout giving an actual link.

These are the two items I found just this morning:

http://blog.datajack.com/broadband-internet-speeds/

This promotes a commercial site. I accidentally re-pinned this on Pinterest, then removed it when I realized what it was.

http://www.davidrisley.com/blogging-platforms-compared/

This has inaccuracies, at least about WordPress. I noticed it again on Pinterest and followed it to the source in the interest of commenting on the inaccuracy about WordPress. The pin was to a blog post at JeffBullas.com.

Jeff has produced interesting success by creating blog posts using several infographics on one topic. The people who comment on them apparently have no clue what an infographic is because they comment as though Jeff created rather than curated the infographics. Jeff links back appropriately and no criticism is intended to his work - except that in choosing infographics - I would avoid this rehash no-link type.

As publishers we should have an obligation to give credit to creators of work. In the case of infographics, really that should be a link.

I want to publish this to my Social Media Infographic board on Pinterest which means it needs a "proper" social media infographic visual. Here is one by Argyle Social. The only thing I'd like to see that I don't is the name of the designer. I think it is nice when that is included, especially if it is done by an outside company, the design company should be included as well.

 

» Social Timing Insights Infographic | Argyle Social is on a mission to help marketers drive meaningful business outcomes through social media marketing. Hundreds of small- and mid-sized businesses rely on our platform to power marketing campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Social Media for Social Good - Mark Horvath @HardlyNormal

Mark Horvath, known as @HardlyNormal on Twitter and producer of Invisible People will be on stage at noon Day 2 for the Los Angeles Twitter Conference October 4 - 5 known in Twitter circles as #140conf LA.

I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Mark at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas  

In this video, Mark gives tips about Social Media for Social Good. Mark's passion is helping the Homeless. He has found Social Media a valuable tool. 

Chris Heuer Talks To Social Media Club LA - Preview

Chris Heuer, founder of the national Social Media Club, will be joining Social Media Club of Los Angeles on Tuesday, August 24.
He'll talk to us briefly about the future of Social Media Club and SMCLA's role in it. 

The SMCLA topic this month is How Social Media Affects the Automotive Industry with speakers Dave Barthmuss @DaveBarthmuss, Kathi Kruse, Guy May @imacsweb, and Marieke Hensel @Hensel.

In addition, Chris will interview Nic of the Roxy about The Social Strip phenom, the Sunset Strip Music Fest.

See who is coming on the Facebook event page.

Chris Heuer will be celebrating his birthday with us tomorrow.
Happy Birthday Chris!!

I interviewed Chris in March this year at SXSWi about coming improvements via the Social Media Club website.

Another Step in the Life of Artist Clara Berta

I am proud to say that I began to help Clara Berta of BertaArt  with the world of Social Media and SEO back in April 2009.  She already had a website, which put her ahead of many artists. Since then she has had great progress with Constant Contact mailings, Facebook Page, Twitter, Posterous and SEO. 

Bertaart_home_logo

Friday, Clara is having a party to celebrate the launch of the new BertaArt.com. It's a Joomla site and I'm usually a Wordpress.org girl, but the site is very pretty and hosted on the ever-cool server Rackspace where two of my favorite peeps Robert Scoble and R James Taylor work.

The party is being held at Clara's home gallery, so if you attend, you will have the opportunity to see her latest showing there, as well as tour her studio on the grounds.

Light_after_rain_small_size_fi
Light after Rain by Clara Berta

The Party:

Friday, June 25, 7pm - 10pm, Studio City 
RSVP on the Facebook event or send Clara an email: Clara at BertaArt.com 
Wine and Cheese will be served

Yelp - Cross Platform Friend Find Requested

Which of my friends are on Yelp?

Geolocation services like FourSquare, Gowalla and Whrrl allow us to cross reference to find friends cross platform. But as far as I know Yelp doesn't do this.

The last time I tweeted something about Yelp, I got a few friends to reach out to connect to me there. I like that. Most of my current Yelp friends are Yelpers with very little other social media activity. This does not make them lesser people but it does mean I haven't gotten to know them well.

You can find me at http://LindaSherman.Yelp.com

My recent find - Sushi on La Cienega opened about 2 months ago. They don't have a liquor license yet but I highly recommend them.

Yelp

Is USPS Cost Cutting Affecting First Class Mail Delivery?

Social Media communication, emails and bills paid on-line have beaten down the US Post Office's profitable first class mail.

 
Major cost cuts have been made and more proposed.  
 
My question is, has first class mail gotten slower? In my experience three important pieces of mail sent by first class mail within the past three weeks between New York and Miami, Los Angeles and Miami and Boston and Miami arrived very slowly. 
 
Anita Cohen-Williams responded to my first tweet wondering "Has anyone else seen incredibly slow post office deliveries within continental USA past three weeks? with:
 
 

(download)

 
 
 
Personally, I love USPS flat rate package deliveries. Especially if you are shipping to and from Hawaii, it is an important service.
 
The following video about USPS cutting Saturday delivery was from January 2009!  This week, April 12th, CNN Money pointed out that more USPS cuts need to come.