YouTube is most certainly an interesting platform, with ties to Google search and much, much, more! Many people have asked me, “What is the best way to separate tags on video posts via YouTube?”

For newly uploaded videos, using a comma is the quickest approach. Conversely, once you have submitted those tag changes, if you try to add a tag anywhere within the tag line after that using a comma, you will lose all tags except the one you just added. From a user’s standpoint, YouTube separates all tags with spaces. Using double quotes to add a word (tag) that has multiple spaces is best.

So to clarify, use a space to separate tags within a YouTube tag line. Use double quotes with tag words that have spaces (e.g. tagline: bike “outdoor sports” biking bicycle riding “downhill trail” mountain road “Jason Silvestri”).

In addition, it is extremely important to add tags that are relevant to your video; much like search terms within a search result. The concept of which goes outside the scope of this post, but questions on the subject or on SEO for YouTube in general are welcome.

Figure 1 shows an example of adding tags to a tagline on YouTube Videos.

Figure 1:

If you had five minutes to talk to Corvallis what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides that rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Would you talk about launching a web site? Would you teach a hack? Would you talk about a recent learning, success, or some failure you hope others will learn from? Would you try to inspire people to act? Well, as you watched above, I said what I had to say!

Ignite asked me to come speak at Ignite Corvallis 4 on November 10, 2011. Naturally, I accepted. To me, Ignite brings a style, as well as a presence, that is both innovative and educational. You will not find a playing field quite like it.

See the other great speakers who were in the lineup:
Website: http://ignitecorvallis.com/
Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/ignitecorvallis

Visit the ignite website to see previous ignite presentations & videos:
Website: http://igniteshow.com/
Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/ignite

Event Time and Place Schedule was:
November 10th, 2011
LaSells Stewart Center & Alumni Center – Corvallis
875 Southwest 26th Street
Corvallis, OR 97331-8624

Directions to Event:

Coming from a Product Lifecycle Management, I understand very complex business workflows and lifecycle processes. When I heard Eric speaking words of “lean manufacturing” and how his team’s methods approach startup development using some of the same principles, I was immediately hooked to watching The Daily segment on Eric, hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk. I must also give Gary Vaynerchuk some props for introducing him to our game. Eric is a total opposite kind of brand changer then Gary V. I feel Eric’s methods are going to catch on quicker than most people think.

More on this soon.

Please visit The Lean Startup for more info.

With over 45,000 followers on Twitter, I consider myself someone who is relatively creditable in understanding Twitter, and how to utilize best practices with the social networking platform we have grown to love.

Twitter is indeed a place I visit several times a day. I connect with the people I know, and I also connect with the consumers I deal with day to day in the Social Media space.

I use Twitter as a giant customer service board to interact with a lot of people, across a lot of different countries around the World. A vast majority of people think that Twitter is mostly used in the US, but that is actually not true. In fact, only a fraction of the US market uses Twitter compared to other countries around the World. This was at least the case in 2010. This is also why you will sometimes see me operating my Twitter account in the early mornings. You will see me interacting with people across the globe, even taking the time to use translators to decode and respond to tweets that are directed to me.

There are so many other reasons why I use Twitter, but the topic I want to talk about today deals with how I follow people and unfollow people based on my interaction with them on Twitter. I can’t count the number of times I have answered tweets and emails on the subject. You think I would have posted something on it by now. My apologizes.

The tips I explain below are actual methods I use day to day, and I am not necessarily saying to do as I do. Conversely, I have been asked enough times to explain, “How do you follow?”, “Who do you follow?”, and “Why do you follow!?” that I felt compelled enough to release this article to aid people in trying to understand my approach.

I will first very quickly answer the ‘who’ and the ‘why’, and then go deeper into the ‘how’.

(1) Following in general:
I follow bunches of people all the time; manually and automatically. I do bulk follows. Sometimes I only follow 2 or more people in an hour, or sometimes just a few in a day. Sometimes I won’t follow anyone for days. I will follow Twitter suggested results. I follow people other twitter users might suggest to me. I sometimes participate in follow Fridays (#followFridays & #ff) as silly as many of the A level Tweeps think that is. I will do it all. Most importantly, I follow back in a timely manner; 1-3 days tops. And yes, sometimes I miss people. I often suggest to those people to simply send me a tweet and say, “@JasonSilvestri follow me back!

(2) Twitterbacks:
Back before Twitter 2.0 (a.k.a. #newTwitter), Twitterbacks told a big story about the Twitter account you were looking at before you clicked that follow button. The new Twitter now provides a browsing method to the right of your screen that will show you the latest few tweet from a person within your Twitter account domain, and you only now see a users Twitterback if you click deeper into their profile info. Needless to say, if you want a follow back from me, try not to have a generic looking Twitterback because I often consider that something to flag as a robot in my brain when viewing it. I would be more likely not to click that follow button if I was looking at a generic twitter page.

(3) Profile Pics:
Due to Twitter’s latest browsing options, it makes it very easy for someone like me who gets hundreds and even thousands of new followers a week to still manage the follow back process manually. Profiles pictures are important to me when doing rapid follow backs while sifting through my new followers. Having that little birdy or the egg as a profile picture will surely make me pass on the follow. People who are not interested enough to post a real picture of them, or at least a business logo, usually shows me a lack of interest and I generally don’t like to follow that. It is also another flagging indicator that the account may be an autobot account.

(4) Bio Description:
For the very same reasoning I use in determining a follow back based on a profile pic, I will most likely pass on a follow back to a user account with no bio description. Yet another autobot flag goes up in my brain, and yet again, the showing of interest/effort towards your own brand is key to me. The lack of interest and effort really just turns me away. I think that goes for most Tweeps too. People want to see some indicator that you are using twitter to strike a reason to interact with you.

(5) Content:
If the content you are tweeting looks programmatic, uneventful, too vulgar (and trust me I can handle a lot), or seems so to be useless #quotes I generally steer away from it. In addition, too much content being posted (e.g. several tweets in a matter of seconds) from one of my followers will surely make me unfollow them, or just never follow them to begin with.

(6) Timeline Spam:
I think it is sort of OK to do automatic tweets to some degree. I use to completely frown upon it back in the day, but I have learned to accept it and even sometimes use the process myself. This is because I realize and appreciate the fact that we are all trying to reach thousands of our followers when thousands and even millions of other people are trying to do the same at one time. On the other side of things, I feel it is EXTREMELY important to always keep focused on replying back to tweets, and also sharing other people’s content as well.

(7) Direct Messages(DM):
I don’t often check DMs, but when I do, I drink DOS EQUIS. No, no. I am kidding. Seriously, though, I don’t often check DMs. I know I should, and I know I have missed some important messages throughout time. It is just my opinion that DMs are more of a spam box than even my public tweet mentions. There will be times when I check DMs. It is during these times that I check who is really spamming me. If I see unnecessary, repetitive, DMs to me I will unfollow.

(8) @JasonSilvestri unfollowed me today:
Nothing gets me going more than the auto messages I get from people saying that I unfollowed them today. 9/10 when I check to see if I am following them, I am. I then tend to unfollow shortly after.

(9) Twitter Account Cleansing:
Occasionally, I will do a twitter following purge where I just go on a spurt of removing followers in hopes to remove as many autobots as I can, while still preserving my loyal followings. I have only done this about 3 times since 2008. Unfortunately, I have had collateral damage. I ALWAYS suggest that if we were once following each other and for some reason I no longer follow you, please feel free to tweet me anytime and just say, “@JasonSilvestri, re-follow me!”

Please be sure to check out Guy’s website at http://www.GuyKawasaki.com/

This is a frequently asked question that needs to stop now – hahaha. What is the ROI in Social Media? This video goes into depth on the topic.

If you are more into reading, back in May of 2011 I was featured in articles by Business Insider and Small Biz Technology with my piece on, “Approach Social Media the Right Way – Insights from a Social Media Expert”, the title of which was given to me by the writers. Please feel free to read and let me know what you think.

I have to admit that seeing Pamela Fox’s courage in this video (her talk starts at 24:07 minutes in) made me remember how important it is to do whatever it takes to spread your personal brand around. Use social media, face-to-face networking, conferences, whatever!

Get over your fears and make it happen.

Check her out on Twitter.

Also, Check out Ignite’s website and Twitter.

Even the toughest of personal brands need to take time off! Do yourself a favor and take a break every once in awhile. I know it is often very hard to break away from the grind, but sometimes it is absolutely the best thing for you. I don’t care if your house is on fire. Do it for yourself.

I came across Scott Stratten’s work via Google+ within the past 24-48 hours. There are a few points I want to get across here.

1) This video may be from 2009, but Scott is 100% dead on with the topic matters at hand in this video, even today in 2011.

2) Definitely check out Scott’s website, twitter feed, and youtube channel.

3) Google+ is starting to be a content finder like no other. Seriously! Definitely connect with me on G+