Question: What is tagging and how do you get started?
Answer: Tagging involves the practice of assigning a keyword to a piece of content (textual, audio, video, pictures). There are a number of different social media Web sites that integrate tagging:

1. Del.icio.us - Allows you to tag bookmarks.
2. Flickr– Tag photos.
3. YouTube - Tag videos.

With all tagging Web sites, you need to register for membership before you begin tagging.

Question: Aren’t there cultural issues associated with companies submitting press releases to social tagging sites like Digg?
Answer: There are broader cultural issues associated with corporate influence in social media. Some of the more politicized topics involve corporate influence in Wikipedia and lack of corporate transparency in the blogosphere. In general, transparency is the key. With regard to Digg, the point is that Digg is a large community of users who are oriented around finding and sharing news that is interesting. A company is really just a group of people. For people within a company to individually have memberships to Digg, and Digg news that is interesting to them, is not unethical. Now, if a company where to make it some sort of corporate mandate, that all their employees Digg articles, then there would be an issue.

Question: Have Journalists embraced social media?
Answer: Yes and No – it depends on how you define ‘embrace’. Journalists don’t seem to think very much of blogs. According to a Euro RSCG Magnet Survey of the Media, done in partnership with Columbia

University, only 1% of journalists believe blogs are credible although this may have something to do with the blogosphere cutting into their livelihood. While journalists claim not to find them credible, they definitely pay attention to them. The same study showed that 51% of journalists read Web logs on a consistent basis and 28% of them relied on blogs for day-to-day reporting. These stats were from two years ago so you can expect that these numbers have grown since then. The other trend we’ve seen is increasing numbers of journalists actually turning into bloggers – on behalf of their publications as well as independently. As much as they don’t like to admit it, journalists are becoming intertwined with social media.

Question: How can I learn more about social media?
Answer: There are a number of great resources available on the Web. Wikipedia is always a good starting point – not only does Wikipedia contain some great top-line content, but normally has good links. There are also several groups devoted to social media and new media: Social Media Club and the New Communications Forum. I would suggest going to their Web sites and signing up for their newsletters and blogs.  

Question: If I want to launch a blog how can I get started?
Answer: There are a number of free and pay services out there – Blogger, TypePad, WordPress – that you can register with in a matter of minutes and launch your blog. For Ether Breather I use WordPress hosted through Bluehost. Actually, many hosting providers will sell hosting packages that come with free installation of blogging software.

Question: How should I promote my blog once I have launched it?
Answer: This is a difficult question to answer succinctly. In a nut shell, blogging is about conversation. In order to carry on a conversation, you need to listen and respond – in a committed and consistent fashion. In the blogosphere, it is no different: you need to read other blogs and respond to what you see there as well as in the mainstream media. You need to link to other blogs and publications, engage with other bloggers through trackbacks, and you need to respond to the comments of your readers. I have heard numerous times that one of the most important indicators of a blog’s overall rank is the number of comments per post it receives. If you are truly engaged, your blog will promote itself.

Question: can you share any examples of how blogging has influenced consumer purchasing/behavior?
Answer: There are many notable examples. Fast Company did a great feature article on how a small marketing firm launched a blog campaign to help promote a sports video game. The campaign logged about 2.2 million followers and helped Sega surpass sales projections by 25% in a competitive market. Time recently published an article on how movie bloggers are influencing Hollywood and box office revenues. If you are interested in the economic impact of blogging, I would recommend checking out Paul Gillin’s blog, as well as his book, “The New Influencers.”

Question: What are the advantages and disadvantages or a free vs. paid blogging platform?
Answer: When I was thinking about what platform I wanted to use, configurability was a big issue for me. WordPress is free software distributed through a GNU General Public License and has a broad range of add-ons that people have developed. Also, I knew I would be able to tweak it as I saw fit. The free blogging platforms are probably a bit easier to launch and use, and you can avoid potential technical difficulties (theoretically) because they will mostly be hosted, serviced solutions. The downside to the paid blogging platforms is that you are going to be somewhat more restricted in how you want to manage your blog.