Tag Archives: online networks

PiercingMetal & Social Networking: SnapChat

I’ve been on the fence about doing a post about this particular medium in the online realm because like some of the others we have briefly discussed, it is NOT a social network per se. Snapchat is a blend of Instant Messenger and a Photo Sharing kind of application and once you add your friends or those who most interest you, messages can be sent to them – and remain for a duration of a matter of seconds. What!!!

Logo - SnapChat

You have not read that incorrectly, the messages and images are only visible to you for a set amount of seconds before being deleted from your device and the Snapchat servers. Strangely enough I know some people who absolutely love it and feel its perfect for their own attention span. Seconds? Gosh I need a little more time than that I am afraid. I created my account at first to lock out the brand and to see what it was all about but since I am all about longevity here at the PiercingMetal Command HQ, I don’t think that I will be keeping it on my phone all that much longer. If you happen to find me please keep anything you send relevant to the music scene and nothing too bizarre 🙂 I would appreciate that.

What are your own thoughts on this kind of application? Do you think it serves any kind of purpose or do you want no part of it. Let me know what you think in the comments since that is what they are there for.

Official Wikipedia Entry = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapchat

PiercingMetal & Social Networking: DISQUS

Continuing along with my little overviews about some of the Social Media aspects that we encounter on a daily basis I wanted to bring up this entity known as “DISQUS”.

Now Disqus in and of itself is not a Social Networking site or medium per se, but it is a tool that let’s you better integrate several of your online homes and comment from them via one single methodology. For instance, I can comment on any number of blog posts and sites using my Facebook profile, my personal or PiercingMetal Twitter and my Google account thanks to Disqus and that is wonderful since it allows for some level of consistency across the board. The appeal is maximized since folks who click my profile will see links to my own websites and online accounts that I wish to broadcast. I am all about sharing my music adventuring but I think all of you readers know that by now.
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PiercingMetal & Social Networking: Official Google+ Fan Page

social media logos, google plus, google plus logo

I’m not going to go into too much detail here since I have already discussed Google+ as a part of these narratives about the myriad of Social Networks that are out there and how they are used to help out the PiercingMetal.com site. It was back in May of 2011 that I first signed up for G+ account using an additional email address related to the website because it never hurts to have an alternate to ones main site email. That was great to connect with those musical types that also used Google+ and it gave me another means of posting our content as soon as it went live on the site. While that was great in the beginning it was not something that was accruing “Likes” or in this sense “Followers” like you want to do in the Social Networking dynamic. Now there is the permission to have what are viewed as the Branded Pages and with that being the case there is a companion Official PiercingMetal Page to serve the needs of those readers who have moved on from Facebook for one reason or another. Clicking the logo graphic above will actually take you to the Google+ Page for the website but before you do that let me tell you how it works for the content that you will be seeing on it.

Google+ is based on the idea of “Circles” that you add and remove users from and with this methodology you can also “Add To Followed Circles” certain brands that you enjoy the offerings of. Visitors can click any of the links that are found on this page and be brought to the website to investigate further. Below each posting is the means to give a “+1” which is the equivalent of a Facebook “Like” along with the means to share the item to your own Circles. We love the idea of plus ones and having articles that interest you most being shared but we really hope that you take a moment and add that Official Page to your “Followed Circles”. What this boils down to is the same status of giving a Facebook Page a like and being able to regularly see its offerings in a specific area of your Google+ account. Right now there are not a lot of users following the page but it is very new and since Google+ itself has taken off very slowly the same applies to any branded pages in there. Since I don’t want you to miss a thing with the site I hope you will add it to your followed circles as soon as possible. I don’t think there is a way to connect our Twitter or Instagram to it as a default action but that would be sweet since it would allow me to indulge your senses with maximum PiercingMetal stuffs with a single click.

I’ve noticed in the WordPress Software that we use for the Official Blog for PiercingMetal (aka “PiercingMetal Musings) that there is an option to share to Google+ so that will be happening with every post going forward. If I can get the site redevelopment plan underway when 2013 rolls around I will be making that a default setting for those review posts as well. Of course if you are still not a fan of doing this the Google way, the Official Facebook Page for PiercingMetal can be found HERE and remember that our Official PiercingMetal Twitter is always a busy place too. Thanks as always for listening and your interest in the workings of the PiercingMetal.com website.

Learn more of the finer details about Google + via its Wikipedia entry HERE.

UPDATE 4/3/2019: In December of 2018, Google announced that they would be putting Google+ to bed and yesterday all consumer accounts and their branded pages ceased to be. I will miss using it for PiercingMetal updates and to reach the audience that found value in the network and with its absence encourage those who are interested in our views and content to come and “Like” the Official Facebook Page. I will see you over there. Thank you Google+, you’ll be missed.

PiercingMetal & Social Networking: Klout

I’ve been on the fence about doing a post about this particular medium in the online realm because like some of the others we have briefly discussed, it is NOT a social network per se. What Klout amounts to is a kind of gauge as to what ones social media standings are based on a number of criteria that gets pooled all together from interactions on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all the rest of them.

According to what I have read about Klout, it ranks you on a 1-100 scale and I imagine that the closer you are to 100 means the more influential in Klout you are perceived to be in terms of online influence. The account I created was set up by using my Official Twitter for PiercingMetal.com because while a personal profile might have been nice, I decided to do one for the brand identity to see how it was reaching the world around it. At the time of this posting, I appear to rank a “57” Klout Score which I guess is not all that influential across its system. To be honest I am not all that concerned about that since it does not affect the way that I do things on the website and blogs that I compose for you all. The tally itself has been one of the main concerns that people have with this medium as many feel that it is not truly representative to ones true social networking impact. Who knows. To me this stuff is all subjective anyway but still fun to see how it all presents itself. Check it out…..
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PiercingMetal & Social Networking: About.Me

Alright, now this next one is not as much of a Social Network as it is a means to put up a signpost that will show off how people can network with you socially. Does that make any sense? I found this one while clicking around in Foodspotting and was reading the profile page of one of my contacts. I was directed to this medium and thought it to be very interesting, depending on just how much you actually want to put out there. Since I have a few different interests and spaces online that direct you to my adventures in music reporting or photography, I felt that I should examine it a little deeper.

With this being in mind I did a test run of this resource with an account for myself and used my real name as opposed to the pen name of Piercing Ken or my PiercingMetal brand identity and listed my WordPress Blogs for PiercingMetal, my site Twitter and Instagram accounts first. You have a score of options to choose from and right off the bat for me there is stuff in those networks that I want people to find and hopefully enjoy the most. I opted to NOT add my personal Facebook Page and instead chose to add the two Official Facebook Pages that I maintain for each of my websites. Like many friends of mine, I am becoming a lot more strict on who I want accessing my personal happenings but if it is the media stuff that you enjoy then by all means hit up our official pages. You appear to be able to add a Google+ account along with a Tumblr and while I have these I essentially repeat many postings that you see on Facebook in those mediums. There are Last FM and Reverbnation accounts for the website, but each are used sparingly. Check out the graphic below to see the menu. Pardon the grayed out ones, this is from my profile and hence the ones I am using.

When I compiled my apps I was surprised to learn of two new Social Networks that I had not yet explored but they really don’t seem like ones I will tinker with anyway in all honesty. I am speaking of both Smarterer and Trippy and since I didn’t see how I would employ them as a media person you shall NOT be seeing overviews in this little set of observations any time soon. They had something related to food and drink called “Forkly” but I am a die hard Foodspotting dude now and shall stick by them. This looked exactly the same as far as interface went. Since I run the main PiercingMetal.com and PiercingKen.com websites I used the option to add the two links so perhaps if you have any number of domains under your command that you should do the same thing for good measure. They offer the ability to find ones friends but this is where I ran into an issue. I clicked “Find Your Friends” and while it worked on finding a couple of my Twitter connections, it took forever and then failed on my attempts to import the contacts on both Gmail.com and AOL.com. There is also a means to use your Yahoo.com email but I do not use that account at this point in my life. Its a redirect for me like Hotmail.com is. I didn’t get an error message – it just failed on me. So much for that. I guess anyone who searches for my name on this can find me with little incident or just CLICK THIS since they are right here already 🙂

So what made me add this to our little rundown of Social Networking sites and the like? Well, considering this resource amounts to a signpost of what you have going on in the online world, I felt that it helps you reach new people that might be of like mind or reconnect with friends who might be out there as well. Depending on what you want to share you can post it on this page and let yourself be found. You can even toss in a brief bio to cover all the bases. They seem to have the chance to get some business cards with this information on them but I already have a ton of cards with my branding already and I don’t post any of my social networks on them since it is secondary to what I am doing out there. You might feel different and that is alright with me. The link below brings you to the service so give it a whirl and if you add us to your favorites we hope that you click our links and find out more about what we are doing. Have fun.

Official Website: http://about.me/