Want to become a rockstar? Perhaps you want to pose nude in Playboy. Whatever your dreams and aspirations are, social media can help you get there. In the past few days, I’ve received multiple press releases surrounding individuals becoming the next star. Recently, Jason Calacanis held the Mahalo Daily VLOG Idol competition.

Last week Alicia Keys decided to outsource the search for her backup singer to MySpace. You can go check out her MySpace page for details. Playboy also announced last week that they have outsourced the search for their 55th playmate via YouTube. I took a look at the responses so far and they are pretty entertaining.

Outsourcing the search for talent to social media can be a big gamble. Jason Calacanis for instance received a number of submissions via YouTube but none of them were selected. Instead they decided to do in house auditions. After 1 month and over 62,000 views of the Playboy Playmate search, there have been only 4 responses. My guess is that Playboy will have to look for a new source for their search.

While I think social media can be a good source for finding talent, the best talent search still requires in person auditions. Just listen to the top performers on MySpace karaoke and you’ll quickly notice that it is still difficult to judge the quality of their singing due to effects and the quality of the microphone the singers choose. There are very few examples of people that have made the jump from social media from prime time successfully. Do you know of any successful examples?

The other day while attending a Meetup event I had a discussion with a well known blogger, writer, internet personality when he began talking about some hate ‘mail’ he had been receiving via twitter. Apparently someone had read several of his blog posts, disliked them, and decided to express their anger via twitter.

I started talking with the blogger and I began to wonder if bloggers are perhaps too accessible via the web. Think about it like this: if an editor or journalist writes a story that you disagree with the best you can do is write the paper and hope an editor prints the letter you wrote. In the end the person who wrote the story is most likely the gate keeper on any criticism that posted about their work.

Bloggers however open themselves to personal attack by the very nature of the medium that they work on. Bloggers pride themselves on their accessibility and their connection with their readers. This presents and interesting problem for the blogger.

How much is he or she willing to say in their blog if they must fear reprisal from their readers.This reprisal also brings up the point of harassment vs criticism and if a blogger can be criticized without being harassed. I have been exposed to both criticism of journalists and criticism of bloggers.

I have to say the criticisms of bloggers are much more personal than that of journalists. When someone criticizes a journalist the attack is often on the journalist’s ideas. When someone attacks a blogger, they often attack the blogger personally.

As more and more people enter the social world as bloggers and online personalities the attacks of ideas and ideals will begin to become more frequent. While bloggers are making themselves public figures by entering the public arena, should there be some form of blogger protection?

Should bloggers have to fear public reprisal of their opinions or should we find a way to have stronger journalist style protections for them? Have you as a blogger or an social entity ever faced harassment via a reader? What was you story? I would like to know.

Hutch Carpenter has posted an article suggesting that the attention of early adopters is migrating to FriendFeed. He uses quotes from Robert Scoble, Thomas Hawk and Steven Hodson to support his argument that people are spending more time on FriendFeed. Robert Scoble for one is as early adopter as you can get.

I would argue that Robert Scoble is not always most accurate in determining future trends. Conversely, if Scoble ends up using a product on a regular basis, it may just eventually become a trend. I consider myself an early adopter but it definitely takes some effort to get me to become a regular user of a new product or service. For instance, I’ve been on Twitter for a long time but only started using it regularly back in December.

Robert Scoble said that FriendFeed is taking more and more of his attention away from RSS feeds. I don’t have the same issue but I can say that Twitter definitely has because I now find breaking news via my Twitter feed. I could see a similar transition taking place to FriendFeed if more of my friends were commenting on items on the site, but currently they aren’t. That doesn’t mean that my experience is the same as others though. I’ve included a poll below to see what peoples’ experience is with FriendFeed. Are you using the service more often?

I was reading Jeremiah Owyang’s post about how he was moderating a panel at Web 2.0, was receiving negative feedback from people on Twitter and immediately switched course of the presentation. Jeremiah is a quick thinking guy and decided to open up the panel for audience suggestions. I’m not quite sure if it was his memory of the Zuckerberg-Lacy interview that moved him to switch but it was a good call.

Just yesterday I was working on a powerpoint for a presentation that I’ll be giving next week and I thought to myself, “what if I had Twitter streaming during the presentation.” For the audience I’ll be speaking to next week it would be useless but I could imagine this making sense with more tech savvy audiences. As Jeremiah points out though, too much audience intervention creates chaos as we witnessed at SXSW with Zuckerberg.

I think a little Twitter intervention may be useful but then again, you are acknowledging the kids that are passing notes. The kids passing notes are definitely not the kindest kids in class so giving them the time of day is not always best. I have not had the opportunity to sift through Twitter while in a presentation but next time I’ll surely check it out.

Do you think using Twitter to monitor the reaction of an audience is useful? Have you ever used Twitter while presenting?

Over the past couple days I’ve been speaking with people more about the business of blogging. Ultimately blogs are a tremendously challenging business. You need to post as much as possible and you need to break news stories on a regular basis if you plan on getting to the top. Frequently you also need to play dirty to reach the pinnacles of success. There are handsome rewards for the best bloggers but the space available to the best is limited.

If you take a look at the top blogs on Technorati, very few have managed to get top advertisers sponsor their site. Huffington Post, the top blog according to Technorati, appears to be one of the lucky few that has obtained large advertisers. The rest for the most part have failed in this regard. So why do big brands consistently stay away from event the largest blogs on the internet?

I would say posts like this one by Mike Arrington would be one of the primary reasons large brands stay away. Mud slinging and straightforward slander. A statement such as “Cook was directly responsible for scaling Twitter, and he very much failed in his job” by Mike Arrington is not only opinion but it’s completely false. Compare the downtime of Twitter to the downtime of MySpace during their peak growth periods and you’ll see substantially more uptime for Twitter.

In “Cult of the Amateur” (which I have been quoting frequently as of late), Andrew Keen sits down with Al Saracevic, the deputy business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Keen asks Saracevic, “What do you think distinguishes bloggers from professional journalists?” His response was that “In America, bloggers don’t go to jail for their work.”

On a daily basis bloggers lash out against others and make false accusations which traditional journalists stray from. Is this freedom of speech? Of course but there is definitely crossing the line and the decision of bloggers as a whole (I have done so myself) to show their willingness to make slanderous statements about others is why big brands stay away.

Not all blogs participate in such behavior though. I have met a number of journalists that have started their own blogs with the intent to grow them big and they typically don’t make false accusations. In the world of blogging, lashing out against others attracts links and makes headlines. In the world of journalism, it attracts lawsuits. Until there is a standard for “citizen journalism” and bloggers as a whole, lines will continue to be crossed and the leaders will continue to play dirty.

It’s the nature of the game. While unfortunate, it has become a fact of life. Do you think there should be some sort of certification or standard created for blogging?

Finding your voice is the bane of most people who try to write. Years of proper education teaches them to forgo personal identity to lean towards proper grammar and cookie-cutter writing styles. This is in fact the reason many people have trouble with social media.

Branding and marketing in the social media realm is simply an extension of your natural voice. Regardless if you branding yourself or a product your voice has to come through, if you are branding a product with social media a little personification never hurt anyone.

Finding your voice can be difficult, especially if you are not use to writing in less than formal style, this is where a PR/Marketing professional can help. While we can’t write a blog for you or tweet for you we can help push you in the right direction.

I was at a media function last night sponsored by the Washingtonian (loved the mini-burgers by the way) and I was chatting with a media pro about how we PR types help with social media. I came up with a quick list of five things and I figured I would share them with all of you.

1. Speak Don’t Write

I am not saying throw grammar and convention out the window, but if you have problems writing try recording yourself saying what you would like to write. Then transcribe what you said and clean up the grammar.

2. Don’t Try and Be Funny

Trying to write something funny is the second hardest thing to do in writing. If you try to be witty and clever while writing and fail, you will sound like an idiot.

3. Don’t Write as Someone Else

This is the hardest thing to do in writing. Trying to write in someone else’s voice is harder than beating up Chuck Norris. This is why writers have a gift for creating conversation and critics rave about the writer when he or she is discovered.

4. Don’t Lie

Try not to lie in your writing. Many people try to ‘talk things up’ when writing because they think they can use a creative license. Social media will eat you alive if you get caught being creative with the truth.

5. Consult a Pro

Find a PR/Marketing pro and ask them what they think, we are here to help. We love giving out advice and tips to anyone trying to work in social media. Personally I have a passion for social media and love sharing ideas and tips with anyone who will listen.

That’s about it. I figure I missed a few tips, I was watching the CAPS game last night so I was a bit distracted. If you have any tips on finding your voice in social media share them with me. I would love the help!

I decided to continue making this a Twitterful Tuesday and post yet another post about Twitter. I just read a post by Sam Lawrence about the current Twitter search tools available. He mentions that for some reason Twitter statuses aren’t showing up in Google. I would argue that the primary reason for this is that there aren’t enough microblogging services. In contrast to blog search which searches multiple platforms a Twitter search would be branded.

As such Google doesn’t want to actively promote another brand. I would say Google has somewhat of a conundrum on their hands. In blogging, the platform you use to push out content doesn’t really matter because that content ends up on various websites. Contrast this with Twitter which for the most part has content centralized in one location (with an API that enables you to extend it elsewhere). If Google is going to start search microblogging search service, other competitors are going to have to gain some traction.

Currently I don’t do much search through twitter but I’d definitely use it for finding information on specific topics. It’s also a great way to find links related to a topic. In a world full of infinite content, Twitter is a useful tool for finding timely information. Do you think that there would be any benefit to developing another search tool for Twitter when Tweetscan already does a great job? How do you search through Twitter?

Today must be Twitter Tuesday because this is the second post in a row that I’ve written about Twitter. Twitter has become a necessary part of my blog. Since Twitter began acting funny over the weekend my blog saw a relatively substantial decrease in traffic. One commenter this morning said that he had unsubscribed from my feed and was now completely reliant on my Twitter feed to update him of new posts.

While I think he is a rare case, Twitter has been driving an increasing amount of traffic to my site. I previously wrote about Twitter etiquette and some people said that linking to yourself in Twitter is annoying and not proper etiquette. In a guest post on Problogger, Chris Brogan explains how he uses Twitter to promote his blog. He suggests asking questions rather than simply posting the title of his article.

This model has appeared to gain traction throughout the Twittersphere (not sure if that’s a word). Also, simply posting about your blog is not a good model because people get tired of following. A large percentage of tweets should be part of the conversation. I try to keep promotional tweets limited to blog posts but at this point it has been necessary to tweet about my posts. Have you found it necessary to tweet about your blog posts? Do you think this practice is poor form?

I know it may seem odd to say, but the other day I had a meeting with some very interesting people and when I was introduced to new faces I was introduced as a blogger. At first I was taken back by this introduction. I had never really considered myself a blogger, I always thought myself a PR flack who happens to blog.

Then it dawned on me; being called a blogger is not like being called a writer, there is a slight difference. A blogger isn’t a job unto itself like a writer, a blogger is more like a modifier, you do something else and you also blog.

I know plenty of writers; writers for papers, books magazines, heck I even know a guy who writes instruction manuals for electronics. All of these people consider writing their profession. I, coming from the PR/Marketing world, have always considered writing as a tool. I write because it is the most effective channel for getting my message out.

I guess that is why I never really considered myself a blogger. I never really considered a blog more than a tool for getting my message out to as many people who would read it. The more I thought about it I started to think this is what all bloggers really were.

How many bloggers do you know actually make a living off of their blog. Very few, it’s like being in a band. Sure there are some bands out there that make a living playing music, but most of us do it as a passion not a profession.

In that sense I am a blogger. I am someone who writes because he has a passion for PR/Marketing and social media. My profession will always be PR/Marketing but my passion could be considered blogging. Are you a blogger?

I mean are you a real blogger? Are you someone who writes because you have a passion for what you are writing about or are you a writer who happens to publish on a blog? There is a major difference and I wonder how many each type there is out there. Let me know what you are.

This afternoon I received a new twitter follower that goes by the name “mediaexpert”. I have posted a Twitter screenshot of her profile below (if it’s even a her). By the time I checked out her profile, I realized that she had already added and interacted with local D.C. social media expert, Doug March. Now I may be an aggressive self-promoter but this person takes the cake. I have seen a number of people like this but Ms. “Social Media Expert” has absolutely no idea what social media is about.

She has posted a background image on her Twitter profile of practically every “Web 2.0″ startup she could find. One of her tweets states that she is giving a presentation on “what social media can do for organizations.” Whoever she is, she should definitely not be the one advising organizations as she is going to walk them down a plank. Her horrible profile doesn’t stop at her background image.

She fails to place her name on her profile, she links to Myspace.com as her website (trust me it’s not … it’s owned by a small company called News Corp) and her bio describes herself as a “social media expert.” As I wrote about this morning, Andrew Keen states how anybody can tout themselves as an expert in today’s age of social media. You just need to be loud and opinionated. All I can say is that I feel bad for whomever she is speaking to next week (if she really is).

While I have been known for aggressively promoting myself, I have at least personally met at one point most of the contacts in my social media life. If I haven’t, I have reached out to them directly and privately to learn more about them. Social media is not about counting your friends on Facebook or Twitter, it’s about making connections with real people. If you came up and poked me without me knowing you, I would most definitely remember not to interact with you in the future.

Go say hi to the social media expert on Twitter. I definitely hope she is not the future of this industry.