I recently started toying around with Ping.fm. I belong to a lot of social networking sites and I have a pretty strong understanding of each. Understanding how social bookmarking, social networking, and social conversational sites can be used effectively is my job. I only actively use a very few social networking sites for my own personal use. The rest I have so that I can advise my clients on how they might use them to their benefit.

To die with one`s sword still sheathed is most regrettable—Miyamoto Musashi, circa 1645

I held off on exploring Ping.fm for a bit—until last night when I found myself in that new tool, what can we make it do, kind of mood. So on a whim, I spent the time setting it up with the various sites I have accounts with.

I use Ping.fm with:

• Bebo
• Facebook
• FriendFeed
• hi5
• Identi.ca
• kwippy
• MySpace
• Plurk
• Pownce
• Twitter

The first thing that I discovered with Ping.fm is that it’s a very lonely place. Sure, I was sending out messages but unlike other social network aggregation sites such as FriendFeed or MyBlogLog, I couldn’t see if anyone was replying back to me.

This caused me to leap back onto Twitter just to see what was going on over there. Were people responding to my insipid blurbs? In order to make effective use of Ping.fm, I still had to return to my social networking sites. In the end, how much benefit did Ping.fm create for me?

To use social media and conversational media sites effectively, we have to interact with our followers. To simply broadcast messages to people defeats the purpose of social networking. If I was simply broadcasting my message all day long, who would be listening? Would I have any followers to broadcast to?

Because I teach people how to effectively use social networking, it’s important that I understand the benefits and the limitations of as many sites as possible. My first foray into Ping.fm taught me that it’s a tool of limited value. Part of a good SMM practice is to monitor the result or effect you’re having on your audience. In the case of Ping.fm, I found that really, it’s only effective as a tool for announcements and therefore has limited use. The benefit of social media is the bi-directional communication on sites such as Twitter.

In the future, I will only recommend to my clients that they use of Ping.fm to make brief and a limited number of announcements. A good example of how I will use Ping.fm, is to announce new blog posts on Twitter Stars.

What are your opinions on Ping.fm?

• Can Ping.fm be used successfully to market?
• Does Ping.fm promote social interaction or does it impede it?
• Does Ping.fm serve a purpose beyond updating your Facebook Status?
• How do you use Ping.fm?

From Twitter

markdavidson I think using Ping.fm sorta defeats the whole point of conversational networking.

markdavidson I feel like the tree that fell in the forest with nobody around to hear it… Ping.fm makes the sound.

tmatzner @markdavidson indeed. Therefore I only use it for to post interesting links but not for standard conversation. #ping.fm

scifirantergirl @markdavidson agrees about Ping.fm. I like that it posts to several places. Dont like that it’s more for announcements than conversation.

tofu916 @markdavidson well, you may be right, but its a good traffic tool if you can make good use of it.

DaveWares @markdavidson That’s why I gave up on it.

dedlam @markdavidson Pings like the bullhorn that goes with your soap box. Great way to start a conversation, then choose another svcs to continue

markdavidson @tofu916 I’m not sure how to make good use of it. I’m not as much of a fan of broadcasting as I am of bi-directional communication.

markdavidson @dedlam It’s like a Facebook Status update.

tofu916 @markdavidson i gotcha. you are truly a webmaster. im happy to get traffic peanuts! LOL

LEMills @markdavidson - amen re ping.fm. When I see the 2nd (and 3rd and 4th) echo, I wonder if I have to chase around to reply everywhere…no!

markdavidson I’m trying to see just how obnoxious I can be with Ping.fm. This is not how conversational media is supposed to work! lol!

markdavidson Dear Friend, I am interested in importation of goods into our country with funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria…

DevilBlueDress @markdavidson Glad to hear someone is causing some trouble

sheilas @markdavidson Wow, I wish I could get a sincere email like that from some nice banker in Nigeria….

OutlanderUSA @markdavidson LOL!! You too, huh? Have you won the 2010 South African Lottery yet? I have. Twice!

Tojosan @markdavidson down with Ping.FM. It’s one way.

markdavidson Do women laugh hysterically at you before running out of the bedroom? Markzyte Natural male enhancement for only $1.99. Buy now in bulk!

urbanbohemian @markdavidson Pretty darn obnoxious, I assure you. It’s almost like it’s turned US into the spammers. -)

RickWolff @markdavidson Do they have an affiliate program? How about the Nigerian guy?

markdavidson Hehehe! Ping.fm is FUN! I wonder what else I can make it do? lol. Okay, bored with it again. Back to having conversations…

czarphanguye @markdavidson Lmao! I’m positive you can rate yourself a 10 (out of 10) on the obnoxious scale when using Pingfm improperly.

markdavidson @czarphanguye Thanks! I normally try to use my social media skills for purposes of good rather than evil. The temptation is just too much!

markdavidson @RickWolff lol. Yes, the Nigerian consulate has a great affiliate program but oddly I’ve never received a single check from them…

markdavidson @Tojosan Definitely! The whole point of conversational media is bi-directional communication. This one-way broadcasting thing… *yawn*

markdavidson Are you into hot one-on-one bi-directional social communication? Call now! Wayward college girls want to talk to you! 976-TWITTER!

markdavidson @OutlanderUSA No! I have not won that one yet! Some people seem to have all the luck!

Tojosan @markdavidson what, were you tweeting to me? Ha. Yeah, I’m bored with one way comms. I’ll read a blog post or magazine for that.

RobertFischer @markdavidson That’s why I don’t follow a lot of the “social media superstars”. They throw stuff at me, but never engage in conversation!

markdavidson Dear Sir/Madam. My Alexa ranking is trapped at 100,001. I am currently living in exile from Google for abuse. I desperately need your help.

markdavidson @SheilaS Hahaha! There seems to be an unlimited supply of Nigerian bankers! Perhaps we can set up some kind of social networking site!

markdavidson @DevilBlueDress Yeah, it’s been a while! Hehehe! Got a cause a ruckus every now and again just to keep things lively in social media. Echo?

Guest Blog Post by @pprlisa

First you must know, we use an asterisk in the name so they can’t track it through Summize.

When Pl*rk first came out I feared that everyone would run to the new shiny thing and leave Twitter in the dust. I had already built up a pretty sizable following on Twitter and I was none too pleased about the concept of starting over again on a new platform. I began to beg my followers to not defect over to pl*rk and started inferring all kinds of evil things about pl*rk. Luckily I had already set up an account on pl*rk and realized, I really didn’t like it.

Soon it was a playful back and forth with many of my followers. Then my friend @lizwebpage jumped on board and together we started to incite an anti-pl*rk riot on Twitter. In protest, @ikepigott pasted a beret on his avatar and I thought, I should get one too. I asked him to make me one and so he did! The Anti-Pl*rk Revolución was born!

@lizwebpage knitted herself a beret and then set up shop for the entire anti-pl*rk brigade. We started putting on our beret avatars every Friday through the Tweekend for the résistance movement. More and more people started asking for them. I think there could be over 50 of them now. Some people made their own like @FabGirl and @StarryDynamo who have different colored ones but there are many other red beret loyals: @donthorp, @justTamar, @PopDaddy, @WendyM, @marz8, @akamonty, @cmajor, @dougmeacham, @eeUS, @juliagoolia, @prp2, @sendchocolate, @thronkus, and soooooo many moreeeeee!

It has become a pretty hilarious Friday night ritual—right after 5:00 PM—one by one the berets start popping up and it is a hilarious sight! So, we were just going along playing this silly game, when all of a sudden @bloggersblog called us out and showed us that they were talking about us over on pl*rk—so there were now two threads going on about us and the revolution!

So, Liz and I jumped in with our Berets on and pl*rked in their stream: http://www.plurk.com/p/m73c. It’s really a hilarious read. They started out as being pretty mad but then they understood that we were just playing around. Just because their social media site is inferior, doesn’t mean we hate them!

—@pprlisa