Hidden Opportunities Even Gurus Miss
Is your balance off?
(WORLD) We sign up, we use what we need to get the job done and then we leave. Game over, right? Well, yes if you love the main feature of an online service. However the people that build you great tools, think much further ahead to all the possibilities, features and connections that drove them to make that tool in the first place. Which means, there’s a high chance that behind the basic set of features you use, there will be a whole bag of extra features you’ll love too. Take a little time, to dig deeper into your favourite spaces and hunt down the great links and buttons which provide you with more fun, power and value.
A great way to do this is to form a little group of like minded individuals at your workplace or friend circle to brainstorm uses for a new tool in your business. Who knows what you’ll dream up and unleash on the world?
Here are a few of my regularly visited sites with features, that I feel, are not utilised enough. I’ve illustrated what people mainly do and how you could use them, if you took the time to explore:
What you do:
- You host your videos
- You embed them into your blog or send the link out to friends
- You search and view and subscribe and enjoy
What you could do:
- Consider your video title as important as keyword terms that people search for
- Create a relevant description that links to all your other social spaces
- Change your homepage layout to insert all your Insight Statistics
- Connect up all your social media accounts
- Create an interactive game using your videos. Check out this example by Free Runners Damien Walters and Tim Shieff. What could you create?
What you do:
- Add your friends
- Follow trends
- Chat and laugh
- Tell me stuff
What you could do:
- Find common phrases to inspire you. Don’t just search for single words, try phrases and sentences
- Search for what’s really important for you. Use Twitters hidden advanced search area to really drill into those millions of tweets
- Create lists for everyone and structure them too—New people / Inspiring / Company’s / 2010 / Private
- Explore the business use, with howtos, case studies, tips and more from the Twitter guys themselves
What you do:
- Build a website and make it pretty
- Show me some or all of you
- Write a lot and share with your friends
- Sit there alone and know not what to do
What you could do:
- Start with a focus a love or passion. Blogs work best when they have a focus. Find what rocks your world and document it all
- Create a routine and share all the gems you discover. Frequent posts, no matter how small or insignificant builds traffic, establishes a routine in your week and helps develop a tone of voice for your words
- Explore some groups and make new friends. Conversation creates ideas. If you need some, there will be others out there to spark off your brain cells. LinkedIn, Yahoo and Google groups have a whole community ready and waiting. If you don’t find one specific for your ideas, create one!
- Pay attention to commentary before steaming in with opinion
So there you have it, a few ideas and extra features to explore related to the spaces you love. How about you, are you using any hidden feature that you hold close to your chest? C’mon share it here, that way we can all join in the fun. Let us know in the comments below.
August 12th, 2010
This isn’t platform specific but I always check out the RSS capabilities of certain platforms – another words, is there a feed I can get to monitor these spaces or conversations or developments etc
One examples I’m thinking about specifically is a shared folder through Dropbox, many people don’t know there is an RSS feed available which means if any files are updated / edited / removed / added you’ll get the notification (therefore, no need for emails telling you of this).
August 12th, 2010
Yeah the dropbox RSS is a great one.
Also, Flickr! I completely forgot about the wealth of opportunity that place holds. The groups are great for creative direction. For the sake of a filter on your camera or phone app you can create a unique look for your company or project that makes you stand out from the competition.