By now many of you have heard of Twitter and some of you are probably twittering away as we speak. But there’s a newcomer to the social media scene by the name of Plurk. Plurk has been likened to Twitter but overall it’s a very different social media tool. One difference, in particular, is the conversational time line format which allows you the ability to start threaded conversations - or simply jump right into an already existing one.

Brian Wallace, Founder of NowSourcing, is our featured guest in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Brian is an accomplished marketer and avid blogger with a wealth of experience across an IT and marketing background. Brian explains the ins and outs, the benefits and everything you need to know to get started plurking - and get you and your brand noticed on this new microblogging sensation.

Here’s a sampling from the show:

• What is Plurk? — Plurk stands for a combination of “people” and “lurk.” Plurk allows for threaded conversations that are formatted in a time line display and Plurk allows you to create “cliques” that act as groups to follow replies and organize private conversations. Best of all, you’re not limited to a specific amount of text within a small space.

• Increase your marketing efforts — by sharing and conversing with others because those efforts will be much more successful if you participate in conversations and network with others in addition to promoting your business and your brand. Include some videos while you’re at it to make things fun and interactive because Plurk is YouTube compatible.

• How does karma work? — The more karma you receive, the higher your tier of participation. You can earn karma by receiving replies to your threads and posting replies to other threads. But be careful, Plurk recommends 30 plurks per day and also has a mute button for those plurking a bit too much.

Plurk is catching on in a big way and the site seems well scaled and stable so as to not experience downtime and crashes, which is good news for all you social butterflies out there. So are you ready to start plurking? You can learn more by listening to Brian’s full interview by clicking the red and yellow player below.

Brought to you by our sponsors:

JumpUp.com and Infusionsoft.com

Listen Now:

 Everyone's Twittering But Are You Plurking Yet? [32:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Staci Wood | | Permalink

1. I have now added a Plurk timeline on my blog. I have karma 7.5 points! Let’s continue the conversation!

   http://www.plurk.com/user/lyceum

   Comment by Martin Lindeskog — 7/3/2008 @ 9:06 pm

2. Good interview. I like that David provided lots of basic tips and how to’s for us newbie Plurk beginners. He’s got me so intrigued I may have to start plurking this afternoon.

   Comment by Paula — 7/7/2008 @ 12:22 pm

3. I like the way they came up with the name, that’s very original and catchy too. It’s an interesting function and I like the way you can jump right into actual conversations instead of just brief snippets that you have to piece together yourself to follow. I’ll have to give this a try. . .

   Comment by Chris — 7/7/2008 @ 1:37 pm

4. Brian, this post is definitely worthy of sharing with my contacts over on Skype…

   Get ready cuz you are about to be barraged with people wanting to connect with you about this concept of “Plurking”.

   Sounds quite interesting to me and I am willing to bet my 474 contacts over there on skype will too!

   John Piro

   [I wish I had a link for you to go to for this tool I am using (MMIM) to send this out to my contacts on skype. I’ll type in the my message w/ your link to this Blog just 1x and it will be personalized to each person on my list.

   MMIM is in ‘Whisper Launch’ so no links are available yet. If you or anyone wants to know how they can get their free copy of this tool I’m available on…

   Skype ID: john.piro (Norwalk CT)]

   Comment by John Piro — 9/3/2008 @ 6:30 pm

5. Hi Brian - you know that I am already adding Plurk to my marketing arsenal, although, I must admit I’m not as active there as on Twitter, but I’m working on it!

   It’s great to have such an evangelist as John helping to spread the word. If anyone want to connect to follow me on Plurk, please feel free to do so - you can find me on Twitter and Plurk with the username caroldeckert

   Brian - thanks again for another great post. Looking forward to doing some cross-blogging with you in the coming weeks. Charly Leetham is designing my new WP Theme for my CarolConnectsPeople Blog and my RUNLancaster is also being updated with plug-ins and such. It’s going to be fun!

   Happy Netweaving!
   Carol Deckert, Netweaving/Networking Coach
   RUNLancaster.com
   http://www.runlancaster.com/blog
   http://twitter.com/caroldeckert
   http://plurk.com/caroldeckert

   Comment by Carol Deckert — 9/3/2008 @ 10:01 pm