Catch Some Buzz from Alltop

Calling itself a "digital magazine rack," Alltop is a human-powered content aggregation site that brings together the best news and blog feeds from around the web in more than 80 categories (and counting) grouped into broad topic areas. Alltop displays the five most recent feeds for each source site; mousing over a headline pops up a small preview window of the content to help you decide if you want to click through and read the whole story. Each page also has a translucent stationary banner bar just above the bottom of the page, which serves as both a page marker to help keep track of where you are as you scroll through the headlines, and a bad pun ("we've got all the top stories covered" - get it?).

The human-powered aggregation model is somewhat similar to what TopNetPix, started by Jeff Rusinow, has put together. Both sites offer their own unique features. TopNetPix has more links, lets visitors create a personalized start page, and has its own Facebook app. Alltop has a much cleaner, less cluttered interface, a more focused set of content sites, and the aforementioned pop-up preview capability.

Speaking of that pop-up preview feature, Alltop acknowledges its inspiration from popurls, a sort of multimedia-content-aggregator-social-bookmarking hybrid site, which describes itself as "dashboard for the latest web-buzz, a single page that encapsulates up-to-the-minute headlines from the most popular sites on the internet."

popurls was started by Thomas Marban, Alltop by Guy Kawasaki along with Will Mayall and Kathryn Henkens. Marban is from Austria, Kawasaki from California, and it shows in the dramatically different visual designs of the two sites. Though there are functional similarities, the sites look nothing like each other.

Alltop was created by the team behind social bookmarking site Truemors, which they describe as “NPR for your eyes” (except that Truemors actually has some personality and manages to get by without taxpayer subsidies).

Alltop is definitely worth frequent visits to get a quick take on what's new and interesting. You'll find this blog as well as great stuff from writers like Paul Dunay, Ardath Albee, John Moore and Yvonne DiVita on the Marketing page, and the Alltop blog here.

*****

technorati tags: digital magazine rack, Alltop, human-powered content aggregation site, TopNetPix, Jeff Rusinow, popurls, Thomas Marban, Guy Kawasaki, Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens. Truemors, Paul Dunay, Ardath Albee, John Moore, Yvonne DiVita, Alltop blog

del.icio.us tags: digital magazine rack, Alltop, human-powered content aggregation site, TopNetPix, Jeff Rusinow, popurls, Thomas Marban, Guy Kawasaki, Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens. Truemors, Paul Dunay, Ardath Albee, John Moore, Yvonne DiVita, Alltop blog

icerocket tags: digital magazine rack, Alltop, human-powered content aggregation site, TopNetPix, Jeff Rusinow, popurls, Thomas Marban, Guy Kawasaki, Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens. Truemors, Paul Dunay, Ardath Albee, John Moore, Yvonne DiVita, Alltop blog

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Are Americans Social-Media-Lazy?

In the latest installment of Outside the Inbox, Jared Reitzin of mobileStorm reviews some recent research studies and asks, when it comes to participation in social media (blogging, uploading videos to YouTube, etc.)—are Americans lazier than web users in other countries, or just busier?

Jared mixes good humor, bad music and questionable statistics with his unique ability to offend about half of the planet's population. Check it out.



As for Jared's take regarding American Idol and the U.S. election system, two comments:

• Given that our choices for president this year have come down to three candidates battling each other to display their utter cluelessness in science, economics and history—among other subjects—maybe we should let 14-year-olds dictate how we vote. What, like they could do worse?


• Sanjiya—creepy. But in case you've forgotten it from season 6, here is the best American Idol video EVER:

Relax, it's Friday. :-)

*****

technorati tags: Outside the Inbox, Jared Reitzin, participation in social media, Sanjiya, American Idol 6 - Chris Sligh - Typical

del.icio.us tags: Outside the Inbox, Jared Reitzin, participation in social media, Sanjiya, American Idol 6 - Chris Sligh - Typical

icerocket tags: Outside the Inbox, Jared Reitzin, participation in social media, Sanjiya, American Idol 6 - Chris Sligh - Typical

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The 5 Best Social Media Sites for Small Businesses

Note: the following is a guest post from expert researcher and freelance writer Heather Johnson on how businesses can effectively use social media as a component of PR efforts, and efficiently focus their efforts on the most productive sites.

Social media sites, no longer relegated to just teens and college students, are now the most cost-effective way for a company to drum up international attention. In fact, social networking serves as a great equalizer for small businesses, as anyone with an Internet connection can now launch a successful, global marketing campaign.

With so many sites to choose from, however, one can easily become overwhelmed. Small businesses have neither the time nor the manpower to cover every major site. Instead, it is best to strongly focus on several and then let the viral nature of social media take over.

Below, I have listed the five best social media sites for small businesses, as well as related tips for each one.

1. StumbleUpon - A recent post cited StumbleUpon as the best social media site for driving B2B Web traffic. Indeed, it is currently the reigning champ for promoting many types of Websites. Not only it is easier to gain attention on StumbleUpon than many other bookmarking sites, the tail of traffic is much longer.

Tip: After your business is "discovered" on StumbleUpon, give your site a little boost by starting a StumbleUpon ad campaign. For just 5 cents a visitor, you can drive a specifically targeted audience to your businesses' homepage.

2. Twitter – Twitter is a great way for business owners to network at their own convenience. With this tool, you have 140 characters to answer the question, "What are you doing?" People on your Twitter friends list will see each of your posts (aka "tweets"), which can be used to promote new ideas and features for your business.

Tip: Don't promote your site with every tweet, lest you become labeled a spammer. Point out other sites that interest you or something amusing that is really affecting you that day. With those tweets, you can sprinkle in a link to your latest blog entry or a special feature offered by the company.

3. LinkedIn – Everyone is truly connected in the business world and LinkedIn offers a way to visualize this massive network. By starting a professional profile on this site, you will be able to add real-world business contacts to your friends list, as well as the contacts of those people. And so on.

Tip: According to Guy Kawasaki, those with 20 or more connections on LinkedIn are 34 times more likely to be approached about business opportunities through the site.

4. Wikipedia – It is a boon to your small business to be mentioned on Wikipedia. The site's many entries are highly ranked in Google and read by millions each day. One caveat: Wikipedia editors can be ruthless about removing external links from the site, so it isn't an easy feat to make your small business "stick."

Tip: Before you go bounding for the world's largest wiki and adding a link to your business, start an account with the site and become active for a few weeks. Only after you educate yourself on how to contribute to Wikipedia should you attempt to start your own page. This will increase your chances of remaining on the site.

5. Wetpaint – Wikipedia isn't the only wiki on the map. With Wetpaint, you can create your company's own wiki for free. This wiki platform is attractive and easy to create. A "What You See is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) editor, even technical novices can customize the site, upload articles and widgets, etc. No programming knowledge required.

Tip: What Wetpaint offers is a way to get direct feedback from customers, as well as high Google ranking. If you don't want the public to edit the pages on your Wetpaint site, as administrator you can lock each one.

Rather than starting a blog and tirelessly plugging your entries on Digg or Reddit, you should use the sites above to create long-term business contacts and continuous traffic. These five sites require less commitment and cost little to no money for a successful marketing campaign. Small businesses will truly be on an even playing field.


Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for best business credit cards and best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

*****

technorati tags: freelance writer Heather Johnson, social media sites, public relations, PR, StumbleUpon, Twitter, LinkedIn, massive network, Guy Kawasaki, Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Digg, Reddit, successful marketing campaign, finance and economics writer

del.icio.us tags: freelance writer Heather Johnson, social media sites, public relations, PR, StumbleUpon, Twitter, LinkedIn, massive network, Guy Kawasaki, Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Digg, Reddit, successful marketing campaign, finance and economics writer

icerocket tags: freelance writer Heather Johnson, social media sites, public relations, PR, StumbleUpon, Twitter, LinkedIn, massive network, Guy Kawasaki, Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Digg, Reddit, successful marketing campaign, finance and economics writer

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Which Social Networking Sites Really Drive Business Traffic?

Harry Hoover at the THINKing blog recently asked his readers this question and posted some of the responses. While clearly not a statistical sampling, LinkedIn and Facebook were mentioned prominently by nearly all respondents. StumbleUpon and del.icio.us were common second choices.

I've written previously about which social networking/tagging/bookmarking sites seemed to work well at driving B2B traffic, but have collected significantly more data since then. Here's the detail behind my response to Harry. This is based on the past 12 months worth of traffic data for this blog and for the WebMarketCentral marketing portal site.

For WebMarketCentral, note first all referring sites combined accounted for just 10.5% of total site traffic in the last year (search drove 78% of visits; the two are related as SMO can help drive SEO results to an extent). Second, the site drew traffic from nearly 400 different referring sites, and the traffic was highly fragmented.

WebMarketCentral - Top SMO Sources of Referral Traffic

StumbleUpon - 15.30%
Wikipedia - 6.79%
Bibsonomy, Mister Wong, BeeTooBee.com, del.icio.us and ma.gnolia—about 1% each.

The WebMarketCentral blog: referring sites had far more impact, drawing 27.4% of all visits, though again this traffic was highly fragmented with more than 400 sites each drawing a very small share individually.

The WebMarketCentral Blog - Top SMO Sources of Referral Traffic

Technorati - 6.05%
StumbleUpon - 2.15%
Searchles - 1.75%
Facebook - 1.07%
Digg, del.icio.us and Zimbio—about 1% each.

The three key takeaways seem to be that SMO can be a valuable source of traffic for both corporate sites and blogs; different social networking sites work best for different purposes; and StumbleUpon is the most valuable single social media network overall for driving B2B web traffic.

*****

technorati tags: Harry Hoover, THINKing, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, social networking, social tagging, social bookmarking sites, B2B traffic, Bibsonomy, Mister Wong, BeeTooBee.com, ma.gnolia, Technorati, Searchles, Digg, Zimbio, social media network

del.icio.us tags: Harry Hoover, THINKing, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, social networking, social tagging, social bookmarking sites, B2B traffic, Bibsonomy, Mister Wong, BeeTooBee.com, ma.gnolia, Technorati, Searchles, Digg, Zimbio, social media network

icerocket tags: Harry Hoover, THINKing, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, social networking, social tagging, social bookmarking sites, B2B traffic, Bibsonomy, Mister Wong, BeeTooBee.com, ma.gnolia, Technorati, Searchles, Digg, Zimbio, social media network

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Do Agencies Get Social Media?

Late last week, MediaPost's Cathy Taylor wrote about the shortcomings of marketing agencies (large ones at least) when it comes to really understanding and utilizing social media on their clients' behalf—or even their own—in Blogger's Block - And Other Ways Agencies Aren't Walking The Walk Of Social Media.

"As for blogs, the number of agencies that have them is growing, but overall they're still pretty spotty in terms of technical chops and raison d'etre, and there's at times an embarrassing level of "Gee whiz! We're blogging!" to some posts. Haven't you people learned the art of pretending that you know what you're doing? Interpublic Group's Hill, Holliday, which made quite a few headlines a while back when it turned its Web site into a blog, isn't exactly transforming the medium as we know it with its posting prolific-ness. Since October, the agency has posted a dozen times."

She also comes down on DDB for the lack of permalinks on its blog; not exactly techno-savvy for a big agency.

To be sure, there are agencies (smaller ones at least) that clearly "get" social media and use it extensively, such as Skip Lineberg of Maple Creative with his Marketing Genius blog; Albert Maruggi at Provident Partners, guru of the Marketing Edge podcast; Harry Hoover at My Creative Team with THINKing; and possibly this blog, informally associated with KC Associates.

Cathy Taylor's post appears to have gotten very little attention from agency bloggers, perhaps because not only are they not writing blog posts, they aren't even monitoring what's written about them. But there was Selling tickets to the ball? Better learn to dance on the Fluent Simplicity blog: "Agencies promoting blogs and social media suffer from execution problems. Client projects either miss the whole point of blogging and/or (the agencies) don’t offer any in-house examples."

Perhaps big agencies don't get social media because of their still-prevailing TV mindset. Television advertising is fundamentally one-way, interruption-based messaging. Social media is about creating two-way conversations. Smaller agencies, who do little if any TV ad work, are better positioned to take advantage of blogging, podcasting, interactive PR, social networking and other techniques of conversational marketing.

On the other hand, Matt Dickman, director of digital practice at Fleishman-Hillard and author of the highly popular Techno//Marketer blog, shows that some big agencies do indeed get social media. He'll be speaking at The Fine Line in Minneapolis on Monday.

*****

technorati tags: MediaPost, Cathy Taylor, Blogger's Block - And Other Ways Agencies Aren't Walking The Walk Of Social Media, Skip Lineberg, Maple Creative, Albert Maruggi, Provident Partners, Marketing Edge podcast, Harry Hoover, My Creative Team, interactive PR, social networking

del.icio.us tags: MediaPost, Cathy Taylor, Blogger's Block - And Other Ways Agencies Aren't Walking The Walk Of Social Media, Skip Lineberg, Maple Creative, Albert Maruggi, Provident Partners, Marketing Edge podcast, Harry Hoover, My Creative Team, interactive PR, social networking

icerocket tags: MediaPost, Cathy Taylor, Blogger's Block - And Other Ways Agencies Aren't Walking The Walk Of Social Media, Skip Lineberg, Maple Creative, Albert Maruggi, Provident Partners, Marketing Edge podcast, Harry Hoover, My Creative Team, interactive PR, social networking

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Best of 2007: Web 2.0 Sites

A number of new social networking, social search, social bookmarking, and other Web 2.0-related websites and tools either got their start or got traction in 2007. Here are some of the most notable new sites and tools that made it onto the radar last year.

Go2Web20.net

Billed as "the complete Web 2.0 directory," this site has cataloged more than 2,000 Web 2.0 applications and services, searchable by an extensive list of tags and sortable by date and name.


Snitter

Snitter is a small desktop application that makes it easy to keep up with those you are following on Twitter, a social networking site that lets you keep "followers" up to date on what you're up to, and stay in the loop on what they're doing.


KickApps

A hosted web-based platform that enables webmasters and site owners to create, deploy and manage a branded social media community on any website.


Socialtext

An enterprise wiki tool that enables workgroups or organizations to create secure, group-editable websites; instead of sending emails and attachments, Socialtext customers use private web pages to work together.


Ning Marketing 2.0

Like KickApps, Ning is a social networking platform. The Marketing 2.0 Ning is a social site "For passionate marketers who are out to define, explore, experiment and determine the value of B2B Social Media Marketing and Marketing 2.0," with posts and networking opportunities from forward-thinking marketers across the web, including podcasting guru Albert Maruggi.


TopNetPix

Billed as "an aggregator of the best sites, the best content and the best search results on the Web," TopNetPix brings together an extraordinary amount of news, blog and shopping content and enables you to create your own customized portal containing the web parts you find most interesting and useful.


Zanby

A social networking site focused on group collaboration, Zanby was "created on the premise that community organizing and meeting sites, by their very grassroots nature, should be available to all, not just those who can afford the fees...(Zanby provides) the richest base set of free community organization and lifestyle management tools available. The Zanby suite of tools allows groups to scale naturally from small gatherings to large businesses with enterprise organizational needs."


Social Media Today

A "moderated online business community for social media bloggers, marketers, PR and media professionals," Social Media Today provides the opportunity to network with other marketing professionals, post content, and comment on posts. The membership list includes some pretty big names among marketing bloggers, including Rohit Bhargava, Paul Dunay, and Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media.


BeeTooBee

BeeTooBee.com is both a social networking and bookmarking site for marketing professionals as well as a platform, like Ning or KickApps, that enables any organization to build social media functionality into an existing website. It's also one of the most effective sites for driving marketing-related blog traffic.


Web 2.0 People Search Engines

In this post from the Search is the Internet OS blog, Arnaud Fischer provides helpful reviews of 10 people-search sites, including Spock, ZoomInfo and Naymz. Worth reading just for the comment from Charles Knight.

Previous articles in this series:

Best of 2007: SEO Analysis Tools
Best of 2007: SEO Keyword Research Tools
Best of 2007: News Articles on Social Media Marketing
Best of 2007: Blog Posts on Social Media Marketing
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEM
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on Google AdWords
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 1)
Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 2)
Best of 2007: Website Design
Best of 2007: Blogging for Business
Best of 2007: Marketing Research
Best of 2007: Interactive PR
Best of 2007: SEO Copywriting
Best of 2007: Strategy and Branding
Best of 2007: Web Analytics

*****

technorati tags: social networking, social search, social bookmarking, Web 2.0, Go2Web20.net, complete Web 2.0 directory, Snitter, Twitter, KickApps, Socialtext, enterprise wiki tool, Ning Marketing 2.0, podcasting, Albert Maruggi, TopNetPix, Zanby, Social Media Today, Rohit Bhargava, Paul Dunay, Paul Gillin, The New Influencers, BeeTooBee.com, Arnaud Fischer, Spock, ZoomInfo, Naymz, Charles Knight

del.icio.us tags: social networking, social search, social bookmarking, Web 2.0, Go2Web20.net, complete Web 2.0 directory, Snitter, Twitter, KickApps, Socialtext, enterprise wiki tool, Ning Marketing 2.0, podcasting, Albert Maruggi, TopNetPix, Zanby, Social Media Today, Rohit Bhargava, Paul Dunay, Paul Gillin, The New Influencers, BeeTooBee.com, Arnaud Fischer, Spock, ZoomInfo, Naymz, Charles Knight

icerocket tags: social networking, social search, social bookmarking, Web 2.0, Go2Web20.net, complete Web 2.0 directory, Snitter, Twitter, KickApps, Socialtext, enterprise wiki tool, Ning Marketing 2.0, podcasting, Albert Maruggi, TopNetPix, Zanby, Social Media Today, Rohit Bhargava, Paul Dunay, Paul Gillin, The New Influencers, BeeTooBee.com, Arnaud Fischer, Spock, ZoomInfo, Naymz, Charles Knight

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Best of 2007: Blog Posts on Social Media Marketing

My last post listed several of the best news articles from 2007 on how to effectively use social networking sites for marketing. Here are some of the best blog posts on social networking and social media marketing strategies and tactics.

7 Reasons Why Niche Social Media Outlets are Better Than Digg by AjaxNinja

After noting that "Digg has an immense amount of traffic and getting landed on the front page will send a tsunami of new readers to your blog or website, but getting onto the front page is incredibly difficult. Getting onto the front page of a smaller, more appropriate niche portal, by contrast, is much easier, quicker, and ultimately you get a better return on your time/traffic ratio in the short run," this post makes the case for targeting smaller sites. Among the complaints about Digg are its excessively broad audience and categories and the site's lack of transparency.

34 More Ways to Build Your Own Social Network by TechCrunch

An excellent and detailed review of tools and services that enable you to build your own social networking site, including both well-known platforms such as Ning and KickApps, as well as lesser-known tools like AlstraSoft, Blogtronix, Crowd Factory, SelectMinds and Webligo.

Get a Facebook Strategy by Buzz Marketing for Technology

Blogger and podcaster Paul Dunay explains why and how you should develop a brand-building strategy for Facebook leveraging other popular social networking tools.

Forget UGC, Discover User-Generated-Linkbait by Distilled

Blogger Tom Critchlow lays out an interesting strategy for building rich website content by leveraging user-generated content on discussion forums.

SEO vs. SMO by Vandelay Design

An excellent blog post that compares search engine optimization to social media optimization, makes the case for crafting a strategy for both, and concludes "SMO is the best way (at least it’s the best free method) for new websites and blogs to draw visitors. This early success with social media can have long-lasting effects on search engine rankings as well."

From 0 To PageRank 4 In 1 Month: Interview With Local Seo Andrew Shotland by Convert Offline

This blog interview demonstrates how to quickly build blog traffic by combining quality traffic with social networking.

Setting Goals for Social Media Profile Development by Search Engine People

Blogger Jeff Quipp provides a nicely detailed post on crafting SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) objectives for developing your social media profile and an online professional network.

Previous articles in this series:

Best of 2007: SEO Analysis Tools
Best of 2007: SEO Keyword Research Tools
Best of 2007: News Articles on Social Media Marketing

*****

technorati tags: social networking sites for marketing, social media marketing, 7 Reasons Why Niche Social Media Outlets are Better Than Digg, AjaxNinja, 34 More Ways to Build Your Own Social Network, TechCrunch, Ning, KickApps, AlstraSoft, Blogtronix, Crowd Factory, SelectMinds, Webligo, Get a Facebook Strategy, Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul Dunay, Forget UGC, Discover User-Generated-Linkbait, Distilled, Tom Critchlow, discussion forums, SEO vs. SMO, Vandelay Design, social media optimization, From 0 To PageRank 4 In 1 Month: Interview With Local Seo Andrew Shotland, Convert Offline, Setting Goals for Social Media Profile Development, Search Engine People, Jeff Quipp

del.icio.us tags: social networking sites for marketing, social media marketing, 7 Reasons Why Niche Social Media Outlets are Better Than Digg, AjaxNinja, 34 More Ways to Build Your Own Social Network, TechCrunch, Ning, KickApps, AlstraSoft, Blogtronix, Crowd Factory, SelectMinds, Webligo, Get a Facebook Strategy, Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul Dunay, Forget UGC, Discover User-Generated-Linkbait, Distilled, Tom Critchlow, discussion forums, SEO vs. SMO, Vandelay Design, social media optimization, From 0 To