In the old days, email signatures pretty much just mirrored business card information: name, company, title, phone, fax (gotta love that 80's technology still hanging on!) and email address. For most people, that's still the only information their email signature provides. A growing number of Web 2.0-savvy executives, however, are breaking out of the old mold and creatively integrating social networking into their email sign-off. After all, the two purposes of an email signature are to tell the recipient a little about yourself (e.g., your title, company and location) and to give them different ways to contact you. Social networking sites are simply an extension of those two functions, giving other people more information about yourself and additional ways to interact. Based on my informal research, here are the most popular social media elements people are adding to their Web 2.0 email signatures: Twitter page, LinkedIn profile and blog link: these are the most popula...

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 TopNet Pix , 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 Faceb...

Following up on my recent post on The 4 Ps of Effective Business Blogging , here are six more Ps to keep in mind for business blogging success. Platform There are a wide array of options for building and hosting your blog, from the big 3 online options— Blogger , TypePad and WordPress —to software applications and content management (CMS) systems with blogging features. The topic of which platform is best has filled numerous blog posts, including inpholust's Blogger vs. TypePad vs. Wordpress , Blogger vs. TypePad: Some Questions from Blogging Basics 101, and TypePad vs. Blogger from The Blog Squad, as well as forum discussions . The bottom line is: as long as the platform you choose makes your blog recognizable as such by search engines and provides RSS feed capability, it will work. Prodigious One of the original 4 Ps of blogging was persistence—writing new posts on a regular basis. Being prodigious refers to the frequency and volume of posting. Writing one new post...

Sure, almost every business on the planet is now using social media in some manner, but do you ever wonder if it really works? And if so, how? I get those questions, and while I generally avoid writing about myself (preferring to stick to topics that are actually interesting), a recent post here on how to use Twitter for business was part of interesting and illustrative social media experience. It started with a webcast on using Twitter effectively for business and advocacy hosted by Chris Abraham , social media guru and principal at social PR firm Abraham Harrison , and Anamitra Banerji of Twitter. After the presentation, Chris posted his content on SlideShare , a leading social media sharing site. I then wrote the above-mentioned blog post summaring the presentation, which was published here and also syndicated on MyVenturePad , part of the Social Media Today network. The syndicated piece caught the attention of the marketing folks at ZoomInfo . ZoomInfo is a highly-regarded...

As I recently passed 400 posts on this blog, here is a look back at the 10 most popular items here of all time. The list has changed considerably since the last look back after 300 posts . #10: Best of 2007: Website Design , February 4, 2008 Reviews of articles and tools on website design, including a couple of pieces from the brilliant and frequently cited Stoney deGeyter . Not sure exactly why this one remain so popular, but here it is at #10. #9: How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy , March 4, 2009 A summary of research from MarketingSherpa , Eloqua's Steve Woods , and green marketer Lorna Li on how marketers should approach social media strategically. As the old saying from the financial world goes, no one plans to fail—but many people fail to plan. #8: Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 4: B2B Traffic Building , May 15, 2007 Original research on the quantitative impact of social bookmarking on b2b site traffic. Much has changed since then, and social media is now a...

On the occasion of the 300th post on the WebMarketCentral blog, and to see how things have changed since the first 100 posts , here are the 10 most popular posts of all time so far. #10: The 8 Layers of a B2B Web Marketing Plan , October 8, 2008 The most recent post to make this list presents B2B marketing as a series of concentric layers, with SEO at the core then moving outward from highly measurable online direct response tactics to broader brand advertising. #9: Best of 2007: Articles and Blog Posts on SEO (Part 1) , January 28, 2008 Summaries of and links to a dozen outstanding articles on SEO from some of the top pros like Lee Odden , Jon Rognerud and Danny Sullivan . Also, I think, the first time on this blog I made the case that SEO is far from dead. #8: Web 2.0 Social Tagging Sites, Part 7: The Best , June 26, 2007 "Based on two months of testing across a half-dozen B2B websites and blogs, these Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites produced the best results, in terms of driv...

One of the most popular posts ever on this blog was The Social Media Email Signature , in which I noted that "In the old days, email signatures pretty much just mirrored business card information (which is still the case for most people)...A growing number of Web 2.0-savvy executives, however, are breaking out of the old mold and creatively integrating social networking into their email sign-off." It clearly struck a cord, and traffic-wise, it didn't hurt that Guy Kawasaki tweeted the post. It helped. A lot. In fact. The post included several creative examples of social media signatures, though most are are text-based. Lately, you may have seen more examples that incorporate graphical elements, like this: Mike Barran Marketing Executive Results Driven Marketing mike@digitalrdm.com (It's difficult to match the exact appearance in Blogger; my actual Outlook signature is shown to the right.) If you use Gmail, Hotmail or another web-based email service, the easi...

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 Stu...

The flipside of the ten P's of blogging previously covered here are the attributes or characteristics that should be avoided in creating a successful business blog. Like the seven deadly sins in Christianity, these vices can relegate a blogger to the underworld of the blogosphere though the judgment of readers. Gluttony: Avoid the "it's all about ME!" syndrome in blogging, where every post is about ME, MY company, or MY product or service. It's perfectly acceptable to write a personal post on occasion, or selectively bring up one's product or service in highly pertinent posts. But if one's own company and its offerings are the only topics of coverage, the end result will be a (very boring) piece of extended marketing collateral, rather than an effective blog that enhances organizational recognition and credibility. Greed: Everyone has to eat, so there's nothing wrong with generating income from a blog—providing it's done ethically. Including s...