When we think of brand exposure and search engine optimization (SEO) we are often narrowly focused on our website and do not take into consideration the many ways to build exposure and SEO that are outside of our website. Most businesses, organizations, and groups have events that they are hosting or attending these are phenomenal opportunities to increase exposure online.

When we attend business functions, workshops, training’s, conventions, networking events, forums, etc. we look to the actual event to get our ROI (return on investment). How many contacts did I make, how much knowledge did I get that will increase business, how many people saw and will remember my company? It is time to branch past the physical and go into the exponential world.

One way to build brand awareness is to promote events that your company is associated with. These events can be events you are hosting, attending, sponsoring, or speaking at. Online event listings, because of their association with well trafficked websites, are making the first page of Google, sometimes even over a business profile listing on those same sites.

Search Engine Listing by Company and/or Brand

Facebook for instance, the business pages sometimes get Google love but if you create an event on Facebook and that is well promoted through your contacts and networks via email campaigns, your blog, and on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter that event listing can rank on the first page of Google under a search for your company.

Yelp is not just a consumer review site it can also be an event promotion portal, where you post your event, get reviews before, during, and after the event and build search engine optimization in the process. Yelp is another site that gets millions of monthly visitors, because of this traffic your event listing gets great Google placement when your company is searched.

Twtvite is a Twitter event site, events promoted on Twitter are referred to as Tweetups (a lot like meetups) and twtvite is a place to post your event, describe it, and promote it. Twtvite does not get as much traffic as the aforementioned sites, but Twitter does and because twtvite is promoted on and through Twitter it benefits from all of that exposure. Google loves popular links and link association, twtvite is associated with Twitter and gets a lot of backlinks through Twitter (people talking about twtvite events and sharing them with their friends) so Google ranks a listing on this site pretty high up.

Search Engine Ranking by Event Type, Location, and/or Keywords

Eventful was created for the entertainment industry and is now growing into business, networking, and more community focused events. The site says it has 15 million users, however the site is only receiving 1.5 million unique visitors and 2.2 million repeat visitors this discrepancy could be due to users receiving their updates via email, iPhone, and/or online messaging services. In any case Eventful is pulling up in the search engines for  location based keyword driven event searches.

Meetup is free to use, but has a quarterly or an annual fee for those wanting to start their own groups. It may give your company some SEO but in most cases listings from this site pop up when people search for specific events, with location, and/or keywords. On top of the search engine optimization, Meetup is its own community, a community that is pretty active, with users visiting the site regularly and actively seeking information and updates via email. Creating a group and posting events on this site can give you exposure on and off the site, if you do not have the wherewithall to maintain a group, being active in the groups and meetups will get you exposure also.

Craigslist, is not just a place to sell your belongings, list garage sales and properties for sale, you can also list events here. Craigslist is a tricky site though, sometimes listing show up on the search engines and sometimes not. Craigslist does get a good deal of traffic, if you list an event on their site you will get some exposure within their community of users, you will get a backlink to your website from a high ranking site(this will help your website’s SEO), and you may get company and/or keyword search engine placement.

Up and Coming Event Sites

Eventbrite provides online event management and ticketing services,  this is a full service event site that  is free if your event is free. If you sell tickets to your event, Eventbrite collects a fee per ticket. What we like about Eventbrite is that they have made it easy to publish a customizable web page for the event, easy to promote your event through the social media sites and your email marketing platform, and you can collect payments through their service.

M&M, Events Meetings and Mixers, is a site that you have to, in most cases, pay to list on unless you are non-profit, chamber of commerce, Score type organization, etc. or you are hosting a true networking or free event, but it is great for keyword driven search. Like Meetup this site may give your company some SEO but in most cases listings from this site pop up when people search for specific event types, with location, and/or company or organizations added in.

Biznik is a business network, a lot like LinkedIn (though they say they are NOT another LinkedIn) that promotes building your business through collaboration, conversation, and by sharing your knowledge. You can put up your profile, post articles on this site (which are starting to place pretty well in the search engines), and post events. The more traffic this site gets, directly from the search engines and the social sites, the better the rankings will be. We have seen events on this site coming up more for keyword searches (i.e. San Diego business networking) and less for company searches, though the profile listing will help the company and individual in search.

No related posts.

Who’s Talkin? Last week we discussed Business Review sites, this week we have a list more specific review sites and forums in the travel and tourism industry. Listed below you will find sites that review or provide a platform for discussions about travel, destinations, restaurants, hotels, spas, and resorts.

The travel and tourism industry, like so many other industries, has been hard hit by the downturn in the economy. Travel and tourism are typically discretionary income spending activities, though business travel is a part of this, the biggest piece of their pie is the vacationer.

According to a Q3 2009 State of Travel and Tourism report by the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries

The current economic downturn has unquestionably created the most difficult environment for the U.S.

travel and tourism industry since 9/11. The industry has contracted by nearly $130 billion this year alone.

The travel and tourism industry is not just affected by the U.S. economy but also by the world economy and popular opinion. From the OTTI;

The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced that international visitors spent an estimated $10.2 billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, the United States during the month of November – nearly $800 million less (7 percent) than was spent in November 2008 and averaging nearly $1.8 billion less a month year to date . Total international visitor spending is down $19.3 billion (15 percent) year to date (January-November).

With a shrinking consumer pool, if you are directly or indirectly affected by this industry it is imperative that you know what consumers are saying and what they aren’t saying.

What really matters to travelers?

Do travelers care most about price, value, location, or attractions?

Are travelers more affected by reviews and recommendations, or price?

Will they spend more if there is some hype?

With travel being so expensive are more people doing the “local vacation”, going to locations, attractions, and events that are drivable or short flights?

What do people think of your state, city, town, and/or neighborhood?

After they visit your establishment what have they said to their communities about you?

Are you out there listening, engaging, educating, and responding? Because if you are not, then that shrinking consumer pool is even smaller for you. Those companies that understand that being apart of the conversation is a fundamental component to their marketing, service, and sales strategies are getting more of the pie then you.

Here is where you can find some of the conversations that happening:

If you know of other travel and tourism specific review sites we would love to hear about them!

Related posts:

1. Business and Product Review Sites: Do You Know How You Rate? The most powerful weapon in the business arsenal is…. Knowledge....

Branding and reputation management used to be a bit simpler, sell a great product or service, provide exceptional customer service, and stay in-front of your clients and potential clients. In a nutshell, stay involved and you will hear what people are saying about you. Well now, staying involved and in-front of people extends past your local community and onto the vast reaches of the internet. And of course not in just one place on the internet but everywhere, in forums, networks (social, business, and niche), blogs, and user generated review sites.

On The Get Smart Blog we have spoken quite a bit about social media and how businesses and individuals can build interactive communities to grow and improve their organizations. Today we have a list of sites that consumers are visiting to get and give feedback on products and services. Some of these sites are a combination of reviews and community, some are just reviews from users and/or experts, and some are local search and discovery sites.

So why should you pay attention to these sites? Well because consumers are, on a local and global level. Which means that if someone says something about you or your business there is a high probability that hundreds, thousands, and possibly even millions of eyeballs could see it. Some of these sites have such stellar page rankings, that if just one review for a business or product gets posted it will hit the front page of the search engines for years to come.

Now you can’t control what people say about you, but you can control how you respond to what is said about you. For a consumer the review is important but quite often the response, or lack there of, from the entity being reviewed is even more so. If you are serious about building brand awareness and creating brand advocates you must get out there and start engaging people. It starts with listening,  then authentically responding, and finally rewarding those individuals that have taken the time to spread the message about you.

There is no better time to get started then right now….go check some of these sites out and see how YOU rate.

We scoured the internet for these sites, but we are aware that new one pops up every day, so if we have missed a great review site please us know.

Related posts:

1. Travel Talk: 40 Travel and Tourism Review Sites Who’s Talkin? Last week we discussed Business Review sites,...
2. Events That Make the First Page of Google When we think of brand exposure and search engine optimization...

“You will discover that you have two hands. One is for helping yourself and the other is for helping others.” ~Audrey Hepburn

Ways to help Haiti

1. Donate $10 to the Red Cross by texting “HAITI” to
90999.

2. Yele Haiti, Wyclef Jean’s grassroots org Text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5 via your cellphone

3. Salvation Army is accepting monetary donations to assist #Haiti
relief efforts via http://bit.ly/5HWYBn and 1-800-SAL-ARMY

4. Donate to Doctors without Borders

5. Large List of Aid Organizations: How to help – Haiti earthquake- msnbc.com http://bit.ly/7fLXpJ

6. Feed The Children: Haiti Earthquake http://bit.ly/6X082a

7. 12for12k Supports Hope for Haiti http://bit.ly/7jDhBc

News on the Haiti Effort

No related posts.

San Diego, California – North County San Diego Chambers of Commerce in Oceanside, Carlsbad, and Vista will be starting 2010 off focused on helping small and medium business owners and professionals get educated on social media and its use in business marketing.

The rise of Web 2.0 content and community interaction is changing marketing operations – making businesses and their marketing efforts more efficient and customer-centric. Real-time marketing allows businesses to better understand and quickly respond to the movements of the market on both individual and strategic levels.

Brand interaction with consumers via new media has gone from a nice-to-have to a need-to-have over the years, a development supported by research from Cone Inc.

According to eMarketer.com;

More than one-half of new media users (53%) believe brands should have a presence in new media, interacting with consumers as needed or by request only, while a further 36% demand a new media presence with regular interaction.

Contact with brands is still popular through both traditional online and newer channels, with 58% of respondents interacting with companies through e-mail and 45% through Websites, compared with just 30% communicating with brands via social networks.

New media contact with companies and brands fosters goodwill in a majority of users, with at least seven in 10 respondents reporting positive impressions, stronger connections and a greater willingness to engage with the company.

The Social Media and Technology focused workshops will start January 18th, 2010 and run through March 24^th 2010 from 8 am to 10 am. The workshops are weekly, 2 hours long, and include a comprehensive step by step booklet.

Schedule:

Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce January 18^th – March 1^st, 2010 http://www.carlsbad.org/EventRegister.aspx

Oceanside Chamber of Commerce January 26^th – March 23^rd, 2010 http://socialmediachamber.com

Vista Chamber of Commerce January 27^th – March 23rd, 2010 http://vistachamber.org/contact_us.htm

Topics include:

Introduction to Social Media (Vista Chamber only)

Business Blogging and Article Writing
Link Up on LinkedIn and Beyond
Building Business on Facebook
Twitter Your Way to More Business
Video Marketing
Google Ads and Adwords
Mobile Marketing
Email Marketing
Making It all Work (Marketing Plan)

The speaker Bridget Ayers, is co-founder and president of the Get Smart Web Consulting Group, a web presence and digital strategy firm with offices in San Diego County, California and Collier County, Florida. Bridget Ayers consults, directs, and manages interactive marketing campaigns for businesses and organizations that are looking to reach a wider more targeted audience.

Bridget has organized and conducted social media and training workshops for Chambers of Commerce throughout the United States, various business networks and organizations, corporations, as well as women and non-profit focused groups.

To the delight of their members the Oceanside and Carlsbad Chambers of Commerce began offering these classes in the third and fourth quarter of 2009, with sold out attendance. Due to the response and feedback of their members the chambers have chosen to continue offering the classes in 2010, as well as adding new ones to keep up with the ever changing world of digital marketing.

Related posts:

1. Events That Make the First Page of Google When we think of brand exposure and search engine optimization...
2. Another Reason Email is NOT Dead: Email and Social Media Integration with Xobni In business we are constantly looking for innovative ways...

In business we are constantly looking for innovative ways to add more to our plate without adding more to the time clock….in most cases that is a fools errand, until now!  I am not sure how I am just now finding out about Xobni, they are a startup that has been around since 2006, but it is thanks to a LinkedIn blog post (actually it was a comment on this post) about LinkedIn’s upcoming integration into Outlook (can’t wait for this) that I stumbled onto this ridiculously cool tool!

Xobni (inbox spelled backwards….clever!) is an add-in for Outlook that helps you organize and connect with your contacts on multiple levels. This tool searches your contact’s information on Outlook and on the web returning shared network information, threaded conversations, files exchanged, upcoming appointments (Xobni Plus $29.95), as well as Skype, Hoover, and social profiles (Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn).

The Plus version of Xobni also offers advanced search and filter functions, suggest features, and 1 year of support. As if that weren’t enough they are still developing add-ons and extended features.

From the Xobni Blog:

There is a lot of excitement out there for our upcoming Blackberry product. We want to get this in your hands as soon as possible. And just yesterday we launched our Salesforce Extension.

I downloaded the free version today and I can assure you I am going to upgrade ASAP! They have created a fabulous tool for the business professional. During our Get Smart Web Workshops and Trainings we ask business owners, professionals, sales and marketing staff, marketing assistants, and any employee that we can finagle from a company to add interactive digital marketing to their already very full plates. We give them as many tech and software tools as we can find to make the new media integration as painless and consistent as possible, this one tool will be at the top of our list now!

Outlook is a staple in business, digital marketing is not- just yet, we are often asked to show the how, why, and ROI before the company jumps in. Since I have played with this tool (most of today!) I can in one download answer some of those questions. Using Outlook, which we do everyday, and Xobni you can see just how many people you can connect with outside of the normal channels. I can’t tell you how wonderful this is going to be for us as a marketing firm and for our clients, those poor souls that we continue to ask to pile just one more thing on their plate.

Great job Xobni….I am looking forward to future features. (Now that you have the Salesforce extension perhaps an ACT one….)

Related posts:

1. Interactive Marketing: Less Talk, More Listening, Stronger Data Integration image by Duchesssa I had the pleasure of attending...
2. Take the Conversation on the Road One of the biggest challenges for businesses is how to,...

image by Duchesssa

I had the pleasure of attending the Blog World Expo this year, on top of the joy of finally meeting in-person those that I have thus far only known online, the conference had some great topics given by some highly educated and creative speakers. I almost missed out on a very interesting talk given by Jeremiah Owyang (@jowYang) on the Future of Social Media. Most of the information on Social Media, where it started, where it is at, where it is going is a regurgitation of information we have heard again and again, and so I almost skipped it. At the last minute I decided to step in and I am glad I did.

Jeremiah didn’t give a world changing presentation but he did touch on some fundamentals, innovations, and interesting developments in social media that really tapped into the nerd girl in me. Three things I wanted to hear a new view point on were; new ways to engage, real time and mobile advances, and harnessing analytical data. Owyang discussed all of this and more.

Summary of Jeremiah Owyang’s presentation

• The social web is quickly evolving, develop strategies in your long-term plan.

• Integrate social technologies into your corporate site.

• Join communities where they exist.

• Develop listening and advocacy programs.

• Think holistically about your corporate strategy.

• Prepare for personalized content.

The full presentation is in this pdf: jeremiahowyang-blogworld-future you can also contact them directly at info@altimetegroup.com

One of the main areas I was interested in hearing about was ways to compile analytical data that could be incorporated in the company’s marketing plan, outreach strategy, customer support, and research and development. Compiling the analytical data on the reach(i.e. influence) and growth of a company’s social media presence can be as much work as building that presence.  To date there are many platforms that you can use to do this, the free ones (Buzzstream, tweetbeep, Google Alerts, blog directories, Technorati, Google blog search, keyword tools, etc.) require a lot of time and data entry, the paid for platforms (Buzzstream, Radian6, ScoutLabs, Omniture) which can cost quite a bit monthly are more user friendly but still lack integration into your company structure until now. According to Owyang, and later a couple of Radian6 representatives at their Blog World booth, Radian6 has just partnered up with SalesForce.com and is working on something with Omniture as well as some other companies to bring that analytical and crm integration we are all looking for.

Radian6 plus SalesForce.com means that you can take all of that analytical data and use it for more than just validation that your marketing plan is going in the right direction, you can now use that all important information for customer support, relationship building, and research and development. With an integrated tools you can now spend less time compiling and more time analyzing and implementing.

Less talk, more listening, and now more ways to use the analytical data to go beyond marketing.

Related posts:

1. Another Reason Email is NOT Dead: Email and Social Media Integration with Xobni In business we are constantly looking for innovative ways...
2. Travel Talk: 40 Travel and Tourism Review Sites Who’s Talkin? Last week we discussed Business Review sites,...

Are you tapping into the power of real-time information? The face of communication, research, and marketing is rapidly changing…..and the result is that the Id is controlling the Internet! If you can’t remember what the Id is it comes from Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality where the id is the pleasure principle, the superego is the morality principle, and the ego is the reality principle.

There is supposed to be a healthy balance between these personality traits, and when there isn’t the world is turned upside down, but for whom? For a business owner, marketer, or salesperson people with poor impulse control, those with the need to be satisfied right now, is money in the bank! This is also true on the marketing side, it used to be that Nielson reports, white papers, and large scale research projects gave you data from last year, last quarter, or last month – now you can get real-time analytical data. Real-time gives your marketing relevancy, you are engaging your target market on what they are interested in today, not a year ago or even a month ago, but right now. Waht is more powerful than that?

So how can you capitalize on the real-time information (Twitter) phenomenon? Well according to Ron Conway there are 10 ways…

In this article on TheDeal.com Angel Ron Conway blesses real-time Web highlights Conway’s plan

Prolific angel investor Ron Conway is focusing primarily on “real-time data” companies, accelerating his already considerable investment pace, reports VentureBeat. Conway is known for being one of the first outside investors in Google Inc. and as an investor in 500-plus companies over the last decade or so, including Twitter Inc., the poster child for the real-time Web.

You can read and watch Conway discuss the real-time web in more detail here:

Ron Conway’s top ten ways to make money from real-time data “If you add these up,” according to Conway, there’s “probably $5 billion dollars here.”

What tools can you use to watch, learn, and to structure your marketing and communication plan?

Since Twitter is the catalyst for the new-real time obsession we should start with tools that focus here:

Search.Twitter.com

–

Tools that search Twitter and Beyond:

In an article from TechCrunch today CrowdEye’s introduction of CrowdRank Real-Time Search 4 tools are highlighted:

One of the richest areas of experimentation in search right now is how to rank real-time results. For the most part, that means finding relevance in Twitter and bringing up the most important Tweets for any given keyword (see OneRiot, Collecta,Scoopler). Today, real-time search engine CrowdEye is introducing its own real-time ranking algorithm called CrowdRank. It’s supposed to be like Google’s PageRank, but for the crowd.

CrowdEye

CrowdEye is a new generation of search engine which looks at the worldwide web in a new way. By tracking discussions on Twitter, we can help our users find out what’s important to them right now in real time. CrowdEye has created innovative technology to scan through tweets, retweets, twitter links and more. We then provide you with powerful yet easy ways to slice, dice, summarize and categorize the data to answer your questions. Whether you’re interested in following your brand, baseball, celebrities, movies, or anything else people are talking about – CrowdEye can help you know what people are thinking.

Collecta

Collects real-time data from blog posts, articles, comments on blog posts, updates from Twitter, Jaiku, Identica, photos from Flickr, TwitPic, yFrog and Videos from YouTube, Ustream

Scoopler

Scoopler is a real-time search engine. We aggregate and organize content being shared on the internet as it happens, like eye-witness reports of breaking news, photos and videos from big events, and links to the hottest memes of the day. We do this by constantly indexing live updates from services including Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and more. When you search for a topic on Scoopler, we give you the most relevant results, updated in real-time.

OneRiot

OneRiot, a realtime search engine, helps users find the news, blogs and videos that people are buzzing about. OneRiot ranks its search results using PulseRank, a realtime ranking algorithm that sorts web content according to its current social significance. By indexing pages shared by millions of Digg, Twitter, and wider social web users – including the contributions of OneRiot’s own three million-strong panel – OneRiot delivers fresh, hyper-relevant search results that answer the question: what is happening right now?

RiotFeeds

OneRiot’s Twitter tool, which basically hand curates tweets from the top sites in various categories on the web.

IceRocket

IceRocket is a a privately owned and operated Search Engine that focuses on blog search technology to search blogosphere, it also now searches Twitter, FriendFeed, Youtube, etc.

BlogPulse

BlogPulse.com is a blog search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere. BlogPulse.com features the following:

• A Search Engine for blogs
• A set of Buzz-Tracking tools that are applied to blog content daily to track blog activity on key issues, people, news stories, news sources, bloggers and more
• A fun look at real-world Trends as reflected through blogs
• Daily blog stats that measure activity in the world of blogging (number of blogs identified, new blogs created, number of blog posts analyzed)
• A Trend Search that allows you to create trend charts comparing buzz in the blogosphere on up to three specific topics
• A Conversation Tracker that follows and captures the discussion, or conversation, that emanates and spreads from individual blogs or individual blog posts
• Blogger Profiles that identify top-ranked blogs and analyze their blog presence, activity and relative influence in the blogging world

We know there are more great free real-time research tools, so if you have one you want to share, be sure to include it in the comments…

Related posts:

1. Conducting a Symphony: Group Collaboration Tools No one can whistle a symphony.  It takes a...
2. What is Your Twitter ROI? Twitter Analyzer Tools ROI or return on investment is different for every...

Social Networks, Community Sites, Wiki’s, Forums, etc. these are virtual places for people to come together based off of common interests to share and engage, through discussions and by posting content in one form or another (video, images, stories, links, etc.) right?

At least that is how I understood a community site to work, how about you? Well I think that the problem is that most of our social networks are free to use but not free to own and operate. So our community networks are also businesses, merging these two entities, a business and a social network, I believe is where the disconnect arises (in most cases).

Recently the Internet buzz has been about Digg’s diggbar debacle – basically they set it up to show the original source page with a diggbar at the top so you could see what the Digg community’s activity was on that page, and then without telling anyone they switched it to sending the visitor (if not a Digg member) to the Digg page rather than the original web page. Very confusing isn’t it? In a nutshell they promoted it as a tool that would benefit Digg and the website that was being featured, to now just promoting Digg.

Understandably there has been some outrage over this, and Digg has since backtracked a bit to allow all old diggbar links to go to the original page source and all new diggbar links (those created today forward) to go to Digg if you are not logged in or not a member. So there is a compromise of sorts (if you call following through on the stated purpose comprising), and only because the “community” and content publishers complained, an action that may have far reaching ramifications for Digg but nevertheless they did relent.

Digg Loses Trust

What is most interesting about this whole situation, is that users, publishers, and the news blogs are saying that Digg may have irreparably damaged the trust of it’s users and relationship with content publishers with this one action. Seriously?

On top of all the issues with the diggbar from launch up to this point, what about all of Digg’s other actions, mass banning’s, whitelisting and backlisting websites, and preferential treatment of certain users (media – remember Katie Couric)? In September 2008 The Get Smart Blog listed the names of those Digg users in the first big round of Digg bannings, I honestly did it as a joke because even though I was one of those banned I felt it was their site and if rules were broken then that’s how it goes. But, then reactions started coming over from those that were banned and people were genuinely hurt and upset. I started listening to why they were so angry, and after about the 20th comment ( 77 total comments) it hit home that these people were not  just upset about losing Digg as much as they were upset about losing the relationships they had spent months and, for some, years building.

Digg banned people purely as a business decision, but the members who were being banned saw it as being kicked out of their community. Digg users spend a lot of time, energy, and resources sharing content on Digg and on top of that build relationships with other Digg die hard’s. These ex-diggers were losing all of that without any warning or consideration on Diggs part. Digg needed more money from investors and advertisers, their click thru rates were low because of scripting, and they had a small percentage of the users that controlled the front page content. They needed to show their investors and advertisers that they controlled their site, not the users, and that they could get eyeballs on ads. Answer is simple ,ban those that are using scripts or blind digging (digging a story without reading it) practices, one fell swoop you get rid of two problems. So the site that started out as a community became a business.

Digg Then

Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by our community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see.

Digg Now

As any Digg user will tell you Digg uses algorithms, whitelists sites and blacklists others, the most votes does not get you to the front page – some sites have made it with 50 diggs while others have not made it with 400 diggs. Our Grim Reaper Has Visited Digg post got over 500 diggs and never hit the front page.

Digg Then

Digg is all about sharing and discovery, there’s a conversation that happens around the content. We’re here to promote that conversation and provide tools for our community to discuss the topics that they’re passionate about. By looking at information through the lens of the collective community on Digg, you’ll always find something interesting and unique.

Digg Now

Conversation is encouraged – and yet they have taken away the shout feature because people were getting diggs based off  of their popularity and not the content of the story they were sharing. You can still comment on stories though.

However in the comments section do not be too passionately against a person or entity that Digg is wooing or you will find yourself locked out of your community (Anyone who said anything negative about Katie Couric mysterisouly found their account gone quickly thereafter)

Finally, unique – the same sites hit the front page consistently while there are those sites that at one time hit the front page, that for whatever reason can no longer no matter how many diggs they receive….that does not equal unique. And forget about being a small blog on the front page it just does not happen.

Digg is a Business

Do I think that Digg is a bad place? No. Do I think that people should stop using Digg? No. What I think is that people need to understand that Digg is a business that has some community attributes – mainly people can join their site, share content and interact as long as it fits in with the bigger business picture. You are secondary to the ultimate goal of…find a way to make a profit!

Digg is not the only one, all of the social sites are businesses – no one has figured out how to be profitable but they’re trying, and every one of them has made missteps with their users. Facebook’s disastrous Beacon advertising program, Twitter and the imposter accounts, and MySpace predators. Most of these sites have taken the feedback from their users to improve the site for both parties, Digg it seems is young in more than age alone and like the young minded they are going to do things the way they want to….and that is that.

It is a shame really, the best relationships allow for compromise or at the very least an equitable give and take – even business relationships. What Digg has forgotten is that though the users do not pay to use the site, they do contribute to the bottom line – if you do not have users that freely spend their time on your site you have no site.

On top of that you have the content publishers that support your site with badges and links because you provide a place for them to syndicate their content and increase readership, lose them and your traffic will dwindle. (Special note publishers since the diggbar was implemented all of the links on Digg to your submitted web page go to diggbar url which means that nice backlink from Digg is no more.)

Digg + Content Publisher + User = News Aggregator Community Network

Digg + Digg = A Website

Let’s hope Digg get’s back to their original intent of the “collective community ” real soon.

Stay tuned for our next post entitled; Not So “Community” Networks: Reddit Ghost Bannings….they ban you but without telling you that your banned. That’s a community for you….not!

No related posts.

Twitter and TechCrunch is there a Conspiracy??

Inspiration

JD Rucker aka Oboy (You can find JD’s profiles here)

Watergate Scandal

Social Blade Show (Show discussing Social Media Topics – Thursday Evenings 7 pm PST)

The Drill Down (Show discussing Tech Topics – Friday Evenings 8:30 pm PST)

The Drill Down Podcast 7/20 (We discuss TwitterGate) Go Packers!

TwitterGate from Bridget Ayers on Vimeo.

This Video is just a bit of fun on our part but if you would like to read more about the Twitter Hack here are a few of the many sources you can find on the topic…..

Sources

TechCrunch

Twitter Gets Hacked, Badly (First Hack January 2009)

Twitter’s Internal Strategy Laid Bare: To Be “The Pulse Of The Planet” (TechCrunch reveals some of the 300 documents)

PCWorld

Twitter Hacked, Secrets to be Revealed? – PC World (Before documents were released)

Will Twitter Sue TechCrunch? (Found this after we made the video, still think TwitterGate might be possible & it looks like others do too #twittergate)

NY Times

Twitter Hack Raises Flags on Security

Twitter Blog

Twitter, Even More Open Than We Wanted (Posturing to take away suspicion?)

Computer World

Report: Hacker broke into Twitter e-mail with help from Hotmail (’Hacker Croll’ spills details to TechCrunch) Deep Throat?

We would love to hear what you think? Leave a comment here and/or on Twitter @BridgetAyers

No related posts.