It was an interesting week with plenty of drama, humor and even an engagement. We even managed to get nepotistic; who knew we actually read each other’s stuff? There are a few post for the Diggers, SEO types and even some analytics mixxed in for good measure. All in all plenty of good reading for those you you that simply can’t get enough!
People like to talk about social media sites in terms the amount of traffic sent by getting on the front page, backlinks, profile backlinks, and passing pagerank.
Today, we’re going to have a little fun with it. We’re going to take the web 1.0 metric of time on site and go a little more touchy feely with it for a web 2.0 world. Trust me, this will be fun. Here is a list of my top 5 favorite most addictive sites within social media. Perhaps they aren’t even my favorite, but rather that I can’t seem to get myself off of them
Plurk
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes - something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the safe Plurking habits guide recommends no more than 30 Plurks per day. Brilliant.
Twitter
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using Twitterfox and Hahlo for the iPhone). It’s great for asking questions, looking for resources on a project, and keeping up with what people are doing.
Breaking news can often be found on Twitter as well. And yes, it has been criticized for its uptime performance - the same people that are hitting the refresh button every 2 minutes while Twitter is down Yeah, it’s that addictive.
StumbleUpon
It’s been around considerably longer than many people think. StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites due to all the great finds I get through it. SU is a true discovery engine, something that if positioned correctly can give traditional search a true run for its money. StumbleUpon is doing something right, and people are taking notice. I’m a big fan of what they have done with SearchReviews (now in Yahoo as well), putting in your friends stumble ratings right on the SERPS.
Facebook
I know what you’re thinking. Facebook is for kids. It’s annoying. It invades my privacy. Say what you will, but with facebook chat, a few addictive apps, and seeing people on there that mainly stay off other social sites (read: have a life off the computer), Facebook is still a daily mainstay for me. It’s a great way to connect with people that you haven’t seen in years, and you can quickly get lost in time through all the possibilities.
Say what you will. Digg has its issues, but for me, it’s still something I’m checking out throughout the day. While Digg has its challenges and critics, it really is a great place to find a wealth of content (and finally has a new comment system). Yes, a lot of it is just funny/linux/apple, but there really is a lot of good stuff.
There are several others that just missed the list for me: Mixx, Reddit, LinkedIn and FriendFeed, just to name a few. Reason is that I’m finding with the demands of my total addict sites, I’m just not spending time on these other sites every day consistently.
Which social sites are you finding the most addictive?
This is a guest post by one of our Social Media Ninja winners
Social media is getting too popular - more and more effort is needed to get noticed there and make friends and fans. Beside being loyal, consistent, truthful, etc, etc, there is one proven technique to gain power within social media and your targeted community - that is “be everywhere at the same time.”
Yep, sounds impossible to do, but still can be achieved if you know some tricks. These very tricks are described below (when I was starting, I used them unintentionally without much thinking; so this is a reverse experience - I first did it and then saw that it worked):
1) Start at one network and then gradually spread your efforts to several more.
Most power social networkers tend to actively ’socialize’ at several communities - so go ahead, find them there and befriend. They see you once, they see you twice - they know you already!
To find them:
- check their profiles (people usually link to their other profiles across social media):
- search Google for their names and profile names;
- visit their sites and find what other SM profiles they are linking to.
2) Brand your name and profile image - use one and the same name and avatar for each and every social network you join. Besides, use the same image
for guest posts and blog catalogues/directories. Images are highly associative and easy to remember - being consistent with your choice, you will soon see more and more people recognize you by it.
3) Promote blogs/threads where you actively participate: sphinn/digg/stumble your guest posts or articles where you comment. Thus people will first see your comment, then your (SU) review (or vice versa) - that’s it, they now remember you. When I started participating in SEOMoz community, I occasionally stumbled posts from there - and I was amazed how many people at SU added me to friends and messaged me asking about my SEOMoz activity.
4) Interlink your multiple profiles across social media. Once people get to know you at one network, they are most likely (if you do your homework well) to befriend you across all your common SNs (see #1). Thus you are simultaneously growing your power across several networks.
5) Always comment at posts/discussions where your name/website was mentioned. To do that you will need to subscribe to Google alerts for [your name], [your domain name] and [yourdomainname] to get updated each time you are talked about in the blogosphere. Also if you want to be the first to react to your name mentions, set alerts to update you “as-it-happens”.
All in all, these are 5 basic techniques that will quickly and effectively get people to remember you. With that and by consistently adding quality to the community you will soon see your social media power growing fast and your brand establishing and getting popular.
This post is inspired by Dave Gorman the UK comedian who is known in the UK for looking for other Dave Gormans amongst others and in America as the stats guy who occasionally appears on the Daily Show. Dave Gorman was recently featured in a TV show where he traveled across America only to make it far more fun he choose to travel without giving any money to “The Man”. “The Man” is the large faceless corporations that seem to be pandemic across the western world from Starbucks to Wal-Mart to IBM “The Man” is everywhere. If you haven’t seen the film or read the book go do so now!
So can you market a site without “The Man”?
Dave was on Radio 2 the other day (yes I am an old fart) promoting his book and he got me thinking with Tad’s ranting on Google doubled with people’s general dislike of corporations is it possible today to market your site without the aid of these large groups.
Well, let’s find out!
Domain names and websites
It’s actual impossible to create and market a website without giving to the man. Since the domain registration system is run by a large corporation and while ICANN the global governing body is a non-profit corporation in the US nearly every national registrar is a faceless corporation. However all is not lost and with a quick tweaking of the rules finding a mom and pop registrar which is reselling a big boy is possible. Hosting its still possible to find small hosting centres just remember to avoid the big boys 1&1, Pipex, etc.
Obviously the site itself can be hosted on good Linux systems and open source software, just remember to avoid Fedora (RedHat) and SUSE (Novell) one thing you might have not thought about your Feedburner, and Google Analytics will have to be put to one side.
Search Engines
Sorry these are all out, at least the big 3 indeed to be truthful to the goal we probably need to block them totally so out with your robots.txt file.
Without search engine traffic we will have to rely on other forms of advertising the obvious answer is social media!
No StumbleUpon
Sacrilege I know but life without the man includes life without StumbleUpon which of course is owned by Ebay it also means life with out PayPal again an Ebay company. Interestingly a quick search for ways to stop people sending traffic from StumbleUpon returned virtually no results but fear not we can use HTACCESS to send this unwanted traffic away.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (stumbleupon.com) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.stumbleupon.com [R,L,NC]
Ok that’s sorted the StumbleUpon traffic it’s now being sent back to StumbleUpon of course thinking with our marketing head we perhaps would want to send it to a page explaining the idea of not getting traffic from “The Man” and with a link for them to find their way back!
Digg
Tricky one this is Digg owned by the man? I think not so it’s safe to market their maybe an article on how to block the evil corporations and “The Man” would go down well just a thought.
Propeller
No chance with it’s Netscape, AOL, Time Warner, Google owners this is clearly the sort of corporation we are looking to avoid so no Propeller traffic once again we will want to redirect users. Normally we would have to come up with some complex strategy to still gain benefits from these links to help our search engine strategy but for once this is not an issue as we blocked them at the start.
Myspace/FaceBook
Sorry News corp but you are the sort of people we want to avoid as for Facebook with a turnover of $15 billion according to Wall Street Journal and with investments from Microsoft and at least 3 major Venture Capital groups looks like your out to.
Looks like the man is pretty widespread but let’s not despair all is not lost we live in the age of web 2 where every kid and his programmer have an idea and the number of start-ups are immense it is still pretty easy to drive some traffic without going to the big corporations.
But why do it?
We are creatures of habit it is worth looking at other sources simply to have a backup strategy it’s also good to support new ideas what is new today may well be the norm tomorrow so it’s better to be in on the ground floor.
But the spirit of independent entrepreneur is being eroded once it was about coming up with a great idea marketing it and amazing people. Now its come up with a concept, get large venture capital company to fund your lunches with Google’s reps.
The next step
First off all I am not advocating giving up traffic sources, or blocking Google on your sites but I am passionate about supporting the little guys who are just like me. So I do plan on setting up a “Man” free site with the whole purpose of finding new traffic methods and ideas.
If you got any ideas or if you think that I was being lenient by claiming Digg was not “The Man” why don’t you let me know below!
p.s Dave Gorman book and DVD is available from his site and Good retailers as is his GoogleWhack stage show DVD (Not suitable for children) if you take nothing from this post go read the books and watch the DVDs!
We are here today with a distinguished guest that sits outside the realm of social media, but is rather a Political Science professor. (In fact, he was a professor of mine once upon a time). Before all of you think that I have lost my mind, let me explain further. Professor Patrick Regan is an expert in conflict management resolution and game theory, having authored several books including Organizing Societies for War, and the upcoming Sixteen Million One (excerpts found on his site). Thanks for joining us today, Professor.
1 – What do you think about social media in general?
Social media is new and fascinating to me. It is not a medium that I grew up with, so it is a bit harder to get use to, but I can certainly see how this forum for communication can fundamentally change the way people react to public problems. We can see this, for instance, in Tibet today. The Chinese government has overwhelming capabilities to suppress the Free Tibet movement, but the movement has what you refer to as the social media on its side. China quickly tried to shut down as much of this as possible. China is not alone is recognizing the immense power of the social media, as political campaigns today will attest.
One of the downsides – if there really are downsides – to this medium is that conventional forms of communication get marginalized. At first this shows up as loss of profit, of which I am little concerned, but without of viable free and open conventional press we will suffer from the potential abuse by those in power. At least in the short term there needs to be some balance. The unfortunate inclination is for conventional media to respond to the challenge posed by the social media by consolidating and brining less and less variability and initiative into the conventional media. Sounds like doom and gloom, and in the end the more open media will win.
2 – You might not have drawn a parallel of your field of expertise with social media in the past, but I believe there to be striking similarities between social media and game theory, more specifically the prisoner’s dilemma. Cooperation (friending users) is key. What is your take on this?
Game theory provides for us a way to think about choices, how choices are made under certain types of constraints. Your expected payoffs from some action matter a lot, and how you conceive of your expectations and the value of the outcome is a function of information. Game theorists ask questions about how resolved the actors are to press for their preferred outcome, and the like. Cooperation is a bit more difficult if both sides are committed to getting their way, and game theory can show us why. We also know from game theory that the frequency with which we expect to replay the game matters a lot. If it is a one off game, just do what is best for you. But if you’re going to see this person again, then cooperation might be a better strategy. I think this is what you mean by ‘friending users’ – though I bet that word is not in the Webster’s dictionary! The more information we have about those we interact with the more opportunity we have to shape outcomes that are mutually beneficial. Now in principle, if you have a lot of information – at least if it is one-sided information – then there is the opportunity to coerce or exploit as well. A free, open, unregulated social media portends to reduce one-sided information and increase the frequency of interactions over ideas.
3 – There has been a great deal of controversy in the largest social news site, digg.com in which many of the top site contributors were planning a revolt and were getting ready to organize on a live podcast. Toward the end of the podcast, the founders of Digg came on to directly address the crowd and respond to their questions. Typically, Digg has not been very responsive to its users as of late. Do you feel that the Digg founders resolved the conflict in an effective manner?
I am not an expert on Digg.com, though I have read a bit about the revolt. Compromise borne of concessions approaches a necessary condition for a negotiated settlement. Absent concessions, stable outcomes pretty much have to result from a disparity of power, and therefore from coercion. The very first concession in any bargaining environment is the agreement to discuss. By implication if you agree to discuss then you agree that there is some point on which you would give. It might not be enough to settle the dispute, but the recognition is one that implicitly points to the potential for movement. As I gather it the Digg folks did this. Did they come all the way across the table? Not to my knowledge. One way to think of this is that they don’t see it as what we would call an iterative game, but rather each move is a one shot deal. My sense is from reading about this is that the contributors see this as a repeated game. They want compromise and the Digg folks want to coerce behavior.
The protest might be one way to demonstrate that repeated plays are valuable, and maybe the norm. But the protesters also have to realize that successful negotiations most often require concessions from both sides. They can’t expect to be completely coercive any more than they would accept that from Digg. The real key would be demonstrating to Digg that they get a better outcome if they see this as a repeatedly played game or interaction.
4 – More on Digg. The following month, there was a Digg Town Hall event in which the founders had a live webcast where questions could be asked (although they had a list prior to the show, so live participants were not given true voice). Was this an effective method?
It seems that it is effective if both sides play the game. It might not be how I would organize a negotiating session to sort this out, but it sounds to me like some of the contributors bought into it. Better, maybe, to offer to bring an agenda to the table around which discussions or negotiations can take place. By what I understand of this relationship the contributors participate on Digg.com for the personal sense of value (I get my views out there); Digg.com folks do this either for a job or the potential to sell it to a start up venture, that is take it commercial. The contributors would have to demonstrate that Digg.com has no value without the contributors, but also to show that they value Digg.com over the long haul.
Maybe you should all try to get a mediator to sit down with you to work this out. Seems pretty simple on the face of it.
5 – One of the key elements in trying to resolve conflict is the underlying assumption that both sides are rational. Do you think that both sides of the fence are being rational here?
Rationality refers to cost benefit maximization. It could be that the Digg folks are under some sort of constraint to diversity their portfolio of contributors so that they can set this up to be more commercially viable (I’m just guessing). If that is so, then they might be acting rational by compelling diversification. The Contributors might also be seeing their personal viability being challenged by the new constraints on making the headlines. Both can be considered rational in a maximization framework. Is there middle ground? Sure seems like it to me. It almost seems like people aren’t explaining motives and with a clear idea of why each side is being so resolute, concessions might actually be easy.
6 – For those that are not familiar with the prisoner’s dilemma, can you expound on it a bit and how you think it falls within the social media world?
Prisoners dilemma is just a way to think about how choices are made. In the dispute with Digg it is whether to open the process up to the most prolific and interesting or creating diversity. This is a bit like cooperating and defecting in the prisoners dilemma game.
To my mind the idea of a prisoners dilemma is useful for many types of social interactions, the social media might be but one. We use to use it to understand the arms race, the ending of civil wars, and the like. It is really just a way to think about the value of cooperation over defection, and under what conditions can both side rationally conclude that doing the “wrong” thing is right. Everyone knew the nuclear arms race was silly, but both sides went happily down that silly path, and appeared quite rational in doing so. Funny how the world works!
7 – Do you think that social media may one day find its way into your political / game theory teachings? How would you see something like this come about?
I teach a lot about Osama bin Laden this semester and I suspect that much of his communication might fall under what you would describe as the social media. So if his form of communication meets such standards, then the world’s most sought after villain is making great use of social media. But I think I’ll leave you and your readers to figure out whether he is leading, following, or uninvolved with social media.
Thanks for stopping by, Professor Regan – you’ve been a wonderful guest!
It has been a pleasure.
If you would like to see more about Professor Regan, here is an interview he did after doing research for his latest book:
Just released yesterday, Mixx has stepped up its growing social news site, now adding the ability to message other users within the site. Chris McGill spoke about these features being on the Mixx roadmap in our earlier interview with him. From the Mixx blog:
Mixx Mail Phase 1: Now you can send and receive messages to and from anyone in the community without ever leaving the Mixx. Mixx Mail offers some very handy little features, including:
* The icons of all Mixx friends in your address book—especially useful if you’re like us and remember faces/avatars better than names.
* Send a message to a Mixxer directly from that user’s profile page.
* Block overeager wanna-be groupies. That’s right—not only can you slam the door on their friendship pleas, but now you can block them from sending messages, not that you’d be so cruel. Right? Well ok then, just don’t block us.
* Opt to have a daily digest sent to your regular email and we’ll let you know how many messages you have waiting.
The recognizability that an avatar brings is taken into account here, as shown below:
There is also a new release on group message boards, a handy addition that Mixxingbowl, the unofficial Mixx forum, doesn’t entirely address.
These are welcome features and should certainly improve usability on the site.
Traffic is Still Mixx’s Weak Point
When you compare Mixx with a Niche Pligg-based site like Sphinn, the result is disappointing: even with a large spike in November/December, its visitor numbers have barely risen. Let’s look back at our own home-brew of those events, Google Trends like style:
To put things into perspective we can’t show you the graph between Digg and Mixx as Mixx visitor numbers are so tiny it’s barely more the a straight line. So instead let’s compare it to a large Social Media Blog like Dosh Dosh Keep in mind that Compete.com numbers are to be taken with a pinch of salt but they are a good guide to trends and Mixx seems to be stuck in the mud.
On the flip side, social media is not just about numbers but reaching the right numbers. Mixx is developing its own diverse crowd, many of whom are active Stumblers and Diggers, making it a great spot to promote material that is ultimately aimed at these audiences.
Mixx as a site is technologically ahead of the game, its owners are well known and are in touch with their user base and their accountants. The question remains: is a business model based on poaching users a successful one? Can Mixx gain the traction needed to get out of the mud and when is there API coming?
Wow, everyone! Thanks so much for your great entries to the Social Media Ninja Contest!
Although we said last time that we would only be advancing the top 10 to the next round, we felt that all 13 that participated should move on.
Edit: Here are the contest rules:
1 - Please only vote for one candidate.
2 - Votes must be received by Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at midnight GMT.
3 - Candidates cannot vote for themselves.
4 - The decision of the Collective Thoughts team is final.
So here they are, folks. Which of the following should go on to become a Social Media Ninja?
Back in November Mashable presented their Open Web Awards and invited Collective Thoughts to be one of the Judges. The Open Web Awards is the first ever online, open collaborative awards event, to recognize the best online communities representing web 2.0
We would like to anounce the overall “people’s choice” winners.
Tim looks at why becoming a news blogger is hard work and how simple changes to page layouts and designs can attract and promote your news blogs or any site even if he doesn’t use all the tricks himself.
Most bloggers dream of becoming a major source of news and information, millions of visitors and loads of links when you break yet another story. The pace is fast and furious with near daily race to be the first to get the scoop much like traditional media journalism. A vast quantity of front page traffic on Digg and other social sites is from the same websites time and time again but breaking into the exclusive group of true news bloggers is hard work but I hope some of these handy hints will help.
Why do it?
Before we go further you need to stop and take a step back becoming a news blogger is not suitable for all but a minority, go back to those top sites and you will realise nearly all of them are run by a team. With 24 hours in a day a single person can only do so much, and such sites rarely pay for themselves until they reach a certain critical mass. That said the one page tips I’m presenting will help any blogger interested in attracting the social media visitor.
Getting the page ready
How you present your exclusive story will often make or break your site above all you want people to know what the story is as quickly as possible, using stumblers as our basis you have 5.5 seconds to impress or they are gone.
Images
In many ways are the secret weapon of the news blogger and bloggers in general they add something to the story but they are also a useful social media tool. Primary Image – this is the main image to accompany the article for maximum effect you want to turn this image into a promotional tool, when people photo blog a review on StumbleUpon the chances of a visitor clicking through from the reviews home page is 25% more likely then a standard review. To maximise people using the image as a photo blog picture make sure the image is under 250k and less then 500px width. Include some sort of identifier and don’t be afraid to include words (just make sure you use your alt tags correctly). When it comes to picture nearly all social media users like BBS big bold and simple a slightly risky strategy is to place the primary image just on the fall of the page to force the user to scroll down to see all the image. Logo Image - A logo image is an image that appears near the top of the post to help categories and give a post a sense of identity, this further helps to cement in the visitors mind what the article is about as well as providing another promotion point. Google news has for a while now been using an algorithm to select suitable images for use within its site for relevant headlines, this sadly may not interest most wannabe news bloggers who don’t make it onto the Google news pages but the use of such images on Digg certainly will. Since the release of the new picture enabled Digg, users when selecting stories have been offered the option of including a picture from the page if and when a suitable image has been found.
The important thing here is getting the scale right Digg currently is resizing images to 160×120 pixels and is only presenting users with the option of JPG so the ideal logo image should be 160×120 JPG, of course you need to make it interesting enough for the submitter to include it and remember to keep it inoffensive to avoid moderation.
Extract/Summary
Many Stumblers and Diggers simply copy the first few lines of an article when reviewing/submitting so make those lines count. Present an interesting and complete first 2 sentences be it a summary or some sort of opening statement. Just remember to keep it short and sweet otherwise the submitter or the site they are submitting you to will cut it off mid flow.
Typography
I am not a designer but subtle use of modern design concepts such as the use of grids really helps a story along. Don’t let a bad design or typography let your story down because it makes the process to hard to read. One technique borrowed from traditional magazine I find extremely useful is pull out and block quotes. While block quotes have a dedicated tag in html pull quotes do not but there are plenty of Javascript pull quote scripts you can use.
Printing
People still like something tangible so along with good typography a clean way to print the article out is essential at minimum a print.css but also think about promoting printing through a print button.
Social media buttons
Adding pretty icons and badges has been all the rage for a while now even the BBC have got social media badges on some of their pages, but there is no real evidence that this “bookmarking” buttons actually increase the number of people bookmarking sites and can have a very negative effect. On the whole social bookmarking do not cause any ill effects with possibly two exceptions 0 Diggs – Nothing says newbie who can’t fix their template then a Digg button with 0 Diggs, it’s a complete turn off. Social media users tend to flock or hunt in packs a button with a low score can put people off, If you are going to use Digg buttons then only place them on your post at the 20+ mark and make sure you remove them after a few days or immediately after your article is buried no point wasting your users time which could be spent viewing more of your content. You will of course point to the bottom of this page and scream hypocrite what else can I say but bah! Stumble Me buttons - When StumbleUpon produced a series of buttons people raced of to use them on their blogs without thinking through the consequences. Call it a bug or a protection feature if you like, but Stumble Me buttons are worthless. Every time a user uses your stumble me button to leave a review you lose a potential thumbs up. This is because when you leave a review it does not also thumb up the page as well, so while you might get a couple of hits from peoples home pages on StumbleUpon you will not receive any additional toolbar traffic.
General tips for news blogging
Apart from on page issues some simple things make a large difference in News Blogging
Work in a team
Be quick but accurate
Moderate your comments
Let others promote you, concentrate on getting the stories
Don’t be afraid of scrapers always include good full internal links
Be consistent unlike other forms of blogging news bloggers need to post regularly
Do you have what it takes to be a news blogger, and what type of news blogger are you a broad sheet or a tabloid?
Anyone who knows me knows that I love Social Media. Love, Love, Love, Obsessed, Love Social Media. I’ve been very serious about Social Media and the amount of time I’ve spent doing it daily for the past 6+ months. It didn’t take me long to realize that Social Media has a lot of similarities to High School.
Popular Crowds
Every High School has their popular crowds and Social Media is no exception. Getting into the Popular Crowd can be tough, but we all have heard of the Perks of once we get accepted into it.
Clubs
We all remember Drama Club, Ski Club, Chess Club, Math Club, Wrestling Club, blah, blah, blah. Social Media has Clubs too…. Digg, Reddit, Sphinn, StumbleUpon. Some clubs are more popular than others. We might like all of them, but we don’t have the time to participate in all of them. So, we pick our favorite Clubs and participate in those Clubs the most.
The Bad Boys
Oh boy, did my School have some Bad Boys!! I’m positive all High Schools do. These were the guys who were rebels. They would push the limits. I was always fascinated with the bad boys. Sure, they made me nervous, but there was something about them that made me want to get to know them better. Social Media has the Bad Boys as well. These are bloggers that write whatever is on their mind at the time. They are not out to hurt anybody, but you can feel their emotions in every single one of their controversial posts.
Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies
I wish I could say that when I was in High School I was popular, but I can’t…. I was a total Goodie-Goodie. Mostly out of fear of my mother, but whatever. I was a total Nerd!! The Rule Breakers were those kids who, well, broke the rules. They smoked in the bathroom, they were always in detention, and most often they were skipping classes. Well, in Social Media we have the Rule Breakers and Goodie-Goodies too. But, in Social Media we call them Black Hats and White Hats. Social Media wouldn’t be the same without them.
Parties
High School Parties…. the closest I was ever to one was seeing them in movies. I told you…. I was a total Nerd. But, I heard High School Parties rule!! Ok, I went to High School in the 80’s. Do they still say, "Rule"? In Social Media there are Conferences. There is a Major Party going on right now, PubCon, and I’m totally missing it. Can’t blame this one on my mother, but I am totally going to get to one of these Parties, Mom!!
Peer Pressure
I don’t think I have to explain to any of you that there is a ton of Peer Pressure that teens face in High School. We have all been there. I vividly remember the amount of pressure that I was faced while I attended High School and for that reason, among others, I don’t think I would ever want to go back to High School again. Social Media has there own Peer Pressure as well. The pressure surrounding the Social Media community is a bit different, but the pressure feels the same. The Emails, Instant Messages and Shouts to Vote-up, Thumbs-up, and Submit posts are insane.
It can be intense. I’ve reached my 200 friends limit on StumbleUpon and I started to clean house. You couldn’t imagine the emails I received asking why I am no longer a friend with whoever? Are you kidding me? I only got rid of people that hadn’t produced activity in a long time or that I no longer had anything in common with. UGH!! Peer friggin Pressure!!
Gossip
Ahhh, High School Gossip… The who’s dating who, who skipped school to meet their boyfriend, who cheated on who!! Standard Gossip from all High Schools. Well, Social Media has their own gossip….. Facebook, baby!! Gotta love it!! In one day’s time on Facebook I can find out who body slammed who, who got dry humped, where someone is right now and what they are doing, and who drunk dialed who. I can get my fill of gossip and not even feel guilty for it. Well, maybe a little…. after all, I probably could be doing something much more productive. But, it’s called social networking for a reason, right?
Just as with High School we are all trying to find our spot that we fit into with Social Media. It’s a ton of fun, a bit stressful at times, the pressure can be intense, but I wouldn’t change it for the World.
Welcome to the new wisdom of crowds. Each member of Collective Thoughts is here because not only are they a known or rising star in their own field, but they also have a passion and unique understanding on social media. Together, we make up Collective Thoughts. More
Brian’s picks
Andy’s pick
Google Analytics Help: Questions, Answers, Tips, Ideas, Suggestions - Avinash Kuashik
They made us hyper-connected; now what? - Social Times
How Many Veins Have You Tapped Into? - Neil Patel
Online SEO Tools - the Ultimate Collection - Search Engine Journal
Social media time waster - Chris G
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes - something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the 
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using 
p.s Dave Gorman book and DVD is available from 
We are here today with a distinguished guest that sits outside the realm of social media, but is rather a Political Science professor. (In fact, he was a professor of mine once upon a time). Before all of you think that I have lost my mind, let me explain further. Professor Patrick Regan is an expert in conflict management resolution and game theory, having authored several books including 
Tim looks at why becoming a news blogger is hard work and how simple changes to page layouts and designs can attract and promote your news blogs or any site even if he doesn’t use all the tricks himself.
0 Diggs – Nothing says newbie who can’t fix their template then a Digg button with 0 Diggs, it’s a complete turn off. Social media users tend to flock or hunt in packs a button with 
Stumble Me buttons - When StumbleUpon produced a series of buttons people raced of to use them on their blogs without thinking through the consequences. Call it a bug or a protection feature if you like, but Stumble Me buttons are worthless. Every time a user uses your stumble me button to leave a review you lose a potential thumbs up. This is because when you leave a review it does not also thumb up the page as well, so while you might get a couple of hits from peoples home pages on StumbleUpon you will not receive any additional toolbar traffic. 
