Monday, October 13th, 2008
All too often, I come across blog posts that are simply a regurgitation of some breaking news or someone else’s earlier thoughts.
Shouldn’t a blog be more? I sure think so.
Sure, sure…content is king. But shouldn’t it be original content? As we are nearing the 1 year anniversary of Collective Thoughts, I wanted to share with you a peek into very selective process in finding great bloggers to head it up. The single most important factor was that each contributor was totally original and the real thing. You know it when you see it. That said, here are the aha moment that I had in when reading the work of my esteemed colleagues:
Andy Beard – For me, Andy has had more thought provoking posts than any of the contributors here, so it was really special for me that he’s part of the team. If I had to pick one post there, it would be the WordPress Masterclass post. An oldie but goodie, and may show many of you how little you know about WordPress after all 
Brendan Picha – Brendan is also a newcomer, and showed his stuff with a Digg submission that made it to Diggnation!
Dave Harry – While Dave is a relative newcomer to Collective Thoughts, I’ve been a fan of his writing for quite some time. The Sphinn awards got my attention – great way to get a community buzzing!
Mark Laymon – Mark is quite a character. For those of you that don’t know him, you probably know of him as the guy that relentlessly throws sheep and pokes you in Facebook. This post on getting a PDF to the front page will live on forever in my memory. I’ll bet every commenter on Digg had their jaw to the floor when it happened
Shana Albert – As we all know, everyone loves Shana. Shana is a rare talent that has an outstanding writing ability to capture the human spirit. She actually started writing on Collective Thoughts prior to the almost immediate debut of Social Desire. Would have to say that my favorite post of hers has been how social media is like high school.
Tim Nash – I believe that his name will forever be associated with StumbleUpon. Who can forget the Stumbleupon Algorithm post? No doubt that this was a different thought than the crowd.
What post has been the aha moment for you? We’d love to hear from you.
Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
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.
Image credit: sara.musico
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.
Digg
Image credit: Valleywag
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?
Posted in Social Media | 38 Comments »
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
(image credit: iPhotograph)
When it comes to hearing about success in social media, we’ve all heard the mantra everyone uses: “content is king.” And yes, there is truth in that statement. How can anything be expected to virally spread like wildfire with crappy content?
Imagine, if you will…the content court jester. How many times have you been surfing around through StumbleUpon and come across a patently obvious sponsored stumble? Yes, StumbleUpon says that these things will happen for 1 in 20 stumbles. Does that mean that a paid stumble has to be a content court jester? Of course not. It was just poor planning on the marketer that spent more time on the campaign than the actual content.
Face it. Nobody likes to be sold. Let people see what you have to offer and have them make their own decisions. The best marketing out there is so subtle or enjoyable, you don’t even realize (or mind) that you are being marketed to.
Now, this isn’t to say that content court jesters do not have their place in the world. It could just be that a company is doing a landing page test to see how well they are converting. Such companies should be warned: social media users are well armed with thumbs down, snarky comments, and adblock, so they had best do their business in the most attractive way possible.
Remember boys and girls..”content is king.” Just because the page was promoted through social media doesn’t mean it it doesn’t convert. Conversions happen. Conversations at the least will happen, and you’ll hear what people really think of you.
(Image credit: wwwigz)
And now, for something entirely different…
Back to our StumbleUpon point. The whole idea of this article came about after I saw what appeared to be a sponsored stumble from Nokia. Then, I looked at its Stumble record:
If you’ve been around StumbleUpon enough, you’ve probably seen this page by the likes of Nokia and others. Nokia isn’t stupid. So why such a sales page on StumbleUpon? Conversions. Sure, people thumbed it down. At the end of the day, if they are a high enough conversion rate, it may be well worth it for them. Even if conversion is poor, people are talking about them and they have some valuable analysis on their hands.
Social media marketing eventually comes down to ROI, like any other marketing.
Granted, a more subtle page may return a higher ROI, of course the only way to know would be to test both side by side.
The king may rise and fall from power. Perhaps the court jester makes sense: he pays his bills
Posted in Social Media | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
When you have completed reading this post you will understand my babbling, but to do so I will tell you a little bit about myself.
Up until recently my favorite flower was a Yellow Rose. Something about a Yellow Rose was always calming. Maybe that was wishful thinking. Again that was until recently. Now I have lost all relevancy to them. We will not go into the reasons today…
As writing this I would have to say that the Dandelion has taken the place of the Yellow Rose as my flower of choice. When I see a Dandelion I immediately go back to my childhood. It has been over twenty years since I have seen a field covered in Dandelions. As a kid growing up on the outskirts of a small town in the Midwest there were not many organized things to do, so most of the kids in the neighborhood collected at a nearby field. The field was often covered in Dandelions. Each night as we were walking home from playing baseball or whatever game we happened to play at the time, the air would be heavy with the distinct aroma of smashed Dandelions. This smell has never left my memory even two decades later.
Now I would like for you to close your eyes for a moment and think of the sound that a Dandelion makes as you pop the head of the flower from its stem and the soft moist texture as you crush it between your fingers. If you have ever pulled one from its stem you know what I am talking about.
About now you should be asking yourself what in the world am I getting at? Why am I decapitating the heads from innocent flowers? If not, you may be the one with some issues. For those of you that did question what am I talking about read on.
The Collective Thoughts blog is about Social Media. Social Media to me is about using interactive elements of a website to get your proposed message across. What better way of getting into someones head then to let them see a little bit into your own mind. It is all about how you build your rapport.
So what is your favorite flower? I would like to know what your favorite flower is and why you would classify it as your favorite. Take this assignment with a small sense of seriousness. Don’t tell me “buds” are your favorite flowers and the reason is that you like to smoke them.
Today’s task is about building a rapport between us. So this is what I would like for you to do on your end. If you are reading this blog I am sure you have already installed the StumbleUpon toolbar on your browser of choice. I would like for you to use that toolbar to create a review of this post and in doing so tell me your favorite flower. In turn, I will write a small review for one of your sites in a future post on this blog.
So what are you waiting for? Be one of the first to have a review of your site on Collective Thoughts by Mark Laymon.
Posted in Social Media | 15 Comments »
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
Today aimClear contacted the FBI regarding StumbleUpon cyber-harassment incidents, as they deal with Internet harassment. Justice Rules. We got one of the worst StumbleTrolls BANNED by complaining to SU.
Over the last few weeks, there’s been quite a sequence of exchanges between Internet Marketing types and StumbleTrolls.
A StumbleTroll is a social media dreg that follows authentic people around with death slogans and pseudo neo-Nazi meanderings of hate, evil, and terrible poetry. (more…)
Posted in Rants | 45 Comments »
