With so many amazing social networks and communities to choose from, there is one main golden rule I think people should follow, and that is to be a good neighbor. Think about your real community where you live. How would you like it if your neighbor spammed you with flyers everyday about ring tones, or viagra?

However; if you built up a relationship with your neighbors, and they started to “trust” you they will probably be more willing to check out the things you like (or are offering) and you will build up more friends this way. Social communities can be a powerful source of traffic when done right. The traffic can even be a higher converting traffic source then the normal SERPs.

It really does not matter what social network you fancy more - MySpace, Facebook or some other one, you just need to become the type of “neighbor” that everybody loves talking about, and not in a bad way. If you spend some time recommending good things, proving good information, linking out to people that you have met (and like), the love will be returned.

If you need me to spell it out for you - make sure that you are not just saving your own articles, or web pages to sites like Del.icio.us or Digg. Share other peoples “stuff” in the community that you like (they will notice) and other things you like related to what you are doing. Make friends, ask people to be your friend, give people reasons to come back to your profile and most importantly, do everything you can to get your face out in the community!

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Hey My Blog Log - You got one week to apologise to all of the social marketers out there you snubbed this week (calling “SchMOes”), or you are gone from all my sites - for good, and I am tagging myself as a Spammer. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I forgave you once already, but it will not happen again. If it wasn’t bad enough for your business (and user credibility) banning ShoeMoney, calling the very people who use your service “spammers” was the most stupid move of all.

I missed this at first to be honest, I rarely use My Blog Log since the whole incident with ShoeMoney anyway (other then the cool statistical tracking ability they offer). I saw this week that they had introduced a new tagging feature which at first glance I thought was a cool idea.

For those of you that are not familiar with what My Blog Log did this last week, here it is in a nutshell - they created a new tagging system (as mentioned above) but went into to much detail about how to use tags (see below)

“Spam - If you think someone is spamming you, tag it out loud! Internally, we like to call a user who games the system a SchMOe (Social Media Optimizer). Tag anyone who spams you with the term schmoe.”

I will not go into all of the backlash, but you can read it here, here, here and here. The most amazing social media idea has been created by my partner and friend Chris Bennett over at (the other blog I co-author) 97th Floor. We already removed the My Blog Log widget from the 97th Floor blog.

My Blog Log has one week to apolgise to all of us “SchMOes” or “Spammers” who created them, or I am taking them off for the last and final time. I will tag all of my blogs as “SchMOes” and never look back. I know I am just one person, but I am one person deeply inter-twined with the search and social media industry, and if I get even one more person to stop using My Blog Log for calling us Spammers, then I am fine with that.

My prediction - I will have to stick a fork in them too, and call them done:

Who cares anyway? I survived life after Digg died. Did I mention how much I love Stumble Upon and Twitter?

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Before I continue to mislead you, two things:

1.) MyBlogLog is dead (as far as I’m concerned) put a fork in them!

2.) I do not know if Technorati is doing anything called “Teamorati” I made it up, but I will explain why they should.

Both Mybloglog and Technorati had major changes over the last week, neither of which I am particularly excited about. As you all know MyBlogLog’s in house Social Media made a retarded expert decision to create a new spam tagging system where a fellow MyBlogLog user can tag another if they feel they are spamming them.

I’m not going to recap the MyBlogLog Revolt you can find good info from Andy, Andy again, Cameron, SEL and Andy Beard.

Technorati completed another redesign and I have to say I didn’t really care too much. It didn’t do anything to make me want to use them more than the five minutes a month I use them now. No one uses WTF, no one uses really anything on there except to see where their blog is ranking, and blog search. They need to tie their unbeliavably big community together to form a team or a “Teamorati.”

Technorati has had multiple rounds of fund raising for millions upon millions of dollars, yet there still doesn’t seem to be a clear path to profitability or an exit strategy even. They have over 15 million blogs in their database and a huge presence they just aren’t leveraging it.

I think they should create a mybloglog competitor that networks all their users into more of a community, I thought the visitor widget was a great idea by mybloglog, but they have messed up 10 too many times for me to use them anymore. There is a gap that Technorati could jump in by connecting all of their users and getting everyone to switch from MyBlogLog to them. They have a stronger brand and bigger following and I am sure that the “SchMoes” would have no problem telling the world about them and adapting them right away.

It seems that MyBlogLog forgot that the “SchMoes” are the ones that pushed their product, they were around for a while with a relatively small user base, then Nov, Dec 06 every SEO, SMO, Marketer you name it was putting it on their blogs and telling their friends and clients to do the same. The next thing you know Techcrunch and every other respectable blog added the widget to their site.

“TEAMORATI” may be Technorati’s big chance to make some headway, they could even offer analytics and make a little dough.

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I was reading an interesting post today over on Marketing Pilgrim about picking the right social network. It brought up some interesting statistics that I think any Social Media Marketer needs to be paying attention to. If you have never done any Social Media Marketing then it would be a good idea to take a look as well.

I want to take a closer look at what social communities can do for an individual and business owners, and give my two cents.

I have experimented with almost every single social network and community out there. Some I really like, and some I think are pretty worthless and a waste of time. With that said, I have recieved some amount of traffic from each social site I am a part of. I was even contacted by a person (now a client) about some Reputation Management issues he was having through a less known social community that in a year I maybe have received 50 total visits. With everything said and done this client is worth about 15k a year to me. What if I decided to snub that smaller social community? I would have never met that current client, and lost out on business he has brought to me.

Have I got you thinking about social communities (even smaller ones) in a different light now? Even if they will not do much for you traffic wise, they will help you with branding, as well as your online reputation. I really do not feel that a business should limit themself to just one social community. I feel this way for the same reason I feel business owners should not snub My Space just because they have thoughts of it being a place for teenagers, or kids to hook up. There have been rock bands that have been made because of My Space.

My point here? Do not limit yourself to just one social community. Sure you can focus on a couple that you feel are a better fit for your business (and put more time and effort mostly on them) but I suggest doing everything you can to get the word out about your business - everywhere!

One last tip - Make sure you are taking the time to fill out the profiles from every one of the social networks you are a part of. People will be more willing to trust you (and believe you are who you say you are) when you have a more complete profile with pictures, website and contact information. The whole point of these communities is to connect people, so make sure they can!

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Rate Point - This is probably one of the coolest ideas for a social bookmarking/rating site that I have come across in a while. It is kind of a digg/del.icio.us rating type social site. Rate Point will allow you to bookmark and tag your favorite websites and rate them, and include comments to get feedback from other Rate Point users. The reason I am digging Rate Point even over del.icio.us is the fact that other people can rate your site and give you feedback how to improve. That is a huge benefit to this social site. (more…)

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If your business still is not a part of the My Space social network, then where have you been the last couple of years?

If you are thinking that My Space is a place just for kids to hangout and get in trouble (or a place to upload your risque photos), you might be surprised to learn that about 1/2 of My Space users are 35 or older.  Are you a little more interested now?   As business owners start to learn about the power of social communities, they are starting to embrace sites like My Space with less caution, and preconceived notions. (more…)

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With the recent leashing out of Jason Calacanis against SEO’s I thought I would add my two cents about Social Media Optimization (and SEO’s) as well.

I have no problem with calling myself an SEO, internet marketer, “someone who can help you get traffic”. I really don’t care. The honest truth of the fact is that talking to regular people on the street that ask me what I do for a living, give me a “deer in the headlight look” when I say “SEO”, which is then usually followed by; “You know, when you type in a word on a search engine and get the top results”. If some people do not like the term “SEO” I can’t help that, its just what the industry I am in has dubbed me because of what I do.

However, I do have a problem with the term SMO (Social Media Optimization) (more…)

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Why Digg could be heading to the garbage. I was going through my normal morning RSS with my bagel routine today and came across a post from Create PC on why Digg Sucks I got there from a post I saw by John Scott of V7 on the exact same topic. (more…)

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I came home to make my wife lunch (love bait ) and she was watching Tivo’d “The Today Show” and these two kids were both recently jacked by Simon in an American Idol Tryout in Seattle (Rand where your peeps at?). I guess Simon took it too far and and personally insulted the kids on their apperance calling one a Bush Baby and giving the other some Fat remarks. (more…)

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I have been thinking about something over the weekend when it comes to ranking on Google-vs-traffic. I have been in this industry long enough to know that rankings on Google for the most part can determine your businesses bottom line. I have also come to the conclusion that not ranking on Google is not a “site killer”. (more…)

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