Embracing Google+ should be on your short list of activities.

Experts continue to debate whether Google+ has the power to last beyond Google’s previous attempts at entering the social networking realm.

But one thing is clear: Google+ is making its presence known in Google search results now.

Here are some ways you can ensure that your Google+ usage will help with your search rankings.

#1: Get More Followers

This may go against everything you believe about social media and how it’s not supposed to be a numbers game, but rather a matter of quality versus quantity.

When it comes to using Google+ for search ranking benefits, you’ll want quantity in the form of as many followers as possible.

Why? Let’s look at some search results.

Rankings When Following My Personal Account

When someone who is following my personal account on Google+ searches for “freelance writer,” my portfolio site comes up #4 in search results because I have shared the link to it on my Google+ profile.

When someone not logged into Google+ searches for “freelance writer,” my portfolio site comes up #20 on the second page of search results. As most of you know, someone on the first page is much more likely to get traffic than on the second page or beyond.

This is a quick analysis of each of my favorite keywords, including the global search volume estimated by Google AdWords Keyword Tool, number of results in Google, difficulty to rank percentage by SEOmoz and how my sites rank for them in search results for someone who is following my personal profile on Google+ versus when someone is not logged into Google+.

Rankings When Following My Google+ Page

Now let’s look at what happens when someone following the Google+ page for my blog (but not following my personal Google+ profile) searches for the same keywords compared to someone who is not logged into Google+.

Since I don’t link to my freelance portfolio from my blog’s Google+ page, there is no change in search position. But you can see that although the rankings are not as good as when someone is following my personal Google+ profile, pages from my blog still rank higher for particular keywords when someone is following my Google+ page.

How to Get More Google+ Followers

So now that you can see the benefits of having people follow you on Google+, you will probably want to grow your Google+ following. The best ways to do this are as follows.

• Leverage your current following on other social networks by sharing your Google+ profile and/or page link with them to connect.
• Put a link to your Google+ profile and/or web page on your website.
• Put a link to your Google+ profile and/or web page anywhere it is allowed, including forum profiles, other social media profiles and email signatures.
• Link to your Google+ profile and/or page when you comment on blogs.
• Add a Google+ badge to your website.

#2: Set Up Authorship With Your Personal Profile

Google+ now offers a way for you to really stand out in search results by claiming authorship for articles you have written. This is something that is showing up in search results, even when people are not logged into Google+.

If someone is logged into Google+, they will get the option to add the author to their circles directly from search results.

So how do you get your blog posts to show up with your name displayed in the search results? The directions from Google+ are listed in their explanation of author information in search results.

There are two options for adding the authorship connection from your blog posts to your Google+ profile. The first is to add your email address on each page of your content (recommended for multi-author blogs) and have that email address listed in your Google+ profile.

Alternatively, you can also link your content to your Google+ profile and vice versa. When linking your content to your Google+ profile (in an author bio box, for example), you will need to format your URL as follows.

Replace the [profile_url] with your full Google+ URL. Mine looks like this.

Then you will add your blog URL to your Google+ profile under the “Contributor To” section.

After you have set up either approach to authorship (email or linking your content to your Google+ profile), then you can fill out the authorship request form to let Google know that you have completed the directions.

Authorship Examples

If you’re having trouble getting your authorship connected, try following the lead of these authors. They don’t have it set up quite the way Google suggests, but it seems to work anyway.

• Ben Parr has a link to his Google+ profile in his author page on Mashable and a link to his author page on his Google+ profile under the “Other Profiles” section.
• Danny Sullivan has a link to his Google+ profile in his personal blog’s sidebar and a link to his author page on his Google+ profile under the “Other Profiles” section.
• Marshall Kirkpatrick has a link to his Google+ profile on his author page on ReadWriteWeb and a link to ReadWriteWeb on his Google+ profile under the “Recommended Links” section.
• Adam Dachis has a link to his Google+ profile on his author page on LifeHacker with no link to LifeHacker on his Google+ profile.

I have tried putting my Google+ profile link to and from my blog. For a while, my authorship was showing in Google search results, but it has disappeared in the last week or two. Not sure why it changed, but I am still attempting to make it work.

#3: Directly Connect Your Page

Be sure to directly connect your Google+ page to your website. You can add a simple piece of code to your page that no one will see on your website or you can add a Google+ badge which, as mentioned earlier, can help you get followers for your page.

By doing so, you are connecting your Google+ page to your website in a way that could help you dominate search results, as can be seen in this search for Toyota.

By using the Google+ icon on their page, they have now incorporated their latest Google+ activity right below their place in search. You can even add Toyota’s page directly to your circles from the search results.

This could also be a great help to businesses that have some online reputation management issues, such as less-than-desirable reviews or other content ranking on the first page directly beneath their website. The Google+ page activity could easily push those kind of results further down the page where they are less likely to be viewed.

#4: Encourage +1′s

Do you have a +1 button on your website? The +1 button is Google’s much more powerful answer to the Facebook Like button because the number of +1′s a page gets will show up in search results, even if a searcher is not logged into Google+.

Imagine you were looking for something you didn’t know much about, like a blogging platform. Which platform out of this group would look the most popular?

Be sure to get the latest +1 button code from Google and install it on both your individual pages and your main home page. It is the best social proof you can have in Google search results. Even if you’re not worried about the number of +1′s shown in search results, remember that the +1 button also allows others to easily share a link on your website on their Google+ profile!

#5: Fill Out Your Information

Last but not least, be sure to fill in the information for your profile and pages completely. Google prioritizes different areas of the profile for both on-page optimization and in search results.

Also note how the first 55 characters of your Introduction are important for search results within Google+ itself.

A great first impression here could mean the difference between someone selecting your profile or another from inside the Google+ results!

Has Google+ Helped Your Search Rankings?

Have you seen an impact from Google+ in terms of your search rankings? What other ways have you seen Google+ find its way into search results? Please share your experiences and thoughts in the comments!

In this article I show you how to set up your Google+ page and provide examples.

If you haven’t already created a personal Google+ profile for yourself, you’ll need to do that first (you cannot simply sign up a business page from the main Google+ signup screen).

Check out the How to Get Started With Google+ for more on personal Google+ profiles.

If you do have a personal profile, here’s how to create a page for your business.

Visit Create a Page on Google+ to begin, and follow the steps below to get started with Google+ pages.

Pick a category

Pick a category for your Google+ page to fall under.

The first step in getting started creating your Google+ page is to choose from the following five main categories.

#1: Local Business or Place

Local Business or Place includes any local business—hotels, restaurants, places, stores or services. If you choose this category, you will be asked for the country in which your business is located and the primary phone number.

If Google finds a matching result in Google Places with your phone number, it will use this information for your Google+ profile. If not, you can add your business info to Google and continue.

Add your local business information to Google+.

#2: Product or Brand

Examples given by Google+ of pages that would fit under Product or Brand include apparel, cars, electronics and financial services.

Add your Product or Brand info and choose the most applicable category.

Here, you would enter your page name and website, and choose an applicable category which includes anything from Aerospace and Defense to a Website, or you can simply choose Brand, Other, Product or Service.

#3: Company, Institution or Organization

The next category, Company, Institution or Organization includes pages for companies, institutions, organizations and non-profits or similar entities. Here you also enter your page name and website, and choose an applicable category with the same options as a Product or Brand page, or you can simply choose Company, Institution, Organization or Other.

#4: Arts, Entertainment or Sports

Pages for movies, TV, music, books, sports and shows are considered a good fit for the Arts, Entertainment or Sports section. Again, you will enter your page name and website, and choose an applicable category—this time with options ranging from Album to Website, or you can simply choose Entertainment, Other or Sports.

#5: Other

If you don’t feel your page fits in any of the above-mentioned categories, you can simply select Other, where you can enter your page name and website without any additional narrowing of category selection.

For pages in any category, you must also choose whether your page’s content is suitable for any Google+ user, users 18 or older, users 21 or older or specifically note that the content will be alcohol-related. Then you will tick boxes to opt-in to updates for Google+ pages and agree to terms and conditions to continue.

Determine the appropriate age group for your page to be visible to based on content.

Be sure to actually check out the Google+ Additional Terms of Service to see their notes on Authority, Access, Content, Data, Contests and Suspension & Termination.

Customize Your Page’s Public Profile

Once you’ve selected your page’s category, you can start customizing your page’s public profile.

#1: Add Your Profile Photo and Tagline

First, you will be asked to add your tagline (the 10 words that best describe your page) and your page’s profile photo.

Add your Google+ page’s tagline and profile photo.

After you have added these items and clicked on Continue, you will be asked to spread the word about your new page through your personal Google+ profile. If you’re not ready yet (which you probably aren’t, since you haven’t completed your profile), click on Finish to be taken to your new page.

#2: Editing Your Page Information

Once you’ve perused your page’s welcome screen, you will want to edit your page’s information. Go to your page’s profile by clicking on the Profile icon at the top, left of the Search Google+ box. Then go to your About tab and Edit Profile.

Edit information for your profile’s About section.

Here you will be able to click on everything from your page name to your links to enter relevant information about your page within Introduction, Hours (for local businesses or places), Website and Contact Info (phone, email, Skype, etc.). Also be sure to enter additional links to your page in the Introduction section using the Link button and under Recommended Links to link to your other social profiles, blog, blog posts and so on. Keep in mind important keywords for your business – if you are a digital marketing agency, be sure to include digital marketing in your profile.

#3: Adding Your Photostrip

Last but not least when it comes to your Google+ page design is filling in your photostrip. These five photos will be displayed underneath your page’s name and tagline.

Add photos that best represent your page in your photostrip beneath your page name and tagline.

It’s similar to the five photos you can have on your Facebook page. While editing your profile, click on the photo area where it says “add photos here” and upload a photo in each of the five photo spots. You can use different photos that represent your business or creatively cut one photo into five pieces and spread it across the area.

Congratulations! Your Google+ Page Is Ready.

Once your profile is ready, you can start posting to your profile by adding status updates, links, photos and videos just like you do on your personal Google+ profile. I would suggest writing a post or two before you use the “Spread the word” option in your right sidebar to announce your page to your personal profile connections.

Following and Engaging With Your Fans

So what’s the difference between a Google+ page and a Facebook page? The big one I’ve noticed so far is the fact that you can follow your page’s fans back and add them to Circles.

To find out who has added your page to their Circle, you can check your Notifications under Stream in the left sidebar. You can also look under your Circles > People who’ve added you area by clicking on the Circles icon.

Follow your Google+ page’s fans by moving them into Circles.

In this screen, you can drag your fans into one or more of the four default circles.

• Team Members—The people you will share the inside scoop with. This could be a great way to share company news with only the people you want to see it.
• VIPs—Your most loyal customers and closest partners.
• Customers—All the people or organizations you want to build deeper relationships with. You could possibly use this Circle to send out special discounts and promotions!
• Following—People you don’t know personally but whose posts you find interesting.

Just as you can with your personal profile, you can also create new Circles.

There are a lot of ways you can successfully use your custom Circles for marketing and messaging, such as creating Circles of fans in a specific location and sharing updates with them about geo-specific offers.

Universities can create Circles for professors, alumni, undergraduate, graduate and prospective students and then share updates with them about news related to their current status with the university. The possibilities are endless.

This also means you can follow your fans’ updates, comment on your fans’ status messages, and +1 their updates as your page. The functionality for a Facebook fan page to interact with a personal profile on Facebook isn’t there, but it is in Google+. Your fans will even see your interaction with their updates in their notifications!

Google+ users will see your page’s interactions with their profiles in their notifications.

This, in my opinion, is going to be a very powerful way for businesses or brands to communicate with their audiences.

For example, if there is a complaint, the Google+ page can reply publicly on their page, and then privately to the Google+ user by sending a status update directly to them. With Facebook pages, the page can only reply on the wall update but not directly communicate with the Facebook user.

Connecting Your Google+ Page to Your Website

You can connect your website to your Google+ page using the Google+ badge configuration tool. Currently only the icons are available, but official badges are coming soon.

Connecting your Google+ page to your website.

Regardless of whether you want to add a badge to your website, you will want to connect your Google+ page to your website simply for the search benefits.

Google+ Direct Connect will allow visitors to find your Google+ page and add it to their Circles, directly from Google search results. To do this, simply add the following code between the <head> </head> tags on your website.

<link href="{plusPageUrl}" rel="publisher" />

Replace {plusPageUrl} with your Google+ page URL. Then visitors will be able to add your Google+ page to Circles simply through their search results.

7 Google+ Page Examples

If you’re in need of some creative inspiration, here are a few established Google+ pages for social media enthusiasts.

#1: Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner’s page gains instant popularity on Google+.

A list of great Google+ pages would be incomplete without Social Media Examiner!

#2: Social Media Explorer

Social Media Explorer’s Google+ page uses photostrip images to convey education.

Social Media Explorer‘s page marries its tagline of education and information perfectly with its photostrip images.

#3: Mashable

Mashable was one of the first brands to put its presence on Google+.

Mashable appeared, then shortly disappeared in the early days of Google+, but has once again emerged.

#4: Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land breaks the latest news about Google+.

Although its focus may be search marketing, Search Engine Land also offers extensive social media coverage, especially when Google+ is concerned.

#5: HootSuite

HootSuite uses its Google+ photostrip to represent a worldwide user base.

HootSuite displays its diversity through a variety of expressive icons in the photostrip.

#6: Google+

Google+ positions its page as an authority for its own network.

Another page that is a must-have for any list of Google+ pages is that of Google+ itself.

#7: Twitter

Twitter is just starting up its presence on Google+.

Although it isn’t active yet, Twitter is on the ball by creating a brand page on Google+.

What Are Your Thoughts on Google+ Pages?

Have you begun experimenting with Google+ pages for your website, brand or business? Please let us know your experience so far, additional tips you would like to share with those getting started and the best Google+ pages you’ve seen thus far!

If you haven’t gotten your invite just yet, you can learn more about Google+ in the following quick-look video, and by visiting the Google+ project overview, searchable details and discussion pages.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwnJ5Bl4kLI

You can also take a demo tour so you can get a feel for what to expect once you are able to join the project.

Limited Field Trial Invites

If you’re one of the lucky ones, you received an invite for Google+ during their limited field trial. While the invite messages ranged from a sneak preview of what will be inside to your friend is hanging out, the commonality is the brick-red Learn more about Google+ button.

Here is an example email invite to Google+.

Whenever you click on the button, you’re taken to the invite screen for Google+. If you have a Gmail address, all you have to do is update your public profile to begin.

Join Google+ when someone sends you an invite.

Two things to note when joining. During the limited field trial, there is the following disclosure:

“Things may not always work as intended. By using this product in Field Trial stage, you’re responsible for protecting yourself and your data from any risks, including data loss or disclosure. By signing up, you also agree that we may contact you to ask for feedback about the product.”

There is also a checkbox that says “Google may use my information to personalize content and ads on non-Google websites.” When you click on the question mark for more information, it takes you to the privacy notice about +1 on non-Google sites which lets you know that when you enable +1, you will be able to see recommendations by your friends in Google+ and they will see your recommendations based on the +1′s you have clicked. +1′s will show up on your Google public profile which you should fill out if you are planning to start interacting more on Google networks.

Once you’ve read the Google+ privacy policy, click on the Join button to get started!

Inside Google+

The first question you are greeted with is a popup on whether you want to link your Picasa Web Album (Google’s version of Flickr) to your Google+ account to share your photos and videos with others. If you have albums already, the privacy settings for them will remain the same. Since I do photography, I went ahead and connected mine. It’s also a bit confusing as your only other option is Don’t Join Google+.

The Welcome Screen

Next, you will be greeted by the Welcome screen.

Google+ greets you on your first visit with popular options.

Creating Your Profile

The first thing you will want to do is click on your name in the black bar across the top of the screen and view your profile.

Edit your Google+ profile so connections can learn more about you.

Here you will be able to edit your Google+ profile information, including adding a tagline, employment information, education and photo scrapbook. You can also set the privacy on each one of these to anyone on the web, extended circles (friends of friends), your circles or only you.

When you click on Continue to my profile, you will see your full profile which will pull your Google+ updates on the Posts tab.

View your complete Google+ profile and make edits where necessary.

Your About tab pulls information from your main Google profile; you can also edit that here by clicking on Edit Profile and then clicking on the section you want to edit. Under Photos and Videos, you will see anything you allowed to be imported from Picasa. Next are your +1′s and Buzz updates.

Adding Connections

Next, you will want to start adding people as connections. Click the Show all > link in the right sidebar under Suggestions to see the friends you have already on Google+. It may be limited during the trial, so don’t be surprised if you don’t have many.

Add friends from your Google connections and see who has added you to their circles.

From here, you can find people based on who you connect with on Google—people you have emailed in Gmail who also have Google accounts, people you follow on Google Buzz and so forth—using the Find and Invite tab. You can also see who has already added you to their connections by using the People who’ve added you tab.

Want to know about a particular person? Just click on their box and then the link to their profile where you can see (based on their privacy preferences) their latest updates, people they have added to their circles, people who have added them to circles, and people you have in common between your circles.

Creating Circles

Circles are the way to organize your connections on Google+. Learn more about them in this short intro video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPeAdpe_A8

The default circles you have are Friends, Family, Acquaintances and Following. You can drag people into circles individually or by highlighting multiple people at a time and dragging them all into one circle. You can also create a new circle by dropping a friend onto the Drop here to create a new circle or simply hover over that circle to create a new one before you start dragging your connections over.

Create new circles for different connections.

When you add your first person who has already added you to a circle, you will get a popup notification that you can now share with them and see what they are sharing with you. They will be notified that you added them, but not see the name of the circle you added them to.

You will also be notified that they will appear on your public profile. If you don’t want that to happen, you can click on the Change link which will take you to your Google profile with a highlighted box where you can change the visibility settings to show people in all circles or just selected ones, select whether anyone on the web or just people in your circles can see that information and select whether to show people who have added you to their circles.

For the people who are not on Google+ yet, adding them to a circle means that you will be able to send them updates via email. I have added people not on Google+ to circles in the hopes that when they do join, they will already be organized where I want them. I’m not sure how I feel about sending them updates because those people haven’t signed up and might not really want to be opted into updates, but regardless it is there for those who feel that someone would be interested in the updates.

Your Settings

Before you go too far into Google+, you might want to tweak some of your settings. To do this, click on the Options symbol all the way to the right in the black bar across the top of the screen.

Manage your Google+ settings, including notifications, geolocation and tags.

Here you can set what notifications you receive. After that, there are two important settings you will want to note.

Photos and Geolocation Information—If you don’t want a location tagged to your photos, you will want to uncheck this one. I haven’t seen any location tags on a photo yet, but I once uploaded a photo to a Twitter photo sharing service that tagged the photos on map view, so if you took a photo of your house, you would be giving the world directions.

People Whose Tags Are Automatically Approved to Link to Your Profile—A network where not everyone can tag you! If you keep your connections organized well, only people you want to tag you can, as you can set this to particular circles, extended circles, all of your own circles or public.

Your Notifications

When there is new activity for you on Google+ (someone shares a post with you, adds you to their circle, etc.) then a red number will appear next to your name in the black bar across the top of the screen.

See your latest Google+ notifications.

You can click on these individual items to see more details about them or go directly to posts that have been shared with you.

Your Stream

Once you have set up your profile, added people to your circles, and adjusted your settings, you can go back to your main page by clicking on the Home icon to see a stream of updates from your connections.

Read the latest updates from your Google+ connections.

You can see updates from all of your connections, or click on the circle names in the left sidebar to see updates from just people in those circles.

Also, for each individual update, you can click on the down arrow to the right of the update to link to the post and share it on your profile, report it as abuse, mute the post or block the person who sent it.

How +1 Ties Into Google+

You’ve seen the implementation of Google +1 on blogs, websites and in search results. Here’s where it comes into play within Google+. Just like you can Like posts on Facebook, you can +1 posts!

Give a +1 to your favorite posts in your stream.

You can also see the count of how many +1s the updates receive and who has given it the +1.

Sending Updates

To send an update, you click on the box right below your stream. You will have the option to send photo-, video-, link- or location-based updates.

Send updates to the public, all of your circles or only specific circles.

You can then select who will see this update among your different circles, all of your circles, extended circles or anyone on the web.

There is also an option to email your updates to people you’ve added to circles if they are not a part of Google+ yet.

Forward updates via email.

Again, I’m not sure how I feel about opting-in someone who isn’t even a part of the network yet, but it’s there.

Chat With Friends

In your left sidebar, you have an option to connect with people in Chat. It’s similar to the same chat feature in your Gmail, also known as Google Talk.

Google Talk is now inside Google+.

The indicators will show you if someone is online and if they are available for a text chat (the green dot) or a video chat (the green video camera). When you click on their name, a little chat window will pop up at the bottom right side of your screen so you can start chatting.

Start a text, video, phone or group chat.

From here, you can click on the video icon, phone for Google Voice chat or the + person icon to add more people to start a group text chat. And if you want to start blocking someone, just click on the Actions dropdown for that option.

You can set your Google+ chat to only show you as online to particular circles, or you can set your overall status to Available, Busy, or Invisible to everyone signed into chat.

Video Chat With Friends Using Hangouts

Since I’m not quite comfortable with video yet, I haven’t gotten into this one. But you can connect with people via video by clicking on the Start a Hangout button in the right sidebar of your home page. You can learn more about this feature in this quick video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN38vHZjWXw

You will need to have a webcam and install the Google Voice and Google Video plugins to use this feature.

Feeds From Sparks

Sparks is a feature within Google+ that allows you to get a feed from a variety of websites on any topics you choose.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DoAl4JXhQo

Simply search for the things you are interested in to bring up a feed for that interest.

Check out the latest news in your industry with Google+ Sparks.

When you click the Add interest button at the top of a search, it will save it for you in your left-hand sidebar under your streams for easy access. It’s a great way to catch up on news on your favorite topics or within your industry. It also gives you some quick content to share with your circles!

Mobile Access

Last but not least, you can access Google+ on your mobile device. Currently the only app is for Android, with iPhone coming soon. But you can access google.com/+ in your browser on Android, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry with the specified OS systems.

Your Thoughts on Google+

What do you think? This article contains everything I know about Google+ thus far. Have you joined? What has been your experience so far? Do you think you will use this more or less than other social networking platforms? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

While some automation tools do nothing but make your social media profile look like an announcement board, other tools can be used to sync right into your normal engagement to give it a helpful boost.

Here are some Twitter automation tools, services and tips, which when used the right way, can be a valuable addition to your social media strategy. And when I say the right way, I mean that you should be using these to supplement your regular social engagement and not only using these tools to give your account the look of activity.

Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed is a service that allows you to set up RSS feeds from your favorite blogs, and whenever those blogs have a new post, it will be tweeted to your account. It can be used to update your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

How to Set Up Twitterfeed

To use Twitterfeed, you simply need to register for a free account and then set up your favorite blogs using the following steps.

1. Enter an easily recognizable Feed Name and the blog URL or RSS feed URL.

Twitterfeed Setup Step 1: Enter the feed name and blog or RSS URL.

2. Use the advanced settings to customize your tweets. I usually change the Post Content to Title Only and include via @username of the blog owner in the Post Suffix.

Twitterfeed Setup Step 2: Configure Advanced Settings.

3. Choose the Twitter or Facebook accounts that you would like to have updated with the blog’s latest posts.

Twitterfeed Setup Step 3: Set to update statuses on specific Twitter or Facebook accounts.

You’ll need to use the “OAuth” authentication for new Twitter accounts and “Connect” with Facebook for new Facebook accounts.

Pros of Using Twitterfeed

So what benefits can you get from using Twitterfeed? If you choose the right blogs that your audience enjoys, you’ll be able to give them the latest news from their favorite sites and they will appreciate it!

If you choose blogs that your followers like, you will receive plenty of thanks.

Generally, you’ll know if your audience likes them because you see retweets of those status updates or, if you’re really good at choosing the right blogs, you’ll get thank-you messages for posting them, like the one above.

Cons of Using Twitterfeed

So what’s the downside of using Twitterfeed? As far as I know, there isn’t a way to say when to tweet new posts. Sure, you can tell it to only check every certain number of hours, but even then it doesn’t let you say only between the hours of 9am and 5pm, for instance.

Another little quirk is that if you send an update that you want to stay at the top of your Twitter profile for a while, you might be out of luck if one of your blogs in Twitterfeed has recently updated right after your priority tweet.

The last one has to do specifically with affiliate marketers. If you’re promoting an event, such as the Social Media Success Summit, the last thing you want is to tweet a post promoting the same event (with someone else’s affiliate link). But it’s likely to happen if other blogs in your Twitterfeed are promoting the same products or events.

Twitterfeed Best Practices

So what best practices should you follow if you want to get the most out of Twitterfeed? Here are some good tips.

• Try not to include blogs that update multiple times a day. Nothing will annoy your followers more than seeing 12 updates from the same site in one day. If you feel you must include one of those sites, be sure to use the Advanced Settings and only check the blog once every 4 hours and only tweet one update at a time.
• Only choose blogs that you can depend on to have quality posts. I find that including blogs like Social Media Examiner which only feature posts on specific topics are the safest, while personal blogs that have the occasional rant post are a little more iffy. The last thing you want is to automatically tweet posts that may offend your readers.
• Be sure to monitor your tweets regularly to make sure your favorite blogs haven’t veered off topic. Your favorite photo blog may have decided to go culinary which may not resonate with your followers.

Social Oomph

Ah, the dreaded automated direct message. I wish I could greet all of my new followers with a personal direct message or a friendly mention, but it becomes tough to do once you’re getting a high volume of follows in one day.

Plus, it’s sometimes hard to tell which accounts are manned by real people and which are bots, and why would you want to waste precious time greeting a bot?

So yes, I like to use Social Oomph to create an automated direct message for new followers.

How to Set Up Social Oomph Direct Messages

Once you have created a free account (apparently no longer free for new members) at Social Oomph, you can set it up using the following steps.

1. Use the navigation menu and go to Social Accounts > Add New Account > Add Twitter. Be sure to log into your desired Twitter account beforehand and Authorize Access.

Social Oomph Setup Step 1: Authorize your desired Twitter account.

2. Use the navigation menu to go to Social Accounts > Edit Welcome DM and select your Twitter account. Here, you will find the form to enter your automated direct message and a checkbox to automatically send a welcome message.

Social Oomph Setup Step 2: Customize your direct message for new followers.

Underneath this setup is also an option to follow your new followers back or place them in a queue to manually approve or reject following them.

Social Oomph Setup Step 3: Automatically follow new followers back.

I always follow people back for one main reason. As you can see from my automated DM, I give them the opportunity to contact me privately, and if I’m not following them, they cannot do that. In general, I feel that if someone is connected with me, they should be able to contact me privately like they can on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Pros of Using Automated Direct Messages

If done correctly, you can make your new followers feel very welcome and open a good line of communication with them right off the bat. With my direct message, I also have the added bonus of discovering new questions from bloggers and social media users which have led to some good topic ideas for my blog.

Cons of Using Automated Direct Messages

If done incorrectly, you can put off users who are anti-automated direct messaging. I have tried out a few variations of direct messages, and unfortunately have had some that did not generate good feedback. My latest has been all positive though.

Automated Direct Messages Best Practices

The following will ensure that you keep your new followers once they receive your welcome message and not generate a lot of negative feedback.

• Don’t try to sell new followers anything in your welcome DM. Period.
• Don’t try to get your new followers to sign up for your mailing list—this includes trying to tempt them with a free gift. I rarely (unless I know the user) ever click on a rogue bit.ly link for a free anything in an automated DM.
• The most successful direct messages I’ve tried do not come with any links at all. These are seen as more trustworthy and can open the door to further communication.
• The second most successful direct messages I’ve used are ones that simply link to blog posts that my new followers would be interested in. If you know that you have an audience following you for blogging advice, then your latest blog post with 100 great tips for new bloggers might be well received.
• Be sure to check your direct messages regularly and respond to them when necessary. This is a huge trust-builder and will lead to more engagement in the future.

Tweet Old Post

Tweet Old Post is a great plugin for WordPress users. It allows you to connect a Twitter account with your blog and regularly tweet posts from your archives to your followers.

How to Set Up Tweet Old Post

Setting up Tweet Old Post is simple.  Follow these steps once you have logged into your self-hosted WordPress blog and related Twitter account.

1. Go to your Dashboard > Plugins > Add New and search for Tweet Old Post.

Tweet Old Post Step 1: Search for the Tweet Old Post plugin in your WordPress dashboard.

2. Click on the Install Now link below the Tweet Old Post plugin by Ajay Matharu.

Tweet Old Post Step 2: Install Tweet Old Post plugin from the search results.

After you’ve installed it, you’ll need to activate it on the next screen by clicking on the Activate Plugin link.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of your dashboard and go to Tweet Old Post > Tweet Old Post to get to the main settings for this plugin.

Tweet Old Post Step 3: Configure settings for Tweet Old Post plugin.

Here you’ll want to:

• Sign in with Twitter to the Twitter account from which you want to tweet your post archives.
• In the Tweet Prefix field, you can set something like From the Archives or similar text.
• Check the URL shortener box to use shortening services like bit.ly which will require an API key that you can get when you register for a free account at bit.ly.
• Create default #hashtags to go with your tweets, such as #blogging or #socialmedia.
• Set the minimum and random intervals to send tweets, considering whether you want to tweet posts from your archives one or more times per day.
• Set the minimum age of posts to be tweeted.
• Exclude particular categories from being tweeted.
• Save your changes.

4. If you have specific posts from included categories that you want to exclude from being tweeted, use the Tweet Old Post > Exclude Post settings to pick certain posts to exclude from being tweeted.

Tweet Old Post Step 4: Exclude specific posts from being tweeted by Tweet Old Post.

Pros of Using the Tweet Old Post Plugin

Chances are, you gain new followers to your Twitter account and blog on a daily basis. Using Tweet Old Post is a great way to point new followers to some of your awesome content from the past. It’s like having a Related Posts section that plugs into your Twitter account.

Cons of Using the Tweet Old Post Plugin

Some followers may not be as open to older content, especially if that content is outdated or they’re simply the type who only likes new and fresh blog posts.

Tweet Old Post Best Practices

To make sure your followers are only getting your best content, consider the following tips.

• Create a category to house only your best content, then go back through your older posts and add them to that category. This way, you never have to worry about anything that you don’t want to be tweeted from your archives, and you don’t have to mess with excluding posts on an individual basis.
• Be sure to exclude posts that are time sensitive from your archive’s tweets, such as a special discount that has since expired for a product or event information that has already passed.
• Don’t overdo tweets to your older posts—you don’t want your stream to look like it’s all about you and nothing else.

HootSuite Scheduling

HootSuite offers an option to schedule updates to specific social media accounts, which can come in really handy if you have items that you would like sent at specific times when you may be away from your computer.

How to Set Up Scheduled Updates From HootSuite

The following will help you set up scheduled updates to be sent from your Twitter accounts linked to your main HootSuite account.

1. Enter your desired status update in the box as you would like it to appear and select the accounts to which you would like it posted.

HootSuite Scheduling Step 1: Enter your status message as you would like it to appear.

2. Click on the calendar button to bring up a scheduling calendar to select your desired date and time to send the status update.

HootSuite Scheduling Step 2: Schedule your status message by date and time.

You will also notice the Schedule in Bulk option.

HootSuite Scheduling in Bulk: Schedule multiple messages all at once.

From here, you need to download a .CSV spreadsheet file so you can enter dates, times and tweets to schedule if you want to do more than one at a time for a specific account or set of accounts.

HootSuite Scheduling in Bulk: Use a .CSV to format your status messages for bulk scheduling.

3. Need to make a modification or cancel a scheduled update? Create a column for your Pending Tweets in HootSuite to see what you have scheduled. Use the Edit link to make changes or the X to delete the update.

HootSuite Pending Tweets: Edit or delete scheduled messages in this column.

Pros of Using HootSuite Scheduling

Time-sensitive tweets can be scheduled in advanced so you don’t forget to send important messages in a timely fashion. This is great for affiliates who are promoting the last few hours of a discount or special, speakers who want to send a countdown to their upcoming webinar or anyone who wants to keep his or her account updated at a regular rate.

Another great use for scheduling is when you’re reading through article after article that you want to send to your followers. Don’t just send ten articles in a span of five minutes—use the scheduler to space them out over the next few hours instead.

Cons of Using HootSuite Scheduling

If you’re using HootSuite to schedule your messages when you aren’t going to be around the computer, you may miss out on answering people who send quick questions about your latest tweet (if it needs any clarification).

HootSuite Scheduling Best Practices

There’s a big one here that really applies to any automated social media service: Be sure that your account has more than just scheduled tweets. You want to be engaging with your audience, not just broadcasting to them.

One Final Reminder

The above tools are meant to supplement and enrich your social media experience. They’re not, by any means, meant to replace the most important part of social media networking, which is engaging with your followers and fans on a regular basis. Not every status update should include a link!

Your Thoughts on Twitter Automation Tools

Do you use any of the above or other tools to enhance your Twitter presence? What results have you seen, good or bad? Leave your comments in the box below.

The Pros of Creating Your Own Community

So with all of the existing communities out there, what’s the benefit of creating your own?

Driving Traffic to Your Site – Let’s say that you start a forum on your own domain. If you’re successful in creating a popular community, you’ll be driving a lot of traffic to your website. The traffic, in turn, will lead to the next benefit.

Increasing Your Income – There are several ways to monetize a community. The direct approach is to actually charge your community membership fees for entry into the community or advanced privileges, such as the ability to promote themselves more within the community and premium content.

If your community is tied into a business, having the additional traffic to your site is bound to lead to converting community members to clients, or getting clients to join the community so you can later upsell them with additional products or services.

Then, of course, there are the indirect forms of monetization, such as capitalizing on the additional traffic to your website and offering advertisers banner space.

Becoming an Authority – If you become a successful community leader, you could become an authority in your industry as the administrator of a thriving community.

The Cons of Creating Your Own Community

As with just about anything, there are usually cons (or as I like to call them, considerations) that need to be thought through before jumping into starting up your own community. Here are some of the big ones.

Startup Costs – Generally, to maintain a community on your own site, you’ll have to invest in the development or customization of community software, such as a forum program or social networking plugin.

Administration Time – The next major factor in maintaining your own community is administration.  This involves everything from managing the software platform to moderating the activity among members to be sure that there isn’t any abuse of community rules or harassment of other community members. Without this kind of administration, the community will quickly fall.

Sticky Members – It’s not just about getting people to sign up, but getting them to keep coming back to your community and participate as much as possible. Unfortunately, what some people forget is that there are sometimes too many communities out there, and not enough time to devote to all of them. So if your community is not at the top of its game and requires too much involvement, members might start dropping off in activity.

What You Must Do to Have a Successful Community

So what does it take to create a successful, thriving community to which members are happy to come back regularly?

Start With Research – Before you jump into creating your own community, start by seeing what’s out there in a related niche, join those communities, and then observe the activity. Note what you like and dislike about the way the community operates, from the platform to the members and the leaders. Note which communities keep you coming back for more and how they do it.

Provide Unique Value – Notice I didn’t just say value, but unique value. Think about the communities you researched, and then try to figure out that one thing that no one else is offering that you can. One example would be creating a community that’s more specifically focused by doing a little brainstorming.

Instead of just blogging, narrow down to business blogging, then narrow down again to B2B business blogging, and then further down to B2B business blogging in the service industry. While it’s super-specific and might not allow for a huge following, it IS something unique which will intrigue your members.

Address Your Members’ Concerns – This one may get tough, depending on how many members you have in your community, but it’s always important to acknowledge any concerns that your members have in terms of site functionality, rules or other members. This lets them know that there’s someone actively in charge and always willing to cater to the members’ needs when possible.

Platforms for Your On-site Community

If you’ve weighed the pros and cons of creating your own community on your website and have decided to go for it, here are some platforms to get you started in creating your community.

Forums – If you’ve chosen to create a forum, the most popular platform is vBulletin, which starts at $195 per site/forum. While it’s pricey, it has the most robust set of features and is most widely used. Google vbulletin and your keyword to see what other communities are using this platform in your niche – you’re bound to find them.

Webdeveloper.com is an example of a forum built on the vBulletin platform.

Not ready to invest in forum software? A popular open-source alternative to vBulletin is phpBB. It has less functionality comparatively, but still provides the basic forum functions and needs.

Social Networks – Want to go beyond a forum? Two popular platforms for building your own social network are Ning and BuddyPress.

Ning, once a free service, now has plans at $2.95, $19.95 and $49.95 per month, depending on the number of members you want and space you’ll need.

Tennisopolis is an example of a social network built on the Ning platform.

A great example of a community built on their platform is Tennisopolis, a personal favorite of mine as I am an avid tennis fan and player. Members can connect with each other, participate in forums, create blogs, private message, share photos and video, join groups and much more.

An alternative is the free BuddyPress. The solution is meant to be integrated on top the WordPress platform. So if you’re already familiar with WordPress as a blog or content management system, you should be able to learn the ins and outs of BuddyPress as well.

Hello Eco Living is an example of a social network built on the BuddyPress platform.

An example of a network built on their platform is the Hello Eco Living Network. Similar to Ning networks, members can make friends, write blog posts, participate in forums, privately message each other, join groups and more.

Great Alternatives to Creating Your Own Community

So what are some good alternatives to creating a community on your own website? Try some of the following options on other networks.

Facebook Groups – Facebook is the top social network, so creating groups within their platform is a great way to go in terms of getting people together on a platform that they’re already involved in. You can add members to your group automatically, although I suggest you do this only after asking them if they would be interested, as it can be really annoying to be added to a group by someone you don’t know.

What are the perks of having a Facebook group? Groups can be public or private (invite only). Members can be notified each time there’s activity in the group, or change their notifications to be received only on threads that they’re actively participating in (such as ones they start or comment on).

Tell members how to customize their group settings for the best experience.

You can also encourage members to check the settings so that your group shows in their home navigation.

Members won't forget about your group if they put it in their home navigation.

This way, members will always be reminded about your group anytime they’re logged into their Facebook homepage.

LinkedIn Groups – LinkedIn, the top professional network, is also a great place to start your own community through LinkedIn Groups.

These can be especially powerful for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that you can email your group once a week. It’s almost like building a mailing list through their service (although you shouldn’t overpromote yourself on things that you’re selling through it).

Social Media Examiner uses a private LinkedIn group for Blogging Success Summit attendees.

Your Thoughts on Building Online Communities

Have you ever created, moderated or even simply joined an online community, forum or focused social network? What were the perks as well as the downsides on ones built on specific domains vs. ones built within popular social networks? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.

Using social media to research competitors can provide useful information for any business looking to create a smart strategy.  Learning about your competitors’ activities can give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.

The beauty of social media is that there’s a ton of information about your competitors that is public. And not only is their strategy public, but the reaction to that strategy is public as well. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can learn about your competitors through different social networks, search engines and other outlets.

Competitor Research Through Twitter

Twitter can be a great source of information, because you not only can view a user’s tweets (assuming they’re not private, which generally business Twitter accounts aren’t), but also a user’s followers and the conversation that’s being directed toward him or her.

Finding Competitors

If you have a specific list of competitors that you would like to research, your best bet on finding their Twitter accounts is to visit their website and look for their social links (usually near a Twitter icon in the header, sidebar or footer of their site). Alternatively, you can Google the company name and Twitter to find their account.

If you haven’t compiled a list of competitors, or your main competitors surprisingly don’t use Twitter yet, you can use Twitter search directories such as Twellow and WeFollow to find other companies in your industry that do.

Tweets

The first and most useful information you can learn from looking at a competitor’s Twitter account is simply the strategy they’re using. By viewing their latest tweets, you can see if their strategy includes promoting lots of discounts; direct replies to their followers; or sharing articles, fun facts or other kinds of tweets. You can judge the success of their strategy simply by looking at their follower count.

Followers

Have you ever wanted to see your competitors’ client list? If so, you might just be in luck, because on Twitter, you can view any user’s followers. Thanks to the new Twitter design, you can easily click on a Twitter user’s followers and see, just by scrolling down the page, a short piece of information about each of their followers from their bios.

Twitter gives you a great overview of any Twitter user's followers.

Then you can click on each one to learn more about them, like their follower-to-following ratio, location and their latest tweets.

Alternatively, you can get an overview of a user’s followers by using Twitter tools like Tweepi, which allows you to see follower details all on one screen, including bio information, location, number of followers and following, number of updates and even when they last tweeted.

Tweepi shows you important Twitter user information in one shot.

Replies

Now, let’s take the research deeper. You don’t want just to know who’s following your competitor on Twitter—you want to know what kind of feedback that competitor is getting as well.

If you do a simple search on Twitter for the replies to their username, @yourcompetitor, you’re bound to learn some valuable information.

Monitor the @mentions of your competitors for fan sentiment.

In the above example, you can see that @Target’s fans like their latest commercial, selection of Christmas items, pricing on certain products and even one of Target’s charitable contributions during the holiday season.

Most Popular Content

Another great Twitter search tool is Topsy. This one is specifically for researching what content on a website gets the most retweets—a sign that it’s the type of content that people like and something that you should consider emulating for your own blog or website.

See the most popular pages tweeted from a competitor's website.

In the above search, you can see a few important things in particular—this company uses services similar to Sponsored Tweets for Twitter advertising, as marked by the #ad hashtag after the first tweet. They also received lots of good feedback and changed their in-store return policy, news that’s being shared often.

Competitor Research Through Facebook

Facebook is one of the top social networks for businesses, and another one where you can find out a lot of information about your competitors’ strategy and fan interaction.

Finding Your Competitors

Again, just like with Twitter, you can find your known competitors’ Facebook fan page links on their website or simply through a Google search. But if your competitor isn’t using Facebook fan pages, you can use the Browse All Pages directory on Facebook to find companies in your industry that are using the search or the category types listed, such as products, services, restaurants and more.

Strategy

There are lots of strategic elements that can be determined by viewing a competitor’s Facebook fan page. To get a full view of what they’re doing, you may have to Like their page with your personal profile.

Once you’ve become a fan, you’ll be able to see all sections (formerly tabs) of their profile. You’ll be able to find out if they’re using their Facebook page as lead generation through gathering email addresses, feeding other social media accounts or blog posts through their page, eliciting customer reviews, creating amazing landing pages or using premium applications from Involver or North Social.

The main strategy you’ll want to check out is how they use their wall for fan interaction. Do they post their latest offers, videos, blog posts, news, photos or other items? Why is this valuable? Because not only will you see their activity, but you’ll also see how it goes over with their customers.

Fan Activity

Unlike Twitter where you have to do a special search for a competitor’s replies to their @username, you can see fan response (or lack thereof) directly on each item of your competitor’s wall. This is a great way to gauge what fans in your industry like the most, from discounts to random status updates, simply by seeing the number of Likes an update receives and reading through the various comments.

See the popularity of an update on your competitor's Facebook fan page wall.

One particular thing to note is that it’s not always updates from the official fan page that get interaction. In the above example on Toyota’s fan page, it’s a fan posting on their wall that got other fans’ attention—a key reason to make sure that your page shows both your updates and those from fans.

Favorite Pages

Facebook fan page owners can add other fan pages as their favorites.

Find your competitors' additional pages through Favorite Pages.

This is a key area to check out, as it may lead you to find more competitors’ fan pages, revealing more of their ultimate Facebook strategy.

Competitor Research Through LinkedIn

Thanks to the new company pages on LinkedIn, you can learn some interesting information about how your competitors are using LinkedIn for business.

Finding Your Competitors

Locate your competitors’ company profiles on LinkedIn via their website, a Google search or using the search box at the top right-hand corner of your LinkedIn screen.

Followers

You can browse a company’s followers using the link in the top right corner of the company profile page showing their follower count.

View a company's followers on LinkedIn.

If you’re not directly connected to followers of a company (first connections) or sharing a connection with a follower (second connection), you’ll only be able to see a limited amount of information about a company’s followers, although it might still be enlightening.

Employees

You can also view information about a company’s employees if they’re connected to them on LinkedIn. If you do share connections, use the links for first connections and second employees in your network (shown in the box above) to see more details about those employees.

Also, don’t miss the helpful statistics about employees, including the following information compiled about all employees linked to the company:

• Job function composition—percentage of staff who are administrative, research, development, sales, marketing and executive.
• Annual company growth—a line graph that compares your competitor’s growth with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Employees who have changed their title—a line graph that compares your competitor’s employee changes with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Employees at the company with new titles.
• Years of work experience—a bar graph that compares your competitor’s employees’ experience with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Highest education degree attained—a bar graph that compares your competitor’s employees’ education (bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, associate’s degree, certification, and high school diplomas) with others in the same industry and of similar size.
• Most common universities attended—a bar graph showing percentages of employees from the top five universities that they have graduated from.

Strategy

With the new company pages, companies can add more information to their profile. View their Recent Blog Posts and Activity on LinkedIn to see what your competitors are doing to boost their profiles and gain new followers.

More Competitor Research on Social Media

Want to go beyond the top three social and professional networks? Here are more ideas on social networks and websites to research your competitors.

• YouTube—check out your competitors’ video marketing strategy by finding their YouTube channel and seeing what types of videos they post and their popularity through number of Likes and comments.
• Social Mention—use this real-time social media search engine to find your competitors on other social networks, and view mentions about your competitors by other social media users.
• Geo-based social networks—are your competitors taking advantage of Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places, Whrrl or other location-based social media? Find out and be sure your company is “check-in” friendly if applicable.
• Boardreader—don’t just focus on social media! Some of the strongest, most loyal community members can be found in forums. Boardreader will help you find your competitors and any talk about them on forums and message boards throughout the web.
• Local search and review directories—does your business have local competition? Be sure to check out your competitors’ profiles on review sites such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, Google Places and more to find out if they’re garnering reviews from their customers, sharing discounts and taking advantage of local search to dominate in search results.

Do you research your competitors via social media? Please share your tips below, as well as valuable information you learned from doing the research and analysis.

Depending on your niche or industry, you may find that channeling all of your energy into broad social bookmarking networks that cover almost every topic imaginable may not benefit you.

Instead of targeting networks that only have a percentage of users interested in your topic, why not find a network whose members and visitors are 100% interested in your niche?

The following are popular niche social bookmarking networks for bloggers, business professionals, developers and designers.

#1: BizSugar

BizSugar is a social bookmarking network dedicated to news and tips for small businesses. It covers marketing, finance, franchises, global, legal, management, technology and startups. Home page stories receive an average of 20 to 30 votes, or “sugars.” You can easily retweet the original source from the BizSugar home page, as well as share it on StumbleUpon, Delicious, Facebook, Google Buzz and email.

You can also create detailed profiles including links to your website, main social profiles and even a link to your latest blog post via RSS feed. You can become friends with other users, send them direct private messages and comment on stories.

If you’re looking to make friends with the most active users, you can view them in the top users list based on various network activity (story submissions, votes and comments).

BizSugar Stats & Tools

• BizSugar receives an average of 40,000 unique visitors per month and has over 200 members.
• The most popular story in the last year is How Can I Look “Amazing” on LinkedIn with 107 sugars.
• BizSugar has an active blog covering social media and network news.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, badges and a top stories widget for your website as well as a WordPress plugin.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet and toolbars for Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.
• You can follow BizSugar on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

BizSugar is a social bookmarking network for small business news.

#2: Blog Engage

Blog Engage is a social bookmarking network and community specifically for bloggers who write about any topic from blogging to technology and anything in between. Home page stories receive an average of 10 to 20 votes. You can easily share items from the Blog Engage home page to a variety of networks using the Share This link under each story.

On Blog Engage, you’re able to create your own profile and you can add other members as friends. Interaction between users can happen in a variety of places through commenting on stories, participating on the Blog Engage forums and sharing stories within groups.

If you’re looking to make friends with the most active users, Blog Engage also offers a list of top users based on network activity.

Blog Engage Stats & Tools

• Blog Engage receives an average of 19,000 unique visitors per month and has over 400 members.
• The most popular story in the last year is Google PageRank Score Too Low? with 96 votes.
• Blog Engage has an active blog covering social media and blogging. They also have regular guest blogging contests.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, badges and a WordPress plugin.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet, which you can find in your user dashboard when logged into the network.
• You can follow Blog Engage on Twitter and Facebook.

Blog Engage is a social bookmarking network for bloggers.

#3: Design Bump

Design Bump is a social bookmarking network for designers looking to share stories and tutorials for web design, graphic design and even niche design topics such as architecture and industrial design. Items on the home page receive an average of 10 to 20 votes.

Although interaction on Design Bump is limited to comments on stories, you’re able to create a basic profile and include up to 12 images that will link to your portfolio. Top users are listed based on network activity.

Design Bump Stats & Tools

• Design Bump receives an average of 30,000 unique visitors per month and has over 8,000 members.
• The most popular recent story is 50 Free High Quality Icon Sets with 27 votes.
• Tools for website owners include embeddable buttons and an official top stories widget.

Design Bump is a social bookmarking network for designers.

#4: Design Float

Design Float is another popular social bookmarking community for designers, covering topics similar to Design Bump. Home page stories receive 10 to 20 votes and can be shared on Twitter.

On Design Float, you can create a basic profile, and although you can add each other as friends, interaction is again limited to story comments. Top users are also recognized by network activity.

Design Float Stats & Tools

• Design Float receives an average of 108,000 unique visitors per month, has over 65,000 members, and has over 7,000 RSS subscribers.
• The most popular story in the last year is 33 Awesomely Cool Science Fiction Wallpapers with 55 votes.
• Design Float has an active blog with roundup posts of artwork, design, tutorials and resources.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, top stories widgets and a WordPress plugin.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet for easy story submission.
• You can follow Design Float on Twitter.

Design Float is a social bookmarking network for designers.

#5: DZone

DZone is a social bookmarking network for website developers and programmers. Home page stories receive 5 to 15 votes and can be shared via Twitter. You can create a very basic profile and interaction is limited to story comments and forum participation.

DZone Stats & Tools

• DZone receives an average of 194,000 unique visitors per month and has over 25,000 RSS subscribers.
• The most popular story in the last year is the Amazing HTML5 Paint App with 114 votes.
• Tools for website owners include a voting button.
• Tools for users include a Firefox voting plugin.
• You can follow DZone on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

DZone is a social bookmarking network for developers.

#6: SERPd

SERPd is a social bookmarking network for Internet and search engine marketers. Home page stories receive 15 to 25 votes, anywhere from 50 to 150 views and can be shared via Twitter and StumbleUpon.

You can create a profile, follow other members, send private messages and interact in the comments on stories. Top users are listed at the bottom of the site in the footer.

On a side note, social interaction was actually the reason SERPd was created, as a reaction to the popular search news site Sphinn changing from Digg-style user voting to moderator-approved stories only. I’ll give Sphinn the honorable mention, as they still allow members to “suggest” stories and the ones selected are usually top-notch.

SERPd Stats & Tools

• SERPd receives an average of 19,000 unique visitors per month – quite impressive considering they only started in September 2010.
• The most popular story since the network started is 7 SEO Experts to Avoid with 44 votes and 1,600+ views.
• Tools for website owners include a social voting button and banner.
• You can follow SERPd on their blog, Twitter and Facebook.

SERPd is a social bookmarking network for Internet marketers.

#7: Tip’d

Tip’d is a social bookmarking network for those interested in finance and business topics including real estate, currencies, entrepreneurship, career and economy. Home page stories receive 15 to 20 “tips,” or votes, and can be shared on other social networks using the Save and Share widget.

You’re able to create a profile and add other users as friends to interact via private messaging as well as story comments. Top users are listed based on network activity. You can even see what domains have the most votes on Tip’d by visiting the top domains page.

Tip’d Stats & Tools

• Tip’d receives an average of 48,000 unique visitors a month, and has over 61,000 members and 4,000 RSS subscribers.
• The most popular story in the last year is 6 ways to find free money with 59 votes.
• Tools for website owners include voting buttons, a WordPress plugin, and a Feedflare for Feedburner command to ensure an “Add to Tip’d” link appears along with your blog’s feed items so subscribers can submit your story to Tip’d from their feed reader.
• Tools for users include a bookmarklet for easy story submission.
• Follow Tip’d on Twitter and Facebook.

Tip'd is a social bookmarking network for financial news, ideas and tips.

What are your favorite niche social bookmarking networks?

Have you used any of these sites? I know this can’t be all of them, so please share your favorite niche social bookmarking networks, as well as any advice you would give others on how to be successful in getting their stories to the top of these networks. Leave your comments in the box below.

You’ve likely heard of StumbleUpon. But do you really understand how to use its full power?

StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking and rating site where people can “Stumble” their favorite web pages, write reviews and share their discoveries with their followers.

This network is like Delicious, but with a more enhanced social platform and sharing system.

Why Use StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon can be a great site to organize your favorite bookmarks, although it isn’t quite as advanced as Delicious in organization. You can easily save items by giving them the thumbs-up using the “I like it” buttons on the StumbleUpon toolbars for Firefox or Chrome.

Use the StumbleUpon toolbars (Chrome on top, Firefox on bottom) to see Stumblers who like a specific page.

Aside from organizing your own favorites, StumbleUpon is also used to drive traffic to a specific webpage, photo, video or other website. When you favorite a particular item in StumbleUpon, it’s recommended to the StumbleUpon network. People who express interest in a topic will be shown your page if it falls under that topic and has received good ratings from other Stumblers when they use the Stumble button in their toolbar or when they search StumbleUpon.

Saving Your Favorites

There’s more to saving your favorite pages than just hitting the “I like it” button. You can use the Comment bubble on the Chrome toolbar or the Info button on the Firefox toolbar to go to the StumbleUpon page for the URL and enter a detailed review, which is appreciated much more than just a thumbs-up.

Whenever you’re favoriting an item, be sure to use the tag icon to add tags to your favorites. StumbleUpon’s search is less than exact when it comes to relocating something that you’ve favorited and hope to return to, so tag that item appropriately so you can find it when you need it.

A view of your tags in your StumbleUpon favorites.

You can see your own favorites’ tags by going to your favorites and selecting Tags. The ones you use the most will show up larger than the rest so you can easily spot your favorite topics, or you can hover over the Tags link to see them in order of the number of favorites you’ve added in that tag.

You can also share your StumbleUpon favorites through Twitter and Facebook icons on the toolbars.

Creating Your StumbleUpon Profile

After you’ve registered for StumbleUpon, and before you begin building your StumbleUpon network, you’ll want to create a great StumbleUpon profile. There are two aspects to your profile you’ll want to be sure to complete before you start contacting others to follow you.

Your Bio

You can create a detailed bio by going to your Settings menu to Customize Profile. In the “introduce yourself to everyone” box, you can enter a detailed description of yourself as well as links to your website, blogs and other social networks.

Your StumbleUpon profile settings page.

Although they’re nofollow links, they’ll garner you traffic as people visit your profile based on the fact that they like what you Stumble.

Here’s how your StumbleUpon profile introduction might look.

Once you have your avatar and bio information completed, the next thing you’ll want to do (if you haven’t already) is fill your profile with favorites in topics you’re interested in. This will show people who visit your profile what you’re into and that you’re active, and will make them more likely to follow you.

Finding Friends on StumbleUpon

There are plenty of guides on generating traffic from StumbleUpon. If you don’t want to wait for the luck of the draw of a power Stumbler coming across and liking your content, then your next-best bet is to build a strong following to share your content with.

Find or Invite Your Friends

The first place to search for StumbleUpon followers is within your own networks. After you’re logged in, go to the Stumblers tab and use the Find Friends option. StumbleUpon can connect to your Gmail, Yahoo or Windows Live (Hotmail) email contacts as well as your Facebook friends and Twitter followers to see if any of your connections are also Stumblers.

Find and invite your friends via email, Facebook and Twitter.

When it pulls up your contacts, it will show you their icon, user name, real name (if available), number of favorites (which shows if your connections are active), and their main interests.

StumbleUpon lists your contacts with their number of favorites and interests.

From here, you can select people you want to follow based on interest, or let it “Select All” to follow all of your contacts from a particular network.

Find Stumblers Based on Interest

There are several ways you can find Stumblers to connect with based on interest.

Topics

First off, you can see Stumblers who follow particular topics by looking under the Discover tab at your own favorite topics, listed to the right and based on the number of times you thumbs-up items tagged with that particular topic.

StumbleUpon keeps track of your favorite topics in the Discover tab.

When you look at a particular topic, you’ll see a random selection of people who like that topic.

Here’s a look at Stumblers who like a particular topic.

Next, under the Discover tab, you can look at general topics.

StumbleUpon’s general topics listing in the Discover tab.

Tags

You can also look at StumbleUpon tags for recently hot and most popular topics.

Here are Recently Hot and Most Popular All Time tags on StumbleUpon.

If you can’t find the topic or tag you’re looking for, you can add the keyword in the URL to see if it comes up, such as http://www.stumbleupon.com/discover/twitter/ or http://www.stumbleupon.com/discover/twitter-tools/.

Groups

There are also groups on StumbleUpon. They’re not easy to search – you have to go by category to find the group where people interested in a particular topic would hang out.

Here are general categories for StumbleUpon groups.

Most groups seem to be inactive—only moderators can add related sites for group members to peruse, and most of the last-added sites are over a year old. Yet many groups have 10,000+ members, so they’re a great way to find Stumblers based on interest.

By Favorite Item

If you want to be specific and only follow people who like a certain post or website, you can find out who have favorited a page that you’re on by using the StumbleUpon toolbars. If you have the Firefox StumbleUpon toolbar, for example, you would use the Info button. If you have the Chrome StumbleUpon toolbar, you would use the Comment icon.

This will take you to the StumbleUpon page for a particular URL.

Here’s a StumbleUpon URL page for Social Media Examiner.

Here you’ll see the people who’ve favorited the page as well as those who’ve written reviews. Needless to say, if you’re specifically looking for people who like writing reviews on a particular topic, you might want to start with those who are writing reviews on websites in your industry.

Connecting With Stumblers

StumbleUpon shows common interests between you and another Stumbler.

Whenever you go to a Stumbler’s profile page, you’ll see their avatar and basic biography, plus some statistics about their Stumbling habits, which will let you know whether they’re an active Stumbler.

You’ll also see whether you have a lot in common with this Stumbler based on both of your interests and items that you’ve given the thumbs-up.

Here’s how to follow a Stumbler.

If you decide to follow the user, you’ll have the added option to accept shares to your toolbar, meaning that when they want to share an item with you, it will show up in your toolbar’s inbox.

After you follow someone, if you want them to reciprocate and follow you in return, you have two options. You can send the Stumbler a message, letting them know you followed them and would like them to follow you in return so you can exchange favorites. Or you can also go the extra mile and review the Stumbler and then send them a message, letting them know you followed and reviewed them, and hope they will follow you in return to exchange favorites.

Receiving Shares

To receive shares from the people you follow, simply keep an eye on the red number in your StumbleUpon toolbar. Click on this number to get the latest shares from your following.

Your friends can share their favorites with you with comments.

Be sure to thumbs-up only the items you like, and review them for bonus points (especially if you’re hoping for reviews for your shares in return). You can also reply to the Stumbler to let them know you liked it, give them additional feedback, or answer any questions they may have asked in their request.

It’s amazing how that little response can make the difference and strengthen your connection with other Stumblers. I’ve shared items with over 500 followers and received very few replies, as many people will just thumbs-up an item and move on. Usually the people who reply to me will be the ones I notice more when they send over their next share.

Sharing Etiquette

Once you have followers, you can start sharing your favorites with them via the StumbleUpon toolbar or from the StumbleUpon page for that URL. You should include a personal message, up to 140 characters.

Sharing favorites with your followers.

Please note that there are certain rules of StumbleUpon etiquette that you must follow, especially when it comes to shares. People who are following you and accepting shares from you via their toolbar will receive these shares in their toolbar. Since StumbleUpon banned sharing to all followers, the number of shares has decreased significantly, BUT it’s still possible to overdo it and drive your followers bananas to the point that they will unfollow you.

I would suggest no more than one share a day or maybe two shares in one day if you don’t share things regularly. Any more than that will probably get you unfollowed, as no-one wants that flashing red number to be in the hundreds.

StumbleUpon Advertising

If you’re looking to share your content beyond the base of your followers, you can always look into StumbleUpon advertising, which is fairly inexpensive. I used it once and it did bring traffic to the page I had targeted.

The traffic from StumbleUpon on the days that I receive paid Stumbles spent an average of 3 minutes on the page, but the bounce rate was 96% with an exit rate of 90%. Comparatively, the traffic I received from LinkedIn Ads spent less time on the page, but had a lower bounce rate of 85% and a much lower exit rate of 60%. Of course, when it comes to cost, I received over 350 visitors from StumbleUpon Ads for a tenth of the cost of receiving fewer than 100 visitors from the LinkedIn Ads.

Needless to say, it’s important to use Google Analytics when advertising with StumbleUpon (or any other social advertising campaign) to be sure that the incoming traffic is actually valuable for your goals.

Your Stumbling Experience

If you like this article, please Stumble it (see below for Stumble link).

Do you use StumbleUpon? Please share your experience from social networking to traffic generation in the comment box below. Also, if you want to connect on StumbleUpon and share favorites, please send me a message at kikolani.

It also brings a very powerful community aspect to social bookmarking. This article will reveal innovate ways to use Delicious.

8 Innovative Uses for Delicious

So why should you use social bookmarking instead of just your browser? Two important reasons include that your bookmarks can be shared with others using a specific URL or RSS feed, and they can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.

Delicious show popularly bookmarked pages on it’s home page.

But there are lot more reasons to consider using Delicious. Here are eight more:

#1: Organizing Your Resources

Probably the most obvious reason to use Delicious is to organize the content you come across on a daily basis for future use. It’s hard to read every great blog post that’s shared with you through other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Why not bookmark them for later, so whenever you’re looking for information on a particular topic, you have a great compilation of favorite articles and pages to choose from?

#2: Action Plans

Another thing I find when I’m browsing the web or reading a great how-to post—I want to actually use that information, but not necessarily at the time I find it. So instead of possibly forgetting about what a great idea it is, I create action tags instead.

For example, you can use tags such as actionbusinesscard to save a page on a great business card design service that you want to use to redesign your business cards, actionlinkedin for posts on LinkedIn tips and marketing, or actionfacebookpage to save a great post on how to create fan-only Facebook content.

#3: Company Sharing

Because my company does content marketing, we share a lot of links to great content development ideas back and forth by email. Instead of having to dig through a bunch of emails to find something in particular, we set up a company-wide Delicious account and now we bookmark items there. This way, whenever we want to see the latest finds in infographics or graphic design resources, we can refer to our Delicious bookmarks. This can be used to get employees active in not only learning new things, but also sharing what they learn with their colleagues in any industry.

#4: Backlink Recording

There are tons of ways for link-builders to keep track of the links they build for their websites, from Excel spreadsheets to paid software. But what if you want to do it faster? With Delicious, you can simply bookmark a page you requested a link from and tag it by topic, quality or type for future reference. So if you’re making a comment on a .edu blog about pets, your tags would be edu pets blogcomment, and the next time you need to look for one of those three elements for another link, they would be right in your Delicious bookmarks.

#5: Social Networking Profiles

Do you create profiles on sites only to forget about them later? Bookmarking them in Delicious not only gives the profile a little link juice, but will keep the profile links handy in case you want to share them or at least remember what networks you’re on. You can tag them with socialprofile updatemonthly so you know that it’s a network you want to update on a certain schedule.

#6: Social Mentions

A great idea by Ari Herzog is to use Delicious as a way to keep track of mentions about you in articles, or as he likes to call it, sharing his ego. Keeping track of these kinds of mentions could come in handy for testimonials or references in your own writing or websites.

#7: Writing Showcase

Combining Ari’s ego idea and a great template, you can use Delicious RSS feeds to create a customized portfolio.

Separate Delicious RSS feeds help generate the content on this portfolio page.

I made some WordPress customizations to a theme that gives you the option to import your Delicious bookmarks, and I use it as my own portfolio, separating guest posts from article directory entries by using the feeds for my bookmarks tagged with guestpost and articles.

#8: Don’t Lose Your Bookmarks!

Last, but not least, if you’re paranoid like I am, you’ll want to know that your bookmarks won’t be lost if something happens to Delicious itself. Delicious offers the option to export your bookmarks and download them as an HTML file. Just set a reminder to do this periodically to save your bookmarks just in case something should happen, à la Magnolia.

Now, let’s look at how to use Delicious and why you should use this particular network for your bookmarking needs.

Signing Up

If you don’t already have an account with Delicious (you can use the old-school login page here for accounts created before Yahoo took over), you’ll need a Yahoo account to sign up. Click on join now on Delicious and login to your Yahoo account.

Delicious Username

You’ll be given an option to create a Delicious username similar to your Yahoo ID or create a custom Delicious username. Consider as you create your custom Delicious username that it will also be the URL for your account (delicious.com/username).

Importing Bookmarks

After choosing your username, you’re given the option to import your bookmarks from your browser. You can choose to have your browser bookmarks imported as private or public.

Delicious Tools

Delicious offers a variety of tools to help you conveniently save bookmarks and review bookmarked pages.

Firefox Add-On

Probably the most useful tool for Delicious is the Firefox Add-On. Once installed, you’ll be able to:

#1: Access your bookmarks via a drop-down menu from Firefox.

See your bookmarks in your Firefox menu bar.

You can view your bookmarks based on Recently Bookmarked, Most Visited and Tags. You can also use the More About This Page option to see if a page is already bookmarked on Delicious, how many times it has been bookmarked and which members have saved it publicly.

#2: Keep your bookmarks open on the left side of your browser.

See your bookmarks on the left side of your browser window.

You can sort your tags alphabetically or by most used, and your bookmarks alphabetically, by site, by date added, by most visited or by last visited.

#3: Keep your bookmarks in a toolbar.

See your bookmarks in a customized toolbar.

If you’re not a fan of using the menu bar option or shrinking your browser space with the sidebar, you can simply have a toolbar that displays your bookmarks by the latest added or by favorite tags. I personally like the Favorite Tags because you can customize it for your most visited topics.

Put your favorite tags in your Delicious toolbar.

#4: Use Ctrl-D or the option in your right-click menu to save a bookmark on Delicious.

Want to save a bookmark quickly to Delicious? Simply hit Ctrl-D to toggle the window to save your bookmark.

Bookmarklets

If you’re not a fan of add-ons or if you use another browser, Delicious also offers some helpful bookmarklets to drag onto your browser’s bookmark toolbar.

Use bookmarklets in any browser .

• Bookmark on Delicious—This bookmarklet will allow you to bookmark the page.
• My Delicious—This bookmarklet will take you to your bookmarks on Delicious.
• Bookmark History—Want to know how many times a page has been saved and by whom? Use this bookmarklet to go to the Delicious bookmark for any page that you’re on.

Connecting With Others

Whenever you’re on another user’s profile, you can add him or her to your network using the options on the top right of the profile.

Add other users to your network.

Unfortunately, the only way that other users will know is if you tell them, or if they notice you’re following them in their network listing.

See whom you're following, and who's following you in your network.

Saving a Bookmark

These are your basic options when saving a bookmark.

Whenever you save a bookmark to Delicious, you have several options to fill in about the bookmark. Delicious will automatically pull in the URL and the title (based on the title tag of the page or post you’re saving). You can edit these as needed.

Notes

Notes are your additional description/information about your bookmark.

Your notes will be displayed with your bookmark.

Tags

Be sure to use descriptive tags for your bookmarks, as they will be key to finding relevant information again. Tags are space-separated, and if you’re using multiple words, they should be run together, such as socialmedia.

Use tags to organize your Delicious bookmarks.

You can start typing in a tag, and it will bring up a drop-down, or you can select it from the complete list of tags below.

Send

You can share your latest bookmarks with your fans if you think they might like them. Start typing in the name to get a drop-down or use the Send tab to select the fans you want to share with.

Send your bookmark to fans who have the same interests.

You can also add a personal message (up to 116 characters) to your fans about the bookmark.

Send a message with your bookmark.

When you save your bookmark, it will be sent to the other user and arrive in his or her inbox.

Privacy

Want to keep that bookmark to yourself? Simply check the Mark as Private box. Otherwise your bookmarks are visible to anyone who happens to come across your profile.

Subscriptions

If you’re interested in particular topics, you can subscribe to those tags by going to your subscriptions area and Add a Subscription.

Create subscriptions to follow your favorite topics.

You can follow a particular tag and even specify bookmarks with that tag from a specific member.

RSS

If you prefer to have your subscriptions in your RSS reader, Delicious offers RSS feeds at the bottom of each page, so you can subscribe to particular topics (explore tags or view most popular tags) and users:

• Bookmarks with a particular tag—http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/tag/tag?count=15
• Other users’ bookmarks—http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/username?count=15
• Other users’ bookmarks with specific tags—http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/username/tag?count=15

Your Thoughts on Bookmarking With Delicious

Do you use Delicious social bookmarking or do you have another service you prefer? What other innovative uses for Delicious can you think of for saving and sharing bookmarks? Leave your comments in the box below.

Here is a look inside the new Digg – from the first login to submitting stories, advanced features, best practices and some things to consider.

A look at the login screen for the new Digg.com.

Your First Login

When you first login to the new Digg site, you will see the first evidence that they are trying to get more people to be social with the following two-step process.

Find Profiles to Follow

In Step 1 after you first sign in, you will be given a list of popular profiles on Digg to follow. You can look at all topics or narrow it down to your specific area of interest using the categories in the left sidebar.

Step 1, when you first login, will allow you to browse popular profiles on Digg.

You are able to revisit the popular Digg users in each topic at any time, so you can skip this step for now if you choose.

Find Friends to Follow

In Step 2, you will be asked to connect your Digg account with your Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts to find your friends to follow from those networks who are on Digg.

Step 2 will allow you to connect to your Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts.

You are able to connect to your other accounts any time, so you can skip this step for now if you want to jump right into the new layout.

Your New Home Page

In the previous version of Digg, once you login, you are taken to the latest top news stories. Now, when you login, you will greeted with a Welcome to My News. This area shows the stories recently dugg by the people that you follow on Digg.

View the stories your friends have dugg in My News.

Alternatively, this is where the Find Profiles and Find Friends steps come in handy. If you are not following anyone, you will not have anything in your news when you first login to the new system.

If you are not following anyone, your My News section will be empty.

If you prefer to just see what is popular on the main site versus just among your friends, you can simply switch to the Top News tab.

View most popular stories on new Digg by switching to the Top News section.

Your Profile, Following, and Settings

At the top of the new Digg layout, you can access pertinent information about your Digg account, as well as your settings.

View your followers, following, profile, and settings from the top navigation bar.

Followers vs. Following

To see who is following you versus those you are following, click on the appropriate links underneath the numbers.

View your followers and see who you are following back already.

The unfortunate change in the new Digg system is that you can only see whom you are following (or not) in your followers. There is not a mutual following icon like in the old Digg system, however, so you cannot see if people you are following are following you back.

Profiles

The new Digg profile has changed some, mostly in aesthetics.

The profiles in the new Digg are similar.

You can update your profile under the Settings menu > Profile.

View your followers and see who you are following back already.

You can also add external links to your websites and social media accounts under Settings > Links.

Add external links to your new Digg profile.

Unfortunately, you can no longer enter an instant messenger handle like you could in the old version of Digg. If you want to build Digg connections via IM, you will need to include that information in your bio instead.

Import Feeds

One of the more convenient (and controversial) new features in the new Digg settings is importing a blog feed to your profile.

Import your blog feed to have new posts auto-submitted to Digg.

When you enter a feed URL, you can choose the category to which new posts should be submitted. After installing a verification code on your website to confirm you are the site owner, your latest posts will be automatically submitted to Digg.

It is suggested that you create a specific category; that way, only new posts in that category are auto-submitted. This would be especially useful if your blog covers topics that could fit in different Digg topics, as stories in the right category are likely to get more diggs than ones that are miscategorized.

Personally, I don’t think I’m going to use this option for two reasons. First, if you auto-submit, Digg will choose your post’s thumbnail for you. If you have multiple pictures within a post, it may not select the one you would prefer (not to mention it might pull Gravatar images, social bookmarking icons, etc.). Second, you won’t have the option to modify the title and description to make it more appealing to other diggers.

More Settings

Additional settings that you can configure include:

• Notifications: choose to receive email notifications when you get new followers and Digg announcements.
• Viewing Digg: change specific settings for how you view Digg.
• Connections: see what social networks your Digg account is connected to – if you skipped Step 2 earlier, this is where you go back to it.

Submitting a Story

The new Digg system has made story submission a lot simpler. From the My News or Top News tab, simply enter your URL in the Submit a Link box and click Digg It to get started.

Submit your story on the My News or Top News tabs.

If your URL is already in the system, it will show it to you immediately.

New Digg lets you know if your story is already on Digg.

If not, you will get a simple submission form that allows you to select the thumbnail for the story, edit the title or description and choose a topic to place the story in and Digg It!

Here is your confirmation when you're finished entering a new story.

From here, you can Tweet your story, post it on Facebook, send it by email or add a comment. I would suggest adding a comment, because it makes the story stand out better when it comes up on your followers’ My News tab. Also, the link it shares socially is direct – not to the story’s page on Digg, but to the URL of the story itself.

This is how your new Digg submission is seen by your followers.

Additional Features and Changes

The following are other significant changes and concerns about the new Digg platform.

Finding Profiles and Friends

If you skipped the initial Steps 1 and 2 on your first login, or you want to check your social networks to see if you have new friends on Digg, you can go under your My News tab and Find Profiles.

Find profiles and friends to follow from the My News tab.

By clicking on the sites under My Networks, you can see and follow your friends on Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

Although you can’t message people when you follow them, if they have email notifications turned on, they will be alerted when they follow you. This is why it is important to have a good profile as well as a strong Digg history, as the email links directly to your profile page. This could make the difference between gaining a new follower or not.

The Digg Monster

The Digginstein monster from the Digg email updates.

Reaction to the new version of Digg has not been pretty, to say the least. While those who are more concerned with the ability to see what their friends are doing on Digg are excited to have a little more community, those who enjoyed getting a variety of great stories from the homepage (including their own) are less than impressed with the new system. Posts that make the homepage seem to be only from major publishers like Mashable, Entrepreneur.com, Gizmodo, Techcrunch, and so on.

One of the more amusing reactions was angry Diggers flooding the homepage with Reddit stories. If you look at the most popular stories in the last 30 days, you will see that 22 out of the top 30 stories are all from Reddit.

Reddit stories top Digg

The other eight are from a random sponsored listing (which always comes up in the third spot no matter where you are in the site and changes when you refresh), Read Write Web, Huffington Post, I Can Has Internets, the Oatmeal, I’m a Weird, and imgur.

Upcoming Stories

Another major complaint with the new system was the missing upcoming news area where you could see what stories were not quite homepage ready, but on their way. Fortunately, this was fixed and now you can see the Upcoming stories tab in the main navigation.

Digg adds the upcoming news back onto the navigation.

Power Diggers

So with the My News tab and the new socialization, what does this mean to power diggers? Will the people with the ability (in other words, network) to get stories to the front page, leading to massive swarms of traffic, lose their power? Some say yes.

How did posts get to the homepage of Digg in the previous version? The simplest explanation I have seen is from PostRank Analytics. It is based on the speed at which the story gets dugg – if a submission goes live and then gets hundreds of Diggs within an hour, that is usually going to make it move to the homepage. There are also more lengthy details on getting a story to the front page.

The big questions before this new version was released were 1) whether this will change in the new system and 2) if people logging in are always directed to My News first, will the homepage popularity matter as much? The answers look like they will come from further changes to the new system, as documented on the Digg Update page.

Story Burials

One other function missing in the new Digg is the option to bury a story. Your only options in the new Digg are to report stories as offensive (assuming they are) or use the “x” icon to remove them from your news view. The upside of this is that there will be no more fear of the bury brigade. The downside is you cannot simply get rid of spam (which may get a little crazy with the new Import Feeds features), but you can remove it from your personal viewing.

Your Thoughts on the New Digg

Have you tried out the new Digg? Do you like the new changes that Digg has brought about to improve speed, personalization and diversity of content? Or do you think these changes will hurt the popularity of this news-sharing network? Share your comments in the box below.