In this article we’ll cover the two major players—Foursquare and Facebook Places—and see how they stack up.

What are location-based services?

Location-based services allow users to connect with others based on their current locations. In most cases, people use their smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) to “check in” to businesses like restaurants, bars and stores they visit. These locations are then broadcasted to their online friends.

Many of these services also have a gaming component, allowing members to compete against one another or to collect rewards (like online badges) for their activities.

Foursquare offers badges that are unlocked as an incentive for checking in at local venues and events.

So why do marketers love location-based tools so much?

A few reasons:

#1: Free word of mouth

Because each check-in is broadcasted to a user’s friends, there’s natural word of mouth advertising that occurs through the site. Marketers’ theory is that if users see their friends check in to a location, they may be more likely to visit.

#2: Reviews

Most location-based tools allow users to write reviews of the places they frequent. These reviews are then shared with other users who check in to those locations. This can have a real impact (either positive or negative) for businesses hoping to be discovered by new customers.

#3: Specials

Sites like Foursquare and Facebook Places allow businesses to run specials that are unlocked by users who check in to their locations. For example, a pizza place could create a special that gives free breadsticks to customers who check in five times. These specials encourage frequency, first-time visits and competition among customers. More on this later.

Now let’s compare the two major players—Facebook Places and Foursquare.

Users

In 2010, Foursquare announced that it had more than 6.5 million members worldwide.

Facebook, on the other hand, said that as of October 2010 (just two months after its launch), more than 30 million had tried its Places service.

It’s unclear how many of these users can be considered active versus simply setting up accounts. But based on download volumes, it’s clear that Facebook made a big splash upon its launch.

Activity

In 2010, Foursquare claimed that its users checked in to locations more than 380 million times.

Facebook has not yet released its Places check-in numbers.

But Business Insider (2010) recently ran a one-month comparison between the two services, looking at the difference in total check-ins at several popular NYC restaurants.

Business Insider found that five times as many users checked in on Foursquare than Facebook during a one-month period at a NYC restaurant.

Foursquare overwhelmingly dominated in the experiment, with 5x (or more) the number of check-ins in some cases. It’s unclear if these numbers apply to all businesses in all cities, but Foursquare users appear to be far more active than Facebook Places users.

Deal Options

As mentioned, both Foursquare and Facebook Places encourage businesses to create specials that reward users for checking in to their locations. But options for these specials vary slightly per site.

For example, as part of its “Charity Deals,” Facebook lets businesses donate a certain amount of money per check-in. This type of special is not currently available through Foursquare.

Subway recently offered a Charity Deal on Facebook, offering $.10 per check-in to promote heart health.

Using Facebook Places Deals, businesses can choose to offer one of four types of deals and can set restrictions on date, time and availability of the deal.

Foursquare, on the other hand, allows businesses to run what’s known as “Mayor” specials. These deals reward the individual who has checked in the most to a location.

Foursquare is also in the midst of expanding their check-in deal options for businesses to better compete with Facebook, so you’ll begin to see a lot of overlap between the two.

Reach

One of Facebook’s key advantages over Foursquare is its large, built-in network of users (600 million+ of them!). And because Facebook launched long before Foursquare, many of its users had time to build up their own networks of friends.

In fact, the average Facebook user is connected to 130 friends. This means that on average, each Facebook Places check-in has the potential to be seen by 130 of a user’s Facebook friends.

Foursquare users appear to have much smaller networks, and thus a much smaller reach. The site doesn’t appear to disclose data about the size of its average user’s network. But anecdotally, it’s hard to find many users with more than 50 friends, meaning that each check-in may be seen by just a small group of users.

Quality of Reach

The majority of Facebook users are connected to their intimate social networks—friends, family, co-workers, etc.—while many Foursquare users are connected to those they’ve never met (e.g., Twitter followers).

From a word-of-mouth standpoint, it can therefore be argued that Facebook check-ins are more valuable than those spread strictly through Foursquare. It’s the difference between telling your best friend where you’re hanging out versus telling a complete stranger. Your best friends are going to be far more likely to trust your recommendations.

Facebook check-ins are published on the user's wall and unlike Foursquare, Facebook Places allows users to tag a friend in their check-in.

Foursquare offers the option to post check-ins to users' Facebook walls and Twitter feeds.

Please note that Foursquare users are able to share their locations to Facebook and Twitter, but very few choose to do so.

Tips

Let’s look at five tips on how you can begin capitalizing on one or both location-based services:

#1: Set goals

Looking to increase foot traffic? Want to see your regulars visiting more often? Before you launch your first Foursquare or Places special, be sure you’ve defined what you’re trying to accomplish. This will help you to better analyze your results and adjust your campaigns as needed.

#2: Educate yourself

As with most social media tactics, it’s important that you first understand the tools from a user’s perspective. Doing so will give you better insight into how and why your customers are using these tools, and may give you insight into what your competition is doing.

#3: Learn from others

Sometimes the best ideas can come from the least expected places. So before launching into a large location-based campaign, make sure you know what others are doing out there. Take a look at your competition, obviously. But also venture outside of your industry. You never know when you’re going to stumble across the idea that kicks your brain into high gear.

#4: Be creative

The biggest mistake you could make in launching a special would be to do something that’s already being done. Find something that’s going to make people turn their heads. Something that makes them say “Huh?” And, most importantly, something they’re going to tell their friends about. If you’re not excited about your deal, they probably won’t be either.

#5: Promote, promote, promote

Once you’ve launched a promotion through Foursquare, Places or any other location-based network, make sure you get the word out. These technologies are still relatively new for most consumers, so there’s a certain level of education that has to go into making these things successful. So upon launching, make sure you have in-store signage to promote your special. Send out an email blast with information on how to use the sites. And if your special is unique enough, send information out to local bloggers and media.

There’s no cost associated with setting up a profile on Facebook Places or Foursquare, so if you’re looking to launch a location-based promotion, there’s no harm in giving both a try to see which service generates more buzz and drives traffic to your business. Just consider the above tips before you launch your campaign.

Have you been thinking about launching a location-based campaign? What results have you had? Leave your comments in the box below.

What follows is an amazing list of social media tools you’ve likely never heard of—covering a wide range of categories:

• Tools for pictures, video, audio and screen capture
• Tools to measure and track results
• Tools to manage content
• Blogging tools
• Twitter tools
• Other social media tools

Try them out. And be sure to report back here with your thoughts.

Tools for Pictures, Video, Audio and Screen Capture

#1: Cinches

Recommended by Denise Wakeman, online marketing advisor and founder of The Blog Squad.

“My favorite new tool is CinchCast.com. This simple tool can record audio, either via the web or phone (there are apps for iPhone and Android), so you can share audio messages with your followers. While audio tools like this are not new, this one seems to work the best and most consistently for me both on the web and my mobile app.

Cinches can be syndicated automatically to your Facebook status (not to pages, though) and to your Twitter stream. It’s simple to find and follow people from your social networks as well. Adding an image and description to the audio message is easy too and boosts visibility and encourages comments and sharing. Cinches can be shared by embedding the player in blog posts and posting links in status updates.

I’m using CinchCasts to repurpose a lot of content into audio: presentations (I record one tip from a PowerPoint and expand on it a bit), blog posts and articles. I also reverse the process and embed Cinch tips in blog posts to expand on the written text and create an experience that encourages my audience to stay longer on my blog.”

Learn more about Denise at Build a Better Blog and follow her on Twitter @DeniseWakeman.

CinchCasts was created by the folks at BlogTalkRadio.

#2: Screenr

Recommended by Tim Ware, owner of HyperArts Web Design, helping businesses build and promote their web presence.

“My favorite social media tool in the past half year has to be Screenr, an enormously useful online service to create screen-capture videos, with audio, easily and for free. Because much of what I do these days involves teaching people how to do things online, usually on Facebook, Screenr is the perfect tool for me. I can just say, “Wait a sec. I’ll send you a video.”

Creating an instructional video on Screenr is just about as easy as it gets, allowing you to record, pause (while you rearrange what’s on your screen) and then click “Done” and that’s it! With a few clicks, you can post the video plus comments to your Twitter account, or download the file as an MP4.”

Follow Tim on Twitter @hyperarts.

Create screen-capture videos quickly and easily with Screenr.

#3: DailyBooth

Recommended by Lewis Howes, the author of two books on LinkedIn and founder of Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com.

“As an online/social media marketer, it’s easier to get more sales (or transactions) from potential customers if those individuals feel like they know, like and trust you.  A great way to let them get to know you better is simply by letting them see you daily. A great way to do this is to record a video each day and post it to your networks.  But who has the time to set up a camera, shoot a video, edit it, wait for it to upload and publish to your network each day?  I know I don’t, as it’s hard enough getting a blog post out once a week!

Pictures solve this problem, and DailyBooth provides a fast-growing social networking site that allows you to easily upload and share pictures in seconds. DailyBooth.com is still under the radar for most, but the interaction for those on it is similar to the mad interaction Twitter users have, and it’s getting more and more additive as the days go by.”

Learn more about Lewis at LewisHowes.com and follow him @LewisHowes.

Be sure to check out DailyBooth. It could be the next big social media tool in the future.

#4: Skitch

Recommended by Clément Yeung, co-director of Easisell, a digital marketing and design company that helps small businesses achieve success online.

“I love Skitch because if you constantly need to communicate complex on-page issues to people, then Skitch helps you do it seamlessly from your desktop! Just a few clicks and you have a shareable link that you can send to anyone you like. It’s also free.”

Follow Clément on Twitter @ClementYeung.

Skitch is your online camera and pen. You can screengrab anything, add a note and share it quickly.

#5: Instagram

Recommended by Christine Gallagher, relationship marketing speaker, trainer and coach.

“Instagram, which is an addictive, free photo-sharing app for the iPhone.

It’s social and fun to share your pics with others and see theirs as well. You can also comment or like others’ photos, follow other users and see what they’ve posted lately. It’s super-simple to use and my favorite thing about it is that you can transform seemingly ho-hum pictures into unique little works of art with the assortment of filters available. Two thumbs way up.”

Learn more about Christine at Communicate Value and follow her on Twitter @christineg.

"Use Instagram to take pictures, add filters to make them look artsy or retro and then share them on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Flickr."

Tools to Measure and Track Results

#6: Argyle Social

Recommended by Jason Falls, principal of Social Media Explorer, a social media marketing consulting firm based in Louisville, KY.

“Because my primary use of social media is to share great content, I think the tool I’ve become most dependent upon in the last six months is Argyle Social. It’s a URL shortener that has an elegant suite of measures around it, a bookmarklet for easy use and the customization you would need to separate your shares on Twitter from those on Facebook to deliver different messages around the same content. Once they add LinkedIn and perhaps even Posterous or Tumblr to their publishing options, Argyle could become THE tool for folks who not only want to share, but also measure the impact of that sharing.

I know I’ve driven over 150,000 clicks to various content in the last six months. I can break those down and tell you exactly how many I drove to certain pieces of content, too. My own and other sites I found and shared with my networks. That’s pretty powerful information if one of your goals is to share or build trust. I can put numbers around that now.”

Learn more about Jason at SocialMediaExplorer.com and follow him on Twitter @JasonFalls.

Argyle Social helps you use social media strategically.

#7: TwentyFeet

Recommended by Mari Smith, social media speaker, trainer, thought leader and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

“Here’s my fave new tool: TwentyFeet.com—aggregate all your stats in one place!

I love this simple social profile analytics platform with its easy setup, intuitive interface, daily stats emails and very low micro payments model. Credits are just $2.49 per account for an entire year, but users get one Facebook and one Twitter account free forever. You can monitor one or more accounts from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, bit.ly, Google Analytics, MySpace and more and see how your key performance indicators develop over time. Oh, and another reason I love TwentyFeet? Their logo is a giraffe (the tall blonde!), my favorite animal!”

Learn more about Mari at marismith.com and follow her on Twitter @MariSmith.

Check out TwentyFeet for a low-cost social media analytics tool.

#8: PostRank and PostRank Analytics

Recommended by Kristi Hines, an Internet marketing specialist with Vertical Measures.

“One of my favorite social media tools/resources is PostRank. You can gain an amazing amount of insight into what topics get the most engagement on a particular blog (such as Social Media Examiner) by finding it in their directory and using the Good, Great and Best filters to see what posts have the most comments and social shares. The best part is that researching another blog‘s social sharing statistics is free, and it’s something you can look at for your own blog as well by making sure it’s listed on their site. If it’s not, just enter the URL in the search box, and they’ll email you as soon as it’s on their site. Then wait a week or two and start discovering what’s most loved by your readers.

If you’re interested in learning more about your own social engagement scoring, you can also sign up for their in-depth social analytics. It’s only $15 per month to analyze up to 5 sites with custom tracking on 10 additional pages within those sites. You can even connect your Google Analytics with PostRank and see how social engagement matches up with your conversion rates and goals.”

Learn more about Kristi at Kikolani and follow her on Twitter @Kikolani.

PostRank Analytics is also recommended by Jay Baer, a hype-free, tequila-loving social media strategist, speaker and coach.

“PostRank Analytics is my favorite tool because it solves a very real problem for bloggers, which is how to understand the full impact of a blog post. What’s more important, page views, comments, tweets, Facebook shares? PostRank Analytics tracks all of the actions related to each of your posts, and compiles a consolidated score that helps you understand what your audience wants from you and your blog. It’s like a psychic, if psychics also had fancy charts and graphs!”

Learn more about Jay at Convince & Convert and follow him on Twitter @JayBaer.

PostRank Analytics is an inexpensive tool with tons of value if you're looking to learn more about how to increase your blog's or website's social media engagement.

#9: Postling

Recommended by Jeff Korhan, professional speaker, consultant and columnist on new media and small business marketing.

“Postling is a tool that brings together multiple social media channels into one interface. What makes it invaluable for me are the email notifications I receive when comments are made on my professional Facebook page. To my knowledge, it’s the only social media tool with this capability. All of the comments are nicely presented in clean threads that maintain the continuity of the conversation, thereby allowing me to easily make timely comments, or schedule them for later.”

Learn more about Jeff at jeffkorhan.com and follow him on Twitter @JeffKorhan.

Postling is also recommended by Stephanie Sammons, the voice behind Smart Social Pro, a resource for professional practitioners to help them understand how to leverage the power of social media and blogging in their practices.

“A tool that can help you stay focused on relevant tracking and engagement is Postling. Postling is designed with the small business owner and professional in mind and can simplify your social media activities. It’s a clean and intuitive dashboard that offers management features to track, engage and publish to your relevant social media profiles, and even to your blog. (It plays nice with WordPress.)

Most importantly, Postling will send you a daily email update of all of your comments so that you know who’s engaging with you and what’s being shared or said about you. (It’s great to know you won’t miss anything.) The basic features are available with a free account. The paid account at $9.00/month allows for multiple accounts per social network, brands and users, providing instant email alerts and an analytics dashboard. And there’s also a premium version for power users at $49.00/month. Overall, Postling is well on its way to becoming a great tool for business owners and professionals!”

Follow Stephanie on Twitter @StephSammons.

Give Postling a try to manage your social media activities.

#10: Sysomos

Recommended by Nick Shin, online marketing strategist specializing in SEM, social media, and PPC.

“Sysomos, by far, has been my favorite social media tool. (Disclosure: I am the SEM and social media specialist at Marketwire and we acquired Sysomos in July.)  Since then, I’ve been able to take advantage of what Sysomos has to offer. I use Sysomos to monitor our social media conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, forums and blogs. The ease of use, robust features and convenience have cut my monitoring time in half. In addition, as the founder of #smmeasure social media measurement chat, I can tell you there’s a lot of concern about how to measure social media. The more I use Sysomos, the more it eliminates the need to keep ‘proving’ the value of social media because of the actionable insight you can get from its analytics. With all of my other responsibilities, any tool that will help me do the same job in less time is a win. I highly recommend getting a free demo.”

Learn more about Nick at Marketing Shindig and follow him on Twitter @shinng.

Check out Sysomos to monitor your social media activities.

#11: Inside View

Recommended by Jacob Morgan, principal of Chess Media Group, a social business consultancy focused on customer and employee engagement strategies.

“My favorite new tool that I started using within the past 6 months is Inside View (through a customized enterprise version of Salesforce).

Inside View (their Salesview product) allows you to make the “social sale” by extracting valuable company information about a person or prospect prior to making a sale. You can get market cap, the org structure, list of key employees and the social sites they belong to, relevant company news, addresses and phone numbers and more; all from your Salesforce “lead” view. You can then sync all of this information with your Salesforce account so that it actually fills in the information for you.”

Follow Jacob on Twitter @jacobm.

Inside View is truly a valuable tool that integrates social data with CRM data and is a must-have for anyone even remotely involved driving business for an organization.

Tools to Manage Content

#12: Trunk.ly

Recommended by Nathan Hangen, Internet marketing strategist and founder of Webrepreneur Media.

“Recently I was looking for a better bookmark solution, and I was getting so desperate that I was thinking of developing it myself. Tumblr was too big, and sites like Delicious and other social bookmarking services felt walled off. Then someone pointed me to Trunk.ly, which you feed with your Twitter and/or Facebook account, and I was hooked. Trunk.ly keeps a history of the links that you like or Tweet and makes them searchable and easy to share. If I was going to build a solution, this would be exactly what I built. It’s beautiful.”

Learn more about Nathan at nathanhangen.com and follow him on Twitter @nhangen.

Trunk.ly keeps track of all of the links you share on Twitter and Facebook.

#13: Storify

Recommended by Michael Brito, VP for Edelman Digital and has worked for HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

“My favorite tool is Storify which is fantastic to aggregate and curate content from around the web. It’s great for events, product launches, etc.”

Learn more about Michael at social media blog and follow him on Twitter @britopian.

Storify is a great social tool to tap into the power of stories.

#14: Posterous

Recommended by Jim Lodico, copywriter and marketing consultant specializing in creating powerful content and teaching businesses how to use blogs.

“I just started using Posterous and I really like the potential. It allows you to post to 20 or so social media channels all through email. Photos, video, blog posts, even podcasts can all be distributed throughout your network just by sending an email. I really like the simplicity and the ability to manage all your social media accounts at once.”

Learn more about Jim at jalcommunication.com and follow him on Twitter @jlcommunication.

Posterous offers an alternative to a traditional blog for publishing content online.

Blogging Tools

#15: Apture

Recommended by Ching Ya, author of Social @ Blogging Tracker.

“One of the new social media tools I found in the last 6 months is Apture. I was between installing it or Wibiya, but because I’ve decided to emphasize visitors’ sharing on Facebook and Twitter, I went for Apture instead. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made. The catchy, customizable drop-down bar on top of the site makes sharing easy and friendly. You can search for related content—not just posts, but videos and images to be linked to as well. Your visitors can even use it to search similar posts within your site. Highly recommended!”

Follow Ching Ya on Twitter @wchingya.

Apture adds a social dimension to your blog.

#16: OnlyWire

Recommended by Dino Dogan, blogger, writer, motorcyclist, dog trainer, singer/songwriter, martial artist and founder of DIY Blogger.

“OnlyWire can auto-submit your blog post to 42 top social network sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. By doing this, you build backlinks to your blog the quick and easy way. This doesn’t improve your page rank but it does improve your social rank so much that in one of my tests, this one technique alone took me from the page 14 on Google to page 4.”

Learn more about Dino at DIY Blogger and follow him @dino_dogan.

Use OnlyWire to build backlinks to your website or blog.

Twitter Tools

#17: FormuLists

Recommended by Elijah R. Young, lead strategist and owner of Social Talk Live.

“My favorite social media tool over the past 6 months has been FormuLists. FormuLists allows me to effortlessly keep up with my newest followers, my recent conversationalists and tons of other specifications that I can adjust in my settings to keep me on top of all of the new folks I meet in my Twitter timeline. Before FormuLists, I had to hope I remembered who I added to my lists, and work around crossover… It was just a mess. Now I can just focus on keeping up with conversations that matter to my followers, and pitching in when appropriate.”

Follow Elijah on Twitter @elijahryoung.

FormuLists is also recommended by Ann Smarty, an experienced blogger and SEO consultant at BlueGlass.com.

“The tool that I’ve just recently discovered and fallen in love with is FormuLists. I have a lot of followers and it’s been almost impossible for me to organize the following manually. The tool has quite a few very handy options.”

Learn more about Ann at MyBlogGuest.com and follow her on Twitter @myblogguest.

FormuLists manages your followers for you so you can focus on building your relationships.

#18: HashTracking

Recommended by Lori Taylor, a self-proclaimed “URL-junkie,” and an award-winning marketing veteran with 20 years experience turned social technologist by day and angel investor (Klout, Live Matrix, Pixsy) by night.

“My favorite new Twitter tool is HashTracking, which we use to track campaigns on Twitter. It takes group conversations and measures the influence and type of engagement level for each participant. The reason I’m in love with it is because the depth of data is incredible. Starting with the total number of people who participated in the group conversation, HashTracking chunks the participants into 4 buckets they call leaders, people who were engaged, just curious, and even identifies the wallflowers. We can get content to the most powerful hands who can truly give us the most reach on a specific topic, not just a broad category.”

Learn more about Lori at lorirtaylor.com and follow her on Twitter @lorirtaylor.

HashTracking is a great testing tool for all kinds of direct response metrics such as a top-ten list for impressions, number of tweets and follower count for each person using your hashtag (for free).

#19: Oneforty

Recommended by Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel.

“My favorite tool of the past 6 months is oneforty. Oneforty helps you discover thousands of tools that help you do more with your business, career or life using Twitter! This is essentially a directory of various Twitter apps that can help you do whatever you can possibly imagine on Twitter from helping manage your brand Twitter account to managing your followers to finding fun apps for your everyday life. I love their Toolkit feature which allows you to see what other industry leaders or even brands are using to manage their presence.”

Learn more about Ekaterina at ekaterinawalter.com and follow her on Twitter @ekaterina.

Oneforty also just introduced the Q&A section where the community of tweeps can share tips and tricks and help each other discover new cool ways to engage.

#20: TweetDeck for Chrome

Recommended by Corbett Barr who wants to help you attract as many visitors to your site as you need to make your business thrive.

“My favorite new social media tool is definitely TweetDeck for Google’s Chrome browser. I love it because I get all the awesome functionality of TweetDeck without having to run a separate application. I also love how it integrates multiple Twitter accounts into one combined column of @ replies and another for direct messages. It’s a huge time-saver for people who tweet a lot from different accounts.”

Learn more about Corbett at Think Traffic and follow him on Twitter @CorbettBarr.

Chrome users can also use TweetDeck to manage their Twitter accounts.

Other Social Media Tools

#21: LinkedIn Company Page

Recommended by Linda Coles, a sought-after speaker who also runs various workshops and seminars on how to use social media tools effectively and productively.

“I love the LinkedIn Company Page upgrade as you can upload three banner ads, add video to each product or service page and you’ve even got analytics to monitor what’s going on. It may well get as good as a FB business page but in a different environment.”

Learn more about Linda at Blue Banana and follow her on Twitter @bluebanana20.

LinkedIn Company Pages are a welcome addition for businesses on social media.

#22: Quora

Recommended by Lori Randall, online marketing strategist specializing in social media and WordPress sites. Follow Lori on Twitter @lori_randall.

“Quora, an online knowledge hub for mostly social media and technology, is a tall glass of water. People ask insightful questions and exchange substantive answers. I was starting to feel like I was in a social media desert of genuine thought because of all the noise and this has risen to quench my thirst for knowledge admirably.”

Quora has become a popular Q&A platform in a short time.

What Are Your Favorite Social Media Tools?

Have you used any of the social media tools mentioned above? Which ones are your favorites? Which other social media tools would you add to this list? Please share your comments below.

Could your web browser replace the need to visit Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn on a regular basis? To find out the answer, keep reading…

Web browsers have changed considerably over the past 15 years. From Internet Explorer to the upstart Mozilla stealing their thunder and most recently Google rearing its head with an ultra-fast browser, Chrome, the field of play is starting to get crowded.

Obviously, that means it’s time for a new name to join the fray—and with a social twist.

Enter RockMelt.

The RockMelt browser window.

RockMelt is a different breed of browser altogether.

While IE, Firefox and Chrome are all talking about how fast they are; RockMelt makes a big splash by showing how social it is.

RockMelt is one of the first browsers to fully integrate the social experience into the browser itself. Claiming to evolve browsers the same way the web has evolved, there’s a lot of promise in these new features. For starters, here’s a walkthrough I made for you… because I love you all so much J.

Elijah’s Video Review

Watch the above video tutorial: Caution: Watch for a surprise at the end!

How RockMelt WINS!

RockMelt has a number of innovations.

Real-Time RSS

OK, I’ll admit it. I hate RSS feeds. I don’t feel like going to an RSS reader to get updates to a website. I wish there was a little button that just pinged when there was new content and I didn’t have to stop what I’m doing to go see what it is.

RockMelt does that.

RockMelt lets you add any RSS feeds directly into the browser, and they immediately send you a visual signal when there’s new content for you to digest. The best part is that you can read a synopsis of the content without leaving the page you’re on. Evaluate content without disrupting your current browsing session, and open in a new window if you want to read more.

People-Centric Sharing

Sharing with your entire community is a great thing, but I’ve found that sharing an article to add value to one specific person builds more of a relationship.

RockMelt makes that happen easily.

If you populate your “friends bar” with people you’d like to network with, you can shoot great content their way with a couple of button clicks. It may take a while to get your list perfected, but stick with it.

Installing on a new computer? Don’t worry. RockMelt will update all of your preferences as soon as you sign in!

Dual Search Boxes

Sometimes you need to search for something, and you don’t want to leave the page you’re on, right? What do you do? Open a new tab and search there. That works fine, but what if you could type a search term in the search bar, and browse all of the listings in a drop-down menu, automatically opening only the results that you want in separate tabs?

RockMelt does that.

When one search box job won't do…

The convenience of queuing your browsing so that it doesn’t become a disruption—but a natural progression—of your journey through content is an excellent win for the browser.

That being said, it isn’t all candy corn and rainbows over here…

RockMelt #Fail

Here are the browser’s shortcomings.

Can’t schedule updates

No scheduling now, but I see room for an extra button...

This is a big negative for social industry professionals. While I love and applaud the real-time functionality of RockMelt, I don’t want to be bound to it 100% of the time. Sometimes I’ll have meetings or be connecting with my social media contacts in real life, and won’t be able to tweet for a number of hours.

I need to be able to queue content for distribution later and unfortunately, that’s not in the bag yet.

Redundant alerts

So you’ve just finished a great tweet, and you send it off to the world. One second later, RockMelt sends you an alert: “You have a new Tweet!” Excitedly, you hurry to open your Twitter panel to see… that you’ve just tweeted.

Really?

If you’re going to condition me to respond to your sidebar alerts, they’d better be valuable alerts. As soon as those alerts become white noise, the entire browser starts to lose value.

Gotta clean that up.

Still Buggy

I can’t really fault RockMelt for this one; these are the growing pains of any software. This is more of a warning to those who will be helping with the beta testing.

This is new, so sometimes it won’t work perfectly, sometimes it won’t log in, and sometimes screens will be blank for no reason whatsoever. It’s the cost of having the shiny new thing. Ask people who bought the first generation of the i-anything (sorry Apple).

The plus side is that these guys fix things quickly and their customer service is right where it needs to be.

The RockMelt team understands that this time is crucial for the survival of their browser; it feels good to be appreciated.

All in all, my decision to use RockMelt has two splits. First of all, on its own, I think RockMelt is one of the most valuable browsers for social media professionals to use for their own brand/community management. I can’t say the same for social media managers because each browser is tied to a single Facebook account. But when you get your hands on it, you’ll see how it makes everything a bit easier, especially if you’re a big Facebook chatterer, which I’m not.

On the other hand, I’ve grown so close to some of my Chrome extensions that I can’t realistically think about switching over until there’s an alternative. So for now, RockMelt, you’ll have to share my desktop with Chrome, at least until Wisestamp makes a RockMelt extension…

Are you considering switching to RockMelt? Have you used any of the other social browsers? Let us know your experience in the comments box below.

As marketers, we often look for the next big tool to differentiate ourselves. But did you know the most powerful content-creative tool was invented long before social media? It doesn’t involve keeping a Kodak Zi8 in your pocket, either. And you don’t need a fancy new Twitter strategy or some snazzy FBML.

The most powerful content tool is also the oldest. It’s the tool that brought us some of the most compelling moments in history—from fallen leaders to pop-culture confessions. It’s the tool that made Oprah arguably one of the most powerful brands on the planet. And the same one that Barbara Walters used to reach the most influential people of our time.

Your Content Advantage: The Interview

Yes, the interview. Powerful interviews create timeless content. Yet when it comes to blogging, we neglect to use our most powerful weapons. Master blog interview tactics and your content will surely make an impact—in any situation.

Interview-based content is valuable to your readers and more likely to be shared.

Famous rocker Glenn Danzig once said, “unfortunately, I have to say, one out of every 100 interviews I do, I get a real journalist.” So whether you write for yourself, your boss, a client or an industry analyst, leave the impression of a professional. Blog interviewing is a must-learn tactic.

Interviews can be recrafted into unique blog posts. The trick is asking the right questions.

Here are 11 lines of questioning you can use to extract great material:

#1: Informational Post

Q: What are the three biggest benefits to your target audience and why?

Many writers mistakenly focus on whiz-bang features, measures or accomplishments, but readers often have difficulty relating to these. By focusing on benefits, you push the interview subject to think outside of features and bells and whistles. Benefits are far more persuasive than features, and they are well-received by a larger audience.

#2: The Numbered List

Q: What are the [insert #] top questions asked by your [customers, readers, followers]? What are [#] more?

By using a two-part question, you force the subject to rank the priority of each item—space is limited. The second part of the question allows you to open it up, but you’ll know the items that really matter in your subject’s mind. Prioritized lists are important because many readers judge the value of your post by the first few items.

Numbered list posts often gain broad reach via social media. The two-part approach brings the reader in more effectively.

#3: The Mini Case Study

Q: Tell me about a day in your life—before and after the solution you chose.

By asking the subject to speak about his or her life, in personal rather than business terms, you’ll better extract how quality of life or work was improved. This leads to deeper and more unique follow-up questions and a strong emotional connection to your audience.

Ford continues to deliver a more “human” approach with case studies, making them more compelling blog posts for a larger audience.

#4: Link or Resource Round-Ups

Q: If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ [websites, books, coaches] you’d recommend, which would you include and why?

By asking for resources outside the mainstream, you’re likely to get a round-up that’s far more unique than other round-up blogs that mention the same mainstream thing.

#5: Expert Guide

Q: What tips can you recommend that you’d only share with a close friend (and everyone reading this blog)?

This line of questioning will force the subject to think outside the box. The subject benefits because he or she becomes even more of an expert, while your readers will be all but guaranteed unique content.

#6: Common Pitfalls or Problems

Q: What are three hard-to-spot pitfalls that are critical to avoid?

Even people who have moderate knowledge of a topic know about obvious pitfalls. Focusing on the most difficult hurdles to spot will make you a hero in the eyes of the people you save.

#7: Predictions or Trends

Q: Looking out 3 to 5 years, beyond the obvious trends, what do you think will be the next big change in your industry?

If you focus more than a year or two in the future, you’ll push your subject to stay away from the obvious. Example: If you’re a marketer, you don’t get much value from your subject telling you that social media will be huge next year.

By focusing beyond the near future, blog posts are more likely to offer unique, rather than trending, insights. This means original content, more links and broader reach.

#8: Response to Another Blog or Current Event

Q: When you first read that [article, blog post, comic, etc.], what was your gut reaction

This phrasing gives the subject psychological permission to tell you his or her honest opinion and not necessarily the prepared one.

#9: Inspirational Post or Client Story

Q: What are three things you’ve told yourself that kept you going during your darkest hour?

This question immediately turns the interview subject from an interviewee into a coach and sage. You’ll be surprised at how this single powerful question can literally transform an entire interview.

Building an emotional hook early in the post inspired readers to continue reading and likely share the story with others.

#10: Personal Profile or Biographical Q&A

Q: What are three life memories you recall most frequently and why?

The memories we recall most are often the ones that have had the biggest impact on our lives. You’ll likely learn a lot about your subject by following this line of questioning.

Asking questions that make your subject a storyteller reveals his or her real voice and creates a more compelling storyline.

#11: Product, Service or Book Review

Q: What was the most difficult thing you decided to exclude from this review and what was your reasoning?

This question opens the interview subject up to a discussion about some of the things that may have been important but were not included for a variety of reasons. External factors like time, space, politics or other issues often don’t let reviewers include everything they’d like.

These eleven questions can help you craft great content for your blog. By interviewing, you’ll generate content that gives you tremendous reach.

I’d like to hear from you. What other lines of questioning have you used to enhance your blogging? Feel free to add your own in the comments below.

I was tasked to write about this mega social media conference. Here are 6 specific things that I took away from BlogWorld 2010.

#1: I discovered geocaching

At one point or another we’re all victims of complacency, if we’re being honest. BlogWorld is where I discovered geocaching, via Julie Henning.

Geocaching is where people all over the world hide things (caches) and use a GPS app that lets searchers find them. Yes, you heard me right; it’s a WORLDWIDE never-ending scavenger hunt. And I uncovered a geocache in Las Vegas while attending the event. Had I not attended, I would have never even known about this craze that has 4 million participants. Watch this video for more info:

Quick and dirty Geocaching lesson…on the house!

#2: The sessions are great, but the networking is GOLD

Scott “The NameTag Guy” was my personal favorite session, and not because he let me videotape him pretending to be a pro-wrestler either (or that he gave me a free book).

Lewis Howes delivered in his panel discussion, as usual. Adria Richards gave great tips on how to use social media for your next job search, and the keynote by Scott Stratten was awesome.

With all that being said, I’ll never forget the post-BlogWorld party at Darren Rowse’s place, where Allison Boyer, Shannon Smith and Chris Ducker discussed the nuances of pronouncing the word “apricot.”

Or the lunch with Mike Stenger, Jordan Cooper, Allison Boyer, Jamie Tardy and Oleg MokHov, where we discussed the definition of viral and what true engagement is.

The first night with Amy Schmittauer, Sammy Hammons and Scott Robinson is going down in the history books as the most walking done by any human being ever, and Amy Schmittauer’s awkward introduction to both Scott Stratten and Jay Baer won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

Social media will never replace the human experience. I got really close to about 6 people in the span of 72 hours and I don’t think any of us will forget each other. This is what we strive for when we’re tweeting back and forth. These are the conversations that we want to have when we comment on each other’s blogs. BlogWorld reminds us of the true purpose of social media, and that’s to eventually advance the conversation offline and build relationships.

#3: Connecting with people, not profiles

Scott Robinson and I might have spent 10 hours together over the course of the conference. We spent maybe 15 minutes actually talking about what we do—and that was at the closing party. Too often, we get caught in the act of engaging for a business purpose and forget that what we really want is to create “know, like and trust.”

Ask Nate about his karaoke skills…

Sitting at the Social Media Examiner breakfast, I got to have an amazing conversation about power and influence with Mike Stelzner that encouraged me to accelerate a project I’m working on. I had one of the most reckless conversations with Amy Porterfield, Gina Onativia, Katherine Salt and Rich Brooks about everything from stealing great ideas to the concept of a “play cousin.” No business, just people.

Again and again I got to learn about people, not business representatives, and for that reason I felt like I had the time of my life nonstop for 3 days straight. In the process of that I may have made some nice business contacts, but I definitely made some new friends, and that’ll take me much farther than business info in a CRM will ever do.

#4: Expanding your network quickly

I met people who hailed from Gainesville, Florida, to local folks right from Las Vegas itself. I met Katherine Salt, an awesome lingerie store owner from Jersey (a small island off the coast of England) and Chris Ducker, a man who disagrees with my pronunciation of the word “apricot,” who was about to travel to Columbia via a brand-new—and possibly dangerous—airline at 3 am.

It didn’t really hit me until I got back to my room on Monday morning. I just went global.

Forget the Internet; BlogWorld is a literal phrase. I was amazed at the range of people, countries and especially accents that I encountered. I’m pretty sure I now have a lunch date if I’m ever in 20 or so countries around the world. Something like this could take years to build, but one conference in Vegas created that in a weekend.

#5: Scott Stratten

Memories: Worth the price of admission…

Yes, his keynote speech was amazing. His banter was consistently hilarious. And he made the phrase, “What happens in Vegas, stays on Twitter” a top tweet for 3 straight days on the #bwe10 hashtag. But my calling Scott “Steve” twice to his face within 5 minutes of each other was one of my best memories.

The “cool kids” of social media are regular people just like us. BlogWorld gives us a chance to make an impression on them the way they make an impression on us daily. You don’t get to just “meet people” at a place like BlogWorld. You get to have experiences and collect stories.

Imagine how much fun Amy Schmittauer is going to have telling the story of her Scott Stratten book cover, signed by “Scott Steve Stratten” over the next few weeks. Better than any blog post comment could ever do.

#6: Content avalanche

I’ve written down about 20 blog post ideas in 24 hours.

The conversations at BlogWorld don’t just build relationships, they build content. Discussing Jamie Tardy’s goals led to a blog idea about the evolution of a millionaire mindset. Debating the definition of viral with Jordan Cooper led to another post, as did our discussion about what engagement works and what doesn’t.

Amy Schmittauer and I shot videos of me having a complete #fail test-driving a new 2011 Ford Mustang (I hadn’t driven stickshift in a while…just imagine it). This led to a blog post about committing to learn something new and doing something that may scare you.

If you don’t have an editorial calendar before BlogWorld, you will afterwards. Discussing the lives, dreams, experiences and businesses of the top thought leaders can only lead to ingenuity and growth.

Like I posted recently, our content doesn’t only come from us. If you have writer’s block, then you haven’t talked to enough people; you haven’t read enough posts (thanks, Scott “The NameTag Guy”).

Pictured: Dedication personified.

For me, BlogWorld started as a reckless spur-of-the-moment decision (Woo, Vegas!) and ended up being one of the turning points of my business. From Lucy Thompson validating the name of our new blog, “Super Villain Strategy”, to walking for a full fortnight on the floor of the Luxor and Mandalay Bay, to some of the most unexpectedly talented karaoke singers I’ve ever heard, BlogWorld is more than a conference, it’s an experience that can change everything.

In addition to those I mentioned, I want to thank Tanya Chadha (I know you rigged that contest for me), Michael Vallez (Crazy Mike!), the BlackBerry Team (People stared at my t-shirt all night long—I felt like a victim. New rule: no shirts with paragraphs on your chest… not one person looked me in the eye).

Naomi Trower and Kristi Hines (Thank you for having lunch with me, those playing cards are awesome!), Bill Rice (The smarter half of my discussion with Mike), Lori M. (One of the first quotes on my stream, thank you), Tiffany James (For making me get an IPad… eventually), Amber Osborne (Sorry I couldn’t be your back-up rapper, but you got your karaoke on; maybe next time).

Matt Simpson (Great pitch, even with all of the noise!), the Kodak Team (You’re awesome, next time we’ll do lunch on your break. I’d still love to win a Zi8…HINT!), Jason, AKA “Blog Luvr” (we’ll have to connect another time), and finally Cindy King (You are truly a sweetheart. I smile every time we speak). You all MADE BlogWorld no matter who put the event on. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all.

Anybody up for a trip to South By Southwest? I wonder if Steve will be there.

Every person highlighted in this article was a delight to be around. In my opinion, you should connect with as many of them as possible. I promise you won’t be sorry.

What was your favorite BlogWorld moment? I know I wasn’t the only one who had fun! Share 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.

Let’s be clear, the Internet is really divided into three types of stuff: (1) terribly addictive, uncomfortably funny or tremendously valuable content, (2) average, run-of-the-mill, “I already knew that” -type content and finally (3) utter crap.

As a marketer, you’ve created content in all three buckets before (nobody bats 1.000…), and as a web surfer, you know that the Internet is almost 99.999% composed of bucket #3.

No, seriously, the Internet is almost completely filled with useless, boring content that probably only appealed to the one person that made it.

Not to be a downer, but I only harp on this fact to say that I had a dream. I had a dream that I lived in a world where the Internet was only filled with interesting, valuable and funny content.

Things that would make me look 100 times smarter than I am, and content that would make my potential customers flock to my accounts and talk to me for days about whatever I had shared.

Then one day, I was asked to review Amplify.com, and I thought my dreams had come true…

Yes… that is a water cooler.

Ampli-Who Dot What?

On the surface, Amplify.com just seems like another site that wants you to share what you like (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) and connects you with friends who do the same. The front page graphic gives off a music site feel. I even thought it was a bit rock-star (like myself)… until I saw the water cooler in the middle of the crowd.

Amplify.com is as simple as the graphic on the front page suggests. They want you to share interesting things from the Internet with your peers, but only “water cooler-worthy” stuff. More on that in a second…

What Can It Do?

Like Twitter, But Longer

Amplify.com lets you microblog just like Twitter, but your limit is 500 characters. The days of showing restraint online are numbered.

Blog Via Email

You can post content (blogs, snippets, photos, etc.) to your Amplify stream via email. Amplify.com gives you a personal email address to send content to, which will automatically add that content to your stream. Unlike other sites with this feature, Amplify.com doesn’t make you memorize a 6,000-character email address. You have a short convenient address customized to your username. I consider that a victory for the little guy.

Don’t try to post to my blog. I’m keeping my eye on you guys…

Find Content Based On Subject

Want to find all of the best content for social media? Easy. Just click “social media” and browse the best stuff. There are several categories to choose from and the content is sorted chronologically.

What’s The Main Event?

Ok, I’ll be honest; none of these features by themselves are impressive. You can do all of these things on Facebook without ditching your friends and setting up another profile (which we all LOVE to do… right?). Fortunately, Amplify.com redeems itself from a life of redundancy by adding one simple feature that can save the entire Internet. Interested? Let me explain.

Remember when I said that the Internet is 99% utter crap? That’s true, but if we’re really being honest, even the really good articles that we read are at least 30% filler (not this one, though J). It reminds me of a lesson I learned when I took a speed-reading class:

“There are plenty of good books to read, but more importantly, there are plenty of good chapters to read.”

Think about that. What if you could share a fantastic article without having to share the part that isn’t amazing? Amplify.com has the answer. They allow you to clip any section of any site and share only that section on Amplify.com, or one of the several social networks that you can post to automatically.

Amplify.com’s clip tool in action.

Find a great couple of paragraphs in a New York Times article? Great, only share that section. Find a blog with three great tips? Take the tips, leave the rest.

Amplify.com has given us a chance to trim the fat off of the Internet. Yes, my heart just fluttered.

This is a TechCrunch article clipped for Amplify.com, all fluff removed (no offense, TechCrunch).

Why I’m Not Doing A Cartwheel Right Now

Unfortunately, it’s not all butterflies and candy corn with Amplify.com. While bringing us one of the greatest tools online, they’ve also allowed some of the tools that kinda make the Internet suck in the first place.

The site needs a filtering option. I click on a popular topic and about half of the options are in a language that I can’t understand, and that’s bad news. Chronological order is OK, but if the section is called “popular topics,” I expect the links to be… you know… popular. That leads me to my real point.

Amplify.com is a great site, but it would be amazing with a ranking system. The problem with the Internet is that anyone can post anything on it and you have to sift through the junk to get to the goods. Amplify.com’s clip functionality is useless if I still have to sort through everyone’s junk to get to the best clips.

Allowing the site’s users not only to comment (they allow this already) but also to rank content would really “Amplify” the best clips and move the site to the “water cooler-talk” level that the front page suggests.

Final Thoughts

As with most dreams, my love affair with Amplify.com was slightly soured by having to sift through so many posts. As with any new site, there will be kinks along the way. And while there is a “Recommend” feature, it works more like a retweet than a content judgment system, which is what it would take for me to really like it.

Amplify.com has a bright future ahead of it, and the issues I see now seem more of the “growing pain” variety than the “death knell” variety. As of today, Amplify.com scores a 7 out of 10.

Have you used Amplify.com yet? What did you think about it? Do you know of another site with the “clip” functionality? Have a site that you’d like to see reviewed? Let us know in the box below!

Want to make it easy for readers to share your great content with their tribes? If so, keep reading as I share six social media add-ons you can effortlessly integrate into your blog today. Your immediate result: much better engagement with your readers. And by the way, I’ve used them all—many on this very site.

An aside… The key to encouraging social activity is making it easy for people to act. The less friction there is between desire and action the more likely people will share your content or reach out to you. Fortunately these six excellent tools make encouraging activity easy—and dare I say, fun!

#1 TweetMeme—The Ultimate in Social Proof

In times past it was said that comments were the currency of bloggers. But far too often outstanding content only attracts a comment or two. What if there was a better way to determine if people like your posts (while also driving traffic to your blog)? Well now there is. Introducing TweetMeme’s Retweet Button.

TweetMeme’s button provides readers an effortless way to share your post on Twitter (and much more). Readers simply push a button and your post shows up on their Twitter feeds—driving more traffic to your page! But the real power is in the number it displays on your page. Every time anyone tweets about your article, TweetMeme tracks and displays a number on the page (whether they used the button or not).

This is one of the most powerful social barometers I have ever seen. The bigger the TweetMeme number, the more others feel compelled to read your content and share it.

You can add the TweetMeme badge anywhere on any page (blog or not). I like to display it at the top of the page. The higher the number, the more likely it broadcasts to readers, “Others think this is important, so you need to read this too!”

I really like the WordPress plugin (note that other platforms are also supported) because you can substitute your own Bit.ly account (a URL tracking service) and include your own Twitter ID in any retweets.

Here’s an added bonus. If one of your readers has a TweetMeme account (not required to use), when he or she clicks the “retweet” button, TweetMeme publishes the page to their Twitter account without leaving the page, a really powerful feature.

#2 DISQUS Comment System—The Ultimate in User Engagement

DISQUS is a VERY powerful comment system that takes over your existing blog’s comment functions and adds very powerful features. For example, with DISQUS readers can add video comments or leave comments using their Twitter or Facebook ID, and you can have multiple individuals moderate your comments.

I was a bit critical of DISQUS when I first reviewed it.  However, the service has since increased its features.

A few of my favorite capabilities include an indented comment stream (see image below) and the ability to add and display new comments without the page reloading. The experience is so user-friendly that I found people leaving a lot more comments after I installed DISQUS.

Also, if you have a free account with DISQUS, it recognizes you whenever you visit a site that uses the service. This means no need to type in your name and email, simply leave a comment.

A few pointers: As a commenter, you should register yourself with DISQUS. When you do, set up your name and website address so it will display properly when you leave a comment (under Profile | My Settings). So instead of non-identifiable ID I was assigned (like MikeS22) I can customize it to say “Michael Stelzner” and link to my site. If you do not do this, your name appears abbreviated and will not link back to your site, making it hard for folks to discover more about you based on your brilliant comments. While you’re in there, add an avatar or link to one from your Twitter account.

#3 Gravatar.com—Faces Make Comments Come to Life

Gravatar is a universal platform that displays a reader’s picture based on the email address he or she enters into a blog’s comment form. Thus, when you visit a blog and leave a comment, your email address is matched against the Gravatar database and your picture displays (see sample below). This only works if you have registered your email address with Gravatar and added a picture.

I’m pretty sure the latest versions of WordPress work automatically with Gravatar. However, if you are hosting an older WordPress blog, you’ll want to install WP-Gravatar for Gravatar support.

A few tips.  If you have multiple email accounts, set them all up under your Gravatar account to ensure your mug shot always appears, regardless of which email address you use.

#4 Sexy Bookmarks Plugin—The Easy Way to Share Great Content

There are a number of tools that allow your readers to share your post on different social networks, but none come close to Sexy Bookmarks.

This WordPress plugin allows you to display the social sites of your choosing and is visually appealing.  When a user “mouses over” an icon, it animates on the screen.  And yes, you change the “Sharing is sexy!” text.

The backend of this WordPress plugin is exceptionally sophisticated. For example, you can enter in your Bit.ly API code and the plugin will use your account to create tracing URLs.

#5 Twitter Follow Badge—The Simple Way to Grow Twitter Followers

Twitter Follow Badge creates a nifty little button that always remains on the page as users scroll through your content, making it easy for them to follow you on Twitter. You also can customize it to match the color scheme of your site and determine where you want it to live on the page.

The main benefit of this little widget is folks can easily follow you on Twitter.

#6 Meebo Me—Adding Live Chat to Your Page

Ever been to a website that said, “Click here to speak to a live agent”? How would you like something like that for your blog (or any web page for that matter)? You can with Meebo Me, a simple embedded chat system you can place on any page (or all pages) of your site.

This free service allows anyone to chat with you immediately. What’s cool about this is it integrates into all your other chat accounts. So now you can have them all in one interface AND still answer live questions from your readers.

This chat capability is very powerful and should also be used on your product landing pages.

So what do you think? Do you use any of these tools with success? Do you have others to share? I’d like to hear from you. Just type in your message below.