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.

The other day I drove past a local convenience store that makes most of its profit from beer, Slush Puppies and beef jerky (not that there’s anything wrong with that). A big sign out front asked passers-by to Like them on Facebook.

“It’s official,” I thought. “Now every business in America has a Facebook page.”

Unfortunately, few businesses actually have a strategy for their Facebook page, or for the rest of their social media activity. They tweet, blog and set up a Facebook business page out of fear of being left behind, rather than as a way to engage their audience.

If your social media engagement is reactive rather than proactive, it’s time to step back, take a deep breath and develop a content strategy that will engage your community.

A content strategy doesn’t end with good signage.

What Is a Content Strategy?

Last year while doing some research into what certification organizations were doing in social media, I interviewed Susan Cato, Senior Director of Web and New Media Strategies at CompTIA, who said,

“You can’t have a social media strategy without a content strategy.”

I thought this was brilliant. She clarified far more effectively and in fewer words what I had been saying. But what does it mean to have a content strategy?

There are three important elements to developing an effective content strategy.

• You need to know what your customers, audience or community want to talk about and be willing to engage in those conversations.
• You need to know where your audience wants to have these conversations; in other words, where they “hang out” online.
• You need to measure the results of your conversations to see which ones catch fire.

Let’s start with what your customers want to talk about.

Knowing Your Audience’s Pain Points

Developing a content strategy often starts with a keyword analysis. Now, you may think of a keyword analysis as a tool for blog posts or blogs for SEO, and you’re right. However, it will also help you uncover the language that your audience or community is using while on the social web.

For example, if you’re a plastic surgeon and you’re putting out some great content about “rhinoplasty” but everyone’s talking about “nose jobs” you’re not reaching anyone. Likewise, if the conversation is about “curb appeal” and you’re talking about “landscaping,” the conversation may pass you by.

A keyword analysis begins with a list of words or phrases that you believe your audience is using to find products or services like yours. There are a number of software tools that you can use to determine how often your phrases and related phrases appear in searches, which provides insight into which you should use in your content strategy.

Some popular keyword analysis tools include:

• Keyword Discovery or WordTracker: two popular paid tools
• Google AdWords: a free tool that uses Google AdWords data to determine what phrases are popular.

Red leather jackets were probably more popular when "Beverly Hills Cop" came out.

A keyword analysis will only start you on the path to a content strategy. Once you’ve identified some of your key phrases, you need to get to work on where your community wants to have these conversations.

Knowing Where Your Audience Hangs Out

Once you have a general sense of what’s important to your audience, you need to determine where to have these conversations. Most businesses, non-profits and individuals would best be served by focusing on one or two platforms… going deep rather than going broad to start.

Where your audience is can depend on their age and gender, as well as your offerings. There are plenty of statistics that break down social media sites by demographics. Flowtown has a great infographic on social media demographics on their site.

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for B2B (business to business) companies. Facebook does well for B2C (business to consumer) offerings. Blogs and online video-sharing sites like YouTube can work for any audience, but may be blocked by corporate firewalls.

You can also use “listening tools” to see if the conversations are already taking place across social media. There are a number of free and paid tools for listening for specific terms in social media.

• Google Alerts: This free tool will send you daily emails of news, blog posts, tweets and more around any keyword you’re following.
• TweetDeck: With this popular Twitter app you can set up a column to follow the conversation around a specific topic.

You can follow conversations around your key terms by creating a search column in TweetDeck.

• Radian6 and Sprout Social: These are two examples of paid social media monitoring services for companies that need more robust tools.

Here are some ways in which you can begin to implement your content strategy through different social media tools:

Blogs: Blogging is a powerful method for engaging your audience; it has both SEO and social media benefits. Blogging around your keywords is an essential piece of a content strategy.

One of my favorite new tools for developing blog content is the Keyword Questions tool at WordTracker Labs. Enter a key word or phrase and it will return related questions people have asked at partner search engines.

People have questions; now you can blog the answers.

By typing in “BBQ,” you see questions like “how to make BBQ ribs in the slow cooker” and “how to BBQ corn on the cob.” In other words, you have the topics and titles for your next two blog posts.

Note: this technique works equally well for YouTube and SlideShare.

LinkedIn: Try searching through the Answers section in LinkedIn to answer questions around your keywords. For example, an accountant might search for “profitability” or “capital tax issues.”

An HR consultant can answer questions on “employee retention” to establish credibility with her audience.

Facebook: Ask questions on your Facebook business page that build on your content strategy. Of course, this will work better once you’ve built a following on Facebook. Be sure to check out 10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page Following and 4 Proven Steps to Facebook Page Success for more on that.

Mint does a great job of asking questions that engage their target audience and start a conversation.

Twitter: Check out Twitter’s search function or the Advanced Twitter Search if you need to filter your phrase to a geographical location or by attitude.

Are you running a Mexican restaurant near Portland, Maine? This is your search.

Measuring the Results

A keyword analysis and some social media demographics will get you started, but you need to measure the impact of your conversations to see if you’re making headway. I recommend—at least at the beginning—to keep this as simple as possible. Some suggestions:

• Track how many comments and Likes your Facebook post gets.
• Track monthly how many followers, retweets and mentions you or your brand gets.
• Measure how many comments your blog posts get and how much traffic they receive.
• Measure social media referral traffic to your website; in other words, how much traffic is sent from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?

In Google Analytics, check your “referrers” to see which sites are sending you the most traffic.

A note for small businesses: many of the articles you read on social media metrics focus on how often people are talking about your brand on the social web. If you run a specialty grocery store in Bangor, Maine, chances are you’re not going to be trending on Twitter anytime soon. Instead, pay attention to your influence locally, or your depth of engagement with your audience.

Content Strategy Takeaways

Some final thoughts on developing a social media content strategy:

• Listen. Having a content strategy isn’t always about talking. It’s about listening and understanding.
• Be patient. Putting up one tweet with a keyword in it doesn’t make a content strategy. A content strategy is about building trust with your audience, your community or your customers. That takes time.
• Be flexible. A keyword analysis and social media demographics will only take you so far. You’ll need to evolve your content strategy over time, based on what’s going on in your industry, with your audience and in the world around you.

Your Turn!

What strategies or tactics have you used to engage your customers or community with social media? What’s worked and what hasn’t? What platforms have you used that weren’t mentioned above? Leave your comments and suggestions in the box below.

The pains of managing social media are obvious – now let’s look at 10 different cures to make those pains disappear.

#1: I can’t keep track of what’s going on!

Between answering questions on LinkedIn Answers and updating your Ning profile, you missed the fact that one of your customers just wrote a scathing comment on your Facebook page.

Cure: Start a social dashboard.

Social media management platforms allow you to consolidate multiple social media accounts into one place, so you can manage them all more efficiently. You get an overview of what is happening in different channels, all on one screen. The benefits extend far beyond that, but that’s enough of a reason to look into these solutions. Some solid choices include Hootsuite and Awareness. But different platforms work better for different needs.

#2: I’m talking to a bunch of nobodies!

You exchange 40 tweets with someone who is knowledgeable about your industry. Great! A real prospect! Then you find out that she is a 20-year-old college student (with 15 Twitter followers) writing a paper – and she has absolutely no ability to make a purchasing decision.

Cure: Understand social influence.

You should spend time engaging with people who can move your business forward. That means you need to identify the most influential social media people in your niche. Klout is a tool that tracks influence on Twitter and Facebook. Use it to see if that person is a thought leader, a connector, or a decision-maker.

#3: My customers are out there – but where?

Tools like Gist put your customers’ email addresses together with their social media identities.

You just know that your current customers are on social media. But your Facebook page only has 40 fans. Where are your customers, and how do you connect with them?

Cure: Check out your customers’ social profiles.

Flowtown and Gist both unify multiple social media presences based on your existing customer email database. This gives you a quick way to find out which of your customers are using different social media platforms, and which customers are influential.

#4: I share a lot of content – but it doesn’t drive visits to my site.

You’ve seen the recommendations from experts to keep your self-promotion to a minimum. Social media is about sharing. But you’re also accountable for your own metrics. How can you share, and still get people to check you out?

Cure: Create social media landing pages.

By giving you control of the frame of your link, ObjectiveMarketer gives you the chance to message and brand all of your social media links with customized content. You get all of the benefits of sharing great content with your followers, plus you can show them the interesting things that you’re up to at the same time.

#5: I can’t justify all the time it takes to do social right!

Your team spends hours each week retweeting, sharing links and joining the conversation. But now it’s the end of the year, and you need to make a budget for next year. You know you can’t go on with such a long to-do list, but you don’t have the metrics to show the impact.

Cure: Use your existing metrics – just show the social benefit.

Argyle Social tracks the response from your social media updates and maps them back to the conversion metrics you set up on your website. And it looks back up to 90 days in order to account for a longer consideration cycle – showing how a bunch of tweets adds up to an eventual sale.

Argyle Social tracks the social media links you share and maps that activity back to your website conversions.

#6: I don’t know what my followers are doing online!

You see what happens to your own status updates and blog posts – visitors come to your site, readers leave comments, etc. But you have no idea what they’re doing on the rest of the web.

Cure: Tell people what you like to find out what they like.

This is one place where the biggest names in social media can help you. Twitter and Facebook offer login credentials that any website can adopt (there are open source alternatives as well). Whenever possible, you should connect to other sites using one of these login protocols and “Like” content across the web liberally. Often, you can see who else in your network is also interested in that website. In this way, you’ve created a new opportunity for engagement.

Facebook “Likes” are a great way to find out what your fans are interested in from across the web. “Like” the content you find as you browse, and you’ll see what your fans like in return.

#7: I can’t filter out the noise from the important stuff.

Every time you login to Twitter, you see that there are thousands of unread tweets. Your Facebook page is overrun with comments from people you’ve never heard from before. And there are 1,575 blog posts that are ready for a comment from you.

Cure: Get information fast – when you need it.

Cadmus can definitely help in this arena. It’s designed to show you the most important tweets from your network. If you’re looking for information from your network on a specific topic, Nsyght searches across your social network. It’s like Google but only for the people in your social network.

#8: All this engagement isn’t leading to anything!

You get retweeted by the same people over and over. You have the same conversation with multiple followers. You’re running in a hamster wheel, not moving your marketing forward.

Cure: Get yourself some game mechanics.

Game mechanics means linking your marketing efforts together, so that one interaction naturally leads to the next. You have to create a series of social media events that encourage your followers to engage more deeply – and game mechanics provide a solid framework for planning.

#9: There are not enough hours in the day!

As soon as you feel like your Facebook presence is strong, you know you need to create a SlideShare presence. There’s always one more tweet to write, one more blog post to comment on and new marketing campaign to support.

Cure: Make the case for dedicated resources.

Your marketing program needs to evolve, or it will die. That means your team needs new skills, and a more sophisticated understanding of social media. Work internally to make the case, based on your current success, to shift marketing dollars into social media. And make sure you find the people, whether internal or external, who can hit the ground running.

#10: I have all this content, but I don’t know what to do with it.

You’re doing a great job of engaging with your audience. They’re responding and you have some great quotes. But you’re not getting the full marketing benefit from this engagement.

Cure: Create a space on your site to feature the best social content.

Assuming that marketing involves bringing people to your site so they can take some action, you should feature some social content from your community on your site. This gives your best followers a pat on the back, and allows others to brag about you so you don’t have to. Testimonial pages are a great way to do just that.

What are your biggest social media pains? The community just might be able to cure them for you. If you’ve figured out how to cure them already, be sure to share your solutions in the comments 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.

By engaging customers “where they live,” you can increase the foot traffic to your shop and grow your business.

Here are 5 steps to grow your retail business using Facebook and Twitter.

#1: Set Up Shop

“80 percent of success is just showing up.” – Woody Allen

This may sound obvious, but if you want to engage your customers and prospects on Twitter and Facebook, you have to be there.

On Twitter, this means creating an account for your business, but it also may mean creating an account for you or other people in your company. With few exceptions, people are more likely to follow a person rather than a business, and much more likely to engage with a person rather than a logo. By creating an account for both you and your business, you increase your chances for engaging your audience.

Twitter is a place for people, but it's also a place for businesses. Just be engaging!

On Facebook, setting up shop means creating a business page and claiming your Facebook Place (more on that later). You should also have a Facebook profile for yourself that is linked to your page. Even if you’re a wallflower, this is good advice. Facebook provides more tools and functionality for pages that are linked to profiles.

Facebook business pages are great places to engage with your audience.

#2: Build Your Audience

The first step to getting someone to visit your brick-and-mortar store may be to get them to visit your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter.

Once you have your Twitter account and Facebook page set up, you should spend some time finding and building your audience on these platforms. Since many retail shops are “geographically challenged”—you can only do business with people within driving distance—finding local people is an essential first step.

For Twitter, I recommend visiting the advanced search. You can immediately limit your search to tweets within a geographic area, and refine it further by searching for specific terms. A chiropractor might search for “pain” within 15 miles of Austin, TX, a florist might search for “anniversary” within 5 miles of Scarborough, ME, and a restaurant might search for anyone within 10 miles of Huntington, NY, as everyone I know needs to eat to survive.

An advanced search will bring up all the recent tweets that meet your criteria with the handle and avatar of the person who tweeted. From the results page you can follow these people or click on their profile for more information. Since following a person creates a knee-jerk reaction for them to follow you back, a certain percentage of these people will become your followers.

A good search for a pet store in Portland, Maine.

On Facebook, businesses don’t “fan” people, but you can still find your audience. Using targeted Facebook ads, leveraging your personal profile and creating a compelling landing page are all ways to build your fan base on Facebook. Mari Smith lists 21 Creative Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fanbase and Ching Ya lists more at 10 Ways to Grow Your Facebook Page Following.

#3: Create Content That Engages Your Audience

Just getting people to fan or follow you won’t bring them into your shop, however. You’ll need to create a steady stream of content to engage them. Whatever your business, you can create content that is compelling and relevant to your audience.

Own a restaurant? Post your lunch special to Facebook and Twitter, complete with a photo. As your fan base grows, you can ask them for suggestions on what they’d like to see as the daily special. Or run a contest on what to name your new sandwich where all the entries must be posted to your business page (which requires them to first fan your page).

When your fans start Liking your menu options, their friends will see it, too.

Run an art supply store? Poll your audience on their favorite medium and why. Watercolors? Oil paint? Sculpture? (It’s amazing how much a simple question can energize a community.)

Are you the curator at the aquarium? Post a photo of a different fish every day with information about the fish and links back to your website where visitors can learn more and buy a day pass.

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” – Dale Carnegie

You can take engagement to the next level by talking to or about a loyal customer.

On Twitter, it’s as simple as using their handle in a tweet. Maybe one of your most loyal customers participated in Tri for a Cure; if so, give her props. Or maybe you see that another customer is trying to sell his old truck on Twitter so you retweet his message. Little gestures go a long way.

If you see someone tweeting from your restaurant, be sure to engage her!

On Facebook, you can tag someone in an update. Since Facebook has a broader audience base, it’s probable that your update will be seen by more people (friends), especially if the person feels compelled to thank you in a comment to your initial post.

It should go without saying, but let me say it anyway: if the main purpose of you tagging everyone is to drive traffic to your page or account, it will show and it will backfire. As Dale Carnegie also said, “Give honest, sincere appreciation.”

#4: Leverage Location-Based Apps

This article isn’t a primer on FourSquare and Gowalla or how you can leverage these location-based apps. There are plenty of great resources out there for that, including How to Drive More Customers to Your Local Business with Social Geotagging and Why Foursquare Drives Business.

However, it’s important to realize that a lot of people are using location-based apps, and often linking them to their Twitter or Facebook accounts. In other words, when they check into a place they’re letting all their friends know where they are, and that’s good for your business.

Who's been visiting your restaurant lately? Gowalla and Foursquare can let you know.

Since so many Foursquarers and Gowallites are on Twitter and Facebook, you can easily engage them once they’ve visited your place of business. You can visit your page on either of these websites to see who’s checked in recently and often find a quick link to their Facebook or Twitter account. From there you can reach out, let them know you saw their check-in, and just wanted to see if their meal, haircut, or ride on the carousel was to their liking, and if there’s anything else you can do.

Use this tactic with discretion, however. Some people may find this intrusive, even when they have opted to check in and share their location with the world.

You should also start investigating Facebook Places. At the time of this writing, there’s no ad platform on the new geo-location offering from Facebook. However, that will inevitably change, giving you the opportunity to offer discounts to shoppers who check in and share their activity with their Facebook network. Retail shops should make sure that they are listed in Facebook places so their customers can check in and share their experiences with others.

You might want to encourage the “check-in” behavior of your patrons by setting up tabletop displays with information on Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places.

#5: Incentivize Your Audience to Visit

Building loyalty and connections with customers is a great long-term success strategy. However, there are plenty of ways to provide incentives for your online audience to make an in-person visit with a more immediate impact:

Create Facebook- or Twitter-only discounts or coupons that people print up and bring in. Make them good for one day only to generate more visits to your page and create a sense of urgency.

Discounts create incentives that drive foot traffic to physical locations.

Last-minute cancellation? Blast out to your audience that you have a sudden opening that afternoon for anyone who needs a massage or mani/pedi.

Slow lunch? Announce a discount for anyone who walks in and mentions Twitter or Facebook while placing his/her order.

Announce a special event at your bar. If you roll out the mechanical bull on Wednesday night, make sure you announce it (maybe with pictures). Or if two bachelorette parties suddenly show up, a large portion of your audience may want to know. And is that Marelisa Gibson who just walked in the front door?

Now it’s your turn: what other ways have you used Twitter or Facebook to drive traffic to your own place of business? Leave your comments in the box below.

Reportedly 70% of Digg’s user base have blogs, which when promoted to popularity are picked up by other bloggers, driving additional traffic. This helps websites attain additional exposure.

Why the New Digg for Your Business?

The new Digg will allow publishers to grow a targeted following much like Twitter, without having to promote content to Digg’s front page. When you submit (or Digg) your content, it will be exposed to your following on their My News page (see below).

When people who follow you “Digg” your content, the story will be posted on the My News page of people who follow them. This will allow for viral exposure as your submission is posted on more My News pages. The submissions with the most votes, or Diggs, will appear on your following’s Top News from People You Follow widget posted on the sidebar of the My News page for added exposure.

The new Digg is similar to Twitter, but aggregates the top news of people you follow on Digg.

The main function of Digg will be to expose news that is supported and enjoyed by people you follow.  Thus, Digg will become a viral marketing engine that facilitates the spread of your content through interested people who wish to support it, like a retweet.

Businesses could reach out to people in their immediate network’s network. Thus the proportion of a business’s following that visits its websites, subscribes to its RSS feeds and email newsletters and buys its products or services can dramatically increase with each submission.

Getting Started

The new Digg gives publishers the ability to open branded accounts that can automatically submit content from an RSS feed. Digg has opened an alpha version of its fourth iteration that will be released in the near future. The social network wants to give publishers a chance to get acclimated to the new interface before its full release. So how do you open and build a publisher account on this alpha version of Digg version 4?

For the time being, Digg is placing new registrations on a waiting list because they’re porting settings from the existing Digg platform to the new Digg.

However, if you’re already on the new Digg network, follow these instructions to build your account and import your website’s RSS feed. Digg representative Erin Ryan emailed me the instructions you should follow to open a publisher account on the new Digg:

1. If you already have a Digg account, but are not on the new Digg, go to Digg.com/new and leave your username and email address. You’ll receive an administrative message notifying you once your account is ready for new Digg access.
2. If you don’t have a Digg account, go to Digg.com/register and enter your email address. You will receive an email address once you can join the new Digg.
3. For all of you who already have access to the new Digg, Digg administration strongly recommends you create a unique RSS feed with your best content prior to submission, so users are not inundated with every update.

Once Digg adds you to the invite list, you can log in New.Digg.com and start tinkering and experimenting with the new platform.

Suggested Profiles

The first screen that loads prompts you to follow suggested news sources picked by Digg. You see suggested users in all topics by default. You could also see suggested users according to their topic of coverage. As on every social platform, it is best to engage with people and brands that share your niche’s focus. Exchanges in communication are points of exposure that will reach out to more people who are interested in the content you produce.

Everything you do on the new Digg does not reflect your Digg account on the old Digg interface, so I’m not saying that you should follow everybody; just experiment until you find the type of activity that works best on this platform. Act like you’re Thomas Edison and the new Digg is a strip of carbon filament.

A number of businesses are already using the new Digg.

You are also directed to a page that allows you to follow people with whom you are acquainted on Facebook, Twitter and/or Google. You click the Connect button beneath the logo of your favorite community, and a list of friends, followers and contacts on either network loads beneath. Click either the Twitter, Google or Facebook button on the left menu to load people from either platform. You could also disconnect Google, Facebook or Twitter from Digg by revoking access to Digg on each of the other digital networks.

The new Digg allows you to easily follow your friends from other social networks.

Your Digg Home Page

Your Digg home page loads all of the submissions Dugg, submitted and commented on by the people you follow. There have been complaints by the more active users in the Digg community that friends’ submissions are not given a unique page. Diggers are proficient at promoting stories to the front page of Digg.com because they vote on each other’s submissions. Such reciprocity is similar to how some of the most successful people on Twitter use the @reply frequently. Each action constitutes a point of exposure that is exponentially amplified as links to each user’s profile are populated with @replies or Diggs.

The new Digg home page.

Top News

From the home page, you can click on the Top News section. The Top News section will be the new Digg Popular section. The Popular section on the old Digg was the home page. The stories that acquire the most votes, or Diggs, are promoted and published on the front page of the Digg platform.

It will be interesting to see if the Top News page maintains its popularity. On the old Digg.com, users didn’t need to click anywhere else to view the most popular stories on the aggregator. On the new Digg, users will have to click another page to view the most popular submissions. Digg aims to distribute the front page’s popularity by directing people to stories that their connections are supporting.

The Top News page on the new Digg.

Settings Page

Time to look under the hood. Click the Settings link in the upper-right corner of the browser window. The Account page will allow you to change the email address associated with the account and your password. Remember the email address should be unique for each account you open. All communication directed at the Digg administration should be sent from this account.

The new Digg Account Settings page.

Your profile allows you to enter your name, gender, location, some information about yourself and your birthday.

The Notifications page allows you to be alerted when you acquire new followers or when there are new Digg announcements. You can also choose to be left out of these communications.

The new Digg Notifications Settings page.

Import Feeds

Pull out some lipstick and a napkin and start taking notes—this will be on your test. You can import your feed by clicking Import Feeds on the left navigation menu. Enter the exact web address of your feed in the field above the Add Feed button. The field is pre-populated with the following characters: “http://”. Triple-click the “http://” and paste your feed’s address into the field.

Import feed to new Digg.

Click the Add Feed button. A code is loaded labeled as “Verify Key.” You should see it beneath a subheading that reads “Manage Feeds.” A paragraph of instructions is also loaded on the right side of the page. The instructions say that you should copy and paste the code into your next post “in the title, body, or hidden in an HTML comment.” Once you have inserted your feed into your new post, click the link that reads “Verify Now.” Digg states that it will take about 4 hours for your feed to be imported.

Feed verification page.

The Viewing Digg page allows you to set the way you view all of the platform’s communication tools. You can filter out profanity by clicking the Enable Profanity Filter checkbox. You can set how external links are opened, whether in a new or the same window. You can also set how you view comments with sort, hide and page size parameters.

New Digg viewing settings.

Your Links section allows you to post links to your external web properties like your blog or digital publication. In the field that reads “List Name”, you type in the name of the site. For search engine optimization purposes, the link has an HTML attribute called rel=”nofollow”. That’s a good indication that the profile will be public and accessible by the search engines and probably populating vanity searches for your name. The attribute is meant for communication with an external search engine.

However, the link will not pass link equity that the search engines gauge when determining which websites are loaded on the front page of their results. Type the URL of your website in the field that reads “e.g. http://external-site.com”; click the Add Link button and your link will load beneath. You have the option of removing the link by clicking the “X” right next to the link beneath the “Manage Links” subheading.

New Digg profile links.

Caveat Emptor

Do not open multiple accounts just to Digg your other accounts’ submissions. Digg has made it clear that it will terminate “serial or overlapping accounts.” Like Twitter, you may want to avoid having multiple accounts covering the same topics. Contact support@digg.com to inquire about management of multiple accounts.

Remember, what happens in alpha Digg stays on alpha Digg; it’s Vegas 2.0. However, whatever actions you perform on Digg senior are recorded on Digg alpha version 4. Thus you could start to publicize your Digg account by posting links with a call to action which reads “Follow me on Digg.” Any friends or fans you attain will become your followers on the new Digg.

However, the new Digg will add vanity URLs to your profiles. So your profile web address will be http://digg.com/[username], as opposed to what it is now, http://digg.com/users/[username]. Stay abreast of other changes to links, APIs controlling your widgets, buttons and feeds for Digg pages, as they have not been ported yet. Digg on!

What do you think about the new Digg?  Will you use it? Leave your comments in the box below.

Make no mistake about it:  a true investment of time and resources is necessary to see significant social media marketing success.

But the real question is, “Just HOW MUCH time is needed to see solid success?”

This question was recently answered in the new study, 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, authored by Michael Stelzner.  Based on the report findings, ROI is top of mind for most marketers using social media.

Top Social Media Questions Marketers Want Answered

According to the data, the number-one question marketers most want answered is how to track social media ROI.  A sampling of questions includes:

• How can I tell a convincing story to management about the ROI for social media marketing?
• What are the key metrics to follow for measuring ROI in terms of customer satisfaction, revenues and brand loyalty?
• How effective is social media versus the resources needed to maintain the effort?
• Are there any industry benchmarks that track the impact of social media marketing?

In the 2009 study, the number-one question from marketers was related to social media tactics, followed by ROI.  Now tactics have moved down considerably and the ROI question has moved up.  One reason for this could be that social media is maturing and more people have started using the tools and tactics.  Now they want to know if the long-term payoff for their time and resources is really there.

Time Versus Return for Social Media Marketing

When looking at ROI, you also have to look closely at just how much time you’re investing.  Unlike some other traditional forms of marketing, when it comes to social media, your investment is more time than money.

The industry report results shed some light on the amount of time marketers are really spending on social media marketing.

Out of the 1900 marketers’ responses, almost all were using social media for marketing purposes and the majority of these marketers were fairly new in the social media area.

• 91% of respondents indicated they were employing social media for marketing purposes.
• 65% of marketers have either just started or have been using social media for only a few months.

When drilling down to the actual hours spent using social media tools, the largest group was in the 1 to 5 hours per week range.  Of that group, 43% are spending 4 to 5 hours each week on social media activities. A significant 56% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 30% for 11 or more hours weekly.  It’s interesting to note that 12.5% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.

This chart shows the overall breakdown of marketers’ time spent using social sites.

But even more interesting than the time spent on social media marketing, the report also showed a correlation between the amount of user experience and the time spent using social media tools. The median weekly time commitment for beginners was 1 hour versus 10 hours for those doing this for a few months or longer. Because 65% of respondents indicated they were newbies or just a few months in, much of their time spent on social sites could be more trial and error than solid strategy. Perhaps the difference in time spent using social tools is because the marketers who have the most experience also have more well-defined social media strategies, allowing them a clear plan of action on the social sites.

Just like with anything else, experience is golden.  The more user experience one has with social media marketing, the more valuable every minute spent on social media sites becomes.  The time spent on social sites is not as important as the actual results.  What we really should be looking at is what kind of results are you getting for that 1 hour, 4 hours, even 12 hours per week?

Top Benefits of Social Media

When the respondents were asked about the benefits they’ve received from social media marketing, there were some clear winners that stood out above the rest.  When looking at ROI on social media marketing, money in the bank can’t be your only indicator of success.  Increased traffic, lead generation and happy, connected customers all are factors in deciding which social media strategies are working best for your business.

According to the survey, the number-one benefit of social media marketing is greater exposure (85%).  Improving traffic and building new partnerships followed next.  More than half of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings was a benefit of social media marketing.  The report states, “As search engine rankings improve, so will business exposure, lead generation efforts and a reduction in overall marketing expenses.  More than half of marketers found social media generated qualified leads.”

This chart shows how respondents viewed the benefits of social media marketing.

Outsourcing Social Media

Because time and ROI are such a central focus for many marketers, it was surprising to see that very few were outsourcing their social media efforts.  According to the report, some factors may be that social media outsourcing is fairly new and the majority of respondents were new to social media, perhaps yet unaware of what they should and should not be outsourcing.

The chart below shows how the majority of marketers are not outsourcing their social media activity.

Where we’re seeing the outsourcing trend is in the larger organizations.  According to the report, “the larger the organization, the more likely outsourcing is taking place.  For example, 25.7% of large businesses and 25% of mid-sized businesses are currently outsourcing, compared to only 10.6% of sole proprietors.”  Like many marketing trends, what starts with the “big guys” tends to make its way to the smaller businesses—therefore, we may be seeing more outsourcing overall in the coming year.

Check out the full report here.

Now it’s your turn!  Do you feel your time using social media marketing is worth the return? Does your own experience match up with the results? Share here—we want to hear from you!

What is Geotagging?

Simply put, geotagging is the process of attaching geographical data (longitude and latitude) to photographs, videos, websites, status updates and even emails.  This geotagged data shows where the photos, videos, etc., were created or modified.

Google Maps shows the details for a salad bar in Austin, Texas—aligned on a map using latitude and longitude values.

The technology originally started off as a feature, but entrepreneurs like Dennis Crawley and Naveen Selvadurai anticipated that geotagging would become a much bigger phenomenon. As a result, they created Foursquare with foundations based solely on geotagging.

What’s Foursquare?

Foursquare is a social network fused with a game that anyone can play, from anywhere in the world. It allows people to “check in” to any location they visit. To play, all a person needs is a cell phone that can browse the internet (and a decent signal!).

Foursquare lets users "check in" to locations as they travel, unlock items and complete "to do" lists, creating a game around the service itself.

Players are rewarded for their continued check-ins via a point scheme by acquiring badges and earning status ranks. For example, Foursquare will give the “local” badge to users who check into the same venue more than three times in one week. If that person checks into a location more than anyone else, they will become its Mayor.

Why People Love Using Foursquare.

Foursquare Mayors receive special attention for their loyalty. Wouldn't you reward your most loyal customers?

People love a great game, and surprisingly, Foursquare is exactly that.

When you become the Mayor of a venue, it feels like a real accomplishment. It opens you up to added perks that only you are entitled to. You want to brag about it to your friends and networks. It becomes viral.

A pretty accurate rule of thumb for any business is this: Whatever people find fun and engaging is where your business should be.

Andrew McCormick summed it up perfectly in his article in Marketing Magazine:

“Brands support the service by offering deals to participants based, for example, on the number of times someone ‘checks in’ to their local branch.

The benefits for companies include increased footfall and the recruitment of a network
of brand ambassadors who will pass on recommendations to their friends and Twitter followers. Brands can also gather insights into the behavior of customers and what incites consumers to visit their stores.”

Andrew didn’t mention that Foursquare actually integrates with Facebook as well, so there’s an even tastier proposition for pursuing a marketing strategy that incorporates social geotagging networks.

Why You Should Use Geotagging With Your Marketing Strategy

Foursquare is great for generating a buzz around your brand. You can showcase your offers to a wider audience through viral sharing. It also incentivizes people to visit your business, which leads to buying your products/services.

You should take Internet-based games like Foursquare seriously—they are big business.

For example, according to Technology Talks, in 2009, Zynga earned $145 million in less than 6 months as a result of their flagship Facebook game, Farmville.

Foursquare is growing at a steady rate with a user base of around 150,000 people and it’s definitely gaining momentum with new deals and partnerships…

Who’s Already Leveraging This Geotagging Service?

Recently, Foursquare teamed up with movie producers to promote movies like Valentine’s Day.  Also department stores like Debenhams and fast-food businesses like Domino’s Pizza are now partnering with Foursquare to offer added perks to regular customers.

This is why you need to be thinking of ways you can implement geotagging into your marketing strategy—you should be aiming to get a piece of the action while it’s still buzzworthy and free.

A 5-Step Action Plan for Implementing Foursquare

Registering your business with Foursquare is as easy as 1-2-3.

1. Find the button above on the Foursquare home page to register your business. Click it and follow the onscreen instructions. It’s a very simple, quick process (you don’t need to register to create incentives as you’ll see, but if you do your offers appear on the website and mobile apps).
2. Create materials that advertise your participation with Foursquare such as posters for your storefront and for the walls inside.
3. Advertise your participation on your website, blog, Facebook and Twitter profiles and other social networks.
4. Engage with Foursquare users who visit your business. Thank them for playing and let them feel noticed and appreciated.
5. If you’re serious about engaging your users, you could mention the Mayor each month on your website or blog and maybe even offer added perks.The key is in creating loyal, avid fans who will represent your brand when you’re asleep. If you do this successfully, the return on investment should far overshadow the prizes you offer as incentives.

What if I Don’t Sell Location-based Products or Services?

You could even take it a step further and create working relationships with businesses that complement your product or service. For example, if you have a continuity product or service like web hosting, why not approach a local computer store and organize an offer whereby the Mayor gets a 15% voucher off the monthly premium hosting package?

This way, even if the store wants to sweeten the deal and serve up its own perks as well, it could still leverage your service to make a recurring commission from any customer it refers for you.

It’s a Win-Win Situation.

Even if you don’t have a continuity product or service, or you feel that what you have wouldn’t sell on this platform, you can still learn from businesses like Foursquare.

Geotagging is just a vehicle that Foursquare taps to achieve success. Ingredients that matter are engagement, compulsion and loyalty, among others, which gently guide users into the sales funnel.

If you can replicate the same sentiment that Foursquare users feel when they interact with the service, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t have the same success.

Do you think there’s potential for your business to offer perks to customers through Foursquare? What are your thoughts on this new marketing strategy? I’d love to hear your comments below!

And if you work for a business or own one, it’s likely that social media marketing is on your radar.  More and more marketing dollars are beginning to shift toward social media marketing and this trend only continues to climb.

Here are 5 studies that show how Facebook is undoubtedly a leading online social contender and a key tool that is continually changing the landscape of online engagement and fan loyalty.

#1: Average American Spent 7 hours on Facebook in January

According to recent findings by Nielson Company, Facebook has officially become a favorite pastime for many (but we’ve known that for a while now!).  However, the findings are pretty astounding when you really break it down:

The average time users spend on Facebook is 7 hours per month (a 10% increase).  To put that into perspective, Yahoo! is in second place, but with only 2 hours 28 minutes per month. The fact that people are spending more than 4 hours extra on Facebook compared to leading sites like Yahoo! and Google is information marketers should note when creating their social media campaigns.

This chart shows the breakdown of user time spent on the major sites:

#2: 44% of Social Sharing on the Web Is Driven by Facebook

With the surge of social networking over the past year, we have seen social traffic begin to rival search traffic—and the major players, including Google, are paying close attention to this trend.

TechCrunch recently looked into the services on the web that drive the most sharing and reached out to Gigya for some stats.   What’s Gigya?  Gigya is a company that powers sharing widgets on more than 5,000 content sites, including major players like ABC.com and Reuters. As TechCrunch explains, “Consumers can click a share button on these sites and send an article link, photo, or video via a menu of different services including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and AOL. Over the past 30 days, people have shared almost a million items over the Gigya network.”

Based on Gigya’s data, here’s the distribution of shared items on the web:

• Facebook: 44%
• Twitter: 29%
• Yahoo: 18%
• MySpace: 9%

This pie chart, courtesy of TechCrunch, shows the breakdown of social sharing on 4 major sites:

In addition, some other interesting stats from Gigya include:

For share of authentication via news sites, Facebook took 31% while Google was close behind with 30% and Yahoo at 25%.

With entertainment sites, Facebook was the major leader with 52% (Google was second with 17%, Yahoo with 15% and Twitter at 11%).

As we have seen with the popularity of social sites, people like to share links with multiple people at one time, versus just one-on-one via email. Because real results are strongly tied to the amount of online traffic you’re able to generate, it’s important to break down the sources of this traffic when considering where to spend your time and marketing dollars.  These stats shed light on where the action is really happening.

#3: Facebook Yanks Number 2 Spot From Yahoo

According to a Compete.com report, there has been a changing of the guard in the online world. Facebook has surpassed Yahoo, now taking its place as the number-two most popular site in the U.S.  Facebook drew nearly 134 million unique visitors in January 2010. According to the site, “It’s been two full years since we’ve seen a shakeup at the top—In February 2008, Google overtook Yahoo as number one and never looked back. Is Facebook’s next conquest the Google traffic throne?”

Here’s a great chart that shows Facebook’s climb to the coveted #2 spot:

But as we all know, the real dollars are in the engagement—and Compete.com says it best: “Facebook is second to none.” In January, 11.6% of all time spent online was spent on Facebook (compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google).  Facebook is in it to win, to say the least!

#4: “Faking It” on Facebook Is Rarer Than Previously Imagined

The findings from a recent research study conducted by the journal Psychological Science, show that instead of “faking it” online, people are much more likely to reveal their true selves online and not the idealized image of who they want to be.

A largely held assumption (supported by analysis) suggests online profiles are less than truthful when looking at true personalities of the users, and the researchers in this study set out to test that hypothesis. “There has been no research on the most fundamental question about OSN (online social networking sites) profiles,” notes the report. “Do they convey accurate impressions of profile owners?”

The conclusion of the report was very surprising to most. The report states, “These results suggest that people are not using their OSN profiles to promote an idealized virtual identity. Instead, OSNs might be an efficient medium for expressing and communicating real personality, which may help explain their popularity.”

The study focused on both MySpace and Facebook; however, the popular site Read Write Web stated that the “real personality” results were more likely to been seen on Facebook than other social sites. They pointed out that because it only allows the use of your legal name and due to its long-standing privacy controls, Facebook “provided its users with a sense of safety, security and comfort—they could be themselves—their real selves, flaws and all, without the world watching.”

#5: Facebook Boosts Sales and Customer Loyalty

The Harvard Business Review recently featured a new study from Utpal Dholakia and Emily Durham of Rice University.  For their study, they asked the question, “How much do businesses really influence consumers when they launch pages on the site to attract ‘fans’ and pepper them with messages and offers?”

To gauge the effectiveness of Facebook fan pages, the study used one company’s page to measure the effect on customer behavior. For the experiment, the researchers partnered with Dessert Gallery (DG), a popular Houston-based bakery and café chain. They first emailed over 13,000 customers from their mailing list to gather store evaluations and information on shopping behavior. Then they launched the fan page and invited the mailing list to the page.  Over the course of three months, the company “updated its page several times a week with pictures of goodies, news about contests and promotions, links to favorable reviews, and introductions to DG employees.”

Three months after that, they resurveyed the fans and here’s the overall result: Facebook changed customer behavior for the better.

Those who had replied to both surveys and had become fans stood out as their best customers. Here’s the breakdown of the findings of their new fans:

• Store visits per month increased after people became fans.
• The new fans generated more positive word of mouth than nonfans.
• They went to DG 20% more often than nonfans.
• Fans gave the store the highest share of their overall dining-out dollars.
• They were the most likely to recommend DG to friends and had the highest average Net Promoter Score—75, compared with 53 for Facebook users who were not fans and 66 for customers not on Facebook.
• DG fans also reported significantly greater emotional attachment to DG—3.4 on a 4-point scale, compared with 3.0 for other customers.
• Fans were the most likely to say they chose DG over other establishments whenever possible.

“We must be cautious in interpreting the study’s results,” Dholakia said. “The fact that only about 5% of the firm’s 13,000 customers became Facebook fans within three months indicates that Facebook fan pages may work best as niche marketing programs targeted to customers who regularly use Facebook. Social media marketing must be employed judiciously with other types of marketing programs.”

But overall, Dholakia stated that the results indicate that Facebook fan pages offer an effective and low-cost way of social media marketing.

Your insight and opinion matter!  What is your opinion of the “power of Facebook”? Do you agree or are you not seeing the same success rates as these studies suggest?  Do you favor another social media tool over Facebook?  I want to hear your insight, so be sure to share here!

Now, reading Social Media Examiner, you might be surprised to hear that sometimes I think people who say this have a point. Sometimes.

Fact is, if you see Twitter or any other social media service as a venue for chit-chat, and that’s how you use it for hours a day, then you’re likely better off doing something more productive with your time.

On the other hand, there are ways to get a lot of value out of Twitter. As with most things, it all depends on how you use it.

We programmers have a saying: “Garbage In – Garbage Out.” This essentially means you get out what you put in. If you put in chit-chat, don’t be surprised if that’s all you see in return!

Here are nine benefits I’ve personally seen through my couple of years of Twitter usage.

1. Networking connections

Because of my Twitter network, I’ve had real conversations with people I never would have been able to reach otherwise. Also I’ve been able to form deeper connections with people in real life because of our first meeting on Twitter.

It might not last, but right now Twitter is allowing people to slip past the traditional gatekeepers that might have prevented them from talking to people they want to reach. If you think of how some executives, celebrities or just very busy people have their email inbox and telephone locked down tight, being able to slip 140 characters past all that and get right in front of them, well… it’s like the magic wand of networking.

2. Traffic

How much traffic you can generate with Twitter depends on a number of factors, not least how many engaged followers you have. “Engaged” being a key point; they have to want to hear from you, otherwise they might as well not be following.

But get the right combination of audience targeting and presentation and you can drive a great deal of traffic with Twitter, and that traffic can turn into a flood once you take into account the viral nature of the retweet. Even with humble, standard links you can easily get dozens of clicks that you might not see otherwise.

Twitter drives traffic.

3. Leads

Twitter is fast becoming an instant referral system for business leads. Someone will ask if anyone knows a consultant/freelancer/vendor/etc. with a certain skill set or experience, and others will reply with suggestions.

If you build a strong network, you will get a good share of those referrals. I have seen it happen repeatedly, from design and programming through where to stay on vacation!

4. Direct sales

Obviously the end result of all those referrals is you get sales, but also sales of products and other services too. Dell is making millions of additional dollars this way.

Keep in mind that if all you do is promote your products, people will stop listening, so keep up the good content too. Make an offer and see what happens.

5. Insights

There are some very clever people on Twitter sharing their wisdom and expertise. Through Twitter conversations my opinions about a lot of topics have changed.

Keep an open mind and you can tap into the collected wisdom of smart people all over the globe and from many different industries and backgrounds. You can also learn a lot about what people think about the content that you put out and the service you offer.

Ask questions for content.

6. Content

Your Twitter followers can be a terrific source of additional valuable content. If you poll your followers about a subject, you can get ideas that you would never be able to generate yourself. This is Twitter as crowdsourcing model! All you have to do is ask the question and collate the answers. Obviously you need to ask the question in a certain way and you need to get followers’ permission.

The best method for me is to say up front that I’m writing an article and would like my followers’ input. Ask an open-ended question that people on Twitter would enjoy discussing outside of the article. Avoid yes/no questions, or anything that would potentially embarrass or annoy your followers to answer. If there is a chance that followers could feel they might get the answer “wrong,” they will simply not reply.

7. Answers

I can’t count the times that Twitter has saved me… From computer problems to which car to buy, Twitter folks have the answers you are looking for.

Google search is great but it can’t answer questions like the Twitter hive mind can. Twitter understands that humans can’t put all their needs into tidy little keywords, especially when we are not good at expressing the problem! Need a certain type of software? Ask Twitter! Want to know the name of that singer who wrote the song from that movie? Ask Twitter!

8. News

I don’t need to list all the stories that have broken on Twitter by now; they are already well-established. Yes, there is some misinformation, but Twitter is great at clearing that up too. Twitter is now my default news feed, with the advantage that you can ask questions and get understanding.

9. Inspiration

Twitter messages and discussions are a constant source of inspiration and motivating ideas. Not just for content but for all kinds of things. For example, through Twitter I was inspired by people doing 5k and 10k charity runs, so I decided I wanted to start running.

Bonus: And yes, chit-chat!

There is nothing wrong with a bit of a chat, as long it’s not excessive or done at the expense of work. My social media activities are often a break from work; coffee and a chat can be a great way to recharge your batteries. We all need a break once in a while.

Of course, I asked my Twitter followers what they get out of their time investment.

Here is what they told me:

How are you using Twitter? Have you tried any of these ideas? Please share your thoughts in the comments…