'Net Features : twitter, social networking

HootSuite Releases Simple, Useful, Ridiculously Costly Tool

Mike Phillips — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:30:00 GMT

HootSuite, the multi-social network manager has released a simple, yet very useful addition to their suite of tools. Dubbed HootSuite Secure Profiles, it allows account owners to require a confirmation before an update is published to social profiles. So, if a company profile (or several) is set this way, the user must use a slider (pictured below) as a confirmation before sending the message. It's a great idea – but sometimes what might seem like a good idea at the time, isn't. Just ask @ChryslerAutos.

The rub (and there is one, of course) is that Secure Profiles is only available to HootSuite Enterprise members -- so you have to pay. A lot. Enterprise plans start at a whopping $1,499 per month. Otherwise, just be sure to educate your staff on acceptable social practices. And hire smart people.

It's unfortunate that HootSuite isn't providing this tool for free. Wouldn't everyone be better off -- wouldn't the social Web be better off – with something like this available to everyone? I suspect a rival will soon have this feature available to all, for free, which could actually cause many users to switch their alliances – especially small business operators.

Google Social Search and the Battle for Social Dominance

Mike Phillips — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Google has announced the release of Google Social Search; promising to bring the most relevant results to your queries by indexing the content submissions of your "social circle." Here's the quick version of how it works:

When you search on Google (through Google Labs) you can select "Social" from the "Show options" link on the top left of the page. This will present results from your social connections that are integrated with your Google account; Reader, Picasa, Blogs, Twitter, Gmail Chat and FriendFeed. So, if you include your Twitter profile on your Google account (more on that in a minute), you will get relevant results from the content submitted by all those you follow on Twitter. In addition, to round out your "extended social circle," you will get results from the followers of those you follow. Mixed with those results will be mentions of your search query in the blogs you follow through Reader, related photos on Picasa, and so on; down to any network you belong to and your contacts within that netowork - as long as they are included in your Google Profile. On the surface, it sounds pretty useful. And for some, it will be. But don't get too excited yet.

Think this will make a big impact on how consumers find your brand? Think again. Sure, millions of consumers have Gmail accounts. But it's a safe bet that a very small percentage of those users have a Google Profile set up, much less take advantage of Google Reader. That number likely continues to shrink for the number of those users who write blogs, and use Twitter or FriendFeed.

Try this - log out of Google then do a random search. Do you readily see the option to build a Google profile? Have you ever seen a complete Google rookie try to set up (much less understand) Google Reader, Twitter, FriendFeed or anything of that likeness? I'm reminded of a common saying in the industry; If you can't explain it to your Grandmother, you're doing it wrong ... or something to that effect. Go ahead and ask 10 random people over your next lunch hour if they've ever used Twitter, FriendFeed or Google Reader. The point is, we're dealing with a small segment of the consumer population.

What's missing from all the buzz on Google Social Search?

Facebook.

Make no mistake, Google and Facebook are at war - that's what this expirement is really about. Social Search is Google's early answer to Facebook Search and the countless connections being made and information being shared through Facebook. This is a war for the very social fabric of the Internet. Facebook (with likely millions more users than registered Google Profile users) will reveal social search in a way that's not limited to information from Google Profiles, but will include Google products - because Facebook doesn't limit anything that users want to share with their online network. Blogs can be included through Networked Blogs, Twitter can be integrated, photos can be shared and tagged, movies can be recommended ... there are even apps for most of that. Facebook has created a hub for social activity that's remarkably easy to use, which is why the age demographic keeps rising. Google is attempting to build a way to patch together a very fragmented social scene - it all has the feeling of a reeling empire trying to corral it's loyal subjects before an all-out desertion.

Google Social Search is not easy. In fact, it's quite confusing. Also, if you want to take advantage of Google Social Search, be prepared to limit yourself to one Google profile and its contacts. At this time, you cannot merge profiles - for those of you who have mulitple Gmail addresses or profiles for multiple reasons ... like me.

Finally, understand that this should serve as a major red flag to those who don't quite yet grasp that everything you publish online is public domain unless you explicitly protect it. Think about it like this: If I use Google Social Search, I might get results from your Twitter account (or Digg submission, or Flickr account, etc.) even though you have no idea who I am. It could be that I follow someone on Twitter who you follow ... one of those 1,000 people you follow in hopes of gaining more followers yourself. Your online network just expanded to all registered Google users ... whether you like it or not. Be careful what you say - Google is listening ... and indexing.

Big Winners and Big Losers for April 2009

Mike Phillips — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:30:00 GMT

As a Web professional, it's never a bad idea to take a broad look at where consumers (and your competition) are spending their time. So today we look at four online categories important to your business; social submission sites, social networking sites, video sites and search, using fresh April 2009 data from Compete.com. As you read through this post, think about where you are spending your time and money marketing your business, where your particular demographic might be, and where you need to gain a presence.

Social Submission Sites

There is still tremendous value in submitting your content to these sites, as they can drive traffic and provide good links. Digg.com is still the unquestioned leader, with 37.7 million unique visitors, up 4.49 percent for the month, and up 46 percent from a year ago.

Big winners:

Stumbleupon, despite questions about traffic quality and providing quality leadsis up 92 percent year-over-year (YOY), and 19 percent for the month. Mixx is up just over 1 percent in April, but 439 percent for the year. Reddit, with 5.1 million uniques in April, is up over 100 percent YOY but has reached a plateau lately. Still, the site is closing in on the likes of Stumbleupon and Yahoo! Buzz. Perhaps a site redesign might attract new users and push it even further up the list?

Big Losers:

Yahoo! Buzz saw a 7.14 percent drop in April - likely due to the fact that it's one of the more difficult places to get submissions noticed. Propeller fared far worse - down 29 percent in the month of April, and a discouraging 49 percent YOY.

Social Networking Sites

It should come as little surprise that Facebook is blowing away the competition. What is a little surprising is how badly they have crushed MySpace in the last four months. In December 2008, unique visitors were dead even. Come April, Facebook very nearly doubled up on MySpace, to the tune of more than 104 million uniques.

Big Winners:

The meteoric rise of Twitter continues, with another 38 percent growth in April and 1,192 percent growth YOY. LinkedIn's uniques are up 109 percent YOY, and Bebo is up just over 41 percent from last year.

Big Losers:

MySpace. Uniques for the month are down just under 1 percent, but 8.6 percent YOY. Perhaps it's because the site's key demographic is growing older, or that Facebook has just siphoned its users. Whatever the reason, MySpace is starting to resemble Pets.com, before and after the bubble burst - big on splash, little on substance.

Video

For our purposes, we'll focus on those sites that allow user uploads. So, you won't find Hulu on this list, even though they are the second most-visited video portal on the Web. You also wont' find Flickr. Although users can now upload video, clips are limited to 90 seconds, and free accounts only allow two uploads per month.

YouTube is clearly sitting comfortably at the top. The site had more than 77 million unique visitors in April, up 5.8 percent from last month and 24 percent from last year.

Big Winners: Three video upload sites outside of YouTube are growing; Vimeo, DailyMotion and MetaCafe. All experienced over 100 percent growth from a year ago, but Vimeo really grew - an impressive 679 percent, on its way to 3.8 million uniques in April.

Big Losers: None. Video remains the hottest thing this side of Twitter.

Search

Because of the nature of search and their partner sites and many other factors, it's difficult to get a decent representation of their traffic levels. However, rest assured that Google is still the leader, with Yahoo!, MSN Live Search and Ask.com bringing up the rear. But things are changing in the search world. Twitter's recent announcement could very well change the scope of the industry. And one reason for this is demand. Take a look to the right - according to Compete.com, One of the top search terms for Twitter is "twitter search." That should raise some eyebrows with the big three. Also notice the top referreral sites to Twitter - they are all current competitors, or about to become such. And one more interesting note: Twitter can fit in three out of the four categories here. It's a social site, a place to submit content and, soon, a place to search for content.

The State of Content Submission Sites

Mike Phillips — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:14:00 GMT

Content submission sites can garner a fair amount of traffic for a website. So it's good to know where your content stands the best chance of reaching the widest audience. Compete.com has returned new traffic results for March 2009, and the numbers suggest that most of these sites are doing extremely well, meaning they are still viable - if not essential - places to market brands, products and services. Of course the first focus should always be on your company, but you will want to take advantage of free promotional services.

Digg.com remains strong, getting more than 36 million visits per month, according to Compete. For the year, traffic at Digg is up 71.5 percent. The attractive part of Digg is that it is widely used, both in and outside of the Web professional industry, meaning that you have a good chance of making an impact with consumers, not just fellow marketers. The down side is that the very structure of Digg caters to those with connections and those who know how to make the system work for them. Otherwise Digg can take a lot of effort and time to be truly effective.

Twitter is far and away the fastest growing network online, both in terms of traffic and overall industry buzz. The site is up to 14 million uniques per month, up from 8 million last month (a 76 percent increase) and up more than 1,200 percent this year. There's no denying that Twitter is an important place to submit content, or at least have a presence. Be sure to take advantage of URL shortening services like bitl.y, cli.gs, or budurl to track how (and if) your content spreads through Twitter.

Then there are the rest. There are may niche content submission sites and some of them may hold real value, depending on your industry or focus. But for general purposes it makes sense to focus on those with the widest reach. Below is a chart from Compete.com analyzing five popular submission sites and their current traffic data: Newsvine, Propeller, Mixx, StumbleUpon and Reddit. (Article continues below)

Reddit holds the overall edge, in both traffic numbers and growth, closely followed by StumbleUpon. It's also interesting to see that Reddit has a very steady growth pattern, usually indicating a site with staying power. Also note that all but one of these services (Propeller) is experiencing growth. And while the numbers of any of these sites might suggest it's simply not worth the effort in comparison to Digg or Twitter, it could be argued that while these sites are growing, now is a good time to get involved and stake your claim.

It should also be noted that StumbleUpon, while used as a submission site by many, is not necessarily intended to be a content submission site. It might fall under the category of content discovery. And, for that matter, Delicious.com could fall into that category as well. Delicious had over 1.8 million unique visits in March, a 13 percent boost from February 2009.

Submitting content to these sites and establishing a reputable presence (including networking and making influential friends) can take an extraordinary amount of time. Sometimes too much to be worth the return. Therefore, it's always important to use your analytics to closely monitor the returns you are getting for your efforts. If you see that site visits from one particular network are resulting in high bounce rates, limited time-on-site or any other factor detrimental to your overall goals, don't be afraid to jump ship. Or find the network(s) with the highest return toward your goals and focus on those instead.

Better Twitter BACN

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:08:00 GMT

Nearly one year ago I wrote an article for the May 2008 edition of Website Magazine that addresses the term du jour (BACN) and discussed its implications for marketers and those in the social media sphere. Thanks to the meteoric rise and increasing importance of social media, BACN has only gotten more prominent.

BACN is email you want, just not right now. From the article of last year; "Common examples include news alerts, messages from social networking sites and wiki watch lists. It’s not considered SPAM (hence ‘Bacon’) because you originally signed up for the service."

The problem (or should we say opportunity) is that many messages are not read immediately, if at all, and users can become quickly inundated with them, making it hard to keep up. Thanks to a little ingenuity however, Bacn just get tastier.

Traditional notifications from Twitter look like the image posted below.
Room for improvement? Absolutely.

TechCrunch reported over the weekend on Topify (Beta), a service which helps make the decision on who to follow at Twitter a little (well, a lot actually) easier. There is an excellent alternative that for my purposes is equally helpful (if not better in many ways) for power Twitter users. TwiMailer does pretty much exactly what Topify does, but you won't be waiting on a beta invite. Here is how the email looks in your inbox:

As you can see, I've decided to smudge out the any reference to the individual Twitter user that followed Website Magazine, but it does give you a good idea of how it works. Those being followed change their email address in their Twitter account to one provided by Twimailer. Those empty follow message that are provided by Twitter (in the first image) now are redirected, including more interesting information such as who the Twitter users are, where they are from, their website, their most recent tweets (although not shown here) and most importantly the number of followers and number they are following.

While not for your average Twitter user, power Twitter users will be excited by this service and others (like Mr. Tweet for example) that make the marketing game and science a more rewarding and enjoyable experience.

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