a1-fan-fun

Below is the final list of submissions to the StumbleUpon / YouTube / MySpace Group Writing Project, which is part of the Social Media Mega Project. Many, many thanks to all of the bloggers who kindly wrote and submitted articles to this project.

* Promoting Older Posts With Social Media, by Steven Snell:

The common thought for bloggers is that new content should be created and promoted to get things moving. This isn’t always necessary.

* A Guide to StumbleUpon: Understanding and Beating The System, by Tibi Puiu:

My clear favorite out of the bunch of social giants is none other than the user friendly StumbleUpon and at over 4 million registered users, I’d say I’m not the only one.

* StumbleUpon: My Story So Far…, by Simon:

You heard it from many people before, they all claim to get hundreds if not thousands of page views a day, I was a little skeptical to start with but now after 3 weeks I can truly say it works.

* Why StumbleUpon is Better Than Digg, by Tejvan Pettinger:

I have used various social bookmarking. In my own experience I have had a much better experience with StumbleUpon than Digg.

* Frozen Pea Friday: Breast Cancer Info on StumbleUpon, by Isabella Mori:

In 1989 Jan Adrian became one of the 1.8 million women in this country diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatments recommended to Jan focused on the physical body, leaving psychological, social, and spiritual needs unmet.

* What is the best social media website? Digg, SU, Delicious, Reddit … or?, by Jacob Cass:

Usually SU users do not click on ads, so this is a bit tough, try using a CPM (Cost Per Mile) advertising solution, something I am going to try soon.

The following articles have been written by yours truly:

* My Current Views on StumbleUpon

* Networking At MySpace

* Silent Interaction With YouTube Users

And that’s about it.

One might argue that this post’s title is rather misleading, as there are several articles on StumbleUpon only. YouTube and MySpace have been totally ignored by other bloggers. Of course I couldn’t ignore those sites myself because I was this group writing project’s hostess. Anyway, I’m really not surprised at this outcome. I’m going to discuss this subject — along with the final results of the Social Media Mega Project — next week. Stay tunned by subscribing to a1-fan-fun.

This is the end of my Social Media Marathon. It took me around 4 hours to write 10 posts. Considering the many interruptions that took place while I was at it, it hasn’t taken me that long after all.

Next Monday I’ll publish the final list of posts submitted to the StumbleUpon/MySpace/YouTube Group Writing Project. When the whole Social Media Mega Project is over, I’ll probably post an article containing my analysis of it.

What’s the best way to interact with YouTube users? I guess many would give some obvious answers, such as “leave comments on their videos” or “send them private messages.” However, I’ve realised that there’s another way and this one may be as good as the others — or even a bit better.

In order to try this method, I’ve opened an account with another nickname and created a silly short video. It’s a mere slide show with only four frames and no soundtrack nor special effects. It lasts no more than 25 seconds. Yes, it’s totally trashy and it’s gotten the worst rates you can imagine. I don’t mind, though, because it was intended to be just a tool for my test.

After creating and uploading my trashy video, I visited my Account page and made sure that “Active Sharing” was turned on. Then I started watching other people’s videos. My video’s view count slowly increased afterwards. That’s about it.

As you must have guessed, “Active Sharing” is the key here. If you turn it on, whenever you watch a video on YouTube your username will be listed among others under “Also Watching Now.” Ideally, you’ll want to watch the videos featured on the site’s main page, because those are viewed by many people simultaneously. Therefore, they increase your chance of having your username seen and clicked on. But I’ve also gotten some good results when viewing stuff not listed on the main page.

When I first read about the “Active Sharing” feature and how it could help you get more views for your own videos, I was a bit sceptical. After trying it myself, I had to agree that it is a nice tactic. Apparently, YouTube users are rather curious about each other. Perhaps they think: “Well, if this girl or guy is watching the same video as me, maybe we have similar tastes. Let’s see if he/she has also some cool stuff to show.” Right away they click on the person’s username and take a look at their channel. If they find a title or screenshot that catches their attention, chances are they will click on it and watch the corresponding video.

Can you just imagine the possibilities? If I’ve managed to attract a few hundred visitors to my little piece of garbage just by playing that trick, guess how much interest a good, viral video might have generated?

If you think that the only way to take advantage of MySpace for promotional purposes is by spamming its members with endless repetitive comments and bulletins, think again. Trust me, there are smarter and more honest ways. They can be summarised in this simple tip: view and use MySpace as an actual social networking site, not as a sort of spammers paradise.

What you want to do is look for real people who may be really interested in whatever you do. Instead of using the site’s general search, I suggest you use the Groups search. Although the former lets you search people by interest, the latter will lead you directly to the places where people interested in a given subject gather to chat. This will also show you that such people are real and not fake accounts made by spammers. After all, why would a spammer post a reasonable message at a forum?

Before adding a person, of course you must take a look at their profile. On some social networking sites you are expected to at least leave a message to a member before adding him/her to your friends list (Orkut is the first example that comes to my mind). It isn’t the case on MySpace, though. People over there are more liberal in this sense. So, only leave a comment or send a private message if you feel it’s important — or if the person you’re about to add clearly states on their profile that they require it before adding back. On the other hand, if someone takes the initiative to add you, it would be a nice idea to leave them a “thank you for adding me” message after adding them back; this is a common practice at MySpace.

If the first people you’ve added have very specific interests, chances are their existing friends share such interests. So don’t forget to explore their friends lists. Better yet: explore the comments left by their friends. By reading their messages you’ll see who’s been active lately and what they are into.

Speaking of comments, they are your best choice when you want to promote something. After all, they are public, that is, they may be viewed by people who aren’t your friends. Besides, they tend to stand out when compared to bulletins. there is a very simple reason for this: bulletins are too easy to send and reach all friends at once, whereas comments must be posted on an individual basis; as a result, there uses to be much more bulletins than comments on MySpace. Guess which ones have more chances of being read?

Absolutely do not exaggerate when promoting your stuff. Treat your friends as friends. Be nice to the others if you want them to be nice to you. If someone sent you spammy bulletins every single day, how would you feel? Think very carefully about it before sending any messages.

Long gone are the times when I would get impressed at StumbleUpon traffic. Of course, for a beginner those huge hit waves would inevitably look very exciting and encouraging. But as time goes by and you have more articles stumbled, you tend to get used to the traffic spikes. You also learn to set your expectations in a more realistic level.

Is StumbleUpon traffic good? You bet it is and you can be sure I won’t reject it. But exactly how good is it? It depends on your aims.

If you want to develop a loyal readership and increase your subscriber base, maybe StumbleUpon won’t help you that much. Of course this comment is mainly based on my own experience. I’ve noticed that stumblers will only return to my blogs if I have new posts stumbled. Otherwise, they will read one article, (hopefully) like it and then forget it. And no, they won’t subscribe. I’ve seen other bloggers reporting similar experiences, so perhaps it’s not just me.

On the other hand, StumbleUpon is great to help you fight that kind of loneliness that torments so many webmasters when they realise that their stats are a bit too static, if you know what I mean. A decent article or a good image will do wonders for your ego when they are discovered by stumblers. I’d say that for non-commercial sites StumbleUpon is definitely the way to go.

One thing that has been disturbing me a bit lately is the increasing radicalism of certain stumblers. They often talk about preserving the “purity” of StumbleUpon. By their standards, if your site is remotely associated to topics like webmastering, blogging, marketing or SEO, you are just like Satan, or Bin Laden, or Pol Pot, or *fill in with your favourite villain*. Therefore, they feel entitled to attack and stalk you. That’s really disgusting. They act as if they were the site’s owners and want to impose their views over the whole community. They just won’t tolerate anyone who dares to disagree with them. You certainly don’t want to meet those types, because they will make sure to spoil your fun.

Another thing that disturbs me somehow is the kind of material certain people stumble. Obviously, one has the right to vote for anything he/she wants as long as it doesn’t infringe the site’s rules. But what amazes me is the fact that some gentlemen and ladies usually pretend to be lovely people and then stumble articles that contradict all their lessons about being nice to your fellows. As you can see, here is another use for StumbleUpon: measuring the sincerity of the people you deal with.

I’m afraid Twitter is not for people like me.

Before you think that this is an anti-Twitter post, let me make some things clear: I do like Twitter and the concept behind it. Besides, the site’s layout is very pleasant to the eyes, so Twitter is certainly a place I feel comfortable at. I also know how helpful Twitter can be: there you can read news, network, find interesting links etc. Basically, it does what all good social media sites should do and even has some special features that make it stand out on its own. And I could never complain about Twitter’s community; so far I haven’t spotted any problems in it. I’d really love to know how all those followers of mine have found me, since I don’t use to promote my account and I rarely follow anyone, but that’s not a problem; it’s only my curiosity.

So, what’s the matter?

Too little space to write!

Of course, that’s what microblogging is about. And I like microblogging. In fact, I used to be a fan of this type of blogging. I even used to think that I’d eventually become a great microblogger, publishing microposts on several different sites. However, time has gone by… and so has my initial excitement.

I tend to be quite prolix. I love writing long pieces. I also write shorter ones, but I don’t like to feel obliged to do it. At Twitter there’s that tiny character limit that makes me frustrated whenever I want to post something, because most times I need much more than 140 characters to convey my ideas.

Some people say that microblogging is going to change the way we blog forever because it makes blogging easier, faster and less boring to most Internet users. Well, I’m certainly not part of that supposed majority. I believe there will always be people in need of more space to express themselves. I only hope that said space won’t be taken away from us.

And now let me see if Twitter’s character limit will be enough to accommodate this post’s link…

This is my entry for Isabella’s group writing project on Twitter.

If del.icio.us is not the best social media site ever, it’s certainly very close to it. Oddly enough, it is ignored by most meta-bloggers. I suppose it’s due to the apparent difficulty to make it onto the site’s main page. Well, those short-sighted bloggers don’t know what they are missing.

Think about a subject, preferably using only one word to define it; if that’s not possible, write the needed words together or join them with hyphens. This will generate a tag. Now type the following on your browser: http://del.icio.us/tag/yourchosentag . Chances are you will find dozens of links that you wouldn’t see on any search engine’s first result pages. Would you like to have new links on your chosen subject(s) delivered to you regularly, as they are added to del.icio.us? Just scroll down the page and subscribe to its feed. Or add the following to your feed reader: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/yourchosentag .

By taking these simple steps, you will keep yourself up-to-date on a plethora of topics, find brand new/forgotten/obscure sites, detect new and ongoing trends, get inspiration for more articles and so on. Wouldn’t your site or blog benefit from it?

If you’re into link listing, del.icio.us will help you get things going. Bookmark the links you want to include on your next list and make sure to add to each of them a special tag to help you distinguish them from the unrelated ones. You could use, for instance, “list23,” “linklist4,” “my-next-post” etc. When you are ready to compile your list, you’ll quickly find in a single place all the links you need by just clicking on the pre-defined tag.

For those who just can’t stand spammers anymore, here’s yet one more reason to favour del.icio.us over other social media sites: the site’s users can’t send you any messages. They can, at the very best, send you links by using a “for:username” tag. But rest assured that most users don’t care at all for this feature. You’d hardly get bombarded by undesired links.

Note: I haven’t been paid to write this enthusiastic review. Unfortunately.

This is my entry for Aaron Stroud’s group writing project on del.icio.us.

- Is it only me, or is Sphinn a relatively closed community? Whenever I visit it, I see that most hot topics have been submitted by the same small group of users. I know Sphinn is certainly not as huge as, say, Digg; this might partially justify the lack of variation. Still I wonder how the apparent dominance of a few members could discourage the participation of newcomers?

- That inevitably leads me to other questions: why do sphinners tend to preferably sphinn posts submitted by popular members? Could it be the infamous bandwagon effect? Of course it happens on other social media sites, but on Sphinn it is… well, more visible.

- Once I was the first person to sphinn a certain post and then I saw a popular member regreting it that he wasn’t the first one, implying that the article would hardly go hot, despite its quality. Guess what? He was right. Interesting, huh?

- When will Sphinn make the Category Feeds available? WHEN?!

- By the way, try subscribing to the New Topics Feed if you feel that things are just too quiet on your feed reader. Trust me: the Hot Topics Feed won’t do it. Go for the whole lot. You’ll not only find some hidden gems that will never go hot, but also have an amazing source of research and inspiration right before your eyes.

This is my entry for Simonne’s group writing project on Sphinn.

The main reason why I opened an account at Digg was my will to help some fellow webmasters and bloggers. As you all know, Digg is seen as a vital source of traffic by many people. Consequently, I’m often asked to digg various articles.

I don’t take all requests, though. The time-sensitive ones (”Please digg my post within the next 20 minutes!”) are the worst for me, because for some obscure reason I’m never online when such requests are released. Normally I read them a few minutes after the dealine is over, so I always feel bad for not having been able to help.

There are also other reasons why I may say “no” when someone asks me to digg their stuff. But the truth is that there have been many requests which I have declined although I could have perfectly taken them. The problem here is that I’m really not a Digg fan, therefore I avoid visiting that site. To be more specific, I don’t like its community. And considering that it’s a social site, i. e., a site (supposedly) driven by its community, I think that’s a very serious issue. I don’t foresee any possibility to overcome my ill-will towards it in the near future. I just can’t stand all that childishness and rudeness. When I visit Digg, I spend most of my time burying the silly comments I find over there, instead of searching for interesting headlines. It tells a lot on my feelings about most diggers.

I know, I know, there are some cool people at Digg too. However, they seem to be… well, buried among the not so cool ones.

This post is my entry for Vivien’s group writing project on Digg and Reddit.

I know some great Mixx enthusiasts (most notably Tad from SEO 2.0) and I can relate to their enthusiasm. Mixx does look like a refreshing alternative to Digg. At least its community is still not polluted by radical types.

I prefer its design over Digg’s one. It appears “friendlier,” although I can’t really explain why I have this sensation. Maybe it has something to do with their colour scheme. The tags right below their search box are very convenient for the casual bored visitor who just wants some quick suggestions on what to look for. And I really must highlight one of the coolest features available to their users: the ability to organise and join groups. It helps you find and compile links to stuff you are truly interested in.

With all that being said, I have never become an active Mixx user. I visit the site from time to time and occasionally vote for some stuff. But I never got to develop a true passion for it. Why?

I guess it is a sort of “Digg fatigue.” I’ve seen so many annoying and even disgusting things taking place at Digg, that I simply can’t feel that enthusiastic about similar sites. In fact, I’m a bit pessimistic when it comes to the future of Mixx’s community. I’m not sure it’ll remain as welcoming as it currently is. It may sound silly, but that’s how I feel. I know I may be missing some nice experiences by not embracing Mixx as I could. And perhaps things won’t go as wrong as I think they will. Anyway, for the time being I won’t change my behaviour.

This post is my entry for Pearl’s group writing project on Mixx, Propeller and Squidoo.