Ever been to a cocktail party that was WAY more energetic and lively than you expected? Did you wonder about how (or why) it got that way. Certainly a major factor is the personalities of the players in the room. The outgoing quirky types get things going … the creative ones get the direction off in tangents … even the somber spectators contribute to the mass mentality. NOW, take that party and put it on the web. Then invite hundreds of millions of your closest friends. THAT’S what social networking is all about.

Lani Voivod at Epiphanies, Inc. asked me:

“…would you please write a post explaining the differences/perks of ‘Digg, Technorati, Flickr or Twitter’”

OK, that’s a challenge …. keeping with the party metaphor, here goes;

• DIGG.com (sharing blogs, articles, news stories and other great content) …€” Imagine a group of people in the corner talking about the latest, greatest, coolest, most significant “STUFF” they’ve seen on the web. Of course, when one person brings up a topic, you’re sure to get two or three other people to chime in “OH YEAH, I saw that! That was so friggin’ cool!”.
• TECHNORATI.com (sharing and ranking blogs) …€” Off in the family room, a group of musicians naturally gets together to talk shop. One person brings up a post on a blog they read last week about Dave Evans, the original singer of AC/DC. Of course, most of the others have read the same post because they’re effectively wired to their world of music bloggers. The others make a mental note to go visit that blog ’cause it sounds like a great resource … and was recommended by other music mavens.
• FLICKR.com (photo sharing) …€” Sally is one of those gregarious folks roaming around the room taking pictures of everyone. Of course she has everyone’s email stored in her camera phone so she can batch mail the good ones to everyone in the room and post them on her personal site.
• YOUTUBE.com (video sharing) …€” Danny is the Speilberg wanna-be in the room. He’s got tape (digital, of course) running on every wacky event he can capture at the party. SURELY, everyone will get to see his stuff after he’s posted it for the web. Hey, he may even win $10,000 on AFV!
• TWITTER.com (Sharing “Wassup”) …€” Just as people started arriving, a small group of people in the kitchen just “catch up.” Joe says “Hey Wanda. What’ve you been up to?” Wanda replies. The catching up goes on around the circle with everyone else in the group.

OK, here’s where it gets interesting. How many different types of groups can you imagine at a cocktail party? If you can imagine it … make it happen! Take the next step and figure out how you can take that socializing idea to a global level and turn it into the next multi-billion dollar social networking web site! Want some examples? These are off the cuff (let’s stick with the party metaphor again);

• A group of executive chefs is gathered around the fire sharing recipes. Since they’re all vegan, they’re all quite passionate and attentive to the input they get from their cohorts. or …
• Hank and Betsy are both in the travel industry. They’ll spend hours talking together about the best travel packages they were able to put together for their clients. Since Hank specializes in trips to Hawaii, he’s got the 411 on the best local eateries. or…or…or

I could go on and on and on with examples. Hopefully you could too. The point of this long post is to show you the world of social networking on the web is NOT about the sites! … it’s about the people! Their needs, wants, desires, interests and passions. Fulfill those and you’ve got something big. Weave this idea into your own marketing and you’ve got something REALLY big!

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I’ve been enjoying my morning analysis of my HitTail.com results for a few weeks now. Although the referrer and keyword phrase information has always been available to me via my web site activity logs, I’ve been looking at this information differently these days. It’s now all about what will I be blogging about next … or, what topics will benefit my traffic building activities.

DON’T GET ME WRONG … I’m not suggesting that blogging should be based on anything but value-based, authentic commentary. What I’m suggesting is these reports can give you direction on the topics you choose. Within these lists you’ll find a bottomless well of topics based on your years’ of experience. For example, my Hittail suggestion report shows that I have some opportunity in developing a blog about “best taglines.” Can I come up with a dozen or more ideas that revolve around that phrase? …. YOU BET!

There is, however, a side effect of analyzing your reports this way. It forces you to look deeper into your long tail than you normally would. I noticed that I’ve been getting an inordinately large number of visitors to my post about Bank of America’s new brand strategy. Why is this? Come to find out, B of A has a mortgage program called the “Acorn Program”. Combine “B of A” with “Acorn Creative” and VOILA, you find yourself coming up with a #3 ranking on Google for all of those people looking for that program!

BUT, BUT, BUT, you’re saying to yourself, who cares about that traffic if it’s sooooo untargeted to our services. True. But I retort; What about phrases like “Bank Taglines” and “Bank Branding” and other similar phrases that have also popped up in the reports? The point is, there’s gold in them thar phrases. The more you dig, the more you find.

If you’re reading this and you’re the VP of Marketing for Bank of America (or any other bank), feel free to contact me at 888-825-3300! We’ll be happy to assist you with your new branding efforts.

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Creative web design is complex!  In an effort to create an aesthetically pleasing site that the client loves AND is profitable, it’s easy to pass on the subtleties that will make it effective in both Search Marketing as well as client conversion.  An effective, powerful, creative web design process would surely include;

• Placement of fabulous title tags (including one instance of an important keyword/keyword phrase)
• Use of H1 tags (again, keyword rich but specifically containing the above keyword/keyword phrase)
• Although less important than in years past, you must still develop keyword and description tags
• Writing of keyword rich body copy (99% of the time, this is greatly enhanced by blogging)
• W3C Compliant, Standards-based design
• Either relative or absolute positioned layers that allows your main content to come right after the <body> tag
• Not too much or too little copy
• Aesthetics that are professional and engaging
• Messaging that draws out curiosity and has a direct call to action
• Creative web design always focuses on a single thing for the user to do (Seth Godin’s Big Red Fez is a must read for all web site owners)
• Creative web design is always powerfully emotive and consistent with other marketing design

Review this list with your web developer.  If they don’t know what ALL of this means or how they’ll implement these things for you, it may be time to find another developer.

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A wonderfully unique application of an old idea! DNScoop.com gives you the scoop on what’s going on with your domain name… with some interesting twists. Finding out how old your site is, getting your Alexa ranking, getting your Google Page Rank … these are all old ideas (in Internet years). DNScoop, however, takes this info to the next level and puts a roughly objective dollar value on page advertising AND the site itself, based on all of the above info. Is it accurate? … maybe not, says Seth Godin … but it is, indeed, interesting.

The beautifully clean home page layout (a la Google), uses one of Seth’s most important axioms …€” giving the user a single “banana” (from his book Big Red Fez). BUT, the clean layout and unique content are tainted by some pretty bad copy. My favorite is the sentence that tells us the tools are offered in “one convent package.” Hmmmmm. Seth’s link and a prominent Digg link sent the shared hosting over the edge where the site wasn’t accessible.

Will these issues dramatically decrease the site’s ability to become popular? … not likely. However, if the company is going to seriously develop itself, and its brand, to become a powerhouse web presence, it should take every step to fix these problems now.

Hey DNScoop team … We wish you all the luck in the world!! You’ve got a great idea, a great site and LOTS of potential!

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Lyndon Antcliff writes a post entitled “Is This the Thing That Will Destroy Digg?“  The thing? … is other Digg-like websites.  Specifically, Pligg (a new content management system) driven sites that are built to be Digg-like.  Not too surprisingly, there is an explosion of new web destinations that are tapping into the benefits of Web 2.0 attributes and are taking social networking in completely fresh directions.  Be sure to check out Lyndon’s great list of Pligg driven sites.  My favorite is www.pixelgroovy.com, focusing on tutorials for cool effects in Photoshop and Illustrator.  My wife is SURE to love www.DealDigg.com focusing on fabulous shopping deals.

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We call it micro-content. First, open up a web page. Then, close your eyes and back away from your desk 4 or 5 feet (don’t knock over your printer or that plant stand behind you). Open your eyes and start absorbing the contents of the page for 5 seconds. QUICK, close your eyes! OK, what did you reaaalllly see? Here’s a likely scenario …

• First you saw the logo/company name in the upper left (we read from top to bottom, left to right, yes?)
• Next, your eyes likely popped over or down to a large headline or a large prominent image
• After that, the next image or sub-header
• Finally, your eyes will scan hyper links, text with a color other than black and titles on images

All of this is the most important information on your site! Now, ask yourself these questions:

• If a visitor does this for YOUR home page, what do they feel?
• Do they know exactly what you do with only this information?
• Does this information connect with your visitors?
• Is there a call to action?
• Are visitors engaged enough to want to click through for more information?

If none of this holds true, you’re going to have very poor results with that page. Here’s a great tip from Anita Campbell about how to get people to read instead of skim.” It’s all about the micro-content!

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Think back … take Poindexter’s “Way Back Machine” to just one or two years ago. Back to the first moment where you heard about Web 2.0. How has the world changed for your online presence? More specifically, how has your online marketing changed? Pretty amazing, yes?

Take all of these changes and imagine taking your blogging to a new level where a site out there knows your areas of interest and expertise AND tells other people about you based on their specific questions. Think “search engine” mashed with “social network” mashed with “blog directory” mashed with “dynamic content”.

Check out what the new kids on the block are doing over at Yedda.com.

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