All Entries in the "Social Media" Category

Afraid of Social Media? Excuse 2: No One To Monitor

In part two of a series on why companies are slow to embrace social media, I want to look at another common excuse I hear from existing clients. When questioned as to why they have yet to get involved in social media, they complain that there is no one within their company who can actually monitor any social media sites they get involved with.

Afraid of Social Media? Excuse 1: Lack of Control

Traditional companies have been very slow to embrace the social media/networking phenomena. As I work with companies who are running existing search marketing campaigns, I hear a broad range of excuses why they have yet to jump on the social media/networking bandwagon. The first of many excuses is that companies fear they will not be able to control the social media environments should they get involved.

Mixx Beginning To Monetize Itself

Slowly but surely, the up and coming social news site Mixx is beginning to monetize itself. And why shouldn’t they? With over 5 million unique visitors to the site in October alone, Mixx has seen steady growth since their debut a little over a year ago.

Mixx Celebrates One Year Anniversary & Offers Goodies

It’s hard to believe that Mixx is already one year old. The better-than-Digg- alternative to Digg has experienced a lot of growth in that time as well. Thanks to the growing Mixx community, they have seen the number of visitors grow 500%. Mixx now gets more than 4 million unique visitors each month!

In a post on the official Mixx blog, the social news site is happy to remind its community why it is different from the other guys out there.

New Features at Mixx – Nested Comments, Domain Endorsing & More

Mixx has announced a variety of new features related to the comment system, communities, fighting spam, awards and has even added domain endorsing. All in all they make Mixx an even better user experience than it already is. Following is a summary of what has been added, updated and improved.

How To Promote Yourself on Social Sites Without Actually “Promoting Yourself”

I was recently asked the question, “How do you market your company on social news / bookmarking sites without appearing like a spammer?” This is a great question — one that has a pretty straightforward answer but which also requires a lot of work. Why? Because it is easy to sign up for a social bookmarking site and simply submit your own “stuff.” Submitting your own stuff does however not guarantee that your efforts will be successful. There is actually a lot more to it.

Mixx Adds Communities Which is Like Groups on Steroids

Mixx announces today that they are taking their mantra of ultra-personalization to a whole new level with the launch of Mixx Communities. These Communities, described as “Mixx Groups on steroids,” are much like the Groups function you may or may not already be using, however Communities allows you to “customize” by importing an image header and/or logo, choosing a custom color scheme, and determining specific topics and categories to include. They are almost like custom Mixx sites within the larger Mixx portal.

My Twitter Wish List

Besides just hoping that Twitter runs consistently without experiencing outages all the time, there are a few things I would love to see the micro-blogging service add that would make the Twitter even more useful than it already is. Even though it is several months till Christmas, I give you my Twitter wish list.

Twitter – We Need To Talk

I love Twitter. I have become quite accustomed to having TwitterFox beeping out sounds of updated tweets (what us Twitter users call posts) as I click on its icon to see what they are. It has been great to keep up with what friends and colleagues are doing in their daily lives. Twitter has also been very useful in asking questions or learning about other people’s opinions. It has been a handy tool for online discussion. It has even made it quite easy to post links of interest or ask fellow Twitter users to vote up a social news submission on sites like Digg, Mixx and Sphinn.

Search Marketing Workshop To Be Held in Phoenix, Arizona – June 18, 2008

For the longest time I have wanted to participate in a local seminar in my own community of Phoenix Arizona on the subject of search engine marketing. Now that will be fulfilled in the inaugural event of the National Marketing Academy as they host the Phoenix Search Engine & Internet Marketing Workshop.

When Submitting to Social News Sites is a Complete Waste of Time

Submitting stories, blog posts and articles to social news sites such as Digg, Mixx, Sphinn and others can be very time-consuming but if done properly, can also have huge payoffs. Why then do so many people shoot themselves in the foot by not following proper etiquette? Is there such a thing as “social bookmarking etiquette?” Certainly there is! Here are a few things to keep in mind if you want to get the most out of your social bookmarking activities.

Mixx Tweaks and Updates

I should almost make this a weekly column as the fine folks at Mixx are always working to make their social news service better. Here are some of the latest updates, most of which are a result of feedback and suggestions from members.