One thing that always grinds my ears a bit is when a person reverts to over the top annoyance just to have their story seen and forget the rules of humanity in the meantime.  To really help identify these users and why they are annoying, I wrote a post over at Search Engine Land entitled The 6 Types of Annoying Social Media Promoters.

Here is a snapshot for my own internal names to these social annoyances:

• The Impersonal Users
• The Crazed Cross Promoters
• The One Way Streeters
• The Always an Emergency Users
• The Convenient Users
• The Total Spammers

Think you might be one of them?  Well head on over to Search Engine Land to read the full article and find out!

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In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is allowing for the creation of vanity “usernames” that will allow you to customize your Facebook address.  This change is a permanent and non-transferable … so select wisely.

What ‘Usernames’ Applies To

Users will be able to register custom usernames for both profiles and Facebook pages.  In case you aren’t familiar with the two, profiles are for human beings while fan pages are used for businesses, brands, causes and more.  Groups and applications cannot be given a Facebook username.  You can register Saturday Morning (12:01 EST) at the Facebook username page.

How Profiles & Pages Work in the SERPs

Profiles

Yesterday, Digg announced the release of “Digg Ads” a new advertising platform that will hopefully pull their finances out of the red.  What is different about this form of advertising on Digg, is that it is the first time that they have mixed the content in with the ads.

Ads will look exactly like a normal submission with the exception that no submitter will be present and a small line will appear on the top and bottom of the article with the text  “sponsored” above.

A Brief History of Digg Ads

Digg has never really figured out how to really monetize advertisements on the site.  They have looked for help in figuring out what users wanted, and tested out different platforms.  Digg started up using Google as an ad provider with a mix of Federated Media placements.  Then about two years ago Digg moved away from Google AdSense and gave Microsoft a spin at providing ads.  This year Digg again tried mixing it up by dropping Microsoft to try slinging their own ads.  In addition to going it alone on the ad front, Digg hired away Federated Media’s Sales Chief about a week ago as their Chief revenue Officer.

In case you haven’t heard, yesterday Digg removed the controversial “shout” feature that allowed users to share stories with one another.  This feature was Digg’s only internal tool for communication that was put in place a little over a year and a half ago.

History

Shouts were supposed to even the playing field between ‘power users’ and the common Digger.  This feature allowed users to select a story that they enjoyed and send it directly to their friends on Digg.  Shouts did empower numerous Digg users and did help more stories gain awareness and become popular when otherwise they might not have.  However, one major problem occurred, the majority of users abused this, and used it as a spammy broadcast tool. This turned off many long-time users who turned off shouts, or simply left the site.

While there has been a rather large commotion (mostly negative) about the recent release of the DiggBar we have been watching and tracking its usage to find out how the community actually uses it.   Surprisingly, we have found many beneficial aspects to the bar, and discovered a handful of ways that you can use the DiggBar or a shortened URL( DiggURL)  help your success on Digg.

(If you haven’t seen the DiggBar yet, check the following video)

Who Sees The DiggBar

Many people will argue that framing a website is intrinsically evil.  If you are one of this mindset, I would like to say that Digg’s most recent changes have honestly attempted to make the frame visible only to those who choose to view it, though it still does frame a website.  So before we get into the benefits of the DiggBar, we can take a look at who will and will not see the DiggBar to begin with:

Guess what?  Social networking online is very similar to social networking offline (in the real world)!  Big surprise?  Believe it or not, for some, it really is a surprise. Whether you are looking to grow your network, influence, awareness and reach or advancing your professional and personal goals it’s important to recognize that being successful in social networking online and offline are very similar.  Most of us know the rules for networking in the real world, but it’s important to remember them for online, particularly if you are making your first moves into online social media and social networking.  The following are tips to become a decent social networker in either medium. Most tips apply in both scenarios.

Last week I gave a presentation at SES NY and included a list of 35 niche social media sites that we participate in regularly. Lots of people have asked me for this list so I decided to put it here. The following 35 sites are broken down into 8 different categories and each site has an active community and can help you get exposure. These sites aren’t going to send you 50,000 visitors but they will send you targeted traffic & links (if you’re content is good).

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Elite Retreat.  It was an amazing event.  One where I felt I learned just as much from the attendees as the speakers (who were awesome!).  Shoemoney did a nice recap of the conference here and so did Scott Hendison.  Shoe isn’t sure if he’s going to do it next year but if he does – I would highly recommend attending.

A bunch of people have asked me where I am going to speaking in the upcoming days, so I figured it would be easiest to give a rundown of the conferences I am going to be at and the panels I will be on.

Pubcon South (March 11th – 13th * Austin, TX)

Having trouble getting exposure for your linkbait on social media news sites? Well, complain about algorithms all you want, but the odds are you’re doing something wrong.  Identifying these 5 main mistakes along with these tips to correct them, can help you debug your social media problems leading you to social success!

This is a no-brainer; social media ‘power users’ do exist.  While you DON’T need to be a power user to find success on sites like Digg and Reddit, you DO need to be a part of the community.  If you don’t regularly participate in the community, vote on stories, submit great content (not just your stuff) and make friends … then the odds of  your content becoming popular are severely limited.

Great content needs to be seen and, ideally, voted on then shared. After spending the time creating the content, spend a bit more gearing up the page so that it can so it will receive optimal social media votes. We have created a one stop shop for all your social media site buttons and badge needs.

Site Specific Buttons

If your website is tailor-made for a specific social news site, try one of these buttons/badges.  These buttons allow visitors to vote quickly and easily if they deem the content worthy.

Reddit Buttons

The Reddit button allows for visitors to vote directly for your site (and see the current # of votes) on Reddit.

Reddit WordPress Plugin

Adds a Reddit badge to every post on WordPress blogs.

Digg Badges