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

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).

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

Internet advertising can be tricky, especially when dealing with social media. How do you get users to see ads without being ignored or too in your face? While ads bring essential revenue to a website, they can also turn off social media visitors losing crucial social media votes in the process. So don’t waste your valuable linkbait by using tactics that will hinder results and follow these tips.

Bad Tactics

1. In-Text Advertising

This form of keyword advertising inserts a script into a page and double underlines any keywords.  When the mouse is over the keyword an ad pops up that is associated with it.  Social media users thoroughly dislike this method.  Many times this form of advertising will garner comments like “I feel like I’m on a mine field when I move my cursor.” If you do use in-text advertising, simply turn it off until your story is popular so users can focus on your content, not your ads.

With all of the changes in social media news sites these days, including witch-hunts on Digg/Reddit, the banning of top users, and the increasing difficulty having your story seen above others , it has never been more important to have an account that is sustainable and that doesn’t rely on only one tactic for success.  Those accounts that rely on only one approach for success on Social Media news sites are putting all of their eggs in one basket, and could be setting themselves up for future failures.  To make sure your account will weather the bad (and the good), these are some steps to consider:

Do Not Break the Rules!

Those accounts that relied on scripts and other shortcuts to gain success on Digg.com were weeded out and banned. Following rules is a crucial step in the process. While these “banned substances” are a quick fix and give you short term success, you are begging to be caught and punished for your actions.

We have heard numerous times how people skim articles and posts online, rarely reading everything, looking only for bits of information and then fine tuning focus on what looks important to them. Did you read all that? Good your still with me.

Lets dig into the way we read online and learn how to potentially format content that keeps the readers attention longer.

Last time you were in a book store, shopping for the next book, how did you go about this search? Assuming you didn’t have a title/author in mind maybe you cruised the non-fiction section looking at covers. Then a book cover with a picture of the president elect caught your eye, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE. What happened next?

You turn the book over and read the back, the synopsis, and get a feel if this is of interest to you. “Maybe this self-portrait of the next prez will be intriguing… or maybe I will wait till he writes the next one.”

How many times have you picked up a magazine because of what is on the cover? How many other magazines did you see that didn’t catch your eye? Online we have even shorter attention spans these days (9 to 5 seconds is the new number) because our options are so vast we have no patience. Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, told BBC that “People want sites to get to the point. They have very little patience.”

Visitors to a website or a piece of social media content are heavily influenced by first impressions. How something is designed is not more important than content, but it certainly helps to keep the attention and interest.

Graphic design is visual information management with the main goal to display a strong visual hierarchy that can lead a viewers eye through a page. We scan pages when we first come to a site, looking for elements that capture our eye and then fine tune our vision to investigate deeper. Present the most important information first with the greatest emphasis.