The Big List of Essential Digital and Social Media Tips, Tools and Resources

Scott Cone Freeman+Leonard [email protected] 281-360-6811 blog: www.marktingavatar.wordpress.com Twitter: @Scone LinkedIn: scottacone

Digital and Social Media Tips & Guides

Videos to Get Your Heart and Mind Going

How the Internet is Changing Everything http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wx0GfbC0BA&p laynext_from=TL&videos=V7RE23xhnaw

Digital Platforms Reshape Communications http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CwQGay_tEw& playnext_from=TL&videos=0FqnoVPnDfU

Social Media Revolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

How Social Media Can Make History http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_iN_QubRs0&fe ature=channel

How Cognitive Surplus Can Change Everything http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7ZpWecIS8

The Chaos Scenario http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXG8zaB4eGw&playnext_from=TL&videos=TmRju0z OWx8

Social Media in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=leelefever#p/u/9/MpIOClX1jPE

Blogs in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=leelefever#p/u/12/NN2I1pWXjXI

What is RSS? in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU&feature=user

What is Twitter? in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Twitter Search in Plain English http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=leelefever#p/u/2/jGbLWQYJ6iM

A Master List of Social Media Examples http://wiki.beingpeterkim.com/master-list

VizEd Very useful site with Flash presentations on a variety of web 2.0 tools and technologies http://vizedu.com/

Useful Foundational Articles and Presentations

What Social Media Is and What Social Media Is Not http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/01/what-social-media-is-andwhat-social.html

Listening and Monitoring: How to Use Google Reader Like a Rock Star http://mashable.com/2008/12/07/how-to-use-google-reader/

Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes http://www.chrisbrogan.com/grow-bigger-ears-in-10-minutes/

10 Free Tools to Monitor Your Brand http://mashable.com/2008/12/24/free-brand-monitoring-tools/

14 Tools to Legally Spy on Your Competition http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/10/07/14-tools-to-legally-spy-on-your-competition/

Mashable – Twitter Lists, Resources & How-Tos http://mashable.com/2009/01/01/twitter-user-types/

What the F**K is Social Media? http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later

Shift Happens http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834

How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/how-to-use-social-media-for-lead-generation

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet) http://www.slideshare.net/DavidGillespie/digital-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop- worrying-and-love-the-internet

McKinsey Quarterly: How Companies are Benefitting from Web 2.0 https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/How_companies_are_benefiting_from_Web_20_McKi nsey_Global_Survey_Results_2432

Top 5 Social Media Marketing Mistakes http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2010/ca20100617_480316.htm

Social Media Policies from 100 Organizations

http://socialmediatoday.com/ralphpaglia/141903/social-media- employee-policy-examples-over-100-companies-and-organizations

Looking for some free ways to promote your new website? Here are 101 completely free resources that you can use to promote your site. These resources range in scope from the logical to the completely illogical, but all are free (or require standard household goods), and all can be used for website marketing.

1. Start a Twitter account

2. Create a Facebook page

3. Create a Facebook Application

4. Create a LinkedIn group

5. Learn SEO

6. Submit your site to DMOZ

7. Start a blog

8. Write guest posts on popular blogs in your industry

9. Answer questions on Yahoo answers

10. Answer questions on LinkedIn answers

11. Answer questions on Answers.com

12. Submit articles to Ezine Articles

13. Submit articles to ArticleBase

14. Submit your site to Technorati

15. Submit your site to AllTop

16. E-mail webmasters of relevant sites for links

17. Create exceptional content and submit to Digg

18. Submit more exceptional content to Reddit

19. Submit articles to Associated Content

20. Create a quiz or survey & publish the findings

21. Create a linkable widget

22. Create an embeddable badge

23. Leave intelligent comments on blogs

24. Participate in forums

25. Create a Squidoo page

26. Add a link to your e-mail signature

27. Submit your site to AdAge’s power 150 list (industry specific)

28. Submit articles to Sphinn (industry specific)

29. Submit your content to Delicious

30. Submit your sites RSS feed to RSS directories

31. Create videos, submit to YouTube, link back to your website

32. Repeat #30 on blip.tv

33. Repeat #30 on DailyMotion

34. Repeat #30 on Yahoo Video

35. Repeat #30 on MySpace Video

36. Repeat #30 on Viddler

37. Repeat #30 on MetaCafe

38. Create a podcast, submit to iTunes

39. Create a podcast, submit to Podcast Alley

40. Create a podcast, submit to Blog Talk Radio

41. Start a MySpace page

42. Take great photos, upload to Flickr and link back to your website

43. Add a link to your website in your LinkedIn profile

44. Add a link to your website in your NaymZ profile

45. Create a local business listing in Google

46. Submit your local business listing to Insider Pages

47. Create a local business listing in Yelp

48. Create a presentation, and submit to SlideShare

49. Get interviewed and talk about your website

50. Interview interesting people in your industry and publish on your website

51. Bookmark your content on Mister-Wong

52. Submit your site to StumbleUpon

53. Create a “how-to” video that’s relevant to your industry and submit to eHow

54. Create a FriendFeed account and tie in your RSS feed

55. Add a link to your Facebook profile

56. Send a note to all your Facebook friends about your new site

57. Send a message to all your LinkedIn contacts about your new site

58. Throw a launch party, find another company to sponsor it

59. Create a contest and give away items you already own

60. Create some art and submit to DeviantArt

61. Create an eBook and submit to Scribd

62. Write an academic article about your industry, use it as a reference on a Wikipedia page

63. Sign up for a Card.ly account

64. Join Meetup.com and start a group, list your website as a sponsor

65. Be the first to write about a piece of breaking news

66. Create a blip.fm profile and add your website

67. Create a WordPress plugin

68. Create a Drupal module

69. Create a Joomla extension

70. Create a Firefox plugin

71. Design a WordPress theme

72. Design a Drupal theme

73. Design a Joomla theme

74. Create a humorous article and submit to Fark

75. Submit your site to Propeller

76. Create a profile on iReport and submit a news story

77. Join NowPublic and submit a news story, use your website as a source

78. Write an article about open source technology, submit to Slashdot

79. Start a networking group for your industry, have people sign up on your website

80. E-mail your friends about your website

81. E-mail your family about your website

82. E-mail your coworkers about your website

83. Create a Craigslist ad offering your writing talents, use your website as example work

84. Become a writer for about.com, link to your website in a post

85. Become a writer for examiner.com, link to your website in a post

86. Give a presentation at an industry conference, mention your website in your presentation

87. Submit an open source software project to SourceForge

88. Create a Tumblr site

89. Create a Posterous site

90. Create a Blogger site

91. Start a band, get listed on last.fm, link to your website

92. Create a virtual product, and join an affiliate network to sell it

93. Volunteer for a local non-profit, get listed on their website

94. Network with other bloggers, get them to write about your website

95. Write your website’s URL on your car with soap, drive around till you run out of gas

96. Submit a note to Passive Aggressive Notes, include your URL somewhere in the note

97. Submit a secret to Post Secret, include your URL somewhere in the secret

98. Convince a celebrity to endorse your website

99. Get on a reality TV show, talk incessantly about your website

100. Create a funny sign about your website, stand outside a busy street corner with the sign

101. Start a cable access TV show and talk about your website

Recommended Reading (cont)

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Organizing- Organizations/dp/0143114948/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278768538&sr=1-1

Always On by Christopher Volmer http://www.amazon.com/Always-Advertising-Marketing-Consumer- Business/dp/0071508287/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278769450&sr=1-2

The Chaos Scenario by Bob Garfield http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Scenario-Bob- Garfield/dp/0984065105/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278769608&sr=1-1

The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Marketing-PR- Releases/dp/0470547812/ref=pd_sim_b_4

Recommended Reading (cont)

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Crowds-James- Surowiecki/dp/0385721706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278770260&sr=1-1

Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe http://www.amazon.com/Crowdsourcing-Power-Driving-Future- Business/dp/0307396215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278770410&sr=1-1

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson http://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Revised-Updated- Business/dp/1401309666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278770527&sr=1-1

Social Media Marketing for Dummies by Shiv Singh http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Marketing-Dummies- Singh/dp/0470289341/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278770689&sr=1-1

Recommended Reading (cont)

The Social Media Bible by Lon Safko and David Brake http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Bible-Strategies- Business/dp/0470411554/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278770867&sr=1-1

Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk http://www.amazon.com/Crush-Time-Cash-Your- Passion/dp/0061914177/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278770981&sr=1-1

Engage! by Brian Solis http://www.amazon.com/Engage-Complete-Businesses-Cultivate- Measure/dp/0470571098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771101&sr=1-1

Inbound Marketing by Brian Hallign and Dharmesh Shah http://www.amazon.com/Inbound-Marketing-Found-Google- Social/dp/0470499311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771206&sr=1-1

Recommended Reading (cont)

The Social Media Marketing Book by Dan Zarrella http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Marketing- Book/dp/0596806604/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771411&sr=1-1

Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-101-Tactics- Business/dp/0470563419/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771637&sr=1-2

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Agents-Influence-Improve- Reputation/dp/0470743085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771637&sr=1-1

Facebook Marketing by Justin Levy http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Marketing-Designing-Campaign-Biz- Tech/dp/0789743213/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771776&sr=1-2

Recommended Reading (cont)

Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett http://www.amazon.com/Get-Content-Customers-Prospects- Marketing/dp/0071625747/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278771890&sr=1-1

Get Seen by Steve Garfield http://www.amazon.com/Get-Seen-Secrets-Building- Business/dp/0470525460/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278772014&sr=1-1

Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Metrics-Marketing- Investment/dp/0470583789/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278772138&sr=1-1

Blogging

How To Blog: A Beginnerʼs Blog Publishing Guide http://www.masternewmedia.org/independent_publishing/blogging-how-to-blog/guide-to- publishing-first-blog-20071104.htm.htm

10 Things to Do Before Launching Your Blog http://ow.ly/wZ3K

Writing for Bloggers – A Quick Guide on Style, Substance and Strategy http://kendallcopywriting.co.uk/2009/01/06/writing-for-bloggers-in-blog-form/

Creating a web presence – why bother? http://kendallcopywriting.co.uk/2009/01/14/creating-a-web-presence-why-bother/

Search engine optimization – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

SEOmoz | 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic http://www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tactics-to-increase-blog-traffic

How to optimize website images from a SEO perspective http://blog.avangate.com/optimize-website-images/

The Bloggerʼs Guide to SEO http://www.seobook.com/bloggers

Methods of website linking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_website_linking

Linkbaiting for Fun & Profit http://www.searchenginejournal.com/linkbaiting-for-fun-profit/2541/

Web analytics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

My list of tips for getting the most out of Twitter http://www.joshrussell.com/2008/10/07/my-list-of-tips-for-getting-the-most-out-of-twitter/

Free Twitter backgound template download http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/free-resources/download-free-l-twitter-background/

ʻMemeʼ explained on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Know Your Meme http://knowyourmeme.com

List of social networking websites on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Google Social Search Launches, Gives Results From Your Trusted “Social Circle” http://searchengineland.com/google-social-search-launchesgives-results-from-your-trusted-social- circle-28507

Boolean Searching on the Internet http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.asp

Blogging Workflow and Using Google Reader Like a Rock Star

I’ve been asked by a number of people, “Where do you find the time to blog?” after they find out I manage and edit not only my own personal blog on marketing innovation, digital and social media, mobile and experiential marketing, Marketing Avatar , but also two additional blogs for other businesses in which I’m involved.

Yes, I’m a busy guy but I would never claim to be a blogging expert. I’m just a student trying to learn. Keep that in mind as you read this: There are much more professional bloggers than I. But, what I have developed works for me and after I started using it, I found out a number of real pros use a similar process…which was extremely validating. And, I hope you’ll glean a useful tip or two.

When I started blogging for business January 1, 2010 I didn’t have the confidence to create a lot of my own original content. My initial strategy to build a following was to simply share the things I found interesting related to marketing innovation, digital technology, social media, mobile communications and anything else newsworthy (in my opinion) related to the marketing business.

Mainly, I wanted my blog to be a place where a community of like-minded individuals could find links to interesting content and information. So, that’s what I did each day and for the most part, still do. I find something interesting on the topics I’m covering, include a link to the original article/post/video/document/tool, make a brief comment, insert a visual and publish the post.

I know the pros focus on a lot of original content, but this was a good “get started” strategy for me. And, as I’ve built my following, it’s helped me find my own voice and given me the confidence to put a little more original thought and content out from time to time.

When I started, my goal was to make one post each day, Monday through Friday. My blog is linked to my Twitter account and I knew Twitter would be important to building a following. I also discovered that most of Twitter’s link clicking activity occurs between 6a and 12p. I have ADD and need processes to keep me organized, so I determined to get these posts done first thing in the morning. Juggling blogging along with all my other responsibilities and work load, I needed an easy to follow and use system that could help me stay organized and get this done in a efficient manner at the start of each day. So, I created the work flow process I’m going to share here.

This process was designed to be used with the WordPress blogging platform but I’m sure there are ways to do it with other platforms with some adaptation. In fact, one of the blogs I manage is on SquareSpace, a new blogging and web site platform. The process still works, it’s just not as integrated and you’ll see why as you read through this.

Step 1: Get A Reader Going The first thing everyone tells you to do for blogging content inspiration and ideas is to monitor what’s already going on in your topical area of interest. Read other blogs. Monitor the conversation going on in other communities.

You could spend forever finding web sites and blogs addressing a certain topic. As of this April, there were over 100 million blogs and about 20,000 new ones are created EVERY

DAY. But, an easy way to keep track of information has emerged in the last couple years called RSS.

What Exactly is RSS?

Click on the link below to watch a brief YouTube video that explains RSS.

What is RSS? in Plain English

In case you printed this or don’t have internet access right now, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is an electronic way to have the content come find you instead of having to visit a bunch of sites to find it. The logo at the right is one way sites indicate they support RSS. Subscriptions.

As they mention in the video, two RSS Readers are Google Reader and NewsGator.

Google Reader is a reader you access through your browser. It comes with a Google account, also free. Check it out here:

Google Reader

NetGator, which has both Windows and Mac readers, as well as iPhone and iPad versions. They are applications, with both free and paid version. You download them and install them to use on your computer desktop. These also sync with Google reader, so you can use both to set up and view subscriptions. It’s sometimes more convenient to read and save articles through these readers but there are advantages to Google for blogging, as I’ll show. Check these NewsGator readers out here:

Step 2: Finding Content and Getting Subscriptions into Your Reader

Once you have your reader account or software, you need to subscribe to the sites and blogs that address topical content of interest to you and that plan on using as a source of information, inspiration and linking in your own blogging efforts. I’ll walk you through how to do this in Google reader.

There are several types of things you can subscribe to such as: • Individual sites and blogs that support RSS • Google alerts on specific terms • Google search results on specific terms and topics • Technorati search results http://www.technorati.com • Icerocket search results http://www.icerocket.com/ • Twitter search results on specific terms and topics http://search.twitter.com/

• Other search tools that allow for RSS feeds of search results

Here’s a screen shot of what my Google reader looks like with all my subscriptions. You can see on the left side of the screen there are a bunch of folders. My subscriptions are all organized into topical categories. This makes it easy for me to click on a folder and quickly scan all the news and info on that topic. Clicking on the article takes me to the article on the original site.

You can have as many subscriptions in each folder as you please. In my “Marketing” folder, I have over 150 subscriptions from blogs, sites and Google Alerts (more on this later) on various marketing topics. When you click on a folder the window at the right will show all the posts from all the subscriptions in that folder.

I’ll walk you through how to set up subscriptions using Google reader. There are several ways to do this. • Right from Google reader • By executing a Google search then adding subs from there • By subscribing on a site your visiting • By using a Add-On tool in your browser

Subscribing Through Google reader

So, you’ve set up Google reader and you’re going to start adding subscriptions. Let’s say you’re interested in starting a blog on scuba diving.

You can see at the top left, under the Google reader logo is a rectangular “Add a subscription” button that looks like this:

When you click on it, it will open up to this:

You can do two things at this point:

1. Enter a search term and Google will do a search on the term and give you a whole host of sites with content on that topic, along subscription buttons below each result.

Here’s what that looks like:

You can click any of these to add them to your reader subs.

As the below example shows, when I clicked the “subscribe” button under an article, it added a RSS icon with title of the site “Scuba Diving Community” to my Google reader subs. You can also it gives me the option of adding that sub to a folder.

Clicking that “Add to a folder” will open a window that allows you to create a folder in Google reader for that particular topic. Organizing your feeds on a particular topic in folders, it allows you to quickly and easily scan all the information and news on that topic.

2. The second method works well if you already know a site you want to subscribe to. Just copy and paste the url into this box and click add and Google will add it to your reader subs.

Subscribing Through Searches and Alerts

Searches

Another way to add subs is to add RSS feeds based on searches. If you want to get a comprehensive overview of a topic, you can do this through several search tools. I’ll cover this approach using Google search and alerts.

Again, using our Scuba diving topic, we’ll enter our term in Google search and then click on the blog icon on the left side to go to blog search results. You cannot do what I’m about to describe by going directly to Google blogsearch: http://blogsearch.google.com/

Scroll to the bottom of the blog search results and you’ll see “Subscribe to a blog search feed for scuba diving in Google Reader”.

Clicking this will add the search results of this page only to Google reader. If you want more, you have to go to additional pages of search results and use the same process.

You can also create Google Reader RSS searches from Twitter, IceRocket, Technorati and any other search tool that supports RSS then feed these into Google Reader. No one tool covers every subject exhaustively so it’s good to use multiple services if you want to comprehensively monitor the conversation.

Alerts

Your can also create “Alerts” with Google, which notify you every time there’s content on the subject for which you create an alert. Google let’s you choose: • How you want to receive your alerts (email, SMS, RSS) • The kind of content (blogs, video, everything, etc.) to which you want to be alerted • How often to alert you • How many results you want

If you create an alert and want to alert it later, Google lets you manage all your alerts.

Subscribing from a Site The final way to create an RSS feed in Google Reader is directly from a site or blog that supports RSS.

Back to our scuba example. I went to Google and did a search on scuba. There was an article in the LA Times on a Russian diver trying to teach his dachshund to scuba dive. Sounded interesting. So clicked the Google link and I went there so subscribe.

Right there in the right hand top of the LA Times article page is our friendly little RSS icon.

Click on it and you get this:

Clicking on the Google rectangle gives you this screen:

Finally, clicking the “Add to Google Reader” button will add this site to your Google Reader feed.

Bringing All Together for a Blogging Work Flow

Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I use WordPress as my blogging platform. But, there’s another essential tool in my work flow process and that’s the FireFox.

The reason I love FireFox so much is that it supports handy little tools that make my blogging life easier. These tools are called Add- ons, pug-ons or extensions. For example, on the Mozilla site, where you find the FireFox plug-ins, there are ways to search for a whole host of customization options that allow you to easily download videos from YouTube, access your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts and do a thousand other things…all from the FireFox browser toolbar.

Here’s what my FireFox browser window looks like. You can see all the other little tools I’ve added to it and how I’ve customized even the look with Iron Man.

But here’s the coolest part about WordPress and FireFox…there’s a little bookmarklet (like a plug in) available when you create your WordPress blog called “Press This” that you can add to FireFox and then when you’re on an article you like, with the click of the Press This bookmark on your toolbar, you can publish the article you’re wanting right into your blog.

I also believe that visuals make a post more interesting. So, I use some screen/image capture tools to clip images I want to add into my posts. My favorite is SnagIt for Mac which also has a windows version. But, there are several excellent image capture and editing tools available…many for free!

My Work Flow So, here’s what I do that bring all these tools together into a workable blogging post process.

• First thing each morning Monday through Friday, I sit at my desk with my cup of coffee and a cup of granola and I open FireFox and click on my Google reader toolbar extension (circled in red below)

• I scan through all my marketing RSS feeds to find something compelling. When I find an article or post I like, I click on it and it takes me to the originating site.

• I then click the “Press This” bookmark for the blog I want to post to (one is installed in my FireFox bookmarks for each blog I manage). You can have multiple blogs linked to the same Press This bookmarklet or a different one for each blog. • This opens a Press This window where I can edit the post and add in my own comments or whatever else I want to do. When I’m done, I click the “Publish” button and it publishes my post and gives me the option to visit my blog to view the post or edit it. I click edit if I want to add an image, video, poll or any other object.

• For an image, I open a new tab in my browser and go to Google and type in the name of an image that will go with my post. When I get the search results, I click on the “Images” search results and find an image I like. I then go to the image, use SnagIt to capture it, save it to my desktop with a name I can remember.

• I go back to the WordPress “Edit My Blog” tab in my browser, click the icon for “Upload an Image”, navigate to the image on my desktop, upload it, click the “Insert Image into Post” button at the bottom of the WordPress editing screen, add a caption to the image (since search engines don’t like just images) then click publish and I’m done…in under ten minutes!

Tools and Resources

Search Tools, Analytics, Alerts

http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.google.com/analytics/

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

Google AdWords

http://www.semrush.com/

http://www.wordtracker.com/

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/

http://www.woopra.com/

https://www.concentrateme.com/features/

http://www.attentionmeter.com/

http://xinureturns.com/

Real Time and Social Search

http://www.whatthetrend.com/

http://www.oneriot.com/

http://collecta.com/

http://www.scoopler.com/

http://www.scour.com/

http://ensembli.com/

http://www.freebase.com/

Site Analytics

http://www.compete.com/

http://www.hitwise.com/us

http://www.quantcast.com/

http://www.alexa.com/topsites

http://www.webtrends.com/

http://websitegrader.com/

Blog Search and Trends

http://technorati.com/

Google Feedburner

http://blogsearch.google.com/

http://www.blogpulse.com/

http://www.icerocket.com/

http://www.blogscope.net/

http://www.podcastdirectory.com/

iTunes Audio and Video podcasts www.itunes.com (no direct url access to podcasts. You must download and install iTunes)

http://www.podcastalley.com/

http://omgili.com/graphs.html

Social Monitoring and Analytics

A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions

Master List (A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples)

Email database social media profiling tool http://www.rapleaf.com/

Email database social media profiling tool http://www.flowtown.com/

http://www.radian6.com/

http://en- us.nielsen.com/content/nielsen/en_us/product_families/nielsen_buzzme trics.html

http://www.visibletechnologies.com/

http://www.collectiveintellect.com/

http://www.mutualmind.com/

http://addictomatic.com/

http://klout.com/

http://www.feedmagnet.com/

http://www.objectivemarketer.com/

http://www.backtype.com/

http://www.trackur.com/

https://analytics.postrank.com/

http://www.trackle.com/search/

http://www.scoutlabs.com/

http://www.socialmention.com/

http://www.trendrr.com/

http://www.viralheat.com/

http://www.engagementdb.com/

http://swixhq.com/SWIX.html

http://www.workstreamer.com/

http://sm2.techrigy.com/main/

http://analytic.ly/

http://www.buzzstream.com/social-media

http://www.yacktrack.com/search

http://www.buzzlogic.com/

http://www.cymfony.com/Solutions/Our-Approach/Orchestra-Platform

http://converseon.com/us/home/

http://evolve24.com/

http://www.howsociable.com/

http://www.sentimentmetrics.com/

http://us.cision.com/media-monitoring/social-media- monitoring.asp

http://www.dragonsearchmarketing.com/online-marketing- strategy/social-media-marketing/social-networking-media-roi- calculator/

Facebook

http://www.kurrently.com/

http://itstrending.com/

http://www.booshaka.com/

http://facepinch.com/

http://youropenbook.org/

http://www.insidefacebook.com/

Boards and Forums

http://www.boardtracker.com/

http://omgili.com/

http://boardreader.com/

http://www.big-boards.com/

http://co.mments.com/login

Twitter Tools

SEARCH http://search.twitter.com/

http://bit.ly/a/sign_up

http://wefollow.com/

http://lists.tweetmeme.com/

http://listorious.com/

http://twitter.grader.com/top/users

http://twitaholic.com/

http://tweetvalue.com/

http://twittermeter.com/

Twitter search engine http://topsy.com/

http://tweepsearch.com/

http://twitturly.com/

http://tweetscan.com/

http://www.twazzup.com/

http://tweetstats.com/

http://www.twitscoop.com/

http://tweetmeme.com/

http://tweetbeep.com/

http://www.tweetvolume.com/

http://www.twitgraph.com/

http://www.crowdeye.com/

http://www.twilert.com/

Twitter Tools Our guide to Brand monitoring on Twitter – 5 top tools http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/twitter-brand-monitoring-tools/

Our list of 50+ apps for Twitter marketing http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/free-resources/twitter-marketing-best-twitter-apps/

Mr. Tweet – Your Personal Networking Assistant! http://mrtweet.net/

Hootsuite http://hootsuite.com/

Twitterfall – a way of viewing the latest ʻtweetsʼ of upcoming trends http://twitterfall.com/

Seesmic – Twitter & FB app http://seesmic.com/

Twitterrific – Mac & iPhone app http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific

TweetDeck – Twitter, FB & MySpace app http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

Power Twitter – Firefox Add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9591

Twuffer – schedule tweets for later! http://twuffer.com/

TweetBeep http://tweetbeep.com/

Jim Grygar’s list of 60 Twitter tools http://jimgrygar.byethost12.com/60-twitter-tools-to-track-tweets/

Monitter http://monitter.com

Best Twitter Directories and User Search Tools Prospective customers may not just land on your lap; Twitter Directories and User Search Tools are an excellent way of hunting down your target audience. • Twellow, WeFollow, JustTweetIt, TwitR and TwitDir Twellow dubs itself “The Twitter Yellow Pages” and allows you to search for tweeple by occupations and interests. Twellow probably offers the most comprehensive listing, but WeFollow, JustTweetIt and TwitR are similar tools and worth using too. Some, such as TwitDir, allow you to search by words (in profile names, locations or descriptions) – handy for searching via a term relevant to your target audience e.g. “project manager”, “student”, “photography”. • TwellowHood and Geofollow To find people by location – excellent if your market is within a certain area – try Twellow’s TwellowHood, which allows you to search by a click on the map, or Geofollow – a location-based directory. If that’s not enough for you, see this list of 20 Twitter Directories. Also, make sure you add a profile to the popular ones such as Twellow, so that others can find you too! There are so many of these that your head may well be spinning. But don’t worry – no one actually uses all of these! We generally use Twellow at Silicon Beach Training – just find your own favourite or two and stick with that. • Klout, Twinfluence and http://twinfluence.com/TweetLevel These tools are slightly different – Klout not only suggests people you could follow based on your existing followers, it also ranks followers by “klout” i.e. Twitter-power. You can see how influential you are, and who are the top influential or influencable tweeters in your network! This is excellent for working out who it’s important to start / maintain dialogues with (start this off by @replying or re-tweeting to get their attention). Twinfluence offers slightly fewer features, but it is very simple to use; you enter a twitter ID and are informed of the user’s influence. TweetLevel is similar; although only in beta at the moment, it offers a really clear breakdown of how well you’re (or any user is) engaging and gaining trust on Twitter – and what you can do to improve it. • Mr Tweet My Tweet is great if you want to find more people to connect with and cannot be bothered with ploughing through user directories as it suggests people to you. You can also reccomend people you follow to others – if you’re the philanthropic type ;-)

Best Customized Twitter Backgrounds for your Profile

• Our Free Professional Twitter Background Template Using a customised Twitter background is essential if you’re serious about using Twitter to build your brand, as it offers a way to establish your image and stand out from the crowd. At Silicon Beach Training we wanted to be able to show more on our Twitter page; with it’s 140 character limit (even in the profile description) Twitter can be incredibly frustrating when you want to give your potential customers more information – our template allows you to have a logo and contact details displayed on your background. • Twitr Backgrounds Twitr Backgrounds is a good choice if you’re not too sharp on Photoshop and want something completely unique designed for you – there’s a price to pay for that though, at $99 US dollars. Check the site out for inspiration too or download one of their selection of free designs. • Tweet Backs Tweet Backs allows people to upload their own Twitter backgrounds and share them with others – for free! There are some really great ones on this website, but there’re loads more all over the web. Just Google “free Twitter background” if Tweet Backs doesn’t do it for you.

Best Twitter Apps to Monitor Trends • Twitter Search Shock horror – Twitter actually has its own tool for this!! Twitter Search gives you a sample of the latest trends and allow you to search by hashtags or topics to see what people are saying right now. • TweetMeme If you’re wondering what kind of links to share on Twitter – and how to get loads of retweets, then check out TweetMeme which posts the “Hottest Links” on Twitter, with information about when it became popular and how often it has been tweeted. • TwitScoop TwitScoop offers many services but the most handy is its real-time “Hot Trends” and search facilities, which you don’t have to sign up to.

• Twitterfall The writer’s favourite trend search tool, reliable Twitterfall does what it says on the tin; updates ‘fall’ down the screen with your chosen search term. You can search by location too and although Twittefall doesn’t come with any snazzy additional features, it does tend to pick up tweets that other apps may miss. • GeoChirp Like TwellowHood and Geofollow, GeoChirp is an invaluable tool if you’re targetting a geographically- specific market. With it’s easy clickable Google map, you can select a specific locations and then follow what’s being said or conduct a search e.g. a cafe owner in Brighton may want to search “cafe” to see what kind of conversations are being had in their area.

Best Twitter Apps for Monitoring Your Brand • Tweetvolume Tweetvolume isn’t the easiest for seeing who mentioned your brand/keyword or what they said – only showing the most recent tweet and allowing you to click back through the other most recent. However, it’s really handy when you want to compare terms e.g. finding out which is the more popular term or hashtag. • TweetBeep TweetBeep sends hourly alerts whenever someone @replies, @mentions or just mentions your company/chosen keywords. @ tweets do come up automatically on Twitter (or your chosen Twitter managing tool), but this facility allows you to monitor people talking about you without the @-tag (or behind your back so to speak!) – a handy way to keep an eye on feedback, including responding to negative comments. You can even pay $20 a month for 15 minute alerts – a bit much for us here, but great if you’re managing the brand of a huge company. • Monitter Monitter is a particularly efficient tool, allowing you to monitor Twitter updates in real-time, with location- based searches available, up to three constantly updating search query columns and even a downloadable widget. Whatever method you choice, monitoring Twitter is essential and a really unique opportunity to directly and immediately address user feedback. Things can spread so quickly online it’s important to keep and eye on what people are saying. Monitoring Twitter is excellent for damage control and the personal aspect (rather than an automatic email/post response, or a programmed and bored tele-agent) can often turn around negative customer feedback. The “all publicity is good publicity” maxim has never been more applicable; it’s worse if nothing is being said about your brand – the above Twitter tools are also useful in finding ways to create a buzz and get people talking.

Best Twitter Apps for Polls and Questions • Lazy Tweet Lazy Tweet is simple to use – include @lazytweet in your question and it will feature on the website as well as the Twitter page with over 1900 followers. • Twitter Answers This is an excellent tool for asking questions that will reach over 13, 000 followers, although it’s oddly less popular than Lazy Tweet. You need to sign up on the website first. Then follow QNA and send a DM to ask a question (e.g. “D QNA What is the best Thai restaurant in Brighton?”). It’s also worth following them (@QNA or @lazytweet) on Twitter to keep an eye on questions relevant to your field that you can answer – a step to establishing yourself as a Thought Leader! Again there are tons of these (see this list of more apps for asking questions on Twitter) – don’t drive yourself mad by using all of them to ask questions, but it’s probably worth following several, to look out for questions to answer. • Straw Poll You need to sign up for this on the web; it allows you to post questions with two fixed answers to choose from – or a poll in other words! It’s a great way to conduct market research e.g. “Which course would you be more interested in?” – with WordPress training and Blogging training as the options. The only downer is that you can only have two answer options. But once you’ve signed up it is super quick to use. • Twitter PollDaddy If you need a poll with several answer options, PollDaddy is the best choice: you don’t have to sign up and you can have up to 20 answer choices – including an optional “Other” where people can type their own answer in. It’s still only in Beta mode at the moment, but it’s already the favourite at Silicon Beach Training. • Twittpoll Twittpoll only posts a poll a day and you can’t create your own (only @twittpoll message suggestions). But it’s still worth following for the opportunity to answer polls.

Twitter Tools to Grow Your Following (BEWARE!!) • AutoPilot Tweet, Tweet Adder and The Tweet Tank AutoPilot Tweet, Tweet Adder and The Tweet Tank offer marketing software for $39.99, from $55 and for $59.99 respectively, allowing features such as auto follows and unfollows or targeting specific followers based on keywords. • My List Strategy Another tool that claims to do it all, this time extracting leads and traffic from sites that you don’t own – from $47… These are just three tools and there are plenty around – all claiming to make you a Twitter elite with thousands of followers. Beware of this! See Colin’s post on How to buy friends and influence no one and Heather’s How to spot a Twitter spammer. In our experience at Silicon Beach Training nothing beats social media marketing by spending a bit of time and cultivating real relationships – something that the other tools we’ve listed can help you with.

Best Twitter Promotion Tools • twibs and Twellow Add a free business listing to twibs, Twellow and other similar buisiness directories – it’s really worth taking some time to do this so that people can find you! • Magpie and Twittad This is another grey area, but these tools essentially allow you to pay for / sponsor conversations.

Best Auto-Tweet Apps for Time-Saving: Multiple Accounts and Scheduling • HootSuite HootSuite provides an alternative user-interface to Twitter itself, allowing you to do everything you can do on Twitter a bit easier as well as more! See our comparison of HootSuite and TweetDeck for more on these invaluable applications. One of HootSuite’s main selling points is its auto-tweet function, allowing you to save tweets for later or schedule them for when you’ll be away from the Internet. • TwitterFeed TwitterFeed allows you to connect your other social media accounts and blogs with Twitter so that they automatically tweet updates when you post or publish something. • Social Oomph There’s a pay version of this with other features such as Facebook account management too, but the tweet scheduling feature is free as are many others such as tracking key words and sending DMs to new followers. • Twit Response and http://twitresponse.com/Twuffer Twit Response and Twuffer are in beta at the moment, but they still offer the most straightforward ways to schedule tweets, with no fussy extra features. • CoTweet Last but not least comes CoTweet – the most popular tool for scheduling from a LinkedIn discussion we had. This is really handy for businesses who want to manage multiple accounts or create passwords for various levels of access.

Best Twitter Analytics and Link-Monitoring Tools • HootSuite and TweetDeck As long as you shorten all your URLs (e.g. bit.ly or owl.ly) both of these management tools offer statistics on the links you’ve posted, with handy graphs on HootSuite – see our HootSuite v. TweetDeck comparison for more details. • Twittertise Twitterise allows link shortening and tracking, again allowing you to monitor the popularity of your links. • Twitalyzer and Twitter Counter With its easy to use interface Twitalyzer offers in-depth and practical stats on retweets, influence, clout, references, followers, generosity, use of hashtags and more. Twitter Counter offers less information and focuses on growth in terms of tweets and followers over the last three months. • TweetReach This tool shows how many eyes your tweet has reached based on retweeters and their followers – it’s not as good as a thorough analytics tool like Twitalyzer, but it’s a good presentation of the power of the tweet!

Best Twitter Follower Managing Tools • FriendOrFollow Your brand will come across better if more people are following you than you are following or at least the numbers are near even. FriendOrFollow doesn’t require a sign up and simply searches your account to find who you’re following who isn’t following you and vice versa. This is also particularly handy to keep and eye on spammers who follow just to get a follow back, only to unfollow you shortly afterwards! • Listerine and Listomatic These are two of many tools that will help you organise your followers into lists (more easily than doing it through Twitter) – handy if you have a broad range of products and want to be able to organise your target customer-base. Listerine is Silicon Beach Training’s Heather’s favourite as she notes in her post on Easily managing Twitter lists, and Listomatic provides a colourful and easy to use interface

• Qwitter You have to sign up to this, then it will send you an email every time someone unfollows you stating what your preceding tweet was. Of course you cannot assume much from a few people stopping following, especially as some are probably spammers. But overtime you can collect enough data to analyse what kind of tweets are turning people away. • Chirpstats Sign up and be sent regular DMs (Direct Message tweets) on how many followers you’ve lost and gained since their last message. We’ve found this one really useful as you can see what tweet themes have put people off. The only downside is that updates are irregular – sometimes its everyday, other times it’s every few days. • Twerp Scan , MrCleenr, Tweet Blocker These three tools perform essentially the same function – spotting spammers and ridding your Twitter account of them! None are entirely reliable or able to weed out every spammer, but they can offer a helpful hand when you end up with hundreds of followers! As you can imagine, there are hundreds of Twitter tools, a clear sign of the importance of this micro- blogging network for social marketing. The tools listed are some suggestions based on our favourites, what we use regularly and which are the most popular. Let us know how you get on and please comment if you think we’ve missed something important or that you feel you couldn’t live (or tweet) without!

Trending Tools

About Ask.com: IQ http://sp.ask.com/en/docs/iq/iq.shtml

Digg http://digg.com/

Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends

Popular Bookmarks on Delicious http://delicious.com/popular

Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/

Yahoo! Buzz Index – Todayʼs Top 20 Overall Searches http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

Tweetmeme http://tweetmeme.com/

Blogging

Platforms

WordPress Hosted: www.wordpress.com Self-hosted: www.wordpress.org

Tools

http://blog.grader.com/

Blogging SEO copywriting tool http://scribeseo.com/

Wordpress Plugins & Themes WordPress › WordPress Plugins http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

WordPress › WordPress Themes http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

ShareThis http://sharethis.com/

Stop Comment Spam and Trackback Spam « Akismet http://akismet.com/

All In One SEO Pack WordPress Plugin http://semperfiwebdesign.com/portfolio/wordpress/wordpressplugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Audio Player Wordpress plugin http://wpaudioplayer.com/

Challenge http://lordchaos.dominatus.net/wordpress-plugin-challenge

Favicon Manager http://www.digitalramble.com/favicon-manager-wordpress-plugin/

FeedBurner http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/05/feedburner_adopts_twoyearold _r.php

Google Analyticator http://cavemonkey50.com/code/google-analyticator/

Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpressplugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

PXS Mail Form http://www.phrixus.co.uk/pxsmail

Simple Tags http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-tags/

SRG Clean Archives http://www.idunzo.com/projects/clean-archives/

Wordbook Facebook http://www.tsaiberspace.net/blog/2007/07/29/wordbook/

WordPress Automatic Upgrade http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade-12-release.html

WordPress Database Backup http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup

Wptouch: WordPress on iPhone http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/

FaceBook Share http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-share-new/

Facebook Connect http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect/

TweetMeme http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/

Topsy http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/topsy/

The Social Web Delicious http://delicious.com/

Last.fm http://www.last.fm/home

Facebook http://www.facebook.com

Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/

FriendFeed http://friendfeed.com/

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/

MySpace http://www.myspace.com/

Twitter http://twitter.com/home

Google Buzz http://www.google.com/buzz

Digg http://digg.com/

Seesmic http://www.seesmic.com/

Stumbleupon http://www.stumbleupon.com/

Ning – Create Your Own Social Network http://www.ning.com/

Squidoo http://www.Squidoo.com

Diigo – Social Bookmarking http://www.diigo.com/

Social Tools & Apps

Brizzly – Twitter web app http://brizzly.com

Where is your Username registered http://usernamecheck.com/

KnowEm – Check your username http://knowem.com/

Alltop, all the top stories http://alltop.com/

Topsy http://topsy.com/

Firefox web browser http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ j.mp - URL shortner with stats http://j.mp/

TinyURL – URL shortner http://tinyurl.com/

Listorious http://listorious.com/

Yoono – Firefox Plugin to Monitor all Social Media Accounts http://yoono.com/

Flock – Social Web Browser http://flock.com/

The Conversation Prism – Monitor multiple Social Media channels http://theconversationprism.com/