Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 130

Here's the standings for Week 130:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 256,000 (+3,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 244,000 (+3,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 45,286 (-449)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 16,874 (-150)(LW - 4)
5 - Chris Brogan - 13,108 (+273)(LW - 5)
6 - Search Engine Guide - 12,622 (-91)LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,964 (+8)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,651 (-72)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,417 (-25)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 4,900 (-2)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,515 (+16)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,346 (-53)(LW - 12)
13 - The Viral Garden - 3,298 (-26)(LW - 14)
14 - Converstations - 3,229 (-106)(LW - 13)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,215 (-35)(LW - 15)
16 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 2,491 (-2)(LW - 16)
17 - Being Peter Kim - 2,399 (-1)(LW - 17)
18 - Social Media Explorer - 2,127 (+118)(LW - 18)
19 - Emergence Marketing - 1,921 (-1)(LW - 19)
20 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 1,808 (-30)(LW - 20)
21 - The Social Customer Manifesto - 1,722 (-48)(LW - 21)
22 - Techno Marketer - 1,669 (-12)(LW - 22)
23 - Paul Isakson - 1,659 (LW - UR)
24 - Spare Change - 1,387 (+17)(LW - 23)
25 - Movie Marketing Madness - 1,355 (+36)(LW - 24)


The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked according to the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Sixteen of the blogs in the Top 25 were down this week, with only 8 being up. Interestingly, most of the downward moves were very small, 3 blogs lost only a subscriber or 2. Could this possibly be early affects of the seasonal dip in blog readership during the Holidays? Next few weeks should give us a better idea.

Paul Isakson's blog debuts in the Top 25 this week, and Customers Rock! just missed the cut. Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog.

BTW please have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving with your friends and family!




Next update is next Wednesday.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Social media is a trust-enabler

It's been interesting to see how the marketing portion of the blogosphere has changed over the last few years. When I started blogging in late 2005, many of the posts were of a more 'philosophical' nature. We talked about why social media SHOULD help companies better connect with their customers, simply because there weren't really that many case studies that we could point to. Those of us that were using blogs to connect with each other could see how companies could benefit, but we couldn't really point to any working examples to help bolster our theories.

Thankfully, we now have plenty of successful examples that highlight the positive changes that can happen when a company successfully incorporates social media into its existing communication efforts. But a recent post by Hugh reminded me of why social media is so vitally important.

Social media changes the way a company and its customers communicate with each other.

The average company has average customers. The company likely doesn't make much, if any, effort at actually communicating with, or understanding its customers. Likewise, the customers probably don't understand the company, or have much of an incentive to.

Which means that since neither group understands the other one, neither group TRUSTS the other one.

So the average company is spending big bucks on blasting one-way messages at their customers, while the customers get on every blog and forum and YouTube and talk about how much the company sucks, because they are blasting one-way messages at them that totally miss connecting with them.

The company is having an internal conversation about the customers. The customers are having a completely different external conversation about the company. Both groups are speaking in a completely different language, and making completely different assumptions about the other group. As expected, this leads to neither group understanding the other, and neither group really trusting the other.

But the great thing about social media is that it gives companies a way to connect with their customers. Suddenly, the participants in the internal discussion within the company, and the external one among the company's customers, have a way to interact. The language of the company begins to slowly seep into the conversation the customers are having, and vice versa. Over time, each group begins to slowly understand the other, and trust the other.

When the company begins to better understand and trust the customer, it then increases its level of interaction with its customers. This helps the company make its marketing and communication efforts more effective and efficient, because it now better understands its customers.

And with that higher level of trust comes the creation of a barrier to entry for your competitors that are still blasting one-way messages at its pissed-off customers.

Does this make sense?

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Company Blog First Look: GE

Thanks to a mention from Dan Schawbel on Twitter, I was alerted this morning that GE has started blogging, and has joined Twitter. It seems that GE Reports just went live today, and had been writing for the blog for several days previously, so there were plenty of posts waiting on those of us that have found the blog. Even though it is WAY too early to feature the blog in the Company Blog Checkup series, I wanted to give some first impressions, and some advice to GE moving forward.

First, I applaud GE for jumping in the social media waters. That should be said upfront.

Second, the blog is no doubt getting slammed by readers after apparently going 'live' earlier today, then posting that "Starting today, GE Reports is asking for your questions. Do you have a question about GE? Ask us. We’ll do our best to answer them right here on this site." So if they haven't already, I would advise GE to make sure they moderate comments and publish them as soon as possible. And answer as many as you can, as quickly as you can. This will make a big impression on your readers/investors.

Third, I would add a link better explaining what RSS is, and the advantages to your readers of subscribing to your blog's feed. This is a great feature as it lets your investors get news about GE sent directly to them.

Fourth, please clearly identify who is writing this blog, give us a link to their bio, and add their pictures to the blog. Might not seem like it's that important, but it helps put a human face on your company, and it makes it easier for your readers to trust what you write on the blog. And given the nature of the information you'll be sharing, and who you will be sharing it with, trust will be at a severe premium. Adding a pic and bio is a very simple way to increase that trust level. BTW the YouTube videos and channel are a nice touch as well.

And it isn't lost on me how much times have changed to see a major corporation like GE launch a blog, and have this on the sidebar. In the end, don't worry if you run into some growing pains, because those WILL happen. Just stay with it, be as honest as possible with your readers/investors, appreciate their time, and do everything you can to engage and interact with them. If you make a sincere effort to connect with your blog's readers, they'll pick up on that. BTW if anyone from GE has any questions, feel free to leave a comment here, or if you want, you can email me any questions you might have.

What do you think about this effort? Granted it's VERY early, but what would you advise GE to consider as they move forward with GE Reports?

UPDATE: Megan at GE clarifies in the comments that the blog did NOT go live today, it actually went live at the end of October.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 129

Here's the standings for Week 129:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 253,000 (+4,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 241,000 (+3,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 45,735 (+753)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 17,024 (+242)(LW - 4)
5 - Chris Brogan - 12,835 (+340)(LW - 6)
6 - Search Engine Guide - 12,713 (-272)LW - 5)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,956 (+148)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,723 (+606)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,442 (-10)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 4,902 (-101)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,499 (+15)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,399 (+49)(LW - 12)
13 - Converstations - 3,335 (+26)(LW - 13)
14 - The Viral Garden - 3,324 (+34)(LW - 14)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,250 (+118)(LW - 15)
16 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 2,493 (+76)(LW - 17)
17 - Being Peter Kim - 2,400 (+139)(LW - 18)
18 - Social Media Explorer - 2,009 (+109)(LW - 19)
19 - Emergence Marketing - 1,922 (+29)(LW - 20)
20 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 1,838 (+82)(LW - 22)
21 - The Social Customer Manifesto - 1,770 (+28)(LW - 22)
22 - Techno Marketer - 1,681 (+81)(LW - 23)
23 - Spare Change - 1,370 (+5)(LW - 24)
24 - Movie Marketing Madness - 1,319 (-10)(LW - 25)
25 - Customers Rock! - 1,018 (LW - UR)


The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked according to the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Another solid week for the Top 25, with 20 of the 25 blogs gaining subscribers last week. But it was tough being in the Top 10, as 3 of them lost links. I've noticed that Being Peter Kim and Social Media Explorer have been especially hot the last few weeks, and that continues with both adding over 100 subscribers last week.

Customers Rock! re-enters the Top 25 at #25. Servant of Chaos just missed the cut this week. Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog.




Next update is next Wednesday.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Twitter getting too messy? Get organized with TweetDeck!

Ever since I joined in March of last year, I have been struggling with the best way to use Twitter. More than anything, I use Twitter as a way to connect with people, to share links, and chat it up. But the problem I began running into several months ago was that I was following so many people that it was difficult to keep track of all the conversations happening, and especially hard to stay connected with the people that I had actually met and were friends with.

So I started significantly shaving down the number of people that I followed. While this made it easier to keep up with my friends on Twitter, it created a new problem; Many of the new followers I would pick up would unfollow again if I didn't follow back. Which is understandable, and I do the same thing.

But after seeing how Chris Brogan uses TweetDeck during last month's Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, I've started playing with it again. And what I love about TweetDeck is that it's a great way to get organized. It lets you create multiple columns that you can view at the same time, like I have one column with all the tweets from all the people I follow, a second column with tweets from the people I am friends with, a third column for my replies, and a fourth column for DMs. What I love about adding the column for my friends is that it allows me to start following more people, because now the people I want to stay in touch with have a separate column for their tweets. And additionally, it makes it easier for me to connect with new people, because as I follow more people, I get a sense of what their tweets are about, and it makes it easier to add them to my 'friends' group on TweetDeck.

Using TweetDeck as a powerful Twitter-monitoring and product feedback tool

But I also think that this system of organizing would work wonders for a company that wants to monitor Twitter! Look at the below screenshot where I have searches up at the same time for 'ipod touch', 'iphone', 'ipod' and 'nano'. This would allow someone from Apple to search and see what people on Twitter are saying right now about each of these products. Or if they were a brand manager for a specific line, such as the Touch, they could focus on more specific terms. This gives a company a great way to monitor the conversations that are happening on Twitter about them and their products, but also helps them identify HOW their current and potential customers are using their products. They can see which features are popular with customers, and which ones are not. Also, notice that many people will ask for recommendations on a product before purchasing. By using TweetDeck as a monitoring tool, companies can see which features customers recommend, and which ones they aren't too thrilled about.


What are your tips for using TweetDeck? How do you organize your Twitterstream, and if you monitor Twitter for your company, how are you doing it, and have you trying using TweetDeck?

BTW, think Motrin and their agency could have benefited from monitoring Twitter yesterday?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Social media is a lotta damned work



Whenever I speak at an event about blogging and social media, I always like to point out how these tools are wonderful ways to let companies connect with their customers, when properly positioned.

But eventually, there's always a few questions about how much traffic you can drive to your blog through SM, like what about Digg? Or Facebook? How important is it to have the right keywords targeted?

Let me tell you that social sites can be a wonderful way to draw attention to your blog/site. For example, I now have about 2,300 people following me on Twitter. When I go to Twitter and link to a post I've written here, I can expect to get 50-100 referrals from linking to it on Twitter. If other Twitter users retweet it, that figure can quickly balloon to several hundred visitors for the day.

So on average, every time I go to Twitter and link to one of my blog posts, my blog gets an extra 100+ visitors. Sounds good, right?

Now for the 'rest' of the story.

It's taken me about 20 months to gain 2,300 followers. In March of this year, I had been on Twitter for a year, and had about 500 followers. So the majority of my followers didn't come till I had been active on Twitter for over a year.

In addition to 2,300 followers, I've now left over 9,700 tweets. According to TweetStats, over 75% of those tweets have been replies to other Twitter members. And according to TweetBurner, only about 10% of the sites/blog posts I link to, are my own.

So this means that the majority of the time I spend on Twitter is used talking to other members, and when I do share links on Twitter, only about 10% of them are my own.

If my main goal for using Twitter was to drive traffic to my blog, I would have quit using Twitter within a few weeks. There's just too much damned work involved if your only goal is to draw attention to yourself. And if I shifted my usage and started only promoting my blog posts, my number of followers would fall off a cliff, because that's not why people are following me.

So if you are a company that's considering joining the social media waters, please make sure you understand this:

Social media is a lotta damned work, and if you're only interested in using the space to promote yourself, you'll quit before you see the results you want.

Why do I stick with Twitter? Because I love interacting with other people there. I love sharing links with my followers. Do I love linking to my blog posts and seeing my traffic here spike? You better believe I do. But what REALLY makes my day is when I ask my followers to follow one of my friends, and that person DMs me a few minutes later to say 'Thank you SO much asking everyone to follow me, I just added 40 followers!'

THAT makes my day. And if you want to effectively use social media, it had better be what makes your day as well. It's not about you, it's about loving the ability that these tools give you to connect with other people, and to share valuable content with them. Why does Twitter work so well for ComcastCares? Because Frank already loved connecting with Comcast customers and solving their customer service problems. Twitter just gave him a new way to do that.

Why does social media work for Masi's Brand Manager Tim Jackson? Because Tim is a people person, and discovered that blogs and social media gave him a new way to connect with his customers and retailers. Which is what he was already doing, but social media gave him a more effective way to connect with others.

Social media is a lotta damned work. But if you want to use these tools as a way to connect with other people, that lotta work is worth every second.

Pic via Flickr user .hln.

UPDATE: This post was partially inspired by this one from Amber. She nails it, there are no shortcuts to successfully using social media.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

#Motrinmoms = Exhibit A for online monitoring


Over the weekend, a nice lil Twitterstorm erupted after Motrin ran an ad on it's main website that many mommy bloggers took offense to. And those moms descended upon Twitter to vent their anger over the ad, making #motrinmoms the most common term on Twitter. And as of this writing, the Motrin main website is down.

As the backlash grew during the day, one blogger sought out the agency that handles the Motrin account and contact them to see what they thought of the Twitter-backlash against Motrin. Apparently, they had no idea it was happening.

And to me, this is the biggest issue in this entire 'crisis'. Motrin apparently did little to no monitoring of their intended audience before or during the Twitterstorm. Which is still baffling to me in this day and age of free and easy tools to let you do just that.

Simple monitoring using Google Blog Search or Twitter search would have immediately alerted Motrin to complaints from customers, and they could have started reaching out to angry customers in order to defuse the situation. If your company isn't using both of these tools, start doing so immediately.

Another key point: The quickest way to convert an angry detractor into a passionate evangelist, is to listen to them and act on their complaints.

That is, if you are willing to listen in the first place.

Pic via LisaHoffmann's tweet.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 128

Here's the standings for Week 128:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 249,000 (+2,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 238,000 (+3,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 44,982 (-117)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 16,782 (+214)(LW - 4)
5 - Search Engine Guide - 12,985 (+27)LW - 5)
6 - Chris Brogan - 12,495 (+608)(LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,808 (-125)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,117 (-289)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,452 (+145)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 5,003 (+75)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,484 (+47)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,350 (+47)(LW - 12)
13 - Converstations - 3,309 (+172)(LW - 14)
14 - The Viral Garden - 3,290 (+82)(LW - 13)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,132 (+88)(LW - 15)
16 - Techipedia - 2,483 (+76)(LW - 16)
17 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 2,417 (+119)(LW - 17)
18 - Being Peter Kim - 2,261 (+137)(LW - 18)
19 - Social Media Explorer - 1,900 (+146)(LW - 20)
20 - Emergence Marketing - 1,893 (+35)(LW - 19)
21 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 1,756 (+35)(LW - 22)
22 - The Social Customer Manifesto - 1,742 (-9)(LW - 21)
23 - Techno Marketer - 1,600 (+64)(LW - 23)
24 - Spare Change - 1,365 (+23)(LW - 25)
25 - Movie Marketing Madness - 1,329 (-24)(LW - 24)


The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked according to the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Another solid week for the Top 25, with 20 of the 25 blogs gaining subscribers last week. Not as many blogs were up as last week, but 9 of the 20 up blogs gained over 100 subscribers, with Chris Brogan's 608-subscriber gain being the biggest. Social Media Explorer had another big week and moved up another notch this week.

Servant of Chaos and Customers Rock! just missed the cut this week. Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog.




Next update is next Wednesday.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

How do you budget your social media time?


I am always trying to tweak/examine how I spend my time with various social media sites and tools. A big reason why, is because I honestly love connecting with people and sharing ideas. I learn SO much, but at the same time, I am a social media consultant, so I have to balance out the benefits to my business, as well.

I have two rules for budgeting my social media time:

1 - Spend 10 times as much time OFF my blog, as I do on it,

2 - Spend 10 times as much time promoting OTHER people's content and blog posts, as I do my own.

Other than that, I am pretty flexible. And really, I think I need more rules. Like I spend a lot of time on Twitter, because I love connecting with SO many amazingly smart people, but I also see traffic benefits to my blog. And the connections I make via Twitter occasionally do lead to work/speaking opportunities.

So I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve how I budget my social media time? How do you manage? And how much time do you spend with social media each day? Being a social media consultant, I obviously spend more time with these tools than most people.

How do you manage your time? And perhaps more importantly, how do you determine if your time is well-spent? What are you looking for?

Pic Tunnels of Time via Flickr user fdecomite

Monday, November 10, 2008

Let's stop hyping social media, and start explaining why it's so important

I had an absolute blast speaking last Friday at Learn About Web. It's funny because when I speak at a conference, I'm never quite sure where the audience is on the social media learning curve. I assume they are beginners that are curious, but that at best are really just starting to play with these tools.

But when arriving in Pasco for LAW, I was immediately struck by the fact that of the 100+ attendees, there were only about 5 with laptops, and those were all at the speaker's table. So when it came time for me to reference Twitter in my presentation, I stopped first and said to the audience "When I say the word 'Twitter' to you, how many of you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about?"

The majority of the hands went up.

This is a problem that I have, and that many of us in this space have, in that we are so excited about these tools and sites, that we sometimes hype them, but don't explain why they deserve the hype. I tried to stress in my presentation (and Jennifer and An did a great job with this as well in their presentations) the fundamental reasons why social media matters to businesses. I stressed that these tools are important because they allow us to quickly and easily connect with other people. In the case of a business, those 'other people' just so happen to be their customers. Which is a good group to connect with.

And I noticed when I started that there were lots of frowns and looks of bewilderment in the audience when I started talking. By the end of the talk, many of those same people were smiling and nodding along as I made my points.

We always stress to companies that they need to approach social media from the mindset of their customers. That they need to create content with their customers/readers/listeners/viewers in mind. But as the people that are helping companies get into this space, we need to follow our own advice, and approach these tools with the best interests of our clients in mind. We don't need to focus on the hype around social media, but instead we need to focus on WHY these sites and tools are getting hyped. On how businesses can benefit from them.

I am a big fan of this saying, and shared it at the start of my presentation; Don't focus on the tools, focus on the connections that the tools help facilitate. We always talk about how social media can 'improve the conversation' between a company and its customers, well I think we can also help improve the conversation around social media. Especially now as we are in troubling economic times, companies don't need to know what the newest Shiny Toy is in the social media space, they need to know how and if it can help them better connect with their customers.

BTW here's a pic of the speakers having an absolute blast at Learn About Web in our NASCAR limo! Craig Sutton and the gang at Bright Web Marketing hit a home run, and are already planning on having LAW again next year!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 127

Here's the standings for Week 127:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 247,000 (+4,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 235,000 (+2,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 45,109 (+657)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 16,568 (+330)(LW - 4)
5 - Search Engine Guide - 12,958 (+380)LW - 5)
6 - Chris Brogan - 11,877 (+618)(LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,933 (+318)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,406 (+72)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,307 (+56)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 4,928 (-17)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,437 (+24)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,303 (+65)(LW - 12)
13 - The Viral Garden - 3,208 (+41)(LW - 14)
14 - Converstations - 3,137 (-45)(LW - 13)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,044 (+129)(LW - 15)
16 - Techipedia - 2,407 (-44)(LW - 16)
17 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 2,298 (+35)(LW - 17)
18 - Being Peter Kim - 2,124 (+97)(LW - 18)
19 - Emergence Marketing - 1,858 (+9)(LW - 19)
20 - Social Media Explorer - 1,754 (+93)(LW - 21)
21 - The Social Customer Manifesto - 1,751 (+12)(LW - 20)
22 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 1,721 (+90)(LW - 22)
23 - Techno Marketer - 1,536 (+13)(LW - 23)
24 - Movie Marketing Madness - 1,353 (+69)(LW - 25)
25 - Spare Change - 1,342 (+11)(LW - 24)


The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked according to the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Another solid week for the Top 25, with 22 of the 25 blogs gaining subscribers last week. The Top 10 was particularly impressive, with 9 blogs gaining, and those 9 all gaining more than 50 subscribers. Past the Top 10, Conversation Agent, Social Media Explorer, and Greg Verdino's Blog all had strong moves upward, with SME's move pushing it into the Top 20.

Servant of Chaos and Customers Rock! just missed the cut this week. Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog.




Next update is next Wednesday.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The Speed of Twitter


This morning, as I do on most, I went through my feeds in Bloglines looking for blog posts that I could share with my followers on Twitter. I read Mike Sansone's post on how beginners can get started with Social Media, and knew it would be a post that many of my Twitter friends could find valuable.

So I linked to it on Twitter, and almost immediately, my followers began Re-Tweeting it to their followers. If you aren't that familiar with Twitter, a Re-Tweet is when you re-send a message that someone else sends, and you share it with your followers. So I shared the link with my 2,000+ followers, and within minutes, about a dozen of my followers had Re-Tweeted the link to THEIR followers! Within a matter of minutes, thousands of Twitter users were exposed to this post.

This is why Social Media is so important, because it is SO easy for people to quickly share and spread ideas. If you have an idea/post/story that resonates with others, it can literally zoom around the world, via the internet, in minutes.

Not every business should be on Twitter, but given the communal nature and the ease at which ideas can be shared, I think every business should at least spend some time there and see if it's right for them. If we aren't connected already, you can follow me on Twitter here.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Are you using Tweetburner?

The way I use Twitter has been constantly evolving since I joined the site in early 2007. Currently, I have two main ways that I use Twitter:

1 - For conversation

2 - Sharing links

As far as sharing links, as I read through my feeds in Bloglines, when I come across a post/article that seems interesting, I will drop it in Twitter and share it with my friends and followers there. But I have always wondered if there was a way to track which links are more popular than others, so I would have a way to gauge which topics are more relevant to my followers.

Well now I've found a way, sorta. Tweetburner let's you track the links that you share on Twitter, and tells you how many times they are clicked. It also lets you see which links are the most popular within the last hour.

Now here's the kicker; Tweetburner only tracks links shared with the URL-shortening service Twurl. You can use this from the frontpage of Tweetburner, or it's a built in option for Twhirl and Tweetdeck, if you use those Twitter clients. For months I've been trying to use Tweetburner to track my shared links, but it took till yesterday to figure out that you had to create the links with Twurl! Whoops!

So play with Tweetburner and see what you think. I share links on Twitter because I want my followers to find value in them, so anything that helps me track how much value they place in these links, is a good thing!

What about you? Have you used Tweetburner to track the links you are sharing on Twitter? Or do you use another site?