The Big Wave Blog

All the social media voting sites such as Digg, Mixx, Delicious, Stumbleupon, etc, are generating buzz by delivering some amazing number of visitors to publishers who manage to make it to their home page. Interestingly, Yahoo recently entered the field of social bookmarking and voting (Feb 25). They have delivered record traffic to several websites that made it to their new BUZZ homepage. Here are some statistics, courtesy of Techcrunch:

• Yahoo says they’ve sent 16 million visitors to outside sites in the first two weeks!
• Salon.com had 1 million unique visitors on February 28th after getting on the home page of Buzz. This is a record high for the 12-year-old site.
• US Magazine had their second highest traffic day thanks to Yahoo Buzz, with 32% of visits that day coming from the Yahoo home page.
• Huffington Post reported 800,000 unique visitors from a Yahoo-linked story.
• Sugar, Inc. sites have had nearly 1.8 million unique visitors sent from five different Buzz stories on the Yahoo home page.

Yahoo has the traffic that puts all social media to shame. They have traditionally fared much better than Google when it comes to launching successful niche websites. No wonder Microsoft is head over heels after them!

Social Media and Search
December 4, 2007

 This session would have been a lot snoozier if not for some excellent insights from Chris Winfield. He was definitely the “live” presenter of the group and brought up some very good points on how to balance Google and his favorite social media website, Digg.

He has a slide with Google + Digg = ♥
Awww!

Here are the top points:

• How the two media give rankings:

  Google: Keyword research + Optimization + Links = ranking
  Digg: Create viral content+ submit to Digg = ranking

• Factors that determine your rankings:

  Google Algorithm: Meta + Title + Domain + Links
  Digg: Type of user voting (power vs. user), Type of vote (friend or fake)

Overall, the advantages of using social media in conjunction with search engines are clear. It gets complicated when people start to misuse the medium and spam it with irrelevant votes.

I feel you cannot just join a medium for the sole purpose of voting and promoting your clients. Understanding the medium is essential, and knowing what other members of the medium like/dislike is crucial.

Most of these initiatives should come from within the organizations. A search agency can show you the way, but ultimately the right way to promote any business on a social platform is to keep it real. Fake posts and bogus voting might work in the short term, but it will only harm your messaging in the long run.

Meeting Andy Beal!
December 4, 2007

After the reputation management session, the next one I was planning to attend was in the same room. Soon the crowds cleared out and… voila! There was Andy standing right in front of me. In a moment of gusto, I went and introduced myself and asked a friendly bystander to take a photograph to capture the moment.

Andy’s Marketing Pilgrim was one of the first blogs I subscribed to via RSS, and it remains one of the top sources of information for our blog and our agency. I am looking forward to getting a copy of his latest book Radically Transparent.

Meeting Geoff Livingston
December 4, 2007

 Here is little bio on Mr. Geoff Livingston. He is the acclaimed “local blogging guru” and author of the book Now Is Gone. Geoff has over 14 years of marketing experience and has provided winning strategies for clients such as AT&T, Verizon, and Intelsat, to name a few.

It’s hard for me to capture his professional accomplishments in a paragraph, but what I really would like to share is his great nature and personality. I had a very entertaining session thanks to him.

He was on Twitter most of the time and almost convinced me to open an account. We had some good laughs. He truly is a great guy who is approachable and not shy to share a joke. I wish I had taken a photo with him, but something tells me I will be seeing him around.

Thanks, Geoff!

PS: Now Is Gone is a great book for anyone interested in social media and the emerging media marketplace.