Via: Automotive SEO

The social media world has turned into a venue where really upset people who used to never really have a voice now have a way to make your company suffer for making them upset. Customer service may have always been technically important, but today it is amplified by the power of “word of click“.

This Infographic by our friends at ZenDesk puts the numbers to the perception that bad customer service is bad. If you didn’t know before, now you will.

Click to enlarge.

One of the most common questions we get when people ask about social media management is, “What exactly is a social media manager supposed to do?”

We know they tweet a lot, Facebook a lot, and chat along a seemingly mundane and endless string, but what do they actually do?

Our friends at SocialCast put together this entertaining and yet eerily realistic Infographic about the hectic schedule that a good social media manager follows on any given day. Social media seems like fun and games to outsiders, but those in the trenches know it’s not only a constant grind, but also one that requires both creativity and empirical thought.

We won’t pound on them for mentioning MySpace and Bebo in the same sentence as Facebook and Twitter. These videos are, after all, a year old this week.

We’ll definitely give this 30-year-old show, the Nightly Business Report on PBS, all the credit in the world for abandoning the stuffy advice that you can find on the Wall Street Journal and going with real advice for businesses of all sizes. Social media is the way to go – that much is clear. That NBR figured this out before most mainstream media business shows is a nice touch.

Watch these three videos (less than 10 minutes total) and listen to the basic lessons. They’re good ones if you want to take advantage of the potential that social media offers.

The impact of social media on our society is one that is not in doubt. Some, however, do question whether there are true business applications to social media. Is it just a branding tool that big corporations can use or is it something that small businesses can utilize as well.

That debate will continue, but this graphic by Jim Piccolo breaks down the ways that social media was used in 2010. This information can help us to predict and better understand what may happen in 2011 and beyond.Click to enlarge.

This video by Mashable tells an interesting tale about how everyone from an Ice Cream Truck to a Mobile Bistro are able to use social media to promote their products.

Using Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare, food trucks are hits coast-to-coast. One truck claims that 15% of their sales come specifically from Twitter. Who would have known?

It was hard.  For as long as I can remember, I have not been one who clicks on banner ads.  Heck, in most cases, I don’t even see them (thank you FF).

A friend of mine who is an avid reader turned me onto Audible.com to download audio books.  With recent articles in BusinessWeek and TechCrunch about the financial woe’s they’re having at Digg, I remembered seeing an Audible ad on Digg and thought, why not?

I’m going to be signing up for the service anyway.  Why not throw a bone to the site that consumes a ton of my time?

The results weren’t good:

These things happen.  I sent an email to Digg pointing out the issue and waited.  It is now 4 days later.  I surfed Digg, doing my thing, checking every time I went to a new page to see if my target ad had found me.  It eventually did, but still, it didn’t work.

Another thing I noticed was the quality and targeting on the ads.  There has to be a reason why the estimates (well over $100,000,000 through 3 years) of the Microsoft ad deal were so far above the reality (less than $10,000,000 per year).  After looking at the ads, there were more problems than just my audible ad not working.

As you can see by the ads to the left, there are concerns.  In one, you appeal to the male demographic with a pretty girl and cleavage offering images of local singles.  I would venture a guess that these ads are among the most clicked.  Still, with social media being populated by people on the “cutting edge” of Internet technology, one would think that paying for images of local singles was, well, below the curve for Diggers.

The other image points to a diet plan. It is Maria’s diet, to be specific.  While there are, I’m sure, men for whom this would appeal (I could use a few dozen pounds off after Christmas), it is clearly targeted towards women. Women are becoming a stronger force on Digg, but it’s still probably around 20% of the total demographic.

Was this all part of the original plan?  When Digg signed a 3-year plan (which is extremely long for any advertising platform, even one with a name like Microsoft) were they aware that the ads would be either off-target or lacking of the most remote chances for a paid conversion?

Here are some others that don’t really need an explanation.  Take a peek and ask, “Are these targeting me?”

These aren’t terrible.  It could be worse.  Actually, it is worse.  Look below at a pair of ads that are clearly not designed with Digg users in mind.  First, you see the Hyundai ad.  Digg users are pretty good at noticing mistakes in images.  It comes with the territory.  For some reason, the Hyundai ad wasn’t sized right and cuts off.  That mistake is nothing compared to having a Comcast ad on the page.  This is Digg.  The community is one of the most outspoken about Comcast.  The conversion rates are most likely next to nothing for this ad.

For those of us who are in the market to build new social media sites, it hurts us when the numbers at one of the top social media sites is so dismal.  Hopefully, potential investors will see that it’s not that these sites can’t make money.  For some reason, they simply choose not to.  With that said, here’s one last image to leave you with:

Read more about social news sites at Social News Watch.

Hello friends!  I want to compile a list of social media websites.  All of them.

We all know the basics – Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Propeller, etc. – but what about the others?  There are probably three hundred trillion of them, give or take, and I would like to compile a complete list.  If you know of any, please post them here in the comments.

Thanks!

OK, so everyone knows that the majority of Digg users lean to the left on most political issues.  Everyone on Digg should know that Huffington Post leans way to the left on all political issues.  It’s natural to think that the site would have a huge following on Digg and would get a ton of front page stories.

Over 7 a day – that’s a little overboard.

Still, that’s what happens to stories when they are submitted to Digg.  With a careful use of clever, tilted headlines and an aggressive user base,  HuffPo has had 52 stories hit the front page in the last 7 days.  This is not new.  In fact, there are times when this would be a low number.  They have tremendous traffic and take advantage of the traffic for Digg’s sake with a nicely placed Digg button accompanied by a request to “support” the story.

Here is an image that tells a lot about the current Digg front page:

Support is an understatement.   A conservative estimate would put the HuffPo as receiving over 3 million page views per month from Digg.  In case you missed it, let’s highlight that statement:

“A conservative estimate puts HuffPo as receiving over 3,000,000 page views per month from Digg.”

With smaller sites fighting for attention and offering similar, often superior content, is it fair for HuffPo to bully its way to the front page so often.  It doesn’t appear that the Digg algorithm itself favors the site – at least the last 12 submissions have had over 200 Diggs before they were promoted.  One had over 350.

Here is an example.  HuffPo found a story on Politico, added three words to the headline and an opening paragraph, then quoted the source for the rest of the story:

• HuffPo
• Politico

There is no way anyone can tell me that the paragraph that HuffPo wrote, which basically just stated that other sources found the information, makes it front page material, but the entire other story that they quoted does not.  Yet HuffPo had their paragraph/quote/linkjack hit and the actual story did not.

Digg should add a part to their algorithm (or improve the current one if it already exists) that makes it more difficult for sites like the Huffington Post to reach the front page.  We are not suggesting that there should be penalties, but should submissions be graded on a curve?  Quality should be more important than the bulk that some sources have behind them.  If a site consistently gets a ton of Diggs, it is either being promoted by users (which rarely happens with HuffPo) or they have a built-in system that gives them the ability to generate a ton of Diggs every time.

This is not an attack on HuffPo itself.  It’s team “gets it” when it comes to social media and Digg in particular.  Still, there is no way that any one site should hold a 5% share of the homepage.  With close to 20,000 stories submitted daily, is it fair that 1 site would have such a large presence?

The answer to that question is simple.

No.

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Read more about Digg and the Huffington Post on this blog.

First, a disclaimer about this experiment and the analysis.

In retrospect, this experiment was flawed.  The subject matter and style of delivery was very clearly geared in favor of one of the combatants.  When it was initially conceived, it was decided that the experiment would best be delivered through a post that announced itself.  By checking traffic statistics on a post titled: “The StumbleUpon Digg Experiment”, there would be equal billing, equal exposure, and most importantly, equal chances through the delivery methods to give both sides a chance.

We were wrong.

In retrospect, it is clear that the title and subject were more geared towards a social experience.  While Digg offers ways to share stories with friends, it isn’t nearly as suited for this as StumbleUpon is.  The very nature of SU is designed to where members passively share stories they like by stumbling and reviewing them.  Digg requires active participation by people to see the story.  Stumble requires nothing other than clicking and waiting for websites to be served to them.

The Digg traffic of lore says that websites will get tens of thousands of visits in a short period of time.  The problem is, not all stories get this kind of traffic when they hit the front page.  Because they have to be actively clicked on, people have to have an interest to click.  This story, while more popular than past stories that have hit the front page of Digg from this blog, still didn’t have the universal appeal to get a ton of traffic.

Stumblers are, by their nature, more interested in stories about SU than Digg users are interested in stories about Digg.  This and other factors make this experiment somewhat flawed.  Thus, the results were tremendously in favor of StumbleUpon.

Detailed statistics are being compiled.  We are breaking it down hour by hour, noting traffic spikes and comparing them to specific times of reviews on SU.  The data so far is interesting, but for those interested in the general results, here they are:

Story posted early in the morning, PST, December 14th.  It was Dugg shortly after being posted by ThinkingSerious. Then, it was Stumbled by hockeyguru around 7:00 am PST.

December 14th, 2007:

• Traffic from StumbleUpon: 15,694
• Traffic from Digg: 8,463

Surprised?  So was I.  Traditional thought is that Digg wins the short race and SU catches up over time.  Again, the subject matter/headline were geared to get Diggs, but not actual visits.  Another thing to note as that this story made it to the “Top in All Categories” box on the front page.  Less than a minute later, it was buried off that page after getting 24 hits.  Stories that do can get a huge bump in traffic for that day.  Some stories whose statistics I have seen have gotten twice as much traffic or more from being there than they did when they were initially on the front page.

December 15th, 2007

• Traffic from StumbleUpon: 4,761
• Traffic from Digg: 2,357

This is actually a very encouraging number from Digg.  Considering most of the traffic came from people when the story had to be found on deep inner pages, this is a huge number relative to the original day’s response.  Stumble traffic, if anything, was a little disappointing, as some stories get 80% of their initial day traffic on day two.  Despite the positive reviews still rolling in on day two, the percentage compared to the first day was low.

December 16th, 2007

• Traffic from StumbleUpon: 3,689
• Traffic from Digg: 349

There is the drop that happens with Digg.  There is also the famed residual traffic from Stumble.

Again, let me be clear.  This story was unintentionally geared to for SU.  The results are not a real representation, as stories that aren’t about Social Media will still have the normal results of Digg wins the first day and SU may or may not catch up over time.  The subject matter appealed to SU’s manner of delivery.  One digg is one digg and helps very little.  One stumble and especially a positive review by the right person can generate a chain reaction, a viral effect that can snowball into more and more stumbles.

Thank you to all who participated by reading, sharing, stumbling, and digging this story.  We want more data.  If you have statistics from posts other than social media themed ones, please contact us.  We want to explore, analyze, and share the data.

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Read more social news stories on this blog.