Yesterday I came across an article stating that the Michael Jackson memorial service cost the city of Los Angeles, which is already $530 million in debt, a hefty $1.4 million. The city planned to pay for the service with donations collected through Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s website, but so far they’ve only managed to raise about $17,000, leaving them pretty deep in the hole. Why so few donations? Is it because people don’t love and adore the late King of Pop as much as the city thought? Is it due to the recession and high unemployment rates? Are people just greedy a-holes?

Actually, the fact of the matter is that the city only raised a fraction of the amount they wanted because the high volume of traffic sent to the site caused it to crash and go down for long stretches. No site = no donations. No donations = more debt. More debt = more Ramen dinners for Los Angeles, and that’s no good for anyone (think of the sodium levels!).

Here’s an excerpt from a statement released by the office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (PDF):

“After collecting more than $17,000 from hundreds of donors in support of the Michael Jackson Memorial Tuesday morning, the City’s Information Technology Agency could not handle the high volume of traffic or adequately respond to the frequent and prolonged server crashes. Consequently, the City was unable to receive contributions for several hours Tuesday afternoon. The server also failed for at least 12 consecutive hours Tuesday evening, from 8:00 PM (PST) through 8:00 AM (PST) the next day, and periodically throughout Wednesday morning.”

What the crap, 12 consecutive hours of downtime? That is just ridiculous. Los Angeles really screwed the pooch on this one.

What They Did Wrong

First of all, they seemed to half-ass stick the “Donate!” info on the mayor’s website. I’m pretty sure that his site wasn’t built to withstand a giant influx of traffic (and why should it–it’s not like mayoral websites make the front page of Digg every two days). Ordinarily, the occasional fluke piece of content that goes hot on a major social news site and causes the site to crash is kind of an unexpected surprise. However, if you’re collecting donations for an event celebrating the life of arguably the biggest musician/artist in pop culture history, you’re going to get some major traffic to your site. To completely overlook that is a huge misstep bordering on “are you kidding me” ignorant.

From a marketing perspective, it’s a bad idea to put the Michael Jackson donation on the mayor’s website because it’s sharing the stage with other content. The website urges people to donate to cover memorial expenses in the first panel of a rotating five panel slide show, with the other slides talking about creating more jobs, being coal free by 2020, expanding transit, and making Los Angeles safer. I couldn’t even click back to the first slide to get back to the Michael Jackson information–the slide show was totally borked and wouldn’t let me skip or click on anything.

What They Should Have Done

If the goal was to raise money, someone should have created a separate website devoted entirely to raising money to pay for the Michael Jackson Memorial (like michaeljacksonmemorial.org). Something fairly decent could have been constructed in the time it took to plan the event. The site should avoid bandwidth heavy features like high-resolution images, videos, and data-intensive quizzes and slide shows. Keep it simple and tasteful with a clear call to action.

For promotion, the mayor’s website could have had a banner or badge on his website that said “Help Los Angeles–Donate to the Michael Jackson Memorial” and linked over to the official donation website. Donors could have received a thank you message upon contributing and been offered a little embeddable badge/widget that said something like “I donated to the Michael Jackson Memorial and You Can Too” or “Donate to the Michael Jackson Memorial” and linked over to the website. The site could have also offered links to Twitter with the pre-formulated tweet of “I just donated to the Michael Jackson Memorial. You can too: [link].”

Server Considerations

Whether they decided to create a separate site or have donation info on an existing site, the biggest problem was that the server was woefully ill equipped to handle such an influx of traffic. Below are some tips, courtesy of Greg, our Director of Internet Marketing and Keepin’ It Real (I may have added that last part), to keep in mind when launching some link bait or expecting a traffic increase.

1. Host images on Amazon S3 if they’re image-heavy. Image-heavy pages can crush a processor. Host them on Amazon, which costs around $0.20 per gig transferred, so it is super cheap and really reliable.
2. If using Wordpress, use WP-Cache or WP-Super-Cache add-ons. This eliminates unnecessary database calls for each page load.
3. Use some sort of cluster computing to ensure redundancy. Many hosting companies say they can handle the “Digg effect,” but having multiple servers to fall back on is a good idea.
4. Check with your hosting company. See if they can handle 50-150 KB page loads in under 2 minutes.

NVI also has some good tips on how to help your server withstand a load spike.

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully the people who organized the memorial donations learned a valuable lesson and are able to plan a better strategy moving forward. Their mistakes are pretty common when it comes to building a website and getting it to adequately deal with huge traffic spurts, but it’s such a large-scale, attention gathering oops that other businesses, charities and site owners can take note and learn from the city’s mistakes. That way, when Abe Vigoda dies the city will be ready with a memorial website that can withstand the elements.

Preemptive RIP, Abe Vigoda

Howdy folks! Rebecca here, blogging regularly once again in SSDB fashion (that’s Same Snark, Different Blog for you initialism noobs). If you managed to pry yourself away from the month-long Michael Jackson tribute festivities, you may have heard via Twitter, the 10e20 blog, and intermittent smoke signals that I recently joined the 10e20 team as the Director of Social Media. I’ll let the fanfare die down before I proceed…

Anyway, Chris gave me a rundown of what my new job responsibilities would be and we spent roughly 4 seconds brainstorming a fancy-schmancy job title to slap onto business cards and confuse my mother (who still doesn’t know what I do for a living, only understanding that I had an old Internet-something job before and a new Internet-something job now). Thus, the Director of Social Media was conjured and it left me wondering what that even meant. Does social media need “directing”?

Growing up and getting quickly acclimated to sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, for me the answer is “no” because social media, web 2.0, all those buzz wordy trends seem pretty second nature (I’m sure moreso for younger generations who don’t know how to use a rotary phone and have never heard of the Walkman). But after talking to Greg and getting a feel for what 10e20 has done for their clients in the past and after thinking about it from a business perspective, I think yes, social media needs some direction.

A lot of people crap all over social media marketing because they think it’s just about getting some stupid list onto Digg. They talk about how it’s just a fad and that it’s oversaturated and doesn’t have the permanence that SEO or SEM do. I disagree (which is probably why Chris and Danielle hired me)–social media marketing isn’t just about hitting Digg or Reddit. Sure, viral marketing and StumbleUpon and all those other mainstays are a part of it, but the core of social media is about reaching out to your customers/audience and engaging them in a dialogue. It’s allowing their voice to be heard, whether that’s via blog comments, user generated content, tweets, upvoting stories or sharing content.

Social media is still a fairly new marketing tactic, which is why a lot of companies, much like with SEO, need some guidance. They understand that Twitter is this big new thing, but they don’t know how to set up an account and utilize it to its fullest potential. They want to make a video and share it/spread it around, but they don’t know the best way to go about doing it. They have great data and case studies, but they don’t know how to shape their content in a way that appeals to a large audience. And that’s where 10e20 and I come in. We help create, shape and direct these social media efforts through the appropriate channel. We help educate companies and people about various aspects of social media so that they can keep up with the ever-shifting marketing trends and have an edge over their competitors. And we look damn good doing it.

So yeah, I’m the Director of Social Media. It’s kind of different, but it’s also exciting and creative and, I think, absolutely essential in our current marketing environment. I’m really looking forward to taking a different approach to Internet marketing and helping our clients from the creative side of things rather than the technical. I’ll be sure to post often and share various tips, news, and, of course, rants about everything I learn in my new position. Hopefully you’ll let me direct you.

I am really excited to announce the newest addition to our team, Rebecca Kelley, 10e20’s new Director of Social Media.

Chances are quite good that you know the name Rebecca Kelley.  She is one of the most prolific and popular bloggers in the Internet marketing arena. Following her 3+ years of stellar work on the SEOmoz blog and many other places, Rebecca has joined 10e20.

Danielle and I have known Rebecca for many years and count her as a close friend. When the opportunity arose to work with her – we couldn’t pass the chance up.

But Chris, what can ‘I’ look forward to?

More blog posts! Rebecca will be running the 10e20 blog by setting the editorial calendar and also blogging very regularly here.  So if you haven’t subscribed to our RSS feed yet, now would be a good time.

More great content! If you’re a current client of 10e20 (or a prospective one) you can look forward to working with Rebecca for some amazing ideas and viral content.

A 10e20 newsletter and more.. Later this month we will be launching a 10e20 newsletter which will have exclusive content.  Stay tuned for details.

Plus 70% more snark!

In the meantime, want to connect with Rebecca?

* Catch up with her in person at the upcoming SES San Jose conference on August 10th – 14th.

* You can follow her on Twitter here.

* Send her a message.

* Or join me in welcoming Rebecca to 10e20 by leaving a comment below.

Oh yeah and don’t forget to subscribe to that 10e20 RSS feed, it will definitely be worth it…

One thing that always grinds my ears a bit is when a person reverts to over the top annoyance just to have their story seen and forget the rules of humanity in the meantime.  To really help identify these users and why they are annoying, I wrote a post over at Search Engine Land entitled The 6 Types of Annoying Social Media Promoters.

Here is a snapshot for my own internal names to these social annoyances:

• The Impersonal Users
• The Crazed Cross Promoters
• The One Way Streeters
• The Always an Emergency Users
• The Convenient Users
• The Total Spammers

Think you might be one of them?  Well head on over to Search Engine Land to read the full article and find out!

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In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is allowing for the creation of vanity “usernames” that will allow you to customize your Facebook address.  This change is a permanent and non-transferable … so select wisely.

What ‘Usernames’ Applies To

Users will be able to register custom usernames for both profiles and Facebook pages.  In case you aren’t familiar with the two, profiles are for human beings while fan pages are used for businesses, brands, causes and more.  Groups and applications cannot be given a Facebook username.  You can register Saturday Morning (12:01 EST) at the Facebook username page.

How Profiles & Pages Work in the SERPs

Profiles

Profiles are currently listed in the SERPs, but the listings aren’t an carbon copy of your current Facebook page.  The page that is indexed is not a representation of what your friends would see; it is simply a page that is served up to search engines with a basic offering of information like location, sampe friends and a profile picture.  The current structure of profiles is facebook.com/people/firstname-lastname/FacebookProfileNumber.  In order to see that full profile, a searcher must be logged in with the proper permissions.  Note: If all of your profile privacy is set to “my friends only” then they will never be indexed by search engines.

Pages
Pages are fully indexed by search engines, and s so updates, comments and Facebook links can be seen.  Right now the page URL structure looks like this: www.facebook.com/pages/page-name/FacebookPagenumber.

How To Use for Business

Profiles
Seeing that profile rankings in SERPs are hindered by the faux-page delivered to search engines, creating a username to rank doesn’t seem like an ideal maneuver.  Instead, usernames would be a nice addition for name branding, as people can insert easier into business cards, emails and the sort.

Pages
This is where a solid keyword username could help your page to rank (in both SERPs and possibly in Facebook queries).  Using the Facebook domain strength with a short keyword rich URL could really help for broader queries and also in reputation management for branded terms.  Twitter accounts have been showing up more and more in the SERPs, and this effort should help more Facebook pages show up as well.
Of course you should make sure that your username fits in with your branding and you shouldn’t try to overthrow your current efforts because you snagged a cute keyword.
If you have been active on the Facebook front, you probably have a few industry related pages devoted to broad non-branded terms.  These would be ideal targets for keyword rich usernames as they wouldn’t ruin branding and the keyword  in the URL structure would benefit any marketing efforts.  So if your antique auto parts store has a “Vintage ‘79 Fords’ page, registering the username “vintage-fords’ should help your page rank, and makes sense as a business move because it is a logical and legiti.mate username.  Facebook has made it clear that very broad terms “pizza” or “flowers” will not be allowed, so try and get a bit creative with your choice.

Who is Eligible

Any profile created before the announcement at 3 PM on June 9, 2009.  Each profile can have only one name assigned, and each page can only have one as well.  If you didn’t already have this in place, you are out of luck.  You will have to set up your page now, then check back on June 28th to nab your username.

Facebook pages are a bit stricter. Your fan page must have been created before May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have had a minimum 1,000 fans at that time.

What to Do

Stick to Branding - Don’t ‘over-SEO’ yourself if you are working on a specific brand.  While you may be missing some main keywords, you will help in reputation management, branding and will cut confusion.

Use Keywords Where Applicable - Companies very active with Facebook marketing most likely have some general industry pages set up that are non-branded.  Getting keyword rich usernames for these would be ideal.

Brand yourself – Sure ‘hax0rM4n1k” is a cool handle, but it will be associated with your name forever, so stick to the basics and wrap-up your name for any Facebook profiles.  These profile pages will show in the SERPs so make sure you keep it clean if you ever want to be employed.

Protect yourself - If not eligible and have a trademark?  Head over to the USPTO, grab your registration number, and fill out the “protect your username” form.

What Not to Do

Try to Steal Trademarked Terms – You will not be able to keep them and you are just being a jerk.  Don’t do that.

Overly SEO Yourself – Don’t ditch your branding for a set of shiny keywords.

Be Late – Facebook has a handy counter for you on the usernames page … so you have no excuse.  Any by the way that is 12:01 AM Eastern, so don’t be late west-coasters.

Facebook usernames looks to be a nice addition for profiles and pages, just choose wisely as this is will go on your permanent (Facebook) record!

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Yesterday, Digg announced the release of “Digg Ads” a new advertising platform that will hopefully pull their finances out of the red.  What is different about this form of advertising on Digg, is that it is the first time that they have mixed the content in with the ads.

Ads will look exactly like a normal submission with the exception that no submitter will be present and a small line will appear on the top and bottom of the article with the text  “sponsored” above.

A Brief History of Digg Ads

Digg has never really figured out how to really monetize advertisements on the site.  They have looked for help in figuring out what users wanted, and tested out different platforms.  Digg started up using Google as an ad provider with a mix of Federated Media placements.  Then about two years ago Digg moved away from Google AdSense and gave Microsoft a spin at providing ads.  This year Digg again tried mixing it up by dropping Microsoft to try slinging their own ads.  In addition to going it alone on the ad front, Digg hired away Federated Media’s Sales Chief about a week ago as their Chief revenue Officer.

Why this makes sense for Digg

What Digg has been doing from an ad standpoint simply hasn’t been working.  They are losing money year after year, and this is a glimmer of hope that they can successfully monetize ads with site interaction.  These ads will not be static messages, as Digg is giving the community the ability to interact with the ads by voting and commenting; eventually setting the price for the ads.  While obviously users would prefer an ad-free site, this form of advertising is truly interactive from both the user perspective and the advertiser perspective.

Diggers are very anti-establishment and a good portion of them ad-block the current ads on the site.  One reason for this may the fact that Digg hasn’t provided their audience with the most relevant of ads.  Digg has even apologized for some highly annoying ads that have upset its users in the past.  Seeing that Digg has tried  a variety of different ads to no avail, a fresh attempt is needed and this approach looks like it may solve many of the current problems.

Why This Will be Good for Users

If it works, Digg will stick around. As silly as this sounds, making money (or at least breaking even) is an intrinsic aspect of running a service for people.  Sure Diggers are used to getting things for free  (torrents, software cracks, Digg w/ad block … etc) but at the end of the day a Digg with sponsored listings is better than no Digg at all.  Many users are already embracing the system, as long as it isn’t too intrusive:

I think this is great, but please don’t put more than 2 ads in the river at any given time. – Digg User Alancayce

Users will determine how much advertisers have to pay. If an ad sucks, users will be able to speak up about it in a civilized format instead of  submitting articles complaining about ads.  The worst ads will be footed with a bigger bill, and advertisers may re-consider purchasing again.

They aren’t annoying. Traditionally, ads that have appeared on Digg can play music when hovered over, pop-out or be too flashy (like the current Microsoft ad campaign on Digg).  These new ads are clearly marked and look to be stationary and unobtrusive.  Users will see a link with a short description and can choose whether to check it out or not, no digital shenanigans involved.

This will help to make ads much more relevant. The majority of complaints about Digg ads have been that they are off-topic and intrusive.  Now users can comment on why they dislike an ad to sway negative votes, and bury ads that suck.  If it’s a good ad – great!  More good ads should begin popping up.

Why This Will be Good for Advertisers

If your content is good, you should be able to pay pennies on the dollar. This should help those non-traditional advertisers who couldn’t afford bloated CPMs a shot at advertising on Digg.

It is a way for advertisers to be a part of the site. Instead of working on captivating creative for banner ads, advertisers can be judged off of their content.  In an era of banner blindness, being integrated into the site will undoubtedly drive more clicks and awareness for ads.

A Look at Other Social News & Bookmarking Ads

The two largest Digg competitors are Reddit and StumbleUpon, both with legacy ad systems that are also integrated into the content.

Reddit, currently undergoing user backlash, added ads to the site about 2 years ago, and has also added sponsored listings earlier this year.  Also, the side ads have always had the ability to be voted on by using the “Reddit this ad” button beneath each.

StumbleUpon has an advertising system that allows advertisers to purchase views from selected users.  These ads directs StumbleUpon user to an advertisers page without notifying them about the nature of the paid stumble.  Currently only paid members have the ability to terminate these ads.

Why the Digg Ad System Will be Better

Unlike the StumbleUpon model, the Digg ad model is upfront and doesn’t mislead visitors.  Users can see the clearly labeled ad, and choose not to view the page.  This doesn’t force unwanted content down a user’s throat and gives them the option of viewing the paid content placed within the site.

The Reddit ads allow for commenting, but no voting functionality exists to let users decide the quality (update: commentor ‘jedberg’ informs us that if an ad recieves a high number of votes it can stick around longer).  The new Digg ad system will show the votes and also allow users to bury the ads (traditionally, a buried ad is hidden once buried then grayed out to they user for good).  While Reddit did a good job mixing ads with content in a non-obtrusive format, Digg has taken this one step further and will help users dictate the ad pricing, and hopefully the users eventually dictate the ads altogether.

What Advertisers Should Know

Even though you think you can buy your way onto the popular page of Digg, it is a MUCH different venue than creating quality content that users naturally promote to the homepage.  Even though the ads will be featured on the homepage, Diggers traditionally pass on paid messages.  Additionally, if an ad is sent to a strictly commercial page that is of no interest to the Digg community, they will face a high level of criticism.  While this seems like an easy way to “get popular” on Digg, the traffic, links and visibility from a natural community driven story will be exponentially larger and more productive than a sponsored message.

What Ads Will Work

The Digg community is a highly technical community that is stereo-typed as enjoying video games, gadgets, Democrats.  Companies that are tech related  or have products that have a positive reputation on Digg should fare well.  These advertisers could successfully leverage product launches, updates and exclusives by using the new Digg ads.   To see what will work, simply visit the site regularly and see what is gathering the most votes and responses- these will be the successful ads down the road.

Examples: Microsoft leaks a release date around the Zune HD through a Digg ad or Warner Bros. buys an Ad for an upcoming Batman trailer

What Ads Won’t Work

As much as the community likes technology and politics, they despise ads.  With that said, nearly all of the Digg banner ads would be a massive failure if they purchased this new form of advertising.  Anything that is corporate, sales-y or not interesting will be victimized.  If your product isn’t targeting tech-savvy opinionated 16-30 year old males, you won’t have success with these ads.  I feel that the majority of the early ads will flop miserably and hurt mismatched companies more than it will help.

Examples: Freecreditreport buys an ad that sends users to their homepage or Hummer buys an ad that features their newest gas guzzler

How the System Could Backfire

While voting and commenting on ads mixed in to normal Digg content sounds like a great idea, Diggers have been known to be a very harsh crowd, and excessively negative comments are common ground on Digg.  If an ad is terrible, not only will the price be higher, but it could feel the wrath of the Digg community who are notorious for being brutal commenters.  Many major brands may shy away from this form of advertising if their reputation is dragged through the mud.

Additionally, if the quality of the sponsored ads is lacking, or the ads seriously degrade the content on the site, users could be isolated and may leave Digg completely.

Conclusion

This ad system is a well needed change for Digg, as it brings much needed revenue potential that will deliver a much bigger bang for advertisers.  However, advertisers may shy away from an ad that hangs them out to dry in front of the nefarious Digg community.  It is a risky move, but has the early potential to be the hands down leader in social news advertising …  only time will tell.

What do YOU think?

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In case you haven’t heard, yesterday Digg removed the controversial “shout” feature that allowed users to share stories with one another.  This feature was Digg’s only internal tool for communication that was put in place a little over a year and a half ago.

History

Shouts were supposed to even the playing field between ‘power users’ and the common Digger.  This feature allowed users to select a story that they enjoyed and send it directly to their friends on Digg.  Shouts did empower numerous Digg users and did help more stories gain awareness and become popular when otherwise they might not have.  However, one major problem occurred, the majority of users abused this, and used it as a spammy broadcast tool. This turned off many long-time users who turned off shouts, or simply left the site.

Unfortunately, the problem with the system could not be fixed by just shutting it off.  This add-on turned the site from a ‘pull-oriented’ site where users scanned the best submissions to a ‘push-oriented’ site where votes on stories with shouts were hyper-inflated.  This bloated vote count would force the shouted stories to dwarf any regular submissions.  A quality post that wasn’t shouted might receive ½ the votes (and visibility) as a story promoted using the shout feature.  Much like the steroid era of the baseball, the majority of member began shouting all of their stories just to keep afloat.

The Resolution

Digg has been eventually tuning its algorithm to try to discount the value of shouts, but at the end of the day it simply wasn’t working.  The first step in the direction of external promotion was the import of stories to Facebook that allowed users to share their Digg activity with friends.  The DiggBar and DiggURL were the next steps to move away from shouts, as it gave users the power to share on both Twitter and Faceboook with ease.  When they announced that they were moving to a “real-time” share system last week they finally admitted that the current internal promotion system was not working.

Now, all internal communication has been silenced and Digg is forcing its users away from the site to socialize.  This makes sense for Digg, because they can possibly gain a larger audience.  However, this is a risky move, as Digg is forcing users off of the site and onto other social sites.  Twitter has already demonstrated that popular stories can be aggregated in a Digg like fashion.

What Will Happen to Digg?

After the shout-pocalypse I believe that Digg will be a better place from a content perspective.  Average stories won’t be artificially inflated; articles will be back to being judged based on their content … not on who has motives behind it.  Without inflated (and irrelevant) votes, the Recommendation Engine will become a better asset for its heavy users.

One major negative byproduct of this shift to external promotion will be the loads of user endorsements that will soon flood your Twitter stream, Facebook wall or your inbox.

Thoughts on the Decision

From a company perspective, I would never advocate sending users off-site for communication.  Digg has always flourished because it truly was a ‘social’ site where you could add friends, images and links, this however is a step in the opposite direction.

I had always believed that it wasn’t the concept of the shout system that was flawed, rather that it was the allotted usage that was the culprit.  When you allow all users to promote every story, the value of that promotion is voided, much like using the bold typography for an entire paragraph.  I think a solution that would have pleased both parties would have been a 1 shout per 24 hour limit, so users could only share their best find of the day.

Conclusion

While this may be a large change for many users, this change should help to increase the quality of content on Digg.  Whether you like it or not, the termination of shouts is now just another part of life, and another adaptation that active users will have to make.

Will it piss off those users that rely on shouts?  Absolutely.

Will it make it harder to get your stories on Digg?  Not if your content is awesome.

Will it add more Digg SPAM to Twitter, Facebook and Email?  Without a doubt.

What do you think? Will Digg be better or worse without Shouts?

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While there has been a rather large commotion (mostly negative) about the recent release of the DiggBar we have been watching and tracking its usage to find out how the community actually uses it.   Surprisingly, we have found many beneficial aspects to the bar, and discovered a handful of ways that you can use the DiggBar or a shortened URL( DiggURL)  help your success on Digg.

(If you haven’t seen the DiggBar yet, check the following video)

Who Sees The DiggBar

Many people will argue that framing a website is intrinsically evil.  If you are one of this mindset, I would like to say that Digg’s most recent changes have honestly attempted to make the frame visible only to those who choose to view it, though it still does frame a website.  So before we get into the benefits of the DiggBar, we can take a look at who will and will not see the DiggBar to begin with:

1. Users who don’t have a Digg account won’t see it

When the DiggBar first was released, all Digg users were sent to the DiggBar’ed story (unless they chose to always have it shut off.)  After a large outcry from casual users of the site and publishers, Digg went ahead and removed it completely on outbound links for users  who were not currently logged in with  a Digg account.

What this means: The casual bloggers/publishers/lurkers who are trolling for stories on the site will never be fed a story that is DiggBar’ed unless they are currently logged in with the DiggBar turned on. They will receive the clean link directly to the source.

2. Users with a Digg account  who dislike can opt to NEVER see it

One of the nice things that Digg did do with the bar is to make it extremely easy to turn it off forever.  There are two easy  ways that you can use to turn off the DiggBar:

• from the DiggBar Itself
• from your personal options

Now, the really cool feature of the shortened DiggURL is that, even if you have an account and someone sends you that shortened URL (and your preferences are off), you will be redirected to the story page.  The only way that you can ever see the DiggBar is if you opt to by manually typing digg.com/ before your URL .

What this means: Not all Diggers will see the DiggBar.   Unlike those horridly annoying ow.ly domains from HootSuite on Twitter, BurnURL or any other framed in service – the DiggBar is essentially only shown to those who actually want to see it.

3. If you don’t want anyone to see it, you can choose not to

While the DiggBar was intended to help Diggers find great content and vote on it, at the end of the day, it is your site and you can choose to not allow anyone to frame it.  Many sites (even the New York Times) bust frames, so even those users  who opt in to view the DiggBar will be directed to the main article.

Here are some resources on  how to break frames:

• Breaking Out of Frames with JavaScript
• Wikipedia includes a JavaScript variation that includes a popup as to why you will be redirected
• Also, if you have a WordPress blog, the plugin “Diggbarred” can be installed to block the DiggBar in its entirety.

What this means: If you finish reading this article and still hate the DiggBar, you can make sure that nobody else out there will see it … even if they wanted to.

How the DiggBar Can Help You

So even though the DiggBar does frame a website, you can use this frame to your advantage, here’s how:

1. This one of the largest ‘approved’ ways to share your content off-site

Digg has been known to enforce very stringent bannings on violations of Digg’s Terms of Use.  However, this form of promotion and sharing is not only acceptable, but encouraged.  The DiggBar allows you to share by email, Facebook or Twitter.  Emailing has always been an approved method of sharing, but now you can share your submissions directly on Twitter win a 100% approved fashion:

2. It allows for a quick check to see if a story has been submitted

Digg has not been the most receptive to the use of its API to aid users.  Instead of relying on 3^rd party add-ons or plugins, you can now simply toss a “digg.com/” in front of any address to see if it has been previously submitted.  This is a simple and easy way to see if a story you find has already been submitted.

3. You can share content and people will know your intent (& you won’t look spammy)

On Twitter or Facebook if you are attempting to share your story to increase the number of diggs, many times non-users simply don’t understand.  When sharing a DiggUrl, those who have an account and proper permission will see the DiggBar and give a vote if worthy, those who don’t participate in Digg will just be served the regular page – no harm done.  Before the DiggUrl and DiggBar, users on Twitter would try tagging tweets, sending to the Digg page itself and asking for Diggs.  The DiggURL makes it simple and straightforward; if you have an account, you understand the motive.

4. Users  who enjoy the DiggBar will have an easier time voting for your articles

Believe it or not, there are users out there that enjoy the DiggBar.  It makes it easy to see the best comments, share good links and most importantly vote on articles that they deem worthy.  Digg has been ever changing to make it harder and harder to vote for stories that users enjoy.  The DiggBar is a step in the opposite direction, as users can vote quickly and easily, without having to flip back to the Digg page where they discovered the content.  Undoubtedly, the DiggBar will increase user votes and votes for your content.

5. People can get more information on a topic w/related articles’

The DiggBar not only helps to garner votes, but can also drive more traffic to your content.  The “Related…” button will show users similar articles that have been on Digg.  These articles have already been popular, but the Related feature helps those who are passionate about a topic discover more information in a quick and simple manner.

6. Random button can get your information more views

Much like the “Related…” button, the “Random” button can help to boost your stories visibility.  The random button will display a recent story that was popular on Digg to a user.  This operates similar to StumbleUpon, and could get your content in front of fresh eyes; people who may not have clicked your link from the Title and Description alone….

Conclusion

Yes, it’s true that the DiggBar frames your content, its also true that many people don’t like it – but this doesn’t mean that you should avoid its benefits if you are active on Digg.  Also, give Digg a good deal of credit as they have made this  least intrusive “framed bars” as possible.  The DiggBar can be turned off at anytime, will never be shown to other users, and is 301′ed to the proper article – something that the popular ow.ly or burnurl can’t claim.  So feel free to embrace the DiggBar and use it to your advantage … as it isn’t going away anytime soon!

Don’t forget to subscrbe to the 10e20 RSS feed!

Guess what?  Social networking online is very similar to social networking offline (in the real world)!  Big surprise?  Believe it or not, for some, it really is a surprise. Whether you are looking to grow your network, influence, awareness and reach or advancing your professional and personal goals it’s important to recognize that being successful in social networking online and offline are very similar.  Most of us know the rules for networking in the real world, but it’s important to remember them for online, particularly if you are making your first moves into online social media and social networking.  The following are tips to become a decent social networker in either medium. Most tips apply in both scenarios.

Know the organizer: Make it a point either when you arrive at the event or prior to leaving the event to thank the organizer for putting the event together,  let them know that you wish to attend future events and that you met some great contacts. Knowing the organizer and letting them know you appreciate the hard work needed to put together an event may put you in position to share the highest level of invite status in the future. Find out who runs things and take the mindset that you owe them something.

Offer assistance: If you really like the event/group, offer that you’d like to be a part of helping to organize future events by volunteering time and some of your core capabilities. Help your fellow social networkers by advancing their goals, sharing their goals with others or by introducing them to a new contact in your network. Make a solid public recommendation if you honestly believe in what they have to offer.

Be polite: Enter conversations gently and in a meaningful way with something to add. Don’t interrupt existing conversations in progress, but work you way into conversations. As a conversation hits a lull or comes to a conclusion, start it again, this time with a twist. Avoid cursing. There is no need to curse and swear to make your point. If you’re succinct in your discussion, people will get the point. Use of words like F*&K and SH%T become very unattractive after a while and show a certain lack of professionalism after some time.

Smile: No one likes a all the time.  Stay away from negativity, and don’t dwell on bad news. Bring uplifting anecdotes and share in the positives.  Clean yourself up and dress well.  Represent yourself with a decent looking avatar / profile image. Ask some of your closest friends and contacts what they honestly think about your profile image.

Meet the influencers: Take time to understand who the influencers are in the room, who are long time members and pay deference to their contributions to the organization. Share your experiences with them about the group. Ask questions of the influencers as they know a ton about the group and how to become established within the group. Perhaps you can help an influencer in some other area of life and they can help you within the social network group?

Meet the newcomers: Show a bit of bi-partisanship and don’t put all your focus on the influencers or the organizers all the time. A newcomer could one day become an “influencer”, so you should try to meet some of them. It’s important to show the rest of the group that you are not just looking to network up, but that you care about the development of the entire group.  After all, Susan Boyle was a newcomer, right?  Good for those who introduced themselves to her before she went on stage!

Follow up: Follow up with the people you’ve met in the network and at the event. Don’t leave your new contacts hanging. Make sure to follow up with some form of contact (phone call, email, hand written note) recognizing that you’ve met them and showing them you care about their work. Help them in their endeavors and help them reach their goals first, and they will be apt to help you.

Don’t sell and don’t spam: Tread lightly on the commercial approach. Don’t blanket the party with your pitch, your business card or with how great you are. If you try to sell things to your social network and you constantly GLOAT, chances are you will be rejected in some way.  This reminds me of a social marketing post we made some time ago where we said:

” [social marketing] is about acting like a human and networking in it’s traditional form; being a part of the discourse, part of the conversation, meeting people and not sucking people into an E-commerce funnel.”

Bring a gift: Bring something to share at the event. Bring insights, a new contact or bits of information that others can benefit from. Don’t come empty handed. Bring an actual gift or bring your knowledge of a subject to contribute to the group discussion.

Find new events: Find new events, go to them and cross-connect the contacts you meet at one group with the contacts from another. Turning your friends on to new events helps them understand that you care about their development.

Introduce a new person: Bring a new person to the group who you think will add value for the rest. You’ll be in the good graces of the new attendee and likely the rest of the group for expanding the network in a meaningful way.

Relate: Make sure you remain relatively on-topic in discussions. Speak about the industry and if the conversation veers into the personal or off-topic, at least make sure those you’re speaking with  have a remote interest in what you’re discussing.  If they can’t relate, you’re done!

What are some of your social networking tips?

Last week I gave a presentation at SES NY and included a list of 35 niche social media sites that we participate in regularly. Lots of people have asked me for this list so I decided to put it here. The following 35 sites are broken down into 8 different categories and each site has an active community and can help you get exposure. These sites aren’t going to send you 50,000 visitors but they will send you targeted traffic & links (if you’re content is good).

1. Business

Tip’d – Finance

Feed The Bull – Investing

Motley Fool Caps – Small Cap Investing

Value Investing News – Investing

Pfbuzz – Personal Finance

Real Estate Voices – Real Estate

Sphinn – Internet Marketing

Killer Startups – New Biz

2. Products & Commerce

Dealspl.us – Deals

iliketotallyloveit – Cool Products

Dealigg – Deals

ThisNext – Recommended Products

3. Sports/Leisure

ArmchairGM – General Sports

BallHype – General Sports

Yardbarker – General Sports

AutoSpies – Auto

N4G – Gaming News

4. Art & Design

Design Float – Design

PhotographyVoter – Photography

Pixel Groovy – Design Tuts

Design Bump – Design

5. Programming

DZone – Programming

dotNet Kicks – .NET Programming

Tweako – Computing

6. Entertainment/Celebrity

ShowHype – Celebrity News

VideoSift – Unique Videos

Linkinn – Entertaining Media

WeHeartGossip – Celeb News

Plime – General Entertainment

7. Women’s News & Style

Kirtsy – Women’s News

Stylehive – Style Bookmarking

Chictini – Woman’s Style

8. Environment

Care2 – Better World

EcoURLS – Environment

Mind Body Green – Green Living

There have been excellent similar lists like this but these are the ones I like and think are worth your time. For more about my process behind finding sites like this – check out this Search Engine Land article I wrote last year How To Identify & Target The Right Niche Social Media Sites.

Do you have a good niche social media news site that I missed? Or have experiences with any of the ones above? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments. And while you’re at it, why not follow me on Twitter?