We’re approaching 2 weeks on since the unveiling of Digg’s new duplicate submissions detector. We’re strongly, strongly hoping that it improves. In many ways, the old, worn out version was more accurate.

Day one displayed a much-publicized “DOH!” when 2 stories ABOUT the dupe detector (the one linked above and this article from Brent Csutoras) hit the front page at the same time. You couldn’t plan it any better than this:

That was day one. Getting the bugs out. Addressing the issues. No big deal.

Then, it happened again. This time, it was 3 stories, but they were spaced out over a 5 day period saying pretty much the same thing.

Notice that all three mention “Jammie Thomas”. It’s cut off on the bottom submission, but it also include the word “$1.92″ that is mentioned in the top two submissions.  Reading all three articles, it is very clear that a proper dupe detector would have picked them up very easily after the first was submitted.

It did not.

You may say, “They were probably offered by ignored by the submitters.” Nope – I was the second submitter and MrBabyMan, the third submitter, assured me that he did not see them as dupes. Why would we submit them, especially after they had already hit the front page by the time we did?

Again, we are hopeful. Digg has been very good at fulfilling its promises and improving on its technology for several months now. The site is too strong and too enjoyable to have silly programming errors hamper the overall experience.

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Read more about Digg on this Social Media Blog.

The debate has been raging since before Barack Obama or Ashton Kutcher had even heard of Twitter.  Is it better to join the “race for size” on Twitter or is quality of engagement the goal?  There are many easy answers to this question and a handful of tough answers. Let’s keep it easy at first. It’s in the tough answers that we can truly find the answer, so we’ll save that for the end.

Twitter Followers Debate – The Easy Answers

“Twitter is not a popularity contest” – There are millions of people, especially many of the early adopters of the platform, who follow 50, 100, even a few hundred other users.  It doesn’t matter if 500 people follow them or 500,000 people follow them – they are interested in seeing what certain people are tweeting and that’s about it.  They don’t want the noise. They don’t want the spam. They have their friends and/or accounts that they consider interesting and it doesn’t matter what else is happening outside of their hand-picked, privileged group.

They are Twitter purists. They are correct.

“What’s the point if nobody’s listening?” – The other side of the coin is interesting. Many look at Twitter as a tool to spread their wisdom, post their links, and see what the masses are saying at any given moment in time.  They know that it is easy to grow on Twitter by following random or targeted individuals, unfollowing those who who don’t follow them back after a certain period of time, and then starting the process over.  They want to be seen, heard, addressed, engaged, and clicked on by as many people as possible.

They are the Twitter profile builders. They, too, are correct.

How can this be?  How can Quality and Quantity have equality in the debate?

It’s time for tough answers. At this point, the question changes from “Quality vs Quantity” to “What do you want Twitter to do for you?”

Twitter Followers Debate – The Tough Answers

Twitter is not a popularity contest, but for some it is. Twitter is not a private network to chat with friends, but for some it is.  There is a ton of gray area in here, as many who follow tons of people in an effort to gain tons of followers can and do engage with everyone on their massive lists, while many who follow and get followed by a smaller amount of people can make claims of successful engagement by making certain that everyone who is on their list is actually listening to what they are saying.

There are dozens of “Twitter Personality Types” including the 14 Twitter Personalities listed at Media Caffeine.  For this excercise and debate, we’ll first eliminate celebrities and “recommended” accounts who follow their 50 or so personal friends but get followed by thousands (even millions). Once they’re eliminated, let’s group the rest of us into those looking for quality (the qualtweeps) or those looking for quantity (the quantweeps).

QualTweeps

Greenerside is a qualtweep. This account posts links about the environment from several different environmental blogs. He follows those who do the same. Some may be personal friends. Some are simply like-minded people. Regardless, he isn’t following many of the other 4000 people who are following him. Looking at those who are following, it appears that there are many spammers and QuanTweeps in his mix.  It doesn’t matter – he doesn’t hear a thing they’re saying.

He is able to:

• Engage those who are interested in the same things he is interested in, namely environmental issues
• Follow his stream easily and potentially read everything his friends have tweeted since the last time he logged on
• Get a decent amount of responses to his tweets and links
• Pick up real followers who may believe he is interesting because much more people follow him than those that he is following
• Develop personal friendships because he can engage with a tighter group of people
• Show people his Twitter account without having to answer the question “How do you read everyone’s tweets?”

He is not able to:

• Generate a viral buzz on his own without exceptional breaking news or retweets from users with a lot more followers
• Achieve “Twitter Fame” by getting on this list of top users or that list of most retweeted regularly
• Use Twitter as a resource to get dozens of responses to questions, whether mundane or imperative

QuanTweeps

Guy Kawasaki (and the girls who help him manage his account) is one of the most outspoken quantweeps out there. He is exceptionally active with tens of thousands of updates and over a hundred thousand followers. If you aren’t trying to get him into Forex, porn, or MLM, he’s very likely going to follow you back. The fastest reader on the fastest computer in the world couldn’t read everything that people are saying in his stream.

He is able to:

• Generate interest, visits, responses, and retweets regarding just about anything he says whether it’s a link to a new Alltop section or another link that sparked his interest
• Ask a question and get dozens of responses – he could ask “What’s the best Social Media blog out there?” and receive plenty or responses (FYI, the correct answer to that question is soshable.com if you were curious)
• Be known for Twitter, speak about Twitter at conferences and seminars, and achieve “Twitter Fame” even if he doesn’t need it
• Interact directly with hundreds of people every day who send him DMs and @replies
• “Be courteous” by returning the follow to anyone who makes the effort to follow him

He is not able to:

• Keep up with the hundreds of tweets that hit his stream every minute
• Stick with a niche or segment – he follows Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Spam Bots, interesting people, boring people, actives, inactives, and everyone in between
• Develop personal friendships as easily because there is so much noise, chatter, and spam that isolating a potential good friend is challenging
• Avoid the question, “How do you keep up with everyone you follow?” I’m sure he’s asked that several times a month.

Pick a Side

Regardless of what you want to do with Twitter, pick one side or the other. Those who fall in the middle by following a few thousand people without attempting to grow will have a difficult time achieving success regardless of their goal. They get the noise without truly gaining the benefits of steady growth. Twitter can be a wonderful experience regardless of what you want to accomplish with it (even if you don’t want to “accomplish” anything with it).  Decide what you want to do with (and for) Twitter and stick to it.

Trying to stay on the fence will hamper the whole wonderful Twitter experience.

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Read more on Soshable and don’t forget the answer to the question, “What’s the best social media blog out there?”

The excitement is building. The anticipation grows. The swords are drawn and rotten tomatoes are present in their most glorious state of foulness.

Will the first official episode of “The Social Blade Show” meet its expectations?

Pat, Erin, Victor, and I had a nice dry run at it last week, but this will be the first official airing of The Social Blade Show (7pm PST). It’s goal – to cover the social media sphere in an entertaining manner that will be both enlightening and fun.

There are plenty of wonderful shows such as The Drill Down that cover technology with a social media spin, but we hope that Social Blade will offer something that is currently lacking – discussion around the social media sphere itself. Sites like Twitter, Digg, Facebook, and StumbleUpon are making waves across the Internet. It isn’t just the nerds of the world who are interested in Web 2.0 anymore. Mainstream media, celebrities, and average Joes are getting involved.

It’s where the news is. It’s where the world is heading.

Tonight we will be embarking on a long journey of both discovery and conversation. We hope that people will watch, offer feedback, and most of all… participate. Urgo will be manning the chat room and bringing in guests as needed. Those who want to call in and be a part of the show are welcome.

It’s your show. We’re just here to facilitate.

I’ll let you know how it went tomorrow.  Assuming all goes relatively well, it will air live every Thursday night at 7:00 pm PST (10:00 pm EDT)

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Read more about social media marketing on this blog.

This job listing was first noticed by Center Networks.  Best Buy, listed by Mashable as one of the 40 Best Twitter Brands, fell short in their understanding of the Twitter phenomenon.

First off, followers at any level under 2000 can be accomplished in days. 250 can happen in hours.

Second… who cares? Does someone’s number of Twitter followers help to qualify them for a Senior Manager of Emerging Media Marketing job with a major tech corporation? If they were to say that experience (number of updates), longevity (length of time on Twitter), and a high number of followers relative to the number that one is following would be a metric in preferred qualifications, that would make more sense for a job like this.  Considering that I consult with owners and/or manage dozens of accounts over 10,000 followers, I know for certain that one’s skill at Twitter has very little to do with whether or not they can accumulate 250 Twitter followers.

With that said, I am interested in the position. @BestBuy, please call me.

(lol)

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Read more about Twitter Marketing on this blog.

Image Courtesy of the Tweetafile, a Free Twitter File Sharing Service. Beta invites available.

As Digg works to perfect its service and enhance one of it’s latest features, the Diggbar, they have re-added a nice component that was taken down shortly after launch: view counts.

Well, they’ve sort of brought it back. Looks like it’s still in beta or development or something because as of right now, the counts are way off.

As you can see above, this story that is currently at the top of the right sidebar on the homepage shows 8,536 views after 4287 Diggs. Multiply that view count by 10 and you’re probably closer.  Just in case there was a lag, we checked an older story that should have all views tabulated by now:

Nope. Better, but definitely not accurate yet. Here are the possible reasons:

• They are only counting views by those who are logged in and allowing the Diggbar to populate once clicked. This is highly unlikely because the counts would still be too low and the whole reason they took the component of the feature down in the first place was to combat this issue.
• There’s a tremendous lag in stat compilation.  Again, highly unlikely, as the development of real time views tracking was pretty much perfected earlier in the decade. A minor lag is fine, but both of the stories above should have much higher counts by now.
• We stumbled upon it while it’s being plugged into the sites, the bugs are working themselves out while I’m typing, and the counts should be much more accurate by the time you’re reading this. This is extremely probably. In fact, that’s the story we’re going with.

What does this mean for Digg? Those who use the site regularly know the tremendous power that a Digg front page can have. Thousands, tens of thousands, and occasionally even hundreds of thousands of views can be driven to a site from the Digg front page.  For many, it’s the reason they joined in the first place.

In our social media world, this is a common fact. Those who are more casual Digg users may not know. They probably will now and there’s a good chance that they’ll tell someone.

Otherwise, it’s just a nifty little feature, but it’s valuable to me.  Thank You Digg for bringing it back.

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Read more about Social Media Strategy on this blog.

Listening to Guy Kawasaki is always a joy. Regardless of whether you agree with what he is saying or not, he is always both thought-provoking and entertaining. The Alltop co-founder is a living legend in the world of social media and startups and is a must-follow on Twitter for budding marketing professionals.

During a recent speaking engagement in San Diego, Kawasaki had his normal flurry of quirky, intuitive pieces of advice that struck home with most in the audience. One thing in particular he noted was that “today, a retweet is the sincerest form of flattery.” While I often take retweets for granted with a relatively large Twitter following for a non-celebrity, this one comment made an impact on me.

Since it was less than 140 characters, I naturally tweeted the statement and was surprised by the response. First, it was retweeted 25+ times – nothing too surprising there. What was surprising was that in watching the accounts that retweeted it. They started retweeting… a lot.

Twitter has been a whirlwind of change when you look at the trends within the community. Celebrities, for better or for worse, have “invaded” this little corner of the Internet and made it as mainstream as a website can be. News sources refer to it. Marketers of all levels from the amateur MLM promoter to the likes of Kawasaki and Chris Brogan have embraced the wonderful potential that Twitter offers.  If you’re not on Twitter, you probably aren’t reading this blog post.

One thing that has been lost during this constant state of transition is the art of the retweet. Many users do it. In fact, there are those who do very little other than retweet.  I want to discuss the Why behind retweeting, but for those who need, here’s the…

…How to Retweet

The topic has been covered ad nauseum. Rather than rewrite the guide, here are some useful perspectives from blogs more astute than this one discussing how to retweet, how to get retweeted, and just about everything to do with the art of the retweet:

• How to Retweet: A Simple Guide
• Using Twitter: How to Retweet
• Mashable: How To Retweet on Twitter
• Twitter Crash Course: How to “Retweet” Like a Pro
• How To Retweet And Be Retweeted
• How to Find Twitter Twits to Retweet Your Tweet!

Now that you’re a pro retweetist, let’s get to the meat and potatoes.

Why Retweets Matter and Should Be Handled Properly

The genesis of this article was with Guy Kawasaki and his clever one-liner, but the message of this post is much more bland.  Retweets are essential to the continued success of Twitter. It isn’t just about retweeting me or Kawasaki or Shaq, either.

Retweets serve two major purposes. First, they are the primary method of getting important or interesting news out to the world. Whether there’s an earthquake in China or a celebrity death, retweets are necessary to spread news virally and get it in front of the right eyes. The idea that Twitter is still about “What are you doing?” is long gone. Twitter purists will say that I’m wrong, that the mundane aspects of life are what make the site interesting and conversational, but for Twitter to survive and thrive, it’s in retweets and spreading of buzz that the future of the site is golden.

Perhaps more importantly, the retweet keeps others interested. As Guy noted, getting retweeted is flattering. People enjoy being able to see that others found what they posted interesting enough to share it with their followers.  If Nielsen is to be trusted, 60% of U.S. Twitter users stay for less than a month. If it were possible to examine the habits and streams of those who leave, I would venture a guess that they weren’t getting retweeted often. Maybe they didn’t say anything interesting enough. Perhaps they didn’t make enough friends. Regardless of why, they left.

The number of quitters would be reduced if those of us who are actively engaged with the site would retweet more often.  It’s that simple.

If you love Twitter as I do, please start retweeting more. It isn’t hard. Most apps have a 1 or 2 click way to retweet. It’s too easy to do and the benefits for the site (and therefore the users) are high if we can help to retain those that give Twitter a shot.

Some things you can do:

• Watch your general stream. Even if you follow tens of thousands of people, it isn’t difficult to watch the general stream and pick out the occasional gem that pops up. You’ll be surprised – there really are masterful 140-character-moments hidden within the noise.
• Search and retweet on the topic of your choice. If you have something to say about a hot topic like #IranElections, chances are someone else has already expressed your sentiments. Find them, retweet them, and add your own flare if you want with the remaining characters.
• Most stories from popular blogs have already been tweeted by the time you’re read them. The easy temptation is to click the Tweetmeme or Tweet This button. Instead, copy the headline and paste it into Twitter search. You won’t just find someone to retweet – you may find someone new with common interests to follow.

It’s up to you. Retweeting is an important aspect of Twitter. Not everyone is into it, but if you are, it’s time to step up your game.

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Read more about Twitter Marketing on this blog.
Image courtesy of Social Shirt.
File Upload courtesy of Tweetafile.

Social media has officially become a business. Many in the industry would argue that it’s been a business for years, but until recently it has been very hush-hush and hidden in the shadows.  If you were to count the number of people claiming to be social media gurus, experts, marketers, or strategists a year ago, it would have probably been in the hundreds.

Today, it’s in the tens of thousands. Scanning Twitter and Facebook alone is evidence of this, and they are only a small part of a true strategy.

As huge corporations, home-office startups, and everyone in between rushes to get into social media, the first question that they must ask themselves is, “Do I do it myself, hire someone to do it at the office, or outsource it to a social media marketing firm?”

It’s a good, simple question. The answer is far from simple.

Rather than go into a long description of each option, here is a simple “pros and cons” analysis.  As part of a social media strategy firm, I am biased towards outsourcing. Our company is scalable to the point that we can handle any client large or small with tremendous success. However, this article is geared to be informative rather than being a sales pitch, so I will keep my personal goals out of it. Just the facts…

Hire a Person or People to Work Exclusively for the Company

— Pros —

• Direct control over the messages, branding, and promotions
• Dedication – an employee with one company in mind will be more interested in the success of that company than a social media firm with many clients
• Creating buzz around the campaigns and employees themselves – Mashable on Colonel Tribune

— Cons —

• Expense to search for, hire, train, and pay a full-time employee
• Sick days? Vacations? Accidents? Resignation?
• Lack of expertise – while there are exceptions, those who are good enough to truly understand and utilize social media to its fullest for business are not going to take a “job” when they know they can make more money as part of a team working with multiple companies and consolidating the efforts whenever appropriate.
• In the viral marketing aspect of social media, one person or even a small team is not able to compare to the clout on social news sites of a social media marketing firm.
• Bad press – Example: Jalopnik on Ford

Hire a Social Media Strategy Firm

— Pros —

• Leaving it to the experts – A few social media strategy firms really know what they’re doing. They’ve accumulated the resources, accounts, profiles and contacts to take campaigns to the top, to properly build company-related social media properties, and to get the buzz heading in the right direction.
• Cost – It’s normally less expensive to hire a firm to do social media marketing compared to hiring an individual or team to work exclusively for a company.
• Set goals and monitor result – For most companies, the convenience of being able to set the direction, sit back, and wait for results is extremely appealing.
• Changing landscape – Social media sites change their procedures regularly. What works today to get a front page story on Digg or massive retweets on Twitter may not work tomorrow. A company who is deeply embedded, who breaths social media every day, can be a tremendous benefit.

— Cons —

•  There are thousands of companies and individuals offering social media marketing services who can barely spell “Digg” or “Flickr” the proper way. Trying to distinguish between the handful of quality firms and the thousands of low quality or scandalous outfits can be daunting.
• Lack of control – IF you can find a social media strategy firm who is really good at what they do, they are normally pretty stubborn. They know what works and it’s hard to tell them otherwise or send them in a different direction.

Do It Yourself or Add it to the Workload of a Current Employee

— Pros —

• Cheap – all it takes is time

— Cons —

• Cheap – all it takes is time, a lot of time
• Lack of experience – there are how-to guides, ebooks, and blogs on how to implement proper social media strategies. Some work. Most don’t.
• Poor execution – having a poorly run social media strategy is worse than not having one at all

Regardless of what you choose, try to stay flexible. It’s important to know when something isn’t working as well as it should be.

Soon, we will go into details about how to recognize a real social media strategy company versus someone who spams sites and talks about how good they are at social media marketing.

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Read more about this topic on this Social Media Strategy Blog.

“Every blog should have its own Twitter account.”

WHOA! Slow down.  If EVERY blog had a Twitter account, the site would be “over capacity” constantly.  Some web hosts claim 99.99% uptime.  Twitter would be at 99.99% downtime considering there’s more blogs on the Internet than atoms in the known universe.

With that out of the way, let’s first say that “every” to me clears out spam blogs, boring blogs, worthless blogs, and blogs about bacon or politics.  Hopefully, this blog doesn’t fall into any of those categories other than the occasional bacon post.  Assuming there are a couple of hundred thousand quality blogs in the world right now, that wouldn’t be too hard for even the Twitter servers to handle.

Where does it all fit in and how can Twitter and blogging work together? We’ll get to that, but first…

Setting Up Your Twitter for Your Blog

For research purposes (and, of course, to be a blog of action and not just theory) I created a Twitter account for Soshable. This is separate from my personal Twitter account, but as long as Twitter doesn’t mind having them, I don’t mind managing them.  I created the account with the name of the blog. Some use the term dotcom at the end either because their blog name was already taken or because they wanted to get an extra push for visitors by publicizing the web aspect of their account.

Once registered, you can import contacts.  Sadly, Twitter doesn’t give you the option of emailing them to announce your intentions for this account, but if they’re real contacts, they’ll get the picture.

Go straight to Settings and fill out your information.

The avatar was easy – I used my logo.  Sadly, I was too lazy to build a nice, professional background or a witty tiled-image, but it works for me. For those who want quick and easy Twitter designs, they can use…

• MyTweetSpace – Free Twitter Backgrounds

Final step: tweet.  It’s easy.  Say hi to the Twitterverse.  In 140 characters or less, tell anyone who may check out your updates what your intentions are with the account.  If your intentions are strictly marketing or sales oriented, you might want to avoid going straight into the pitch immediately.  In fact, you may not want to create the Twitter account at all, as that kind of stuff doesn’t fly well.  Perhaps I should have mentioned that in the beginning.  Hopefully, I didn’t waste too much of anyone’s time.

With your new Twitter account in had and ready to roll, it’s time to get your blog ready…

Setting Up Your Blog for Your Twitter

If you’re blog is going to have a Twitter account of its own, we’ll assume that this account will tweet new posts.  There are tools, such as…

• Wordpress Twitter Tools

…that help to integrate your blogging activities with the twitter account.  Some love them, as automation makes things easier.  For this blog, despite an upcoming ramp-up of posts with a new writer hired, automating the tweets isn’t worth it.  I can tweet by hand.  The 140 characters will only take me a few seconds to type.

Just as you want Twitter to send visitors to your blog, you’ll want your blog to send visitors to your tweets.  I found…

• TwitterButtons

… that has a nice selection of badges as well as an extremely easy interface to get a quality badge up on your blog very quickly.  I liked these better than some of the generic ones out there because they are, well, not generic.  Different colors (I get tired of the Twitter baby blue sometimes), different birds, different sizes, easy to adjust sizes – perfect for non-design-oriented bloggers such as myself.  Once you have an acceptable badge, you can put it in the sidebar or, for more exposure, add it to your posts directly.  The Digg button is out (or at least moved to the bottom for most quality blogs).  It’s Twittertime!

There are a couple of other things you can do.  A short post doesn’t hurt, one with a simple headline like “(this blog) is Now Tweeting!”  You can create a Twitter page.  One urge they I would recommend fighting is the one that says to put a…

• Twidget – Twitter Stream Widget

…into your sidebar.  For one thing, it could keep people from visiting your Twitter account directly.  For another thing, it might be redundant, as it may have links to your posts at any particular time.  Putting your personal Twitter widget in there wouldn’t really hurt if you don’t mind the association, but it may be confusing to have two accounts represented on the sidebar.

Once you’ve got your Twitter and your blog set up, you’re ready to get involved.  Here are some…

Quick Twitter Blog Account Tips

Now, the question at hand is, “Should every blog have a Twitter account?”  With the absolute explosion that Twitter has seen in the past 3 months, the obvious answer would be an affirmative.  Just as bloggers look to social media, search engines, and all of the other possible traffic-driving techniques they can think of or read about to drive traffic to their blog, why not include a little self-serving Twitter love?

As long as you DON’T SPAM with it, you should be able to give and receive value.  That’s the real key to Twitter.  If you give, you can get.  Now, those tips I promised…

• Give your Twitter blog account a personality.  It can be your personality, a skewed extention of your personality, or something completely different.  Think from the perspective of “I’m a blog. I am words, images, and videos. What do I want to Tweet today?” Weird? Yes.  Cool if done right? Yes.
• Don’t use it as a post hog for updates. CNN can get 70K followers based upon the news they report.  You… won’t.  Do more than just tweet about your newest post.
• Keep it real.  Reply to DMs and @you tweets.  Read what people are saying around you.  If it’s interesting or relevant to the topic of your blog, jump in and converse.
• DON’T SPAM! Regardless of how amazing your work-at-home opportunity may be to you, it’s not going to be appealing to most of your followers.
• Follow people, but not too many.  It’s easy to see people with followers in the thousands and tens of thousands and think, “If I add 1000 people a day, some of them will follow me back.”  Take it slow.  Make sure your account is not completely lopsided by following a lot more than are following you.  Does it work to follow a bunch?  For some, yes.  Fight the temptation.  Did I mention “take it slow?”
• Find people in the niche that your blog covers.  Sites like Twellow categorize people based upon interests and geography.  Find those who may benefit from your blog and with whom you can engage in interesting Twitter conversations.
• If you have multiple accounts, Matt can help.  It makes managing your personal account and your blog accounts much easier.
• Post interesting stuff about your posts in Twitter.  Create interaction.  For example, you can Tweet something like, “Comment of the Day came from John Q. on (Post URL)” and then follow it up with “Here’s the CotD: I got picked on a lot in school, but at least I knew how to get everything to work on 1 remote control. Oh and I make…”
• Dual-stream your media. If you have a great image on your blog, the urge is to entice people to visit the blog with a teaser post such as “You’ve got to check out this great picture of bacon… (link)”.  Believe it or not, if you post the picture using services like TwitPic you actually have as good if not better chance for people to click through to the blog.  If they like what they see there, they’ll want to know or see more.

That’s it.  I’m pooped.  To much tweeting and blogging today.  Get ready to meet our newest writer next week!

(Did I mention DON’T SPAM?)

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Read more about Social Media on Soshable.

One of the best parts about my job is that I get to talk to a lot of the top users over at Digg.  This is important because the Digg algorithm is always in a constant state of tweak (a statement that can be construed properly several different ways).  It changes as fast as, if not faster than, Google and other search engines.  Two questions always pop up with either me asking top users or other users asking me:

“What does it take to get to the front page?”

The answer has two parts: time and tools.  We can go into the time issue later, but for now, let’s assume that you have the time.  The second question is:

“What are the right tools?”

There are dozens of lists of Digg tools out there.  Most of them are nice and quaint, but do top users really use them.  Normally, no.  Here are the tools that they do use.  Some are obviously loose interpretations of the word “tools” but anything that helps to achieve the goal of hitting the front page often should be listed.

Great Sources

Bottom line, some sources hit more easily than others.  It’s an unfair social media world, but a story posted on sites like HuffPo, Cracked, and ArsTechnica will have a better chance of hitting the front page of Digg than the same exact story posted on SERM Experiment.  Use DI66 and their list of top sources in the last 7 and 30 days to find out what’s been hitting lately.  Check it often – you’ll find some sources that hit often one month, especially new sources, mysteriously stop hitting altogether the next month (but remember, Kevin and Jay say autobury doesn’t exist).

It isn’t easy to get stories from the top sites.  Many users sit on these sites, ready to pounce as soon as the next story is posted.  Some sources post around the same time every day, which is why around 9pm PST you’ll see one, two, or even three duplicate submissions of the Astronomy Picture of the Day and a mad dash around 5am PST for the latest posting on Cracked.  Find sites on the list that you’re interested in that hit often.  Sometimes, the best sources aren’t even in the top 20.

RSS Feed Reader

Once you have a list of sources, you need to monitor them for new stories.  Open up 50 windows on Internet Explorer and then…

Wow, that statement failed in so many ways.  No, you don’t have to refresh the websites every few seconds.  All you need is a great feed reader.  You need one that pings your sources constantly.  That’s the key.  Having a feed reader that pings every 10 minutes won’t help you land the top sources.  You need something that’s always working for you.

Sadly, I wish I could divulge the best one, but I promised multiple users that I would not.  It’s not a coincidence that many of them are using the same one, simply because it is the Johnny on the Spot of RSS Feed Readers.  But, to keep pointers away from the “close” button on on the tab or window that contains this story, I’ll at least give a hint…

As feed readers go, it’s a spicy one that does not appear on the list supplied on my Feedburner (which may be why top submitters don’t post from here).

Good IM List

The art of using IMs for getting Diggs and comments is a slippery slope.  Does it work? If done properly, yes.  Is it annoying? Yes, even if done right.  Is it necessary?  No, but it sure helps sometimes.

If you use IM to promote your submissions, there is a whole blog post or two that could describe what to do and what not to do, but here are the basics:

• Don’t send out too many.  Once a week should be fine.  Once every couple of days and you might start losing people, but not many.  Once a day – annoying, but again, there are a ton of people who do it, so you should be fine.  Once you start getting into multiple IMs a day asking for Diggs, you better be a really friendly and likeable person who is quick with the return requests.
• In case you didn’t know, Digg knows the source of the Digg as well as the path that visitors took to get to the source (illustrated well with last month’s ban-parties).  Sending people straight to the submission is about as effective as shouting.  Mix it up.  Send some people to the source if it has a nice Digg button on it.  Send them to the upcoming page with the title of the story.  Send a couple to your profile and ask them to Digg your top favorite.  They have their algorithm geared towards detecting artificially inflated Digg counts.  Make it natural.
• IM all at once or spread it out.  Nothing in between.  There are two strategies: quick bursts of IMs either in the beginning or as soon as it hits the upcoming “Hot in (sub-category)” section is one strategy that works well, but at a certain point you lose the diversity factor.  The other strategy is to sprinkle Diggs throughout the 24 life of the submission.  Get it some quick ones in the beginning to get the ball rolling, then add a few more every hour or couple of hours.
• Be polite.  Make friends.  Real friends.  If all you do is ask for Diggs every day with nary a “hello” and “thank you” you will be removed from many lists.  You might be surprised that there are people on the other end.

Trend Watchers

The above-noted DI66 is a strong tool for getting a basic overview of what’s hitting, but if you have the time, there are better tools for analysis.  Social Blade, for example, compiles the front page like DI66, but it goes into more line-item detail about the stories that are hitting.  Look at the data and get a feel for what is happening with the algorithm.  How quickly are stories hitting?  How many stories do front page submitters Digg in the 24 hours prior to it hitting.  How many friends vs. non-friends Dugg the stories?  How many Diggs did it take?  How many comments?

For those who really want to get down to the nuts and bolts and analyze what is happening to the front page, Social Blade is the best.  Another useful tool is Digg Explorer.  It shows visually what has been happening with the last 500 front page submissions.  While it doesn’t have as much useful data as Social Blade, it has its uses and is definitely more visually stimulating.

Friday Night Digg I Mean Tech Podcast

Even though it is a tech show, The Drill Down seems to have a tendancy of discussing Digg a lot.  Perhaps it’s the presence of the top 3 Diggers of all time (well, top 2, then number 4, since MakiMaki recently passed the banned Zaibatsu) as the hosts that keeps the chat room, post-show discussion, and occasionally the show itself talking about Digg.

If you miss the show at 8:30 PST Friday nights live on Ustream, you can catch it on their website, but sometimes the best digg-discussion comes from the chat room and post-show.

Time

It will be an entirely different blog post that discusses ways to minimize the time required to do well on Digg, but know this: now that scripts are outlawed and blind digging gets the “Whoa Cowboy” message, users have to find ways to Digg often.  Regardless of the intentions of the site or the desires of the masses of users, the front page is about the style and participation of the submitters.  Quality has something to do with it — you can’t make it without at least a little quality in your submissions — but as I’ve said before, an inactive user and a weak source can post pictures of Jimmy Hoffa on a beach with Elvis Presley and Kurt Cobain and it probably wouldn’t hit the front page (until it was re-submitted by a strong user or from a strong source later).

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Read more about Digg on this and other social media marketing blogs.

Watch any movie made from about 1990 or older that has a business scene in it and you’ll see men in suits carrying large, rectangular briefcases into large boardrooms for meetings.  Today’s on the go business people, tech savvy entrepreneurs and active lifestyle people are reducing the amount they carry with them, while having more access to cutting edge technology than ever before.  Quietly, the Netbook has become, for lack of a better buzzword, the killer app of 2009.

It seems that every major manufacturer is hopping on the Netbook bandwagon. To get more familiar with what’s out there, read this Netbook Roundup on the four big contenders in the market now.  In a nutshell, Netbooks are meant to fill a void in the market for those users who need more computer power than an iPhone or Blackberry can provide them, but don’t want to lug around a full sized laptop.  While Netbooks are amazingly efficient and powerful for the size, these five accessories will help the transition to a Netbook lifestyle even more enjoyable.

Travel Bag

The Crumpler Breakfast Buffet comes in several different colors, so you won’t be that guy with the boring brown or black briefcase.  Holding up to a 12″ Netbook with enough room to stash some reading material, lunch and power supply it’s the perfect accompaniment for any Netbook.  Unique to the Crumpler line is the brightly colored liners instead of boring colored black.  Not only does this add some splash to the color, it makes finding things in the bottom of the bag that much easier.  A comfortable, padded shoulder strap, 900d water resistant exterior and a ripstop liner ensure this bag outlasts your laptop, maybe even you too!

Control, Share & Sync Securely

The IOGEAR USB Laptop KVM Switch featured in the Netbook Roundup is a perfect accessory to enhance your Netbook experience from your desktop computer such as the ability to use a larger keyboard and monitor, access application on the desktop, sync and transfer files in a safe and secure environment.  Super slim by design, an on-screen menu will help you navigate between the two computers seamlessly.

Extra Storage

Western Digital My Passport Essential external hard drive will ensure no file is left behind at the office.  Since one of the compromises in using a Netbook is often a very small hard drive, an external makes taking all your files with you possible.  The My Passport Essential is available in sizes ranging from 250GB to 500GB in a bevy of colors to match or clash your Netbook and is USB powered so you won’t have to take a dedicated power supply.

Printer Friendly

Canon’s BJC-85 Portable Bubble Jet Printer isn’t much bigger than a Netbook coming in just under 12″ wide and weighing a scant 4.5lbs, but it doesn’t sacrifice quality.  When out and about, the need often arrives to print contracts, directions or a bill of sale.  Add the optional battery pack and this printer becomes that much more versatile, eliminating the need to run to a Kinko’s and waste time.

Mouse

IOGEAR gives your mouse back with their Bluetooth Optical Mini Mouse, a fully featured mouse with great response and sleek looks.  One of the biggest sacrifices in a Netbook is the track pad and click buttons.   A mouse for most users is simply easier to use and allows them to be more productive.  Most all Netbooks natively have Bluetooth, why not take advantage of it.  Best of all, this one requires no batteries, a USB cable is included to re-charge and an on / off switch ensures maximum battery life.

Let It Burn

Fill your burning needs with the LG GP08LU10 Slim External Super-Multi DVD Drive.  Offering one of the market’s slimmest 22x DVD+/- burners with LightScribe technology for disc labeling, this ultra-portable burner will allow you to load software and burn music, data and DVD discs from your Netbook, and since most all lack an optical drive.   To complete the package, LG has enabled this device to be USB powered so you don’t have to bring the power cable on the road with you!

Netbooks are here to stay, however most still require some of the full sized counter parts’ components now and again.  These five devices should prepare you for any situation that could come up, improving your newly found Netbook lifestyle.

What devices do you consider “must have” when traveling with your Netbook?

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Read more on this Social Media Marketing Blog.