Social Media Mom

Social Media Blog List of 2008

Just wanted to give you all a heads up regarding a fantastic list put together by none other than Mark Dykeman of the Broadcasting Brain Blog. I agree with Mark, "every serious blogger needs to make at least one resource list post, right?" Mine is here.

Mark's list is worthy of a solid bookmark as he researched as many social media blogs to find the ones that are devoted to discussion about social media, feature social media prominently within some of their posts, and have been active in 2008.

He ended up with a great list of what he considers to be 118 of the original social media blogs. Social Media Mom is honored to be a part of that list and look forward to him adding new blogs as they are found, evolve, and develop.

Thanks for the fantastic list Mark!

Cafemom Adds Voting To Their Networking Site For Moms

You may remember that last month I listed Cafemom as one of the Best in Mom Networking sites on the web. Well thanks to fellow mom blogger, Anne Marie, from My Readable Feast, I was notified of some recent changes to the Cafemom site.

The idea behind Cafemom is to bring women together to actually network and promote one another through their targeted groups, and while their groups are great, this last week marks a step toward moms promoting each other in an additional way. Cafemom has added a tool that allows moms that are sharing ideas and interesting things around the web, a chance to vote on topics on their new "hot list".........

"Moms can "bump" submitted items that they think are interesting and that other moms would appreciate. The more bumps an item gets, the more likely it will be to end up on the Popular tab of the Hot List."

Currently the categories of the "Hot List" are current events, parenting, health, entertainment, recalls and alerts and offbeat news. Similar to other networks for moms that allow voting, you can submit your own information or something you've found on the Internet that falls into one of these categories. You can share your submission with friends and flag inappropriate content. The only drawback to voting and submitting items to the "Hot List" is that you do have to be a member of Cafemom to participate.

I sincerely suggest you check it out! Peruse the Hot List, see how many bumps some of the posts have and start connecting. You may decide this is a great place to start you're own group and lead other women to sanity and support.

StrawPoll

Tiny polls in 140 characters or less. Now, I have heard it all. Doug March, founder of Twittertale, forwarded me a link to the new micropolling site,  StrawPoll........

"The premise is simple:  each day, we ask an interesting question.  Reply to strawpoll and tell us why you voted the way you did. StrawPoll tallies the votes and displays the most recent reasons for each response. To get started, all you need to do is sign into Twitter and start following strawpoll.

The founders of Strawpoll are Rob Goodlatte, a web and graphic designer, and Dan Romero, a student at Duke.

StrawPoll keeps track of the poll by voter percentage. Very fun. The poll they launched yesterday was what superpower you would rather have: invisibility or flight? I chose flight and so did 53 other people. Invisibility had only 39 votes. I guess more people would rather escape into the friendly skies than sneak around spying on people. I can't wait to see where this site goes, I have always loved participating in polls.

Using Your Blog To Sell Your Business

I met Sharyn back in October. She had just signed up for Blogger Bootcamp and we met at the St. Louis Bread Company to discuss the basics in blogging, creating content and community building. You see, Sharyn is a work at home mom, running her own business and raising two kids. She owns FeeFiFoto, an e-commerce site that offers all kinds of photo-enhanced products.

Sharyn realized that to take her business to next level she would indeed need to dive into the world of social media by adding a blog to her already established website. She decided it was time to connect directly with her target audience, peers, and those who would gain something from her posts, moms.  So, after a 6-week training course, she started a conversation with the mom bloggers.

At first, she was a bit concerned that no one would be interested in hearing about her personal life or her photo-enhanced products but through comments, emails, linking and various social sites, Sharyn has met some great people with similar interests and some of those moms, and dads, have become clients (me included).

The reason I am telling you about Sharyn is because of a recent post I read over at dawudmiracle about using a blog to sell your business.  The key to blogging about your business, as Dawud so aptly explains, is the relationship......

"Blogging makes the relationship possible with more people, in more places and at more times than any other platform yet created."

Dawud has created dozens of great relationships throughout the blogosphere that have opened opportunities for him that a static website just can't offer.......

"Through the comment box, through email, through linking, and through many of the social services like StumbleUpon or Facebook, I have had the chance to meet interesting people from all over the world. People who share my interests. Some become colleagues or friends. Others become clients. But all have come through social media…through blogging."

Sharyn is off to a fantastic start. She is a prime example of a WAHM that has totally embraced the value of social media and put it to work for her. She's not focusing on the revenue as much as she is focusing on building relationships. Her blog is almost 5 months old and she is already averaging 3000 unique visits per month and she is a big user at StumbleUpon, MomBlogNetwork, Digg and Del.icio.us.

Social Media is not hard, it can be taught. It takes commitment and it's not for everyone. Sharyn chose a blog to make her business more visible online, what are you doing?

Win An iPod Touch From Marketing Pilgrim

Andy Beal is giving away an 8 GB iPod Touch to one lucky reader. DO NOT SIGN UP because I want to win and if you Twitter about the contest or if you blog about it, you get an even better chance of being upgraded to a 16GB or 32GB version.

Evidently, entry into the contest is quite simple; all you have to do is sign up for RSS updates or e-mail subscription. I already had Marketing Pilgrim on my RSS so I registered for the e-mail updates. That is a double does of fantastic Internet Marketing advice for me each and every day.

The Mom Blog Network

The month of January ended with my comprehensive list of Social Networking sites that are geared toward the growing group of mom bloggers. There was a big response and some sites have been added as this niche continues to grow by leaps and bounds. I will write more on this later.

What I really am interested in, however, are the sites for moms that promote not only relationships but have the ability to submit posts and vote. One site that seems to be making a real dent in this arena is the new, niche, social media site, The Mom Blog Network.

I mentioned, in my post, that the community of mom bloggers is an extremely engaging and rapidly growing niche and being able to identify the top mom blogs is very a valuable resource for those looking to enter, study or market to people in a particular field.  Marshall Kirkpatrick, of Read, Write, Web, lists six different services you can use to identify the top blogs in a particular niche field. He compares the pros and cons of each site and while Marshall's list is fairly comprehensive, he does note in his conclusion that, 

"Nobody quite does what we need. Used in concert and with a little work, these tools together can build you a pretty good reading list of top blogs in any niche."

I would like to suggest that The Mom Blog Network is on the right track to becoming the best place for finding blogs in the mom blog niche.......

"Moms are the ultimate internet networkers," states Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.com. "They seek out other moms' advice for what they're looking for." Most certainly, blogs are highly effective for sharing information and establishing a critical voice online. "89 percent of moms use the Internet at least twice a day," reports PME Enterprises, which produces the annual M2Moms™ marketing conference. "In the evolution from 'Web 1.0 to Web 2.0', mommy bloggers have grown their sphere of influence."

Nobody knows about this "sphere of influence" better than fellow mommy blogger and founder of Mother's Click, Andra Davidson. Andra saw the need for moms to have place that their posts could be promoted through syndication and at the same time offer an easy way to reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to their sites, so she developed the Mom Blog Network.

Great idea, but is it working? To answer that question, I went straight to some active mom bloggers in the community that have been using the Mom Blog Network for a couple of months.  Here is what they had to say:

Amanda, from Pajama Mommy Community says,

"I just started using Mom Blog Network maybe within the last 2 months. I haven't received any referrers. In my stats you have to give me at least 11+ click throughs generally to make it in my list of referrers. Mom Blog Network hasn't given me enough to even register on my radar."

Sharyn, from the FeeFiFoto blog notes,

"In the last couple of months I have received a few visits from the Mom Blog Network. Maybe 20 or so."

Summer, from Wired For Noise doesn't put much work into it........

"I have my blog set to auto feed there so that my posts are up automatically and I get about 1 or 2 visits a week from them."

Jenny, from The So Called Me, can't seem to get her blog to aggregate to the Network.......

"I've gotten some decent traffic from them. No one that comments, but they have subscribed to my feed."

My experience in the last month has been similar to those moms above. I have received exactly 28 visits from the Mom Blog Network and while comments have been at a minimum, I have gotten a couple of subscribers. The thing that I really like about the network, as Summer mentioned,  is that once you register your blog, your posts are automatically posted on the network. So for 28 visits and no work done, it is really an easy way to generate a little extra traffic.

The good news is, it's real traffic, not fly by night votes. These are real moms looking for real content, and if they find something they like they stay for a while and quite often, become subscribers. So while the traffic may not come in hoards, the quality of the traffic is definitely what focused and highly specific social niche sites have to offer. What niche sites do you participate in?

Social Media's 10 Commandments

Everyone pretty much remembers Charlton Heston's character, Moses, in the classic epic, "The Ten Commandments". It's funny how a Bible story can hold so much weight even thousands of years later, in a nation where prayer is no longer aloud in schools and even freedom of speech has its limitations.

So what exactly, then, are the rules when it comes to social media? Is it such a new concept, that for the time being, anything goes? Surely not, and Sonia, over at Remarkable Communication, does a fantastic job explaining the 10 Commandments of New Social Media that will give anyone involved with online marketing a fairly good idea of the boundaries and rules of social media. Here are a couple of my favorites:

"Commandment #1: Thou Shalt Participate in the Conversation
The conversation is going to take place with you or without you. The 21st century has no patience with cowards. Opting out is not an option, so get in there and participate.
Commandment #5: Remember Thy Community and Keep It Holy
It's not an audience of passive recipients of your message. It's a community made up of a complicated mix of personalities. The community has its own needs and its own imperatives. Take care of your community."

Even though we are in the early days of social media, it is best to keep in mind a healthy set of conversations and guidelines. Sonia recognizes that her list of commandments won't keep you out of every bit of trouble but will keep you on the right track for the most part. For example, Commandment #3 is all about keeping it real, no fake comments and don't engineer conversations. This applies directly to the post I wrote about buying votes and subscribers. Whether it be for money or or some form of Internet credits, according to Sonia's list, this form of "black hat" marketing would be considered social media sin.

Black Hat Marketing Strategies For Sale At Entrecard

Darren Rowse, from Problogger, did an informative interview with Entrecard founder, Graham Langdon back in January, and while I appreciate Langdon's ideas to make Entrecard a place where bloggers are offered a myriad of ways to promote, monetize, and advertise their blogs, I can't help but think some of the "advertising" services being offered in the Entrecard Shop are taking on the form of black hat marketing strategies. Here are some examples from the page:

"I will stumble your site for only 50 EC's. 50EC's will buy you a stumble on one page of your website."

"Do you need to increase your comments, raise your RSS count and raise your campaign value all in one shot? Buy two and I'll sign up to your RSS via both email and reader and leave three quality comments."

"I will subscribe to your blog through e-mail for 10 credits. Increase your subscribers now! Just buy item and specify your URL...I will also drop my card!"

"Have your post dugg or stumbled by me. Do you want your blog favored on Technorati?"

"Tell me which one of these you would like and send me the link to the post in question.
You are paying for only one type of action - tell me which one (Technorati/Digg/Stumbleupon) in a mail here after purchase."

Interestingly enough, back when Langdon did his interview with Darren, the advertising page looked like this:

These ads, to me, look more like legitimate advertising opportunities as opposed to fake votes and paid subscriptions. (Am I the only one that wants "real" subscribers, real votes and real comments on my blog?) Kind of reminds me of the "Subvert and Profit" issue that came up last year regarding Gaming Digg and how this is in total violation of their terms and conditions.

I have to agree with what Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal says about social media projects and pieces:

"Smart organic newsworthy content should be shared with our peers among social media and social news channels, and pinging a handful of friends and colleagues to give such material a bit of a headstart is acceptable."

So what, then, will happen to the pay-per-community, when gaming the system becomes quite obvious?  Loren sums it up this way.......

"In time, the pay per ‘action’ campaigns will find themselves in the same dusty and questionable shelves as snake oiled spam, unfortunately casting a negative shadow against the practice, which parallels the early days of questionable SEO; something the industry has yet to shake from its credible reputation."

What do you think? Are selling votes for social media a dishonest way to market a campaign? What do you see the risks as when selling subscriptions and Diggs for traffic? And most importantly, is honesty always the best policy when it comes to social media? Penny for your thoughts.

 

Fat Kid Birthday Contest

Dear, sweet, Fat Kid is turning 18 on March 5th and to celebrate his coming of age, he has unleashed a birthday contest and is giving away a boatload of cool prizes, one of which I am hoping to win.........

• Six 1st Prize Winners will receive a free 125×125 ad on Fat Kid Unleashed for the entire month of March!
• Two 2nd Prize Winners will receive $20 in cash (via paypal)
• Two 3rd Prize Winners will receive 1000 entrecard credits

Honestly, cash would be cool but I would really like the free advertising or the Entrecard credits. I have been using Entrecard quite a bit lately and believe it or not, have seen some real traffic from it. In the past 10 days, I have received 146 visits through the Entrecard program.

There are 18 ways you can enter in honor of his 18 years of life, writing a post like this one gets you 5 entries, as well as dropping your Entrecard on his site daily. The best part about it, every time I go to his site to drop my card, I always find a great post on either blogging, social media, SEO or marketing so in my quest to win something I am actually finding great content at the same time.

Head on over to Fat Kid Unleashed, leave a comment (that will give you one entry), or at least sign up for his RSS feed via e-mail and get yourself two entries, who knows, you may just learn something.

Sleep.FM - The Social Alarm Clock

Business traveling has become a lifestyle for many and even though hotel stays and lodging may not be the most luxurious, if you own your own business, it is often a necessity.

Small Business Trends suggests that "for many business travelers, it’s simply not possible to bring families along" when traveling on business and the continuous separation can wear a person down. While I like Small Business Trend's 5 Methods to Conquer Loneliness When Traveling On Business, I would like to suggest that technology has found a way to bring family to the business traveler.

Sleep.FM claims to be the first sleep and wake up social networking site, where your friends and family's messages can wake you up. Check out this short video to see how it works.

So, do we really need something like this when we have travel alarm clocks and wake-up call services? Maybe not, but I actually think it is kind of a cool idea. My husband travels quite a bit with his computer, it might be fun to have the kids' voices telling him to rise and shine and hit the pavement, or quite possibly, my nagging voice.

Sleep.FM is still in beta and they have already had thousands of sign up requests since their presentation at the NY Tech Meetup Forum in November. They are currently working on an iPhone application as well as a Windows Mobile application which is very cool. As a work at home mom, this probably wouldn't be for me since my kids already wake me up every morning as it is. But for someone who travels....well it might just be one way to bring the family a bit closer to your home away from home.