lyndon

robwatts — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:53:09 +0000

Anyone who’s been paying attention to anything worth paying attention to recently will no doubt be aware of the many social media resources out there today. Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Del.ici.us, Myspace etc blah blah blah. I’m sure you don’t need an exhaustive list (thats’ for another blogpost perhaps)

Anything that’s frequented by large numbers of people in an area that you have an interest in should be something worthy of your consideration. If it isn’t then you are missing a huge trick. The opportunities for connecting with real people are just waiting to be snapped up. People want to connect with like minded people with like minded ideas. They’ll enjoy becoming familiar with the guy who stumbles stuff they like, the guy whose icon is always on a story somewhere.

Getting out and being sociable

The guy who is Stumbling or Digging or Sphinning or Bumping blog stories will at somepoint make it to the top of a list somewhere, his ‘brand’ will become increasingly associated with the ‘products’ that he is pushing. As time progresses he may even be seen as some maven, the opinion former, that guy who spots ‘good’ things and brings them to the attention of others.

Lets look at my friend Lyndon a Cornwall SEO. Lyndon also writes great linkbait articles . Lyndon is a top Stumbler, Digger, and Sphinner. He doesn’t Sphinn or Digg or Stumble just any old tosh – no, he pushes items that are interesting and have something to say. It is one of the reasons why he has a good little network going on in all 3 places. Unsurprisingly enough, a knock on effect of this promotional love is that his friends invariably talk about him.

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Making the most of the social media tools

Good social media sites like Sphinn have the added bonus of helping your brand, or in this case Lyndon’s by getting his face on to the pages of Sphinn that are frequented the most.

Sphinn’s home page shows their ‘Hot Topics’ these are the stories that are currently receiving the most ‘Sphinns’ from people reading blogs that are Sphinn enabled.

Practically every day this week I’ve seen Lyndons face on the front page. In other words myself and practically everybody else with a finger anywhere near the carotid artery of search marketing may at somepoint have noticed that guy with the red boat race peering out at them.

Sphinn wise, Lyndon has made a number of noteworthy inroads. He is already a top Sphinner on their ‘Greatest Hits’ page. By being a top Sphinner, he also gets a little kudos from his peers, the page linking to his profile also gets a dofollow link just one page deep from the Sphinn homepage. The Sphinn homepage is a well connected site that gets a lot of link love. By getting his link on to the their greatest hits page, Lyndons own site benefits from the resultant link love.

A look at Lyndons profile is also revealing. It shows that he is an active Sphinner. 80 comments 585 Sphinns, 48 Submissions with of these 35 going ‘hot’. Topics that go hot are usually promoted to the homepage. A direct benefit of getting Sphunn by Lyndon is that your story, whatever it is, will end up before the eyes of all manner of knowledgeable and connected people in search. What price a home page ad on Sphinn today I ask?

A combined look at his submissions and latest activity shows that he averages around 2 submissions a day. He joined the site mid July and has averaged around 9 Sphinns a day. Each little Sphinn helps bump that story up in the Sphinn attention hierachy. Those that benefit, remember such things and will usually act accordingly.

Lyndon is in good company too, he certainly isn’t alone. People like Andy, Maki , Chris, Sebastian, Loren to name but a few all actively sphinn and submit stories. They do so simply because they understand and recogniose the value and importance of the social side of this kind of stuff. They all write good stuff that receives lots of attention too. A net effect is that in all cases without exception, their brand awareness is increased. By associating with good stuff their reputation is enhanced.

What are you doing to build your brand and enhance your social media reputation?