WriterRiver.com is a social news site intended for technical communicators. If you’re familiar with Digg.com, it works in much the same way. Users can submit news articles (called “stories”). Newly submitted stories initially appear on the Upcoming Stories tab. When five people float the article, it moves it to Front Page Stories tab, which is the default site view. You float the article by clicking the Float link on the blue Vote button to the left of an article.

This site is powered by Pligg.com, which is a Digg.com clone. As a long-time fan of Digg and the Diggnation podcast, Tom wanted a similar site for technical writers. He also wanted to highlight the many excellent blog posts that are being written by 200+ technical writer bloggers, and enable a news mechanism where anyone can discover cool content on the web.

Below is a little blurb about the man who created Write River Tom Johnson:

“This may sound a bit boring, but really technical communication touches many areas, such as usability, marketing, information architecture, content management, XML, Web 2.0., management, graphic design, web design, and of course just plain writing. Technical writers are often learning and working with the latest technologies. I touch upon many of these topics in my blog.”

If you would like to know more about Write River or Tom Johnson just visit his personal blog I’dratherbewriting.com.

Written By : Michelle Amos

When building a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, it is very important to consider a number of factors like PageRank, keyword density, and backlinks. Social media optimization (SMO) works very closely with SEO. Many tactics for running successful campaigns benefit both. One of the main things Google suggests is to build content for your reader, not search engines, and build high-quality content. This benefits both SEO and SMO by giving your reader something interesting, which makes it more likely to be passed around. As it gets passed around, more backlinks are established benefiting PageRank and weight, key pieces in Google’s algorithm. High-quality content also benefits by adding keyword rich content to a site which helps increase relevancy to search terms, another big piece in the algorithm. If people begin talking about your content (i.e. posting your content on their site), the content benefits by the PageRank of their page. Social media optimization is a process by which viral growth is ignited by moving quality content past the initial negative inertia which prevents the success of most content and sites.

A great SMO tactic that benefits SEO is using a paid campaign to begin viral growth. If you are starting from scratch, then it is very easy to begin an SEO campaign, by using paid search to give yourself some traffic and a few links so that you will be indexed quickly. Sure that works, but try running a StumbleUpon campaign in addition to paid search. The one problem with paid search is if you start a campaign then stop your links disappear. When using something like SU you can begin the viral push, but more importantly, SU gives you links, permanent links. Every time someone thumbs up your content piece, you get a link placed in their profile. If they thumbs down your content, you get a link in their profile. When someone visits your site, you get a link in their profile. That’s about $.05, per backlink, even if no one likes your page, and as everyone knows, links are one of the big keys to SEO.

Mike Palmer
Analyst

When running a Stumble Upon advertising campaign, good feedback is a very important factor to consider.  This is important  for a number of reason.  The first is the obvious reason that you should want your message to be as well received as possible.  If someone likes your message they will more likely take the action you want them to take.  This, however, is not the only reason that seeking feedback is important. 

The way stumble upon works is that feedback ratings are taking from users, mixed with the number of new posts that user submits, and that user gets a ranking.  The ranking of a user determines the weight of their thumb.  A new user with a low ranking may thumbs up a post with little effect or possibility of someone new seeing it.  A top stumbler can thumbs up a post which will be guaranteed to be seen by 100+ people because of their weight.  If more people like your post, the more chances you have to land a top stumbler who will hopefully add a thumbs up and carry the piece even further increasing the viral effect of StumbleUpon.  As a side note, it is very important to keep up with a good stumble upon account and use it regularly to increase the weigh of your own thumbs up.  That is a very simple way to push the content of a campaign a little bit further.  Which, as with good feedback from other users, gives you more bang for your marketing dollar.  It is possible, if not common, to see StumbleUpon yield 7-8 times the visitors than were expect.

How can you get good feedback on an article?  The first and obvious way is to make the content as good as possible, make it shine.  Since a relatively few number of people will actually give a thumbs up, every thumbs up counts.  The other major way to get good feedback is to target the right category, and do some testing between categories.  If you have a funny picture, it might be tempting to categorize that picture in “Photography”.  Big mistake.  The photography category is one of the hardest categories to get good feedback from.  This category contains some very amazing work, and is very difficult to get good feedback even for professional photographers.  Often times, good but not great works will get a thumbs down since the bar for quality is set extremely high.  However, the “Humor” category is probably one of the easiest.  If it is mildly funny, someone might give it a thumbs up, but they are  less likely to give it a thumbs down, which can limit the number of people who see the content.  The best bet is to try a little bit of traffic in a couple of different categories, then pick the one that has the most positive ratings and stick with that. 

Mike Palmer
Analyst

This is a little piece of advice for the people who don’t promote themselves.  If you have good content, and you know it, it is ok to promote yourself some.  There  are numerous people out there who seem to feel like promoting themselves is wrong.  This is not the case,  it is perfectly  fine as long as you don’t cross that line into “shameless self-promotion”.  As long as you aren’t the person who introduces themselves and begins pushing their stuff  without regard for tact or decorum, you’re fine to do a little promotion.   It is all about the conversation.  It is perfectly fine, if in the course of a conversation, be it online, in person, or wherever, to tell someone else about what you are doing or what you are excited about. 

So how do you apply this to marketing or traffic driving?  Go ahead, take the first step and digg your own content.  Give your article a Thumbs Up in StumbleUpon.  It is MUCH more difficult to get an outside person to give the first digg  or thumb than the second.  It requires much more work to describe the article, select a category, verify the entry, and finally submit it than just rating it.  By adding the first one, you are giving your approval, saying you like the content (which hopefully you do since it is yours) and adding a “face” to the piece.  You could also think of it as asking for feedback so that you can improve you content.  Getting the initial momentum will place the piece in front of a few people, and hopefully, if the content is good enough, approve it so that others can pass it on further.   

Here is an example of someone trying too hard to promote their stuff, and coming across as shameless self promotion.  This is at the top of many of their articles:

Hey, Stumbler! Don’t forget to look around before hitting the Stumble! button again
http://www.holycool.net/2008/03/gun-egg-fryers.html

I looked around, it wasn’t that interesting.  Since I gave them the benefit of the doubt and was let down they got a thumbs down instead of just moving on.  In addition, this tactic is a little misguided.  A ThumbsUp is more valuable than the two or three pageviews you will get from a new visit because  a positive review will put the article in front of more people.  It is the difference between three  pageviews, or six more new visitors (and however many pageviews they visit). So, it would be more beneficial to say something like:

If you liked this post, don’t forget to digg it or give it a thumbs up. Thanks.

The reminders and mild self-promotions work, you just have to let people decide what they like.  Don’t be afraid if people don’t like it that just means you need to change something, and try again.  Eventually something will take off.

By Mike Palmer
Analyst

Traditional site design typically consists of building features, focusing on usability, or creating a cool feel for a site.  While these elements are important, they are secondary to a few other key aspects that will promote viral growth of a site.  Sites are designed by people familiar with the site, who set goals based on what they think their existing users will like, not focusing on how the site will spread or whether people will talk about the site.

When thinking about social media you have to design the site around a viral element.  A key video, tool, piece of content, or even the product itself, possibly.  This is the hook.  This is what captures the audience.  When identifying the viral element, you have to take an honest look at your site.  Will anyone really care about what you are trying to push their way?  It is a tough pill to swallow, that most of the time, if the site is not growing quickly, the site isn’t really interesting.

If the site is interesting and has some sort of viral element, then you have to look at sharability.  This how easy it is for someone to share your viral element with their friends.  If it is hard for someone to share it, that limits viral potential.  It could be something as simple as adding your article to StumbleUpon, immediately after it is posted.  This helps get the ball rolling on your content because visitors will be less inclined to write an article about your site than they would to just add a Thumbs Up. 

Another issue that affects sharability is the value proposition.  If people can’t quickly ascertain the purpose, function, and benefit of your site, they can’t tell people about it.  In addition, value proposition and it’s clarity is key to the success of a site.  If someone shares your site with their friends, but their friends visit your site they aren’t engaged because they don’t know what it is for there is really no net benefit.  The most difficult part of this is that, for a viral campaign, your homepage is more often than not a secondary or tertiary entrance point.  The people sharing your viral element will share the element itself, and if that isn’t your homepage, then people won’t see what’s on your homepage. 

It is a difficult task to design a site for social media, but it can be done with some careful planning and careful thoughts on these elements.

At an AdTech Show, in San Francisco, last year.  I attended a session on content.  The gist of the session was that “content is STILL king.”   At the time, I thought that made sense.  The more I think about it now, the less that makes sense.  Content is STILL king implies that there was or will be a time when content is not the most important component of a site.  There is maybe one successful site I can think of where the actual content, isn’t the most important factor, CSSZenGarden.com.  The funny thing about CSS Zen Garden, is that it has an extremely strong value proposition.  The “content” which makes the site successful, is the purpose.  So, content can be either implicit or explicit.  Either way, it is vitally important.  It is easy to see from the natural progression, as sites have moved from basic text information sites to interactive content that engage the users with games or tools, that content has developed over the years.  This begs the question, “Will content always be king?”  Yes, of course it will.  Content will become MORE important.  It has become easier and easier to develop and build sites, and be a part of the internet. 

Anyone can create a site, and put some words on it.  Those people are competitors for your site, and the easier it becomes to build and develop a site, the more and more competition grows.  So, how is one to stand-out among the competition? Content.   Why would someone visit your site, if there is a better one  out there?   They shouldn’t.  Over time, they won’t.  The first rule, in the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is The Law of Leadership:  It’s better to be first than it is to be better.  False.  The transparency and low barriers to entry make the internet a proving ground, more than a first come first serve ticket window.  There are a number of case-studies on this.  Apple was not the first to introduce an mp3 player, but at the time the iPod was THE best.  Friendster opened the door for Facebook and Myspace to walk through, and improve.  Warren Buffet stresses the importance of the moat around a business as essential to it’s success.  This holds true online.  The moat online? Content.

Photo: 

When you have kids, you naturally censor yourself when you’re around them (or at least you try to - sometimes you just let an expletive slip out). But when you’re in marketing, is there an obligation to keep it rated PG?

“Crispy Frickin’ Chicken” isn’t exactly an expletive but it sent a PA family over the edge when the following image appeared on a billboard in their hometown of Harrisburg.

While I snickered at Sarah Silverman’s “I’m F*cking Matt Damon” on late-night TV, it was quickly and widely distributed over the Web within days (current count of this version: over 7.8 million views). Jimmy Kimmel came up with the rejoinder in his equally as funny/disturbing “I’m F*cking Ben Affleck” (currently at just over 4 million views). So, this content isn’t remaining in the sole domain of late-night viewing.

There are always going to be sensitive eyes & ears about any variety of things. The politically-correct movement is always trying to change our phraseology so no one gets offended, but the reality is, someone is always going to be offended by something. My question is: with the ease of syndication, embedded videos, and widgetized content, is their anything we can do to minimize the exposure of tiny eyes and ears to this stuff? Or is doesn’t it matter any more?

As to the above, I guess this family won’t be eating chicken fricassee any time soon. Maybe they’ll be frickin’ Jimmy Kimmel…

A few weeks back I wrote a post on a myspace forum, proposing that we all lend a helping hand in the endless plight for more traffic. I simply stated that I worked for a company with a vast network of blogs and asked if anyone would be interested in exchanging links.

Of course I expected to be flooded with emails and requests. Such was not the case! Rather I have received maybe a total of 3 requests for link exchanges and none of them made much sense.

Take the one I received this morning for example:

“Hi,I run the following website it is a financial website, I averaged last month $37 per day in adsense revenue, Looking to raise it to new levels hope you can help”

The first thing I can say to you is you have probably reached your maximum potential with Adsense. It doesn’t get much better. Remove the Adsense and start getting Real with people.

What if I visited your blog everyday and commented. What if I was a loyal viewer of your content? What if I had established myself as a solid part of your regular reader-base and identified myself as such? What if I cultivated that relationship with you, blog owner, by making chit chat and offering you key tips and pointers I’ve picked up along the way? What if I outstretched my hand in FRIENDSHIP with no apparent need for myself involved? Sounds nice doesn’t it? I would be more inclined to help a friend than ANYONE else. Would you help me if I established myself in your community in that way?

My instinct is that you would. No Doubt! We are all on here trying to figure it out. We would all like to make some money along the way. What has worked best in ALL of my experiences is to be completely transparent and REAL. To approach others as friends and nurture those friendships before asking for help. What it comes down to is there is no better advocate than a friend.

My advice Dear Adsense Revenue making man is to take down the Adsense, make more friends, generate a more natural and lasting form of traffic among those friends. Create awesome content that will be engaging and post it everyday. Then, and only then, should you begin your advertisement plastering crusade!

Please visit my newest friend Danny, the inspiration for this blog post at A College Dropouts Guide to Investing.

By now you know that there is fantastic incentive for promoting your pieces on Yovia. Besides simply gaining more exposure as a writer/creator, if your article is viewed 10,000 times in one week you’ll receive a $150 bonus! It may sound like a tall order, but it’s already occurred and as Yovia grows the chances of achieving this goal get better and better.

However, it won’t happen without work. We’ll help you, but you have to put some effort into spreading the word, too. The more you do, the closer you’ll come. The good news is that social promotion is a popular option now, and by participating in social bookmarking and networking sites you’re letting information about your pieces spread by leaps and bounds thanks to the word-of-mouth and interest of other people!

We’ve compiled some links, suggestions, and reference materials to help you get started promoting your work on Yovia. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail us.

Recommended promotional tools
When your material is published on Yovia we also promote it via social bookmarking. We “Digg” and “Stumble Upon” it to get the promotional ball rolling. But you should always be sure to do both to your pieces to increase their chances of being seen. We also encourage you to take a few moments to social bookmark other pieces on Yovia, so that together the network’s exposure can grow.

Across the Yovia network we offer a number of social bookmarking options and shortcuts. Some sites, like Step in the Ring, have a row of small logos representing various promotional sites, each leading to its respective site. Some sites, like Vitas!Vitas!, also have a button that reads “share” or “add this” which leads to a central page containing lots of shortcuts to promotional sites. These are handy tools that will make promoting your articles, and the articles of fellow Yovia writers, a very simple process.
Sample shortcut button:
These buttons are on the front page of each blog with their respective articles, e.g. if you’re published on NewsTrain the button will be with your article on the www.newstrain.com front page.

Another “share this” button you’ll find on both article pages and front pages of our blogs serves the same purpose and gives you another option for convenience. It looks like this:
Sample shortcut button:

Digg
Digg is a site where you can flag pages of interest to you so that other Digg users will take note of them. Digg is free to use but you must sign up for an account on the Digg site. When a URL is added to Digg (the first time someone clicks on the button to digg it, as seen on Yovia blogs and on the Digg site) a title and description must be included, but this is only needed for the initial digg. Because we do this when we publish your articles, it shouldn’t be necessary for you to take this step. However should you encounter it, the process is very simple and easy to follow. To promote your site via Digg just click the digg logo and it will add your digg to the tally (you must be logged into your Digg account). For more information you can take a tour of Digg, find out how it works, and read frequently asked questions.
Digg sample logo:

Stumble Upon
Like Digg, Stumble Upon is a way to add your “vote” for pages that have been added to the Stumble Upon site. We create the initial stumble when your article is published (the process for creating a stumble is much like what is described for creating a digg above). The difference between Digg and Stumble Upon is that to stumble you need to install a small, unobtrusive tool bar to your web browser (which can be obtained on the Stumble Upon site). This works with Internet Explorer and Firefox and is easy to install. Stumble Upon is also free, and also requires a user account that you can sign up for on the Stumble Upon site. To stumble upon your articles, you just need to click a button on the tool bar labeled “I like it!” and your vote will be counted. You can also click the Stumble Upon logo to launch the Stumble Upon site. For more information about the concept click here.
Stumble Upon sample logo:

Reddit
Reddit is like Digg, only we don’t create the initial Reddit promotion for you unless otherwise stated when we confirm your publication. If you want to use it, you will need to sign up for a free account there and when logged in, “submit” your URLs via the Reddit site. Other people can then find and vote for your pieces, spreading the word and increasing readership. For more information see the Reddit frequently asked questions and the extensive help pages.
Reddit sample logo:

Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us allows you to publicly “bookmark” a site and share your bookmarks with other users. By searching the site, users can find out what other people are bookmarking and explore those sites. We do not add your articles to del.icio.us unless otherwise stated when we confirm your publication, but encourage you to add them on your own. It requires a free account on the del.icio.us site. To use del.icio.us you will need to install a small extension to your browser, which provides a button you can click when you’re on a page you want to bookmark (like Stumble Upon). You can also use the del.icio.us logo to launch the Del.icio.us site. You’ll be asked to fill in some basic information about the page, like title and description. For more information about del.icio.us check out their help pages. Ares of interest are saving bookmarks and an explanation of social bookmarks.
Sample Del.icio.us logo:

97th Floor Tool bar
Firefox browser users can install this convenient tool bar that makes promotion via social media quick and easy. All four of the above sites (Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, and Del.icio.us) can be accessed from the tool bar Unfortunately it is only for Firefox users, so those with other browsers must access the sites directly.

More promotional sites
There are plenty of other places where you can share your articles. Most operate on similar principles to the four sites listed above. They include:
Newsvine (help pages)
Technorati (help pages)
Furl (help pages)
Simpy (help pages)
Propeller (help pages)
RawSugar (help pages)
Spurl (help pages)
Backflip (help pages)
Ma.gnolia (help pages)
Diigo (help pages)
Faves (help pages)
Tailrank (help pages)
Dropjack (help pages)
Feed Me Links (help pages)

If you’re hungry for others, there are other links on TopRank.

Social networking
In addition to social bookmarking you might want to promote your pieces via social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. These are places where you can connect with other people who have like interests, and participate in groups/forums on set topics. Both Facebook and MySpace have options for sharing news and URLs with your friends with just a simple form and a few mouse clicks. It’s a great way to encourage friends and family to pass along your URLs as well.

Occasionally we’ll ask Yovia writers to join Facebook groups to help promote a project. (Help on Facebook groups can be found here.) But you may want to use Facebook groups on your own as a way to promote your work. You can sign up for Facebook, find a relevant group, and participate in it. Sharing posts and items of interest with the group can be a great way to get exposure. Just be sure to keep it on topic and don’t abuse the space; anything that can be construed as spam will likely be overlooked, if not frowned upon. Keep in mind that Yovia only works if we foster curiosity and goodwill; neither you nor the network will benefit from spam tactics.

About spam
You can avoid spamming a site by posting a genuine comment or content of use and interest to others along with your link. For example, if you search Google for blogs with posts and themes relating to to your articles, you can comment with a link to your Yovia piece. But do so with some actual substance to your comment. Merely posting a link will be construed as spam and most likely result in deletion. If you need to brush up on your online etiquette, aka “netiquette”, a guide can be found here.

If you promote via Facebook or MySpace groups or forums, don’t “hit and run”, i.e. post once with your link and then leave the group or never take part in the group again. Your credibility increases the more you interact in any community.

Contact authors
A way to interact with authors of related material is to contact them directly and share your URLs. If you find similar blogs on Google and a contact option is given, you can send a message to the owner and suggest—in a friendly and polite fashion—that he/she check out your piece. To avoid the appearance of spam, try to make every e-mail you send to site owners a little different. An e-mail to site A should be different than an e-mail to site B. You may want to be complimentary and engaging, inviting the author into discussion with you. Do not send multiple e-mails to one author if you don’t receive a response, as that behavior may be considered spamming.

Literally. Actually about a dozen of them.

A Lion sitting in peace with a lamb has been the symbol of peace for about 2000 years. Jesus said we would have peace ‘when the lion laid down with the lamb’.

I was flipping through the channels. Nothing was on. And I mean nothing. I mean I like mind-numbing saturday afternoon TV like the rest of America, but this was a particularly bad day.

And then I came across this show on Animal Planet. Called Heart of Lioness or something.

It showed this adult, female lion who had adopted a young, lost calf. Not EXACTLY a lamb, but close.

Close enough for the local African tribes people to come out in droves to see this miracle.

The most feared predator on the continent helping and nurturing a young calf.

Unheard of.

For weeks this went on. Neither of them eating. People showing up in buses and jeeps daily to gawk and photograph this anomoly of nature.

Or was it a sign of things to come? We will see. We can hope that peace is coming.

Of course, several weeks into the vigil, a big hungry male lion came lumbering in and ate the poor ‘lamb’ for a mid-morning snack.

The scientist involved with this strange phenomenon suggested that the lion had had a poor family life, and she was somehow making up for it by adopting this poor lamb.

An interesting story to say the least.