On Wednesday, Feb 1, 2012, we published an article discussing some changes StumbleUpon made during their recent redesign which removed source links from their content pages and forced all users to view content from the site through an iframed toolbar, which they could not close if they were logged in.

One of the things I have always really loved about StumbleUpon is that unlike many social communities, they listen to their users and always try to move the site forward based on user feedback and testing.

After publishing the story, StumbleUpon reached out to me in an effort to explain the changes and to show that they were not just casual decisions they implemented without thought.

I was joined by Mike Mayzel (Director of Communications), Marc Leibowitz (VP of Business Development and Marketing), and Xian Ke (Senior Product Manager), who took the time to understand where I was coming from, listen to suggestions, and give detailed explanations on why the changes where made.

Why Remove Source Links From Info Pages?

Interestingly, only about 1/3 of all StumbleUpon users have the toolbar or some sort of addon installed, while the majority of users have neither and depend on the StumbleBar to keep showing them fresh content.

During testing and user feedback sessions, many users expressed concern that when they clicked on the links from StumbleUpon Info Pages, they were not getting the experience they expected from the site.

They wanted to have the StumbleUpon toolbar and options, so that they could rate the content, comment, and continue viewing other pages in the system. When they found themselves on the source’s site, they were forced to back into StumbleUpon to continue the experience.

“The current implementation was designed to mitigate user confusion about clicking to third party links from StumbleUpon.com (i.e. will they or won’t they be able to continue Stumbling from the pages they clicked on via the web StumbleBar).” 

During the conversation, we discussed some potential solutions and the importance of having source links. The team indicated that they will be “working on adding in direct links that refer back to the source content in a way that minimizes user confusion.”

iFraming Source Content Without An Easy Way To Close The StumbleBar

Again, with the clear number of people who use the iframed toolbar on StumbleUpon (based on StumbleUpons figures), it seems a valid point that they need some way to allow the majority of their users the ability to participate in the site and iframing the content with their toolbar seems like the only option outside of requiring the toolbar be installed in their browser.

As for not allowing people to exit the StumbleBar use, they seem to have a pretty good reason for that as well.

“Under the prior implementation, signed in users accidentally clicked on the X after which there is no way to return back to StumbleUpon.com and resume Stumbling. As a result, we updated the StumbleBar to minimize accidental closures by signed in users. Users can still sign out via the gears menu. As has always been the case, non signed in users can exit the web StumbleBar by clicking the X.”

Some interesting options were discussed, including an option to potentially hide the StumbleBar and also “providing the source link (underlying url) in one of the second level menus (e.g. share, comments or gears).”

The team at StumbleUpon made it very clear in the conversation that they had spent a considerable amount of time listening to user feedback before making the changes. They were also very clear that this is the first version of the changes, and that they would continue to review user feedback, test, and make tweaks as needed.

Do you have an opinion on the changes or thoughts on how they could improve on the current implementation? Please add your comments below, as StumbleUpon definitely reads them and takes them into consideration.

Story Update: February 3, 2012 - StumbleUpon Responds To Concerns About Links & Iframing

StumbleUpon, who happens to be one of the more popular and successful social media sites with over 20 million users (doubling from 10 million in about a year and a half), recently launched one of the biggest redesigns I can remember… basically changing everything about the site as a whole.

Having recently removed blogs, themes, and groups off the site, the new changes continue to move away from any focus on the site and more towards getting users back into the toolbar, whether iframed or installed.

Here is a video StumbleUpon released about the new changes:

One particular change that really surprised me was the removal of all direct links pointing back to the content sources from within StumbleUpon.

Instead on all content pages within StumbleUpon, you have a single button saying ‘Stumble This’, which when clicked takes you to an iframed version of the content.

Not only are they now iframing all content from the site, but if your logged into StumbleUpon, they are not even offering a way to remove the iframed toolbar, leaving you in stuck in the iframed version of the site. If you are not logged in, then there is an option to click X in the right side of the toolbar to remove it.

What is even more surprising is the lack of uprise from the tech industry and marketers on this recent change. When Digg did the same thing by launching their DiggBar, the tech industry was up in arms and the DiggBar even had an option to close, which StumbleUpon’s version does not.

Additionally not a week or two before the change, a StumbleUpon employee discussed with me how happy they were that StumbleUpon pages had so much SEO value for the content owners… well not anymore.

Maybe the iframe concerns people had a few years ago are just a thing of the past, as even Digg re-launched their DiggBar once they saw StumbleUpon get away with it. I for one find it annoying and unnecessary, especially without the ability to remove the toolbar.

This was largely due to the fact that if your content got the most “buzz” it had a chance to be featured on Yahoo.com, which can send millions of visitors to your site over a short period of time.

Of course it didn’t take long for people to find themselves at Yahoo’s first major Buzz-kill.

The program allowed only a small handful of around 300 sites into the program, so the motivation was not there for most users to participate in the site when they could not even submit their own content.

Users that were in the beta program quickly found that getting votes and making it to the Buzz popular page had nothing to do with being featured on Yahoo.com, and they probably had a better chance at winning the lottery than getting featured.

That’s because “Human editors pick the best of the stories with the most buzz and can place them on the “Top Buzz” page or, more importantly, the Yahoo homepage.” However, this meant that it was their decision, and not the buzz users voting, that determined what buzz was and what deserved to be on the Yahoo.com front page.

When Buzz finally opened the site up to all users on August 18, 2008, there was a lot of excitement for users to install the new buttons and start try to get their own content popular in Buzz — with the hopes of being featured on Yahoo.com.

Again, it did not take users long to realize that they had an even smaller chance of having their content featured on Yahoo.com than before the program opened its doors to all users and sites.

Not only was it hard to find a single example of a non-Yahoo property being featured on the front page, there was no clarity to the algorithm and system within Buzz. Some stories would receive hundreds of votes in upcoming and never show on the popular section of Buzz, while other stories were prominent on the popular page with no votes at all.

This only added to users confusion and resulted in many people losing interest with the site.

As of October 28th, 2008, if you visit the front page of Yahoo.com you will notice that the bottom right content in the “Featured” box contains a story from a non-Yahoo property.

So, finally, Yahoo Buzz has lived up to their promotional pitches to feature any content that gets enough “buzz” on the front page of Yahoo.com.

Or at least that’s what it seemed.

Typically when you visit the “Seen on Yahoo.com” link from the Buzz site, you are shown the recent stories that were featured on Yahoo.com, thus the title “Seen on Yahoo.com.”

However, when you visit the “Seen on Yahoo.com” page now, you are shown a list of sites that are indeed popular, but not necessarily featured on the Yahoo.com home page. Of the hundreds of non-Yahoo stories listed in the “Seen on Yahoo.com” section on the 28th alone, only 4 or 5 were actually featured on the front page.

Additionally, the only sites that have been actually featured on the Yahoo.com front page are high level authority domains such as Consumerist, SFGate, and Wall Street Journal.

So the question still remains… Is Yahoo’s Buzz really just a Buzz-kill?

Brent Csutoras is an internet marketing consultant, who specializes in social media, viral and search engine marketing.

With sites like Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Delicious, social media is here and it is here to stay. The success of social media really shouldn’t a mystery as in general, we all tend to want to have our voice or vote in how things are presented and done.

So it is natural that as sites began to allow people more interaction, they would in turn spend more time online and on the various social media sites.

What is really amazing is not that people, who are social in nature, found a passion for interacting online, but rather that the success of that interaction would actually invade into traditional media. Somehow in the evolution of the social media, companies have figured out how to use social media to evaluate content and determine what should be worthy of more visibility, on or offline.

Below are a few instances that really show the evolution of social media on the web starting to invade traditional media.

Twitter

On June 12, 2008, Chris Winfield did something no one else had done when he used Twitter to write his entire presentation for SES Toronto about whether Twitter was a waste of time or a great tool. He posted a series of questions on Twitter and received over 275 answers in less than 90 minutes.

Chris used the responses to write his entire presentation which was presented at one of the largest online marketing conference series.

Reddit

Reddit, one of the largest social media news sites on the web, took the next step when they began working with PBS to create a television show called “YourWeek.”

YourWeek was designed to showcase stories that were hot on Reddit during the previous week.

You can see many of the other pilots listed in the YourWeek subreddit.

Unfortunately, YourWeek was not picked up but it is a great example of how really influential television stations are looking to incorporate social media into their programming.

Revision3

Revision3 is an internet television station that produces broadcast quality shows on the web. Founded in 2005 by a handful of people, including Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson from Digg, Revision3 exploded on the web.

If you happen to fly Virgin America, you will also have the chance to watch recent Revision3 shows as a part of their in-flight entertainment television system called “Red”.

Current TV

Current TV, founded in 2005, is an Emmy award-winning television show that broadcast their user generated shows to more than 51 million households in the US and the UK.

Users participate on their social platform at Current.com by submitting content, commenting, and voting on the various stories. Stories that make it to the front page of the site are eligible to be included in their broadcast show on Directv, Dish Network, Comcast, Time Warner, and more.

CNN

CNN, one of the largest news agencies in the world, has also taken social media offline and into their broadcasts.

Initially with their social media platform iReport, where users can submit and discuss news to be displayed on CNN, followed by their most recent project, Rick Sanchez Direct.

Rick Sanchez Direct, a new CNN show live Monday through Friday at 3:00 p.m. EST, uses Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, to connect directly with a growing audience of people can interact with Rick Sanchez live on national television.

The show launched in September of 2008, so it is unknown the extent this new adaption of social media will have to traditional media offline, but it is a huge step having one of the largest news agencies in the world using social media in traditional media.

And more…

The examples goes on and on, Yahoo features occasional content from their social media platform, Buzz, and even Google is showing youtube videos in their search results. This clearly indicates that the search engines understand and respect the power of social media online.

We will continue to see more and more traditional media outlets creating social media platforms and interacting with their audiences to help determine what stories to promote in their offline traditional media.

Do you have any examples of social media invading traditional media that we have missed? If so, please comment them below.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get while speaking on social media marketing at conferences is “How can something boring be successful in social media?”

Well, there is really no product, service, or topic that cannot be successful in social media marketing if you are willing to be creative. To prove the point I have found four really boring products that rocked in social media.

1. Blenders – Outside of a few geeky modification articles, there was not a whole lot that had been done with the household blender in social media. That was until “Will It Blend” videos ripped onto the scene.

   Blendtec, a blender company, had been putting their blenders through some extreme tests to validate the quality and durability. One employee was impressed by the tests and decided to video tape a few different tests and put them on the internet.

   The result was one of the most viral campaigns to date. Later a “Will It Blend” website was created and they have been blending just about every new gadget that comes out on the market, continuing to stay fresh and with the current trends.

   Here is what might be the first “Will It Blend” video:

2. Taxes – My god, taxes are about as boring of a topic as it gets. It is topics like these that make you want to reach deep into that creative side of your brain and come up with something out of the box… like H&R Block did.

   Meet Truman Greene, who is “down with the Block.” Truman infiltrated social media sites like Facebook and Myspace with sites dedicate to H&R Block. He even shot numerous videos that were published on YouTube.

   Truman’s amassed about 900 Facebook friends and over 3000 on Myspace, all connected to his pro-Block message.

   Check out the “Ode to Block” video by Truman Greene:

3. Milk – About the only really memorable advertising campaign that worked for milk was the various stars with their “Got Milk” mustaches, until White Gold came forth to rock you milk drinkers out of your seats.White Gold, an interactive social media campaign launched by Got Milk, shows us that if your product is too boring, you can spend a ton of money and succeed in social communities. Targeted at the teenage audience on social community pages like Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube, the White Gold campaign has amassed 1,000′s of friends on each site.

   Some of White Gold’s video have received almost 500,000 views, like this one:

4. Urinals – Bathroom fixtures are just dripping with boredom, unless you happen to be lucky enough to use one of the world’s craziest urinals.One very smart marketer from Germany decided to put together a post with all of the weirdest and craziest urinals from all over the world.

   

   The result was over 5,000 Diggs after it hit the front page, http://digg.com/design/Pictures_of_the_Craziest_Urinals_From_Around_the_World

   So hopefully the above examples show that no matter what you are trying to push in social media, there is a way to make your really boring topic exciting and fun.

Brent Csutoras is an internet marketing consultant, who specializes in social media, viral and search engine marketing. The Let’s Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

Social media marketing is one of the fastest changing forms of marketing online. Every time a new site, service, or community is launched, there comes both new opportunity for marketing and the possibility that the site you just spent months participating in will become obsolete.  

Social media is not something you can do in your spare time. You need to commit time and be dedicated to social media and keep up with the constant changes.

Here is a quick look at social media and the recent changes that have taken place.

Social News
The only real new player in the social news space has been Yahoo with their Buzz section. However, it is not actually new and since you have to be asked to participate in their small pool of beta publishers, it makes it less appealing to most people.

I would encourage you to still head over to http://buzz.yahoo.com from time to time and cast some votes while logged into Yahoo. Your participation will not only help out some of the few that are in the system, but can also make sure your account has some history of activity when the program launches out of beta.

You never know when your activity will be important with any given social media community.  

One piece of really breaking news that happened lately was Reddit turning their site open source and allowing anyone to use the Reddit code and develop new features for the Reddit site and their own.

TechCrunch was the first to utilize the open source with the launch of their “TechNews” section.

Additionally, Reddit has gone through a complete redesign, launched a PBS television show called “YourWeek”, and added image thumbnail previews to their submissions.
Digg has made quite a few changes as well. In May they launched their new comments system, followed by a navigational cleanup release that was in preparation for their big “recommendation engine” release.

Mixx also makes it into my list with their release of communities, which allow users to create their own custom communities that they can design and administrate. Although sites like Reddit already have community sections (Reddit has subreddits), Mixx is the first to allow visual customization.

Boudica, a new women’s social news site launched recently. Although it is very new and I have not had the chance to play with the site too much, it looks promising and has some really smart minds behind it. Check it out if you haven’t and register an account.

Social Networking
Ahhh, social networking: the biggest waste of time and the most important thing any social media marketer can do.

You need a good network of friends to help support your social media campaigns, but how do you balance the time spent on all these social networking sites and services? It is actually a personal call, but here is a little info on what’s happening in the social networking space.

Twitter has been around for a while, but only in the last few months did it really explode and become extremely popular. So popular that social media genius Chris Winfield, @chriswinfield, even used Twitter to write both his recent Search Engine Land article and his presentation at SES Toronto, with great success.

The last few months have been a struggle for Twitter as they have fought hard to keep their servers up and their service available. I like to refer to them as the “Vonage” of networking services, as they just didn’t really prepare for success.

They had to cut back many of the features and limit the API services in order to keep the site up and even functional.

During the downtime, people began immediately looking for alternative networking services and FriendFeed was one that was quickly adopted.

FriendFeed is a service that allows people to add multiple services from across the web into one feed so their friends can follow all their activities, such as Twitter, Flickr, Blogs, Reddit, and many others.
The hype around FriendFeed seemed to last only about a week or two, and was coincidentally only during the time Twitter was down. When Twitter came back up in regular spurts, the buzz around FriendFeed seemed to fade away.

Some people still enjoy using FriendFeed since they recently added “rooms”, a mini friend feed focused on a particular subject or group of people.

Plurk is another interesting social networking site that popped up shortly after Twitters problems started. Very similar to Twitter, Plurk is a “social journal for your life”, in that you submit updates into a timeline for your friends and fans to read and respond to.

Plurk is different than Twitter in that the updates are on a vertical timeline that you can move by clicking and dragging your screen left or right.
It also combines everyone’s responses under the initial comment, which makes it easier to follow all the conversations. The only real downside is that there is no API currently available, but an Adobe Air program called Plurkit makes it easier to use.

There seems to be a lot more activity amongst social media marketers on Plurk, so if you are looking to network more with other social media users, then I would advise signing up for Plurk and giving it a whirl.

Social Communities
There is not a whole lot to talk about in regards to social communities. Outside of Facebook deciding to ban people at random, social communities are pretty much business as usual.

Did I miss something you felt was important about the ever changing social media industry? Feel free to add to this article through your comments below.

You should consider many factors when getting involved in Social Media Marketing, such as the quality of your content, your domain name, and who is submitting your content. But there is almost always one thing I find myself looking at before any of the above conversations even begin: the design.

You need to make sure your site is designed and performs in a way that is suitable for social media.

Most social communities are not filled with web novices or beginners. They are filled with internet savvy individuals, who know what a site should look like, and more importantly, which sites are legit and which sites are just spammers trying to look legit.

Below are some tips and suggestions that you can apply to your site, to make it social media friendly.

1. Be Modern. It has never been easier to upgrade your site with a modern design. Web design templates are for sale everywhere, sites like 99designs.com offer contests to get designs, and there are a ton of templates and designs that you can use for free.

   Your website is your store or place of business online. Just like in the real world, no one wants to step into a messy, old, dirty, and broken down office when considering whether to do business with you and your company.

2. Be Hospitable. Make it easy for people to see your content and read it without interruption.

   Don’t force people to view more than one page in order to finish your article and avoid any sort of pop-ups or distractions.

3. Downplay ads. There is a time and a place for having advertisements on a web page and that time is almost never during a social media campaign.

   A social media campaign normally lasts up to 24 hours. During that time, you are likely to see around 100 to 300 unique visits to your site. Doesn’t seem like much compared to the 10,000 to 100,000 thousand you will get once your campaign is successful, does it? So why potentially risk having someone associate your site as spam, resulting in them casting a negative vote on your submission?

   Leave ads off your site until your social media campaign has succeeded or failed. This way you take no risk at someone associating your site or content with a marketing ploy to make money.

   If you must leave ads on your site, limit them or position them in a way that does not interfere with the content and annoy a potential voter.

4. Give Visitors a Button to Push. It is important to include social media buttons so that your visitors are able to help vote for your content. Social Media is about getting votes so make sure your regular readers have an opportunity to vote on your content.
5. Serve Visitors Quickly. Always make sure your page loads the content as quickly as possible. Try coding your site in a way that loads any components that could potentially delay the content from being rendered. You can use CSS or other popular coding options to accomplish this.

   Social media users have hundreds of sites and articles they want to read each day. They don’t have the time and won’t sit around long waiting for your content to load. They might even get frustrated enough to vote negatively on your submission, so make sure your content loads quickly.

   

   Be sure to check your firewall settings as well to make sure you are not funneling people in such a way that they cannot get the page to load.

   These issues become even more important once your social media campaign becomes successful. A page that won’t load is just as damaging as a page not found.

6. Save the Sales Pitch for Someone Who Cares. The group of people who actually vote before the campaign is successful is actually very small. The groups are made up of advanced users who are not likely to be interested in your service or product.

   Avoid trying to sell something during the social media campaign. It is rarely going to convert and it could end up getting you associated with spam and negative votes.

   

   Many sites try to put a call to action in their closing paragraph. Don’t try to end the content with a sales pitch, just end it and wait for the social media campaign to be successful. Once your campaign has either failed or succeeded, you are free to add your sales pitch into the content.

7. SPAM much? As much as you would probably want the word “free” to grab people, it really doesn’t. In social media the word “free” pretty much equals “spam”. So try to avoid the terms that are often associated with spammers and advertisements.

   

   If you happen to sell insurance, then you do not want your side bar to say “insurance” in all 20 links. You also do not want your logo to have the catch phrase “Get Your Free Quote Now” bolded across the header. The keywords used in your header, logo, and navigational links can betray your true intentions and that can lead to being associated with spam, negative votes, and possibly a domain ban.

8. Don’t Be THE MAN, Unless You Can. No one likes authority and no one wants THE MAN telling them what to do. As a corporate site you are often going to be seen as having a biased view or an alternative motive for publishing your content.

   However, if your brand is large enough then it adds some validation and respect to the content you publish. Many top news agencies, blogs, and communities can publish content that is branded and do extremely well in social media.

   Telling whether you can be THE MAN or not, is a case by case situation. If you are not sure whether you have that level of respect amongst the social media community sites, then you should limit the amount of corporate branding you have on the pages you plan to push in your social media campaigns.

Remember each component in the social media process is important and how your site looks and operates is going to be a critical first impression for your visitors. You always want your site to be inviting and easy to submit or vote on in social media.

Brent Csutoras is an internet marketing consultant, who specializes in social media, viral and search engine marketing. The Let’s Get Social column appears Tuesdays (except for holiday weeks like this week) at Search Engine Land.

We all know Social Media Marketing can be pretty time consuming. There are numerous social media communities, each requiring you to sign up, make a profile, and participate, in order to have any success with them. So it is only natural that you would like to have some helpful tools to short cut the process wherever possible.

Below we will go through each of the major social communities that I use and outline some of the best tools to help you manage and maintain your accounts.

1. Digg
   A community driven social news site where users submit articles and the community votes them up or down. Articles are promoted to the main page at http://digg.com when they reach a certain threshold.

   Digg Alerter is an absolute must have for any user interested in keeping track of their submissions.

   

   “Digg Alerter is a program that sits in your system tray and alerts you whenever your stories are dugg or promoted to the front page. Simply specify your Digg username and the program will automatically keep you updated.”

   Bury Recorder
   Another great tool that allows you to track buries on any given submission. This tool will display the type of bury, number of diggs at time of bury, and the time and date a bury was received.

   

   Bury Recorder utilizes the Digg Spy API tool, which is reported to only show a small amount of the overall Digg activity and thus could be inaccurate. It is still a great tool and very helpful.  

   For additional Digg tools, check out this post by DoshDosh – 12 Must-Have Tools for Digg Users.

2. Reddit
   A community driven social news site where users submit articles and the community votes them up or down. Unlike other social sites, Reddit doesn’t have a system that promotes stories to a front page. Reddit sorts all their submissions in numerical order, based on their current voting based score. The main page on http://reddit.com shows the top 25 ranked stories.

   Reddit River is a mobile version of reddit.com. It is 3 times as light (in size) and automatically discovers mobile versions of stories posted on Reddit. It also supports viewing the various SubReddits.

   

   For a really good and complete article on how to succeed on Reddit, check out 10e20’s post on Reddit.

3. StumbleUpon
   A browser guided social community where users can vote web content up or down from their installed tool bar. Each time you press the “Stumble!” button, you are shown a new page, based on the categories you have subscribed to in your options.

   StumbleUpon Alerter is another great tool from Adamant Solutions and provides a great view at your StumbleUpon account’s activity.

   

   You can quickly see who is voting on your discoveries, and how many votes and comments each discovery has received. You can also analyze your friends’ activity and see which of your discovered domains performs better.

   Make sure to check out DoshDosh’s really comprehensive article on StumbleUpon.

4. Propeller
   Very similar to Digg in that it is a community driven social news site where users submit articles and the community votes them up or down. Articles are promoted to the main page at http://propeller.com when they reach a certain threshold.

   PropellerTray is a tool that allows you to see the vote and comment count on each of the content pieces you submitted to Propeller.com.

   

5. Twitter
   Service for people to quickly communicate and stay connected with other users. You can follow specific people and see their Twitter messages.

   Twhirl is a great desktop tool for Twitter users. It allows you to do almost everything you can on Twitter but in a small window that resembles an IM chat window. In addition, the tool allows you to receive up to 3 recent Twitter messages in a quick view window similar to that of a new email in Outlook.

   

   TwitterAdder allows you to add up to 20 random friends at a time to your Twitter account.

   

   TwitterFeed allows you to publish an RSS feed into your Twitter account.

   

   You can find some other interesting Twitter tools in Barbara Boser’s post on Twitter tools.

6. Facebook

   The StumbleUpon Application allows you to share any pages you have discovered or voted upon on your Facebook profile.

   

   Digg has also released a Facebook application to display your Digg activity on your profile.

   

7. The Social Media tool for Firefox
   A must have additional to your social media tool arsenal. It allows you to single click buttons, at the bottom of your browser, for Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Delicious, to easily submit whatever page you are currently on.

   You can also switch the tool over to “automatic” and it will display the vote counts for the various social communities next to links on any website you are browsing.

   

The above tools have made my social media experience much easier and more productive. There are many great tools out that can really help improve your social media experience, so get out there, tool up, and Be Social!

Finally you get to the point where you can submit your content and take a breather… but not for long. The days of “submit and forget” are over. After you submit your content is when the social media campaign really begins and you have, on average, only about 24 hours to help get your content to the popular page of the site you have submitted to.

Here are a few things you should do to help your submission through this very important part of your social media campaign.

Participate in the conversation There is always more to your story. It may be an opinion or comment that opens a line of debate or conversation, a comparison to another similar story, or more information about the same story you are telling.

Research and find additional information or articles related to your topic and use the comment system to add more value to the campaign you are pushing. Remember that the only thing you should focus on during the 24 hour push is getting more votes.

If someone else leads with a comment or discussion, then embrace it. Reach out to your network and ask friends to comment as well. If someone comments positively on your submission, then vote on that comment to help it stand out. If someone comments negatively on your submission, then vote that comment down and have your network do the same. Some systems can sort comments based on their rating and also remove them if they get enough negative votes.

Ask your network for help Reach out to people in your network and ask them to vote on your submissions. Be wary not to overuse or abuse your friends, and be considerate in how you ask your friends for their support. Try to rotate and only send requests to a few people each time so you don’t become an annoyance.

Use the communities’ networking features Many sites have features that allow you to share your submission with friends and users of that community. Use these systems responsibly and you can find some great support from the community.

Remember, your job is not finished just because you have submitted your content to a social community. You need to remain involved and support your campaign. Every vote matters and you need to do everything you can to get your submission the popular page.

Social Media campaigns can be long and tiring, but if you want the links, branding, and traffic that social media can bring, then you have to work for it.

Brent Csutoras is an internet marketing consultant, who specializes in social media, viral and search engine marketing. The Let’s Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

With that evolution, it has become more difficult to push your content to the front page of top social communities, and the different communities’ algorithms have taken into account the various tricks and methods previously used. Marketers are also taking more time to evaluate and determine the value of success in social media.

Whether you are looking for increased RSS subscriptions, more page views and traffic, or inbound links, it is time to start looking at a real strategy for success with social media marketing.

SEO, social media, and success online all point back to one common factor: quality content. It has been said repeatedly that “content is king,” and as overused as that comment is… it is still very true.

Content is what will convince people to return to your site and sign up for RSS feeds. It will be what inspires another blogger or webmaster to want to link to you. And when you do get the links, it will be what is likely to help your content and site rank better within search engines.

The following tips should help you to create content that will perform better in social media and increase your chance to convert, whatever your conversion metric is.

Research It all begins with research. It can be very difficult and intimidating to try to come up with good content ideas. First, determine what your content should be about (i.e., what product or service are you trying to promote). Second, think about all the various terms that relate to your subject matter (i.e., your “long tail” terms).

Once you have a good list of terms that relate to your site, search sites like Google, Delicious, and Technorati, using phrases that are typical of a good resource. Search phrases like: “how to“, “best“, “helpful“, “top 10“, and any other phrase that will show you results of content that is a good resource or helpful.

Use the results you find to come up with various content ideas. Write down anything that comes to mind so you can have a decent collection of ideas.

Get visual Images, graphics, and video can be very effective in bringing content to life. People in general like visual stimulation and will enjoy your content more if it is visually appealing. Many people online have a limited time period to catch up on reading and tend to visit a large number of sites. When you provide content with only text, it can appear intimidating and less attractive to the reader.

Using images or video helps break the content up and give a quick understanding of what the article is about, which will help your content’s success.

There is a difference between writing online and writing a paper or book. If you have a long paragraph, go ahead and break it into two, or even three, paragraphs for the sake of your readers. Try to make your content look inviting and easy to digest.

Give them everything you can Never make your readers search to find the rest of your story. Always ask yourself the questions that you think your readers might ask, and then find the answers to those questions. Check to see if your article has any background information that could add more value for your readers.

If necessary, link out to resources that add more value or have different information that might be relative to your topic.

Start a conversation You can get people involved and grow your content by inviting people to comment. Asking a question or inviting people to comment in your article can add great value.

Don’t forget SEO Think about the terms you hope to rank for. Try to put these key phrases into the title of your content and make sure that your article supports the selected phrase you have chosen. Consider the title you use carefully. You don’t want anyone to have the chance to substitute your key phrases out when they link to you.

Make it easy to link to you Provide a nice summary paragraph as an introduction and throw in a few good sentences or quotes that people can easily use when linking to, or writing about, your article. Make your title relevant to your content so it is easily used as the link anchor text.

If you make it easy for people to link and source you, they are more likely to do so. Take the time to research good content ideas and then present that content in a manner that shows it to be of high quality and a good resource; you will see increased results. Just because you can get something to the front page of a social community does not mean the readers are going to convert or link to you.

You should use social communities as a platform to get your quality content to a vast audience. Once there, the content must stand on its own. The better the quality of the content, the better chance you have to reap the rewards social media has to offer.

Brent Csutoras is an internet marketing consultant, who specializes in social media, viral and search engine marketing. The Let’s Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.