The Future Buzz

Yes, Digg is awesome. I know, I’ve had my content reach page 1 several times and send me 10,000+ absolutely unique visitors in one day.

But, unfortunately here’s the truth: Digg and other social media sites are not overnight king-makers of your brand on the web.

Sure, social media is fantastic for bringing your brand to the attention of a huge community of people and spreading your ideas. But, if your goal is to build a sustainable web brand for influence or monetization purposes you cannot rely on social media alone to build your traffic and hits.

The functions of a traditional, printed community newspaper are to:

• Tell stories that have meaning locally
• Unite small communities
• Provide community calendars and event listings
• Bring hyper-local issues to light
• Provide ads for relevant local businesses

Unfortunately, many hyper local papers are dying off instead of evolving. It doesn’t have to be this way.

What if, in addition to the above mentioned traditional items offered by a print publication, local community news organizations could serve to:

My regular readers know that I’m a big fan of Seth Godin. Have a look at the amount of times I’ve mentioned him on this site - he’s a great source of inspiration for me, no denying it.

Seth’s post yestarday got me thinking. It’s one of his classic, pithy posts that he has mastered the art of. Here’s the whole thing, minus the last sentence which didn’t have to do with this discussion:

A lesson in corporate blogging
I wrestled with whether I should blog about this – but I think it is worthwhile to write this up to show you a great example of what not to do on a corporate blog.

This is of course, my personal blog, and I have a clear disclaimer right at the top. I make zero claim to tie anything on this site to the firm I work with – these are entirely my own thoughts.

A corporate blog is a far different animal. Depending on what your corporation is, you may be able to venture into some debate, but at least do your research first, and be open to fixing something if you post the wrong facts.

This post is the first in a new category on The Future Buzz called startup ideas. This category will feature content about services, .coms and social networks that could potentially be hits in the marketing/public relations industry and beyond.

The current solution

ProfNet is a great service for the PR industry. If you’re unfamiliar, ProfNet is (quoted from their site):

“An online community of nearly 14,000 professional communicators, ProfNet was created in 1992 to connect reporters easily and quickly with expert sources at no charge. We now provide this same free service to other professionals looking for experts, including:

• Academic Researchers
• Authors/Screenwriters
• Bloggers
• Consultants
• Corporate Researchers
• Financial Analysts
• Government Officials
• Industry Analysts
• Meeting Planners
• PR and Marketing Professionals
• Publishers

Last week was exciting for me, as I’ve had my third piece of content hit page one of Digg (see all my popular Digg stories here). If you’re a new reader here, thanks for stopping by. I’ve recently updated my new to The Future Buzz page where I spent some time highlighting my favorite postings on this site - worth checking out for old and new readers alike.

If you’d like up to date, unique and relevant strategies, case studies and tips for spreading buzz on the web - you have come to the right place. PR pros, marketers, bloggers web-entrepreneurs and everyone looking to spread ideas online will find useful content here.

Consider subscribing 100% for free via RSS to not miss a thing. Don’t use RSS? I have you covered - just fill out out the following form and you can get articles right in your inbox. You will never receive spam, just content:

Some background

My major during college was not marketing. I studied it as an outside concentration and took the basic courses (part of the requirement to get my degree), but it was never my main focus. Interestingly enough, here I am as a marketing professional, working on national campaigns and seeing big results for ideas I’ve created.

At the same time, I have friends who did study marketing as their main focus. Sadly, many of them are still searching for jobs in the field, or have given up and gone into other areas of business, hoping one day to switch to a position in marketing (marketing is apparently a pretty hard field to get into).

How I learn

I was always highly interested in psychology, sociology and philosophy and have read countless books on each of these subjects. Being a student of the mind, society and humanity might be what prepared me to be a marketing professional more than anything else. Or perhaps it was the fact that always I loved writing and putting together/remixing content that I thought people would enjoy and share.

Yes, they’re popular. And yes, you probably secretly like them even if you complain and post negative comments every time one graces page one of Digg. Of course, I’m talking about lists (top 10 lists, top 100 lists, top 9000 lists, you name it).

Lists are a popular way to arrange content on the web for a number of reasons. Wait for it – I’m going to list them.

Lists:

• Are scan-able
• Provide easy to read and consume content
• Have the novelty factor
• Are many times “must-share” content
• Engage people
• Are at times humorous, entertaining or incredible
• Are a strong social web meme
• Get strong traffic

Twitter, Digg, Friendfeed, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. – these are all incredibly popular social networks with useful services connecting millions globally.  Notice all of those links take you to my personal profile page within each of those networks (feel free to friend me on any of these sites). 
Within those networks, I am connected with countless […]

Just remember, it has to be beyond awesome. You’re competing with videos as compelling as this:

or as creative as this:

or as thought provoking as this:

or as cute as this:

or as hilarious as this:

(Related: here’s 5 essential tips on how to make a viral video successful.)