“And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.” - from the nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”

If Mary = online technology, then the Lamb = Mashable. If you want to be in on everything in Web 2.0 from the beginning, subscribe to the Mashable feed. You’ll get a bite of information about everything happening in the tech world. You can skim 98% of it quickly, and you can click on a link for the other 2% that really applies to you. Very useful tool.

One feature that you will regularly find some gems in is the Mashable interview. Mark Hopkins goes all over the Web 2.0 landscape to find great, useful information. Some examples of what Mark presented at Mashable in the last week of March:

JamBase: 10 years online, a database of 1 million listings, the original social network for live music lovers & producers. Interviewed the owner of JamBase on how a long-time website adapts to the constantly changing social media.

FriendFeed: Mark talked with FriendFeed founders, Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor about their new FriendFeed API service.

crowdSPRING: a virtual marketplace to find the creative talent to do any digital job you can think of. Mark interviews Co-founders Ross Kimbarovsky and Mike Sampson to find how they have taken the idea of sites like GetAFreelancer and eLance to a whole new level.

Tremor Media: a video advertising company targeting mid- to large-size publishers. Jason Glickman, Tremor CEO, talks about the challenges of video advertising.

Kidzui: New browser targeted for kids age 6 to 11, Mark interviews AJ, his 6-year-old son, and has him play with the browser for an hour and give his thoughts and experiences.

If you want a wide-view lens capture of Web 2.0, go to Mashable and get their feed. It’s a must.

“As always with WordPress, we don’t claim any of these features to be perfect, or to be better than everyone else in the world, but they are done by and for the people and the one thing we do promise is that with every release we listen and do our best to improve.” - Matt Mullenwegg, founding developer of WordPress

WordPress 2.5 gives you many new options in your social blogging. Here is a partial list of the upgrades:

• Cleaner, faster, better organized,less cluttered dashboard lets you really focus on your blog
• Dashboard Widgets
  • Fun stats about your posting
  • Latest comments
  • Who links to you
  • New and popular plugins
  • WordPress news
  • (Customize any widgets to show, e.g., news from your local paper instead of WP news)
• Multi-file upload with progress bar
• Search both posts AND pages — perfect solution if you use WordPress as a content management system
• Tag management — Add, rename, delete, tags, no plugins needed
• Password strength meter
• Few-click plugin upgrades — automatic download & installation of plug-in upgrades
• Friendlier visual post editor — it doesn’t mess with your code anymore
• Built-in galleries — you can embed whole galleries of photos in a post
• Salted passwords — much greater protection against hackers
• Secure cookies
• Inline documentation — explains functions and when to use them
• Database optimization — the process is now a bit faster
• Improved “Add Media” button function

If something goes wrong in your social blogging, it’s probably a plug-in causing a javascript error. A new button allows you to turn off all your plug-ins, then turn them back on one by one.

There’s more. You can read the complete, detailed list of Wordpress 2.5 social blogging features.

Social networking is all about value and respect. If you provide good value, you will get respect … and traffic. If you provide questionable - or negative - value, then the members of social networking websites will conclude that you have a lack of respect for them. They’ll either ignore you or ride you out of town on a rail.

So what is “questionable or negative value”? Simple: affiliate links or any other kind of self-promotion. When you join a social networking group and start posting affiliate links, you have just shot yourself in the head. No one will trust you. No one will respect you. Your website will get no traffic. And nobody is going to buy from any of your affiliate links.

OK. So what is “good value”? Simple: valuable information or tools that you give away free of charge. When you join a community and provide “good value”, you are seen as a person who gives good value. So you are respected. If you’re new at this, then your first task is to do a lot of Googling to find valuable information and tools that you can give away free to others in your community. Compile a large list … it’ll come in handy.

The best thing you can do is to actually ask people in the community what they really need. Or listen when they talk to others about it. Then figure out a way to give them what they want. You will gain their trust and respect, which is way more valuable long-term than any affiliate commission you might miss out on today.

Your heart must be pure. Your intention must be to help, to provide value (that word again!). People will trust you when they see that you are genuine, honest, & transparent. But they start out suspicious, because they’ve been burned before. If they think your intention is to do whatever you have to do in order to trick them into buying your stuff, they will know. And they won’t like it. They will beat on you, and they’ll tell anyone who’ll listen what a jerk you are.

On the other hand … if you care, if you bring value to your Facebook community, if you help people, then they will trust you. And they will follow you. You can build long-term relationships with people who will be happy to see you succeed … and may often help … because they like you and they trust you.

Social networking is not advertising. On these social websites, trust is supreme. Blatant advertising kills trust. Providing true value creates trust. And once you have made the connection that creates trust, it’s a natural move for them to go to your website, because they like you and want to know more about you.

That is how to play the social networking game.

Features of YouTube Insight - a free new social marketing tool from YouTube - gives YouTubers detailed stats about the videos they upload:

• How often their videos are viewed by geographic area
• A popularity comparison to all videos in that market in a certain timeframe
• How long it takes for a video to become popular
• what happens to video views as popularity peaks

How does this help you? Use these stats to:

• increase your videos’ view counts
• improve your popularity on YouTube

What if you discover that:

• Your videos are most popular on Wednesdays?
• You have a huge following in Spain?
• New videos that play off previous content become more popular more quickly?

These stats help you make better marketing decisions, such as:

• Tailor your content more to your target audiences
• Post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site.
• Post your next video in Spanish?

A plan to increase your videos’ popularity is important for all the obvious reasons … including generating more revenue through on-site advertising. More new YouTube features coming soon:

• A specific breakdown of how viewers discovered the video
• Additional statistical information

To see your stats, go to:
YouTube > My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos

Click under the “About this Video” button.

You often hear that each social bookmarking site is different, and it’s best to focus your content on the social bookmarking platform that values that type of content most. Good plan. But how do the different sites value content?

SocialMediaTrader did an analysis of 500 front-page articles from February, 2008, for several different popular social bookmarking sites. The sample size isn’t huge, but results could give you a guideline of the best sites to bookmark your content.

February, 2008 # of Front-Page Stories

StumbleUpon

1. Technology 105
2. Offbeat 93
3. Arts 73
4. Politics  47
5. Lifestyle 48
6. Science 25
7. Videos 24
8. Tutorial 20
9. News 18
10. Business/Make money 17
11. Environment 15

DIGG

1. US Elections 44
2. Tech News  34
3. World News  32
4. General Sciences 30
5. Odd Stuff  28
6. Environment 27
7. Politics  27
8. Comedy 25
9. Movies  24
10. Business 22

Del.icio.us

1. Technology 51%
2. Offbeat 12%
3. Arts 9%
4. Tutorial 7%
5. Business 6%
6. Lifestyle 6%
7. Politics 3%
8. Science 2%
9. Videos 2%
10. Environment 1%

Propeller

1. Politics 68
2. News 63
3. Technology 57
4. Health 48
5. Money 37
6. Humor 25
7. Celebrities 23
8. Do No Evil 21
9. Science 20
10. Personals 14
11. Music 11

MIXX

1. Entertainment 64
2. Politics 59
3. Informative 53
4. Tech 23
5. Business 21
6. Lifestyle 20
7. Other 19
8. Education 13

These stats give you an idea of what each community is looking for, and should give you a start on finding the 1 or 2 sites that give you your best chance of submitting your own niche content that goes viral.

Yahoo announced yesterday a deeper commitment to social networking. Yahoo has joined Google’s OpenSocial initiative, whose purpose is to have developers come up with innovative new applications for the most popular social networking websites.

To make the web more relevant for users, OpenSocial is encouraging apps that not only work on many different social networking sites, but also connect them.

“Yahoo believes in community-driven industry specifications and expects OpenSocial to fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users,” said Wade Chambers, vice president of platforms at Yahoo.

MySpace and Orkut are already providing providing OpenSocial applications. Hi5 will begin doing so in a few days. With Yahoo on board, even more users and developers will be participating.

Yahoo, MySpace, and Google are also partnering in a non-profit foundation “to foster the continued open development of OpenSocial,” according to Dan Peterson, Google Product Manager.

The big players in OpenSocial:

• Engage.com
• Friendster
• Google
• hi5
• Hyves
• Imeem
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
• Ning
• Oracle
• orkut
• Plaxo
• Salesforce.com
• Six Apart
• TianjiViadeo
• XING
• Yahoo

Pretty much a “Who’s Who” of social networking … with the exception of Facebook. They seem to be the big holdout.

Is it worth your time to get into podcasting? Instat.com says that 182 million MP3 players were shipped in 2006, up 42% from 2005. Probably the main reason is that so much cheap, legitimate music is available online … but it also means your own market is probably buying more and more of the exact social networking media you can use to communicate to them. Projection for 2011: 275 million players shipped!

If you have a business, or a blog, or any sort of web presence, podcasting means just connecting a microphone to your computer and talking about your business.

Why? Several reasons:

• You’ll reach new people, many of whom you’d have never connected with otherwise.
• A lot of people download MP3s to play while they drive or work out.
• When they hear your voice, podcasting helps you build “know, like, & trust” a lot quicker than on a webpage.
• Podcasts are opt-in, so you are reaching only your targeted market.
• Your presentation marks you as a leader, an authority in your field.
• Your “prospects” have the option to listen when at a time convenient for them.
• You can state in your podcast that all questions “received by tomorrow” will be answered on the next podcast - giving your market a strong reason to contact you.

To do a podcast, all you need is a good microphone and audio editing software (available free online - do a Google search). So the cost of entry is almost zero. And you can post your audio files on your website, or give them away as a lead-generator on your site.

Two caveats:

1. Don’t record a commercial. Make it a session of valuable instruction or hard-to-find information. When your podcast gives real value, people will bond with you.
2. Plan on regular podcasts. Don’t do “one and done.” When you do a regular podcast, you have the opportunity to build a base of raving fans.

It’s pretty tough to lose when you do podcasting. Even if you make zero money, you get either more products to sell or more valuable items to give away to customers or prospects. Long-term, podcasting is a big plus.

You’ve no doubt heard the complaints that advertising on the social networking websites doesn’t get the return expected by online marketers. High pageviews, low click-thru rates.

However, there’s another way of looking at this: social networking websites can deliver a demographically focused audience that is not widely available online. Even offline, only TV can deliver this type of audience.

In February, the 25 top social networking sites put 155 million unique visitors face-to-face with advertisers. MySpace, Facebook & Classmates.com delivered over 70% of that total. Tacking on YouTube and Flickr increases the total to 215 million unique viewers a month. Best estimate for TV is less than 200 million unique viewers per month.

There’s more. According to ComScore Video Metrix, US web users watched over 10 billion videos just in December, 2007. Many of those were soft-pedalling commercials … and many more are ripe to have a short commercial attached to the end.

But the most attractive social networking media feature is the younger demographic with high disposable income, much sought-after by ad agencies and advertisers. It’s too big and too focused an audience for that strong marketing connection to not be made eventually.

Social networking websites may currently be struggling for traditional advertisers, but the signs point to a happy, profitable future for them - together.

Social marketing is all about merging content and marketing. In a recent interview, Jamie Kantrowitz, Myspace senior V-P for marketing & content, made the following points:

1. Just like you have a home address, we’re closing in on the point where everyone will have an internet address, which will be their social profile of choice.
2. The web will get even more portable & more responsive. Users will be able to get the content they want, no matter when or where they want it.
3. The number and variety of bells and whistles offered by social networking sites will skyrocket, with MySpace leading the way.
4. MySpace has almost 110 million monthly active users worldwide. More than a quarter-million join every day, and 85% are over 21.

Kantrowitz notes some interesting recent stats from MySpace research conducted by The Future Laboratory:

• 22% of 18-24 year olds said that brands ‘have to work harder to earn our respect’
• 11% stated social networks have made them expect more from brands and content online
• 14% believe brands appear more friendly and creative on the social web
• 13% said social marketing sites have made them see brands as experiences they can become involved with.

Kantrowitz concludes that a big social marketing value of MySpace is, it can specifically target users, therefore ensuring that the right messages fall on open ears.

People get confused about where to start or what to focus on when they begin social bookmarking or any other aspect of social networking. Just remember the basic: it’s a relationship game. And the key to building relationships with people is to share your story. Which means you’ve got to have a story.

Start with the short version. You can build on it later. The short version is ALWAYS useful, in any situation, online or offline. In sales, this has been called your “elevator speech”. That’s what you’d say to someone in the few seconds you share with them on the elevator, to get them to say, “Hey! Can we get together? I want to hear more!”

Your story is in the form of an elevator speech, but it’s focused on YOU. You want to network with people, and you want to make it imperative in THEIR mind that they network with you. The biggest success in social bookmarking or any kind of marketing comes when people knock on YOUR door, not the other way around.

Facts tell. Stories sell. To put together your short story, answer these questions:

1. What’s your background? (What did you USED TO do?)
2. How long did you do it?
3. What did you like about it?
4. What did you HATE about it?
5. How did it lead you to what you are doing now? (The more irony & contrast, the better.)
6. Talk briefly about the social networking benefits of what you do now v. what you used to do.
7. What do you LOVE MOST about social networking?

Write up your “About Me”. You should be able to speak it in a minute or less. One reason it’s effective is, it’s short. It personalizes you to other social bookmarkers. And, of course, you can use the same story over and over and over.

This social networking tool will help you build relationships, and that is what gets you the real benefits in social bookmarking.

The idea of the social marketing team was probably invented in a coffee shop. Isn’t it ironic that Starbucks is now looking to social marketing to save its coffee shops?

Not long ago, Starbucks was the golden child of business, with meteoric growth. Times have changed. Starbucks will close about 100 stores in 2008.

So Starbucks has come up with “MyStarbucksIdea”, to mine the creative promotional minds of the best social marketing team they could find … their own coffee-drinking customers. This is a great model. And a company doesn’t have to be in dire straits to take advantage of their customers’ ideas.

Starbucks has set up a social marketing website where you can submit promotional ideas, comment on the ideas of others, and vote on which ideas you like best. A team of Starbucks employees will then screen the most popular and most innovative ideas and present them to company decision-makers with a recommendation.

Starbucks has a screen where you can see the Most Popular ideas, Top All-Time ideas, and the ideas with the greatest number of comments. And chances are, a social marketing team mastermind group like this will come up with ideas that can be adapted to a lot of businesses, not just Starbucks. It’s an idea that costs practically nothing, and it could deliver some very useful results.

When you step into the room, the social networking is in full swing. The party is already going strong. You see dozens of people … but you don’t know any of them. In one corner is a group of 8 or 10 obvious friends, laughing and talking and enjoying each other’s company.

You walk up to the group and smile and say, “Hi. I’m Bob. I have a great widget. Let me tell you about it!”

Yes, yes. That sounds absolutely ridiculous. But most marketers approach social networking websites like MySpace and YouTube with just about the same amount of tact, courtesy, and understanding.

To be a successful socializer at that party, what would really work?

• Study the interactions of the individuals and groups.
• What unwritten “rules” can you observe?
• Often, such groups have a special language they speak, unique to their group. Can you hear it?
• How do others join into ongoing discussions?
• Who are the “big dogs” in the groups? Do they bite?
• What’s your plan? Target the “big dogs?”
• Or start by approaching smaller groups, maybe even singles who seem to be standing alone and left out of the socializing?

Whoever you approach, consider this plan:

1. Blend in.
2. Add real value.
3. Stick around. (Don’t disappear, or you’ll have to start from scratch when you come back.)

Recognize that marketing in a social networking setting is much different from what you are accustomed to. In normal marketing, most of your targets want to avoid you. In social networking, your targets are there to talk to somebody. That can be you, if you understand them and approach them correctly.

You can quickly meet so many people online, it seems like the marketing part should be a slam-dunk. The problem is, sometimes social marketers get so focused on the marketing that they forget the social. Here’s a checklist to keep you focused on the power behind social networking:

• Think “know, like, & trust.” Your marketing attempts are doomed if your market doesn’t trust you. You can’t tell them about a product when they don’t know who YOU are … just won’t work.
• People are individuals. You can’t address your message to a group, because individuals know you aren’t talking to them. You can connect with each individual who gets your message by talking to them as an individual.
• Don’t waste your time trying to get them to understand your message. Your time is much better spent understanding them. Find out about them. Get to know them. Be social.
• Respect and understand their dreams. Tell them how you might work together.
• Social marketing means don’t hype your stuff.
• Individuals smell manipulation coming a mile away. Go through your process from start to finish and eliminate all manipulation.
• Offer help in your area(s) of expertise, to any who may benefit from it.
• When a person gives you their trust, treat it with great care.
• Let people know what you are REALLY good at, and what you’re not. People want to deal with the specialist, because they know they’ll get best results that way. Let them know your specialty, as specifically as possible.

Make sure these elements are in your social marketing, and people will trust you.

If you have a gun held to your head, how do you make a choice between social networking and money? Bottom line profit has always been and will always be Job #1 for a business. No matter how much you love what you do, you’ve got to make a profit, or you won’t be able to continue doing it.

However … Robin Good recently wrote an interesting take on why he doesn’t want venture capital money and why he doesn’t sell his hot list to a big publisher to really leverage his social marketing results. Good’s plan reveals his view on the true value of social networking:

“My key need is not having more money, but having more passionate young learners that can capture and grow inside this new media culture being created right now. People are my real key asset … I am interested in creating and building tools and resources that can help other individuals become more effective agents of change: as I call them, communication agents.

“By sharing what I have learned and keep discovering about how to communicate and collaborate effectively online I can truly enable more people to affect change in their personal lives than any amount of big government spending on education can do.”

Naive? Idealistic? Robin Good is certainly in the minority. On the other hand, just by the nature of social networking, idealists are probably a significant niche in online social marketing. And no matter what enterprise you may be building, finding the right people - those who truly share your passion - will usually get you closer to achieving your goals than a pile of venture capital will.

The #1 value of social networking is the ability to connect with like-minded people. Does that depend on money? To an extent. But even more, it’s knowing where your best “agents of change” are likely to hang out. So find a few. Talk with them, study them, understand them … and then, provide the environment that is a perfect gathering place for them. That will probably get you the best social networking results, and it won’t take a huge pile of dollars to accomplish.

MySpace recently began offering members several hundred new applications, in test mode, with many more to come. Members can check out a wide variety of applications, and the developers get to see how their apps perform under the pressure.

MySpace is still the Big Dog of social networks, and they’d like to keep the title. The wide range of apps available in one place has the potential to help MySpace users become even more addicted.

Some samples of new MySpace apps:

• Photo Shout Out - Say it with photos! Add your own voice shout out to your pics, and send to friends.
• Graffiti - Draw graffiti for your friends.
• MindJolt Games - Over 250 games! Play any of the Arcade, Puzzle, Strategy and Sports games we offer for free.
• Flixster - Flixster Movies lets you see what your friends say about movies.
• Blingee Book - Add animated graphics, comments, and all sorts of goodies to your pictures for fun or glamour.
• Quizzes - Take quizzes, surveys, polls & personality tests. Make your own quizzes & share with friends.
• Twitter Sync - Sync your myspace mood status with twitter. Just click the sync button and you’re done!
• Yahoo! Music Videos - Simply the largest collection of music videos on MySpace. Dive in and let the good tunes roll!
• flauntR: Photo Editor and Styler - Style your photos with 1000’s of photo frames, stickers, magazine covers & slideshows.
• Fuser - Your Facebook on MySpace! Note: you must already have a Facebook account to use Fuser.
• Graphics Search Engine - With the all4myspace.com graphics search engine you can search for thousands of (glitter)graphics!
• Spin The Bottle - Join the world’s coolest Spin the Bottle game and pass virtual kisses to tons of hotties.
• 123Greetings Cards - Cards for over 3,000 occasions as well as the everyday thank you, birthday, love & friendship cards.
• Pickup Lines - See a different hilarious pickup line each time your page is displayed.
• Top Friends Cupid - Scientifically analyze 17 different parts of your profile to find out who you are compatible with.
• Jobs - Searching for a job? Let the jobs come to you! This handy widget will tell you who’s hiring!
• and many more

Facebook has almost a year headstart over MySpace in opening up to outside application developers. And where MySpace is starting with a few hundreds of these apps, Facebook now has over 14,000 … which many analysts credit for Facebook’s meteoric rise in popularity the last few months.