What are your favorite social media tools that are "off the beaten path"?
What are your favorite, most productive sites for connecting with others that are not as blindingly obvious as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube?
Clarification added December 2, 2009:
Thanks for all the responses--I will try to reply to everyone individually. I didn't realize you can't comment on responses to a question you ask!
Answers (12)
I would say Digg.com, where you can submit news articles or press releases. When readers comment on your submissions, sometimes you can actually have a dialogue and by the time you are finished, your exchanging contact information or visiting their site.
Links:
1. Yoono - unobtrusive add-on to Firefox, allows you to keep tabs on the number of 'friend' updates at your accounts like Facebook and twitter. Caters for multiple IDs. Allows instant linking to any person or link of interest, such as this one - I got here via a headline on someone's friendfeed. Allows you to update your status(es) and control instantly whether that goes to one or all of your social profiles across 11 services. For me it just removes the temptation to have twitter and facebook constantly running in their own tabs.
2. Shareaholic - allows you to share a page or item of interest across more than 50 services; blog it, bookmark it, post it, email it, tweet it, etc.
3. Buzzster - made by same people as Shareaholic, allows you to drill down and target your finds at individuals as emails, a kind of one-click 'saw this and thought of you', plus it keeps a list of every link you've sent. No more remembering a good thing you sent three weeks ago and scrabbling through accounts trying to relocate it.
Links:
I love the blindingly obvious. Sure, competition keeps the established entrants honest, and keeps raising the techno-bar - which is a central theme of our entire species - but I am a big fan of improving the quality and usefulness of the existing tools. There is plenty of unrealized productivity from them. But that would require that humans use the technology more effectively, rather than letting the technology eventually render the human obsolete. Considering the dual role of humans, it is only a metter of time before we learn how to destroy faster than we create. So, maybe technology SHOULD render humans obsolete. What do others think?
Kevin L.
Looking for a job in Digital/Social Media and/or help lead a small non profit.
Best Answers in: Professional Networking (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
www.picnik.com allows to resize your photos and other tools who are not graphic designers.
Links:
Fatemeh K.
Marketing Strategist. Data Evangelist. Forrester Analyst covering a variety of Customer Intelligence topics.
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1), E-Commerce (1)
I'm not sure it's "off the beaten path", but I really love StumbleUpon. I have been using it far less since I switched to Chrome since there's no toolbar, but I definitely miss it.
Also agree with Eddie -- a good Digg mention can be huge for a company!
Links:
Adele B.
Director of Interactive Strategy - SEO, Social Media Marketing & PPC / SEM
While the well known social media sites are a great way to interact, if it's for business, I really search for sites that allow connecting and sharing that are more pertinent to your business or site. Many industries still are not that well versed in using these new tools, so good old forums are still the way many connect and share information, as well as sites allowing comments and reviews.
I often refer to KnowEm.com to find new social media tools and sites. They provide a pretty robust list and also breaks them into lists by industry and focus.
Links:
Adele B. also suggests this expert on this topic:
Hi Brandon,
Here are a few social media tools/apps that I find useful for finding and connecting with others:
Slideshare.net (http://slideshare.net) - A great way to find and share presentations; lots of good information available here
Tweepz (http://tweepz.com) - Allows you to search Twitter bios/profiles. You can target users based on title, interests, company, etc.
Twitalyzer (http://twitalyzer.com) and Klout (http://klout.com) - Measurement tools that track your influence on Twitter. A good way to track your influence on Twitter and see where you could be making more connections.
Hope these are useful,
Jessica
Carole L.
Communications Manager | Web Content Developer | Speaker/Trainer
Best Answers in: Web Development (2), Air Travel (1), Business Dining and Entertainment (1), Government Services (1), Compensation and Benefits (1), Enterprise Software (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Here are a few sites that I really like. don't know if they fit your criteria or not, but...Ping.fm--allows you to post to several sites from one source; screenr.com--create instant screencasts that can be posted to YouTube;bit.ly--you can track click throughs and bit.ly is better indexed by Google; TweetOclock--find out the best time to tweet someone; trottr.com--record a voice message that you can post to Twitter.
kevin K.
Management Consultant, writer, past TV show producer,
Best Answers in: Job Search (1), Ethics (1), Telecommunications (1)
none;
they STILL don't make any sense to me.
i have asked 7 experts for help and they
have not responded yet.
its almost too bad that SN is so damn, f'ing big
or I would want it to implode.
Jason A.
Organize your job search, own your career! It's all about relationships! www.JibberJobber.com
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (3), Using LinkedIn (3), Writing and Editing (1)
I'm not sure I'd go off the beaten path... if no one else is there, why go there?
Two web2.0 apps that are just invaluable are:
www.dropbox.com
www.evernote.com
These guys will go down in history Im sure as leading the charge of having more of our content auto synced and wherever we are making the devices we use to get to the info....ubiquitous.
Robb
Links:
Because I'm book oriented, I particularly like http://bookblogs.ning.com
If you are interested in books this is an interesting site. Ning has a lot of different communities in it. It is easy to find a specific community of practice in it. http://alaconnect.org is a professional association network. I've also enjoyed using Blogcatalog-- this has been more for fun than anything else. It is not so much a professional networking tool. I've also had some success with http://www.fuelmyblog.com
