It opened its beta testing doors to great fanfare in June of last year, and it immediately became the “in-place” to be, online. All the cool kids were there, King Robert Scoble was holding court to a captivated audience as usual, and everyone was willing to sell their grandmother for an invitation. Your online reputation was being judged by your presence there (or lack thereof). Users ooohed and aaahed over the various features on offer including Hangouts and Circles. After all, it had a monumental new idea called Circles which was the atom bomb of social networks! Games? Circles? MORE >>

We’re four and a half months into the new version of Digg. The social news site that was once the darling of technology and business bloggers alike had seen a dramatic downturn in traffic and users over the previous couple of years and there was a lot of excitement about the potential rejuvenation of the site. What came shortly afterwards was a flurry of criticism, a dramatic drop in traffic due to the scrapping of millions of pages that had been indexed in Google, and a loss of individuality – users were no longer really users that engaged with the site. Triage is over. MORE >>

It’s now accepted wisdom that successfully getting fans to engage with your brand’s missives on the Facebook platform has a linear impact on impressions due to the EdgeRank algorithm. When you accumulate disproportionately numerous likes, comments and shares on a post, Facebook shows that post to a larger percentage of your fans. Further, because the EdgeRank framework is inherently a self-fulfilling prophecy , fans that like, comment or share post A will almost assuredly see your. MORE >>

Last week I had the pleasure of doing a second webinar for Ning.    This time we focused upon how to grow your online community. They've kindly allowed me to show it here (you can skip the first 5:30 minutes). How to Grow an Online Community from Ning on Vimeo. If you watch through to the end, you get a free bonus! Also, click here for our first webinar, how to increase activity in an online community.    Branded Online Communities Growing An Online Community Managing Online Communities MORE >>

Episode #336 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. I've got a bit of guilt about the recording of this podcast. tend to record as many shows as possible, stock them up and then release them as I can. In the rush of things a few months back, I wound up recording more shows that I usually do. Tom Webster (aka BrandSavant ) is Vice President of Strategy for Edison Research , most widely-known as the sole providers of U.S. Election exit polling data to all major media outlets. In the race up to the last U.S. Enjoy the conversation. brand. MORE >>