Check back after Saturday, I’ll post the UFC 130 Results here It can’t all be tweets and Diggs.

UPDATE: UFC 130 Results:

Quinton Jackson defeats Matt Hamill via Unanimous Decision
Frank Mir defeats Roy Nelson via Unanimous Decision
Travis Browne defeats Stefan Struve via TKO (Strikes) Round 1
Brian Stann defeats Jorge Santiago via TKO (Strikes) Round 2
Rick Story defeats Thiago Alves via Unanimous Decision
Tim Boetsch defeats Kendall Grove via Unanimous Decision
Demetrious Johnson defeats Miguel Torres via Unanimous Decision
Michael McDonald def. Chris Cariaso via split decision
Renan Barao def. Cole Escovedo via unanimous decision
Gleison Tibau def. Rafaello Oliveira via submission (rear-naked choke) in round 2

And here’s a treat for UFC lovers; I do a bit of training myself; I boxed and learned a little MMA in Florida. This is me in preparation to learn more. Enjoy!

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A Titanic-size mob of people approach me asking me how to use Digg, Twitter, Facebook, etc., just to do it. They don’t know what these social networks could do for them. They have no set objectives as to why they want to use these social networks. They just know that by using them they may grow their businesses, or it’s good for them like it will get them skinny or cure their herpes; I thought of it as wanting to attend a hookie jam in high school. Everybody wanted to hit my hookie jams. MD 20/20, reggae, hip-hop, and sex comprised most of my teenage events. So if you want to engage in hookie-jam social networking, here are some rules to follow.

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Google Multi-Funnel Channels

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There is nothing wrong in using social media as a hobby. I actually do it; I don’t solely hit the internet for professional reasons. Techno Viking rocks! Thor, the thunder god approves this message; but I don’t make any money off it. I also make authentic long-term relationships with people who will probably never be clients. However, when I work social media platforms professionally for myself or on a client’s behalf, a required byproduct of the activities I perform will produce revenue.

I use a spreadsheet to forecast how much revenue my campaigns can produce. If it’s an online publication, the spreadsheet itemizes a targeted amount of pageviews to help sell more advertising. If it’s a business that sells products or services, I can conservatively estimate how many leads will be produced based on our campaigns; I can also estimate how many of the leads will become customers of my client. I have never missed my mark on long-term engagements. There have been ad-hoc experiments that I have performed on a contingency basis where I can’t make hard estimates; what happens happens. The client understands that ad-hoc doesn’t always work on the social platforms. I typically stray away from those because if the gamble goes wrong it leaves a sour taste in everybody’s mouth; kind of like when you wake up in the morning – old fecal and metallic aroma.

This is what puzzles me about quote unquote Social Media Experts talking about the difficulty of generating ROI from social media. If it is so difficult for them, how do they get hired? Is the desperation to open and maintain a Twitter account so bad that you’d you’d volunteer to be Osama Bin Laden’s human shield for a snort of coke off of Charlie Sheen’s fingernail? Don’t let anybody tell you that the use of social media is solely about branding, relationships, conversations, serendipity without those being coefficients that add to a number with a dollar sign attached to it. Communication tools on social media platforms do facilitate these dynamics that are essential for all businesses. But at the end of they day they should culminate with more commas on your bank account balance. It can’t all be flower power and kumbaya. Keep the fruit water in the Hookah pipe; unless you’re selling them, or your prospect likes to puff, puff, give.

It’s the art of marketing without marketing; but notice the word marketing is used in the aforesaid statement twice.

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UPDATE: The first video goes out of sync with the audio around 5:19; so I re-uploaded the video from 5:19 on so you could see an operational copy.
Part 2

Many emerging journalists have dipped their toes into brand development social media; some go for it on full blast and do a cannonball into the sewer. Now is the time for all journalists to take a leap of faith and @reply, get Liked, and followed employing techniques that internet marketers do as routinely as playing Halo and Farmville. Many journalists with whom I have worked have listened and do what they can to learn and master the use of these new communication tools like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and the vuvuzuela. The one thing that I recommend is to try to avoid solely focusing on the major social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. The social bookmarkers like Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, still drive respectable amounts of traffic. There are millions of communities in the forms of blogs, forums, and other digital platforms where your target community is active. Become the brand advocate that produces the hottest content and drives traffic to that content; they’ll put your name on the corporate charter next to Rupert Murdoch.

I welcome journalists to also start their own ventures; you don’t have to stand outside of Target and sell candy bars for a dollar. There are ways for you to build your brand to the point that you could work independently of any news organization. You could build your blog to the point of having people seek you out to write for them. Or you could sell products that you use and review. Caveat emptor, don’t use your community to falsely endorse anything just to generate revenue; they’ll tie you up to a street lamp and run into you with a shopping cart, and then a snow blower. Jeffrey Gitomer wrote that if you make a sale you make a commission, but if you make a friend you make a fortune. Make friends out of your community members; hook them up with your hot ex-girlfriend. Don’t mislead your friends. If you offer them true value and solutions to their problems, they will buy from you and tell others to buy from you. They will promote you sharing your content with their friends and co-defendants.

The future journalist will build her email list(s), and communicate regularly with her community; they’ll stand on a folding ladder, talk crap, and take a rotten tomato to the mouth if they have to. People on their email lists will not only buy their products, but they will help spread the word on pieces of content produced by her. They’ll hold her hand when jumping into the cross-dimensional worm hole that’s to swallow the Earth whole in 2012. The future journalist will know the value of giving more than receiving to maintain a solid foundation of support among her community members in the form of blog posts, links, shares, Likes, Tweets, phone calls, brownies… yes brownies.

News organizations will also rethink their revenue generation models. Online publications are generating millions hosting and selling registrations to events; the 229 person gangbang in Japan sold out in minutes. The publications that will thrive, will be those who build communities through email lists, RSS feeds, and friendships built on social media platforms. Not everybody in the community will buy a ticket, an ebook, a course, your web cam, or your old rug that smells like a wet dog. But a proportion of people will turn your news organization into a business. And the more that you grow that community, the more the quantity of customers in that proportion grows. These tactics of communicating and maintaining relationships with readerships that are more comfortable at consuming media through digital means is not revolutionary. Email lists are a more engaged form of communication than alternative broadcast channels like Facebook and Twitter. And I could remember all the marketers yelling the importance of building my list through a mega phone since I was downloading my first virus on Napster. So I build my lists using Aweber email marketing software. I’m not only an Aweber affiliate, but I’m also a client.

Brownies Rock!

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There is a huge misconception that somehow Diggers game Digg; RRRR… try again!

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Here is the Google Analytics dashboard of that website that I cite in the video, to which I drove over 240,000 pageviews in less than four weeks time.

240,000 pageviews in less than 4 weeks through Digg, social bookmarking, and blog outreach

UPDATE: In the video I erroneously said that Digg referred more than half of the traffic to this site. Digg referred almost half of the traffic driven to this website. Here are the top 20 referrers.

Digg drove almost half of the traffic to this website

UPDATE: You no longer have to send your RSS feed to Erin Ryan at Digg. Digg is currently not taking any new registrations, for they are porting settings from the old interface to Digg version 4. If you already have a Digg account and are already on Digg v4 subscribe to my newsletter, for I will be posting a step-by-step guide on how to develop and set up your publisher account. If you are not on the New Digg yet but you are on the old Digg, enter your username and email address on http://digg.com/new, and you will receive an administrative message when your account is ready to be used on Digg V4. Otherwise, go to Digg.com/register, and leave your email and you will be notified once you could join Digg.

Transcript

Diggers don’t die we multiply!