My Three-Legged Social Networking Strategy
Yesterday, I mentioned elsewhere that Yahoo has started a Digg-clone, something that they are calling Yahoo Buzz.
Although it is currently in BETA and are only allowing 100 publishers to participate, I think that this could end up being a decent alternative to Digg — especially if you write something terrific and it ends up on the home page of Yahoo.
I’m always re-examining my social media strategy, trying to
determine what is hot and what is not. Right now, I am employing a three-legged strategy, with some legs much firmer than others:
StumbleUpon — I’m still very active with this community, but I’m spending more time stumbling current friends pages
than anything else. I left the reservation for awhile, stumbling pages I wasn’t too fond of, but I’ve gotten very picky over the past month and am being quite selective. Feel free to send pages you think that I will find interesting.
LinkedIn — I believe it was Anthony Kirlew at the Web Traffic Team who formed a connection with me on LinkedIn, a move that triggered me to take a closer look at this social networking tool. I’ve started to participate in LinkedIn Answers, a section of the site where members post business-related questions and people get to answer and I plan on meeting up with local members at an upcoming event.
MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, et al — The third leg on my social networking stool is my weakest and includes a handful of social networks I check out from time to time. Each one has something for me, but I’m particularly fond of the MyBlogLog Buzz page where I can keep tabs on my stats.
Beyond that, I am making an effort to keep up with my blog reading, a much more personal way of staying in touch with people regardless of whether they are part of the same social networks I am involved with.
I think if social media dropped dead overnight, I’d still be in good shape — I know who many of you are and sometimes I simply prefer to stop by your site to see what is up.

Hello Matt,
what´s you nickname at StumbleUpon?
Haba, you can find my stumble upon page here.
I hadn’t heard about Yahoo Buzz before, thank you for the heads up
Matt, I looked at Yahoo! Buzz and honestly I don’t see any similarity with digg, other than people can “vote” for stories. But you can do the same at Reddit, Mixx, Stumble and so on.
Yahoo! created this for its network of publishers (people who run Yahoo! ads on their blogs) and it’s merely a tactic to boost their ad revenue (similar to Google’s AdSense).
It’s now in a sort of “beta” test. I expect they’ll accept new publishers soon. I’ll keep an eye on this - Yahoo! needs a good marketing strategy desperately.
Good points, Mihaela. I hadn’t looked at it that way.
I’m actually a YPN publisher, but I haven’t run their ads in months. The reason? I never made much money off of their system. Then again, AdSense stinks too.
I agree about Yahoo’s marketing strategy or lack thereof. They aren’t even in the game in my opinion.
I’m so out of the loop on this kind of stuff. But the good news is, I’m now Linked In to you. ;o)
IF — I won’t steer you wrong ‘cuz we’re linked together. Besides, I don’t want to have the dubious distinction of being mentioned on the Screw You! blog.
That is a good information for me. Thanks a lot.
I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Yahoo! Buzz is quite different from Digg in my opinion, though.
I’m particularly fond of the MyBlogLog Buzz page too.
Thank you, Hans, Ottila and Patrick. Yes, the Yahoo! Buzz set up pales in comparison to Digg. It may do well simply because it is a Yahoo! attribute, but Digg is a much better tool, IMO.
Yeah Yahoo needs to get on with its new strategies -
Well time will tell but yahoo has made its move it should have done earlier
I hope to see 2009 a year for YAHOO!
They have already come up with Open Search recently so its gr8 to see more things coming up,,,,,,,,,
Hello Matt,
I hadn’t known about LinkdIn before. Thanks for the encounter with it.;)
Looks like you have all your bases covered. (I was expecting a War of the Worlds reference somewhere…oh well)