I’ve got this really bad habit of gushing about things I love: Wordpress, Twitter, kittens… well I have a new and brilliant tool I want to share with you. The problem with many browser plugin/apps/downloads is that they clutter and aren’t very user friendly anyhow. But not Shareaholic! Observe:

Before Shareaholic.

After Shareaholic.

But what does this wonderful and non-space hogging button on my browser do?? you may be wondering quietly to yourself. It might as well be a portal to the end of the universe as far as I’m concerned, its just that spectacular. No really, it lets you share stuff… everywhere! You know how it goes. You’re on a site, or reading an article and you are like “Wow, this is brilliant. Everyone should see it.” Then you have to copy the url, open an email or Twitter or Facebook, paste it and hit send. And you have to do that for every place you want to share it to. No longer! Just click the Shareaholic button and a drop down menu appears, select where you want to share your info and bang, done. All that’s left is customizing and waiting for all the feedback. (Random Tip: you don’t have to just share publicly, Shareaholic will let you link to your email or to private Facebook messages as well.)

I know what you’re thinking: “Okay, I’m sold, how do I get this amazing button of awesomeness?” Easy. Just go to Shareaholic.com and pick your browser. (It even works for those shameful people who don’t have Firefox.) Then download, and the happy little green icon will appear on your browser. Note: downloading this will not hurt your computer, not spyware or anything like that, your hard drive is safe!

Not convinced yet? Shareaholic works with about 50 services already and there’s even a video I found on their lovely blog:

The past few posts I’ve been focusing my research and attention on the phenomenon of social media. I have to admit it fascinates me, but the goal of course is to make it work, from a business stand point. How can online social networking help your business? And how do you choose from the hundreds of sites that make this available?

I’m going to deal with a number of well-known sites, each one I have reviewed in the last few weeks. Now I’m going to list out each service’s pros and cons so they can all be compared.

Pros:

• Networking Intensive
• Open and chatty community
• real time answers.

Cons:

• Time intensive
• Navigation not intuitive
• Leans towards the internet savvy

Pros:

• Great way to “poll”
• Close to Real Time but simple to use
• Ability to automatically feed blog posts

Cons:

• Too much down time
• Often Tweeple are more interested in getting follower than networking
• Superfluous information

Pros:

• Community Opportunity
• Clean Profile look – user friendly
• Ability to create applications, events and blog posts

Cons:

• Audience not “marketing” friendly
• Networking more social
• Ability to be tagged in notes and images that may not be work appropriate

Pros:

• Massive Audience
• Forum opportunity
• Widely-Accepting to advertising

Cons:

• Spammy
• “Bathroom wall of the internet” – reputation isn’t great
• Friend Collectors instead of clients

Pros:

• Simple, Clean, Business-friendly
• Opportunity to get business feedback
• Chance to get reviewed by clients

Cons:

• People may “reject” your link because they don’t remember you
• Many users don’t check-up on their profile regularly
• Not all people network with others they actually know

Pros:

• Viral effect for blogs
• Simple way to get noticed
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Many people “digg” things because their friends do, not because they like it
• Hitting the front page of Digg has been known to crash websites from too much traffic
• Millions of submission to compete with

Pros:

• Easy for any website
• Allows for site indexing
• Allows for reviews and keywords

Cons:

• Takes a little more time
• Can be bad for niche sites with advertising
• Allows the opportunity for people to rate you negatively

Pros:

• One of the longest standing Social Bookmarking sites
• Allows you to import bookmarks
• Ability to share of keep private based on user needs

Cons:

• Usefulness is merely just an extra link without good user connections
• A hassle without a toolbar extension
• Format is not instinctive

Are there any other social media sites you’d like to see reviewed and added to this list? Let me know what business tools you use.

The last social bookmarking site I think is important to mention is del.icio.us. That’s right, the one with the weird punctuation. If you’ve been following the last few posts, del.icio.us works like the other social bookmarking site though its origins are a little different.

del.icio.us started as a way to keep track of your bookmarks from computer to computer. In a world where many of us have a desktop, a laptop, an office computer and a cell phone with internet access, getting to your favorite website can often end up as an exercise in text recall. del.icio.us solved that problem, letting you put all your bookmarks in one place.

Of course the social aspect soon developed. People shared links, used del.icio.us to promote other websites and their own. The truth is, humans are social creatures. We love to share and learn from each other. We like to offer up knowledge to other people. Use these social tools to get in on the online networking! Most business owners spend hours networking offline, but imagine a network that is running constantly. Again, del.icio.us is a must for you to submit to and also put as a widget on your blog.

del.icio.us is not just like a browser bookmark. So the interface may take some time adjusting to. Everything works with tags instead of being sorted into files. However, if you bookmark your own site you can also find out who else is bookmarking your site as well!

Get del.icio.us links from Veribatim.

Not only is StumbleUpon a great way to use up your free time, its also another essential tool for anyone with a website. In my last post I talked about Digg and how every blogger should use it, StumbleUpon is a great one for any level of website.

StumbleUpon falls in the social bookmarking category and again is a great widget to install on your blog. You can add an website to your Stumbleupon porfile and even write reviews for your own and others’ website. You can also stumble every page on your site, so for example I can stumble my homepage, profile and every blog post. Again, the goal is to create a viral effect, more stumbles mean you are more likely to show up on the stumble website or show up for a “random” stumble. That’s right, users can click the stumble button (if it is installed in their browser, or go to the StumbleUpon site) and automatically be taken to a website that matches their interests. What StumbleUpon sends you to is based on interests you’ve listed and other websites you’ve ranked.

Problogger talks about paid advertising through StumbleUpon. I personally don’t promote paying for online marketing, (why? when there are so many ways to do it for free!) however, if you are interested, check out his some of his posts. Also remember to find other people you network with who stumble, this always increases your ranking and traffic.

Stumble through the web with us.

If you are a blogger you should be on Digg. Its not a question of usefulness, its fact. Of course I’m going to sound a little hypocritical here because I don’t have a Digg button on my blog (but we are working on it). Anyhow, you should. Digg is to blogging what YouTube is to video, its the tool to take you viral. All you need is a few readers to Digg you and it can start a mass trend that will increase your visibility.

If you don’t know what Digg is, here’s how it works. Digg is a social bookmarking tool. People create profiles then digg blogs and articles they enjoyed. They have a friend network who can then read things they’ve dugg and decide to digg then as well. Then those diggs are posted on their profile and so and so one. Diggs that are in the couple hundred end up on Digg’s first page. And lots of people read those. Digg also allows for comments and discussion about submissions. Right now I manually submit every post I write and digg lots of others. Its a great way to promote people who you read and subscribe to as well.

There are lots of sites out there about how to use Digg for SEO, here is a review I like at imediaconnection.com.

Its not hard to download a widget that you can put at the bottom of your blog. Then your readers can easily click and add you. Trust me, I digg far more often when there is a link. Most humans are simple creatures with short attention spans, they need a little easy reminder if they are going to digg your article.

Also find your friends on digg. If you are already using other social media post that you want to add people. Of course let me remind you of my soap box: the Golden Rule. Read and digg other people. This does not mean just digg whatever your friends post. Take some time to read articles and give feedback. Digg it forward and create your online word of net trend!

Digg what Veribatim thinks is hot here.