I’m pleased to have recently been accepted to Blogrush, which is a referral program for bloggers. I say “pleased”, because this is my second attempt!

Initially I was disheartened that I didn’t cut the mustard, but the filtering does mean that the chances of links to poor quality blogs shown on your site are reduced. And to be honest, I hadn’t published many quality posts at the time of my first application.

I’ve been a member of ‘my blog log‘ for some time. This is a similar service, which has been recently bought by Yahoo. I have to say it does generate traffic and subscribers from people with a similar interest. It’s quite nice to see the faces of your readers too!

So far, I like Blogrush - some of the links in the sidebar have sent me to some interesting blogs, in particular this one from Unlocked Profits - How To Get Free Web Site Traffic In 2008. My New Years resolution will be to write some guides for work’s website available for download…

If anyone has any opinion let me know…

• Is it easy to use?
• Does it generate traffic or subscribers for you?
• Do you think it looks spammy?
• Have you used other services to better effect?
• Is traffic not important for your blogging?

I’m amazed at what my friends put on their online profile!

People have been fired because of their online activities, and it has become more common for employers to look up their prospective employees before they offer a job.

It’s getting easier and easier to update your profile whenever and wherever you are. Sites like Facebook, Pounce, Twitter and Jaiku allow you to update your status using your mobile phone; and photos can be sent directly to the web from your phone in one click.

This makes the warning “don’t drink and dial” seriously worth listening to.

And it’s shocking what some people write about their friends online, let alone what photos they add. Users sometimes have very little control about what is said or shown online.

Facebook has recently been opened up (further!), to allow search engines to index profile pages.

We saw Rachael’s parent’s house trashed earlier this year after she publicised it on MySpace, and we’ve been warned recently that sharing certain personal details on sites like Facebook can leave us open to identity theft.

I’m going to sound like my mum, but be careful what details you make public online… you don’t know who will read them, and you don’t know how you will feel about it in 10 years time!

*Image borrowed from dups, who’s running an interesting online commentary about St Patrick’s Day.

I’m still figuring out whether there is any point to Twitter…

I love the fact that it can be integrated into webpages; there are sleek plugins available; we used some for a pilot project on the PushOn Online Marketing Blog in combination with a mobile phone application Shozu which published images straight to our Flickr account. The images can also be automatically re-published to the PushOn blog, or PushOn MySpace page.

The freedom of instant one click publishing via mobile makes it great for commentary on events, however the fact that it’s so easy to do, means that it’s very quick and easy to publish crap. Big Brother have a Twitter feed, and there have been notable instances where people have said something silly and ended up in a lot of trouble.

Jaiku is a similar application to Twitter, and has had good feedback.

I think I like this ‘micro blogging’ malarkey, it’s good for sending a small amount of information quickly to multiple people with similar interest.

Jack Lail thinks it’s a bad, bad thing, but he likes it, he’s written an interesting post on the subject of Twitter.

Incidentally, I’m trying out a tool which publishes a note on your Twitter account when you post a blog entry… I’ll let you know if it works!

Friendr.net has just launched; Friendr.net has been worked on by Virtuaffinity website developer Jim Neath.

This is a new social media optimization tool, that helps people add MySpace friends to their profiles.

This tool is useful for people who use their MySpace profile to promote their business or band, without spamming the typical MySpace users who purely use it to contact their friends and associates. MySpace is a great tool for keeping in touch; but spamming can be a problem.

As Social Media Optimization is relatively new, and the scope of Web 2.0 projects is constantly increasing, best practices and Social Media Marketing etiquette will also evolve.

Here are a couple of suggestions from an article by Kent Lewis of Search Marketing Standard:

• Respect the community
• Building and maintain a consistent and robust profile (or brand)
• Engage in the community by commenting, contributing and sharing regularly
• Don’t include blatant self-promotion
• Don’t post biased information
• Don’t breaking community rules
• Don’t spam

Learn more about Social Media Optimization from Wikipedia, or a brief summary of it from PushON Online Marketing specialists.

Lucozade are using User Generated Content (UGC) for their online marketing campaign.

It’s great that they are encouraging users to get involved, but to be honest I think it’s a bit cheesy so far. The initial videos they used as examples are fairly tame clichés and as a result, most of the videos that have been submitted by users have been of a poor quality.
I can’t get too excited about this, but for more information:

• Lucozade puts user-content at heart of £8.2m brand campaign
  
• Lucozade does UGC
• Lucozade - Get your edge back

What I do find quite interesting however, is that they are using Video Egg for their on site videos, rather than going for the popular choice of YouTube.

Universal Studios are launching the horror film Dead Silence shortly; and I’ve been impressed with the Online Marketing Campaign so far.

The have a well designed Micro Site with the movie trailer, mobile cinema listings download and bonus footage from the film.

They also have a well executed MySpace page. MySpace allows for easy segmentation of audiences, as users are encouraged to categorise and describe themselves.

Universal Studios seem to have targeted horror enthusiasts as friends, and they have included games and widgets that can be used by other MySpace users on their profiles - thus further spreading the reach of the campaign.