MyBlogLog has become a very influential aspect of SMO, social media optimization. What is SMO?
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a way to optimize web sites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites, also called social media sites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a “Digg This” button, and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is a form of search engine marketing. Wikipedia
Since announcing their first community manager, Robyn Tippins, MyBlogLog has been building better usability and features for bloggers and reinforcing the online community that is MyBlogLog. As they have added new features, such as tagging and becoming more vocal about top users of the online community, to their visitor reporting and widget of recent readers, MyBlogLog is quickly becoming a valuable resource for finding, building and maintaining an online community that is at the root of SMO.
If you are not using MBL to improve your SMO efforts, Kyle Eslick has a valuable guide to getting started with MBL. Definitely worth checking out.
Yahoo has also started a suggestion board to hear from users specifically about the MBL portal. They seem dedicated to improving their portal…
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for mentioning my post.
SMO’s importance to the blogosphere is growing daily. Its good to see you taking steps to get your readers familiar with it.
MyBlogLog, at this time, is basically capitalizing on their widget and really needs to continue to evolve and improve over time if they want to stay relevant. I think they have the right idea with the suggestion board. I’ve submitted a few over the past month that I’d like to see
Kyle,
Thanks for the comment. It is extremely difficult to keep up with competitors, especially in a new area such as social, but MyBlogLog appears that they are willing to do what it takes to keep moving forward to build a better portal.
I’m pretty sure that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg since being acquired by Yahoo!
You should check their official blog. They have built a highly powerful medium to promote spam @ MyBlogLog in their recent effort to make communication easier over at MBL and now asking everybody to leave a community that sends spam messages their way!
- Avi
Avinash,
I understand that some of the new features can be exploited, however, it is a valuable tool for those of us who are building valuable communities. If spam becomes an issue (as I am sure it will) then this will be a beacon to me to leave communities where the intent is to get junk. My community will not be exploited in this manner and I won’t continue to be a member of a community that does the same.
I really like the idea of the community bulletin board, it allows the spammers to show their stripes!
There were some issues with spam and how people were taking advantage of adding friends at mybloglog but they’ve limited it to something like 15 new members that you add each day. Some people were adding thousands before they put in a daily limit. They’re very aware of the spam issues now, and I don’t think it’s as big an issue as it was before.
Bill,
Thanks for the comment. Similar to links, it is important in SMO that you associate yourself with beneficial communities, I think that each of these new additions to MBL are valuable. It has already shown me communities that are not as valuable as I thought they were.