Empire Avenue: Social Media Never Sleeps

If you haven't heard about Empire Avenue yet it's a social media stock exchange game which allows you to invest Eeaves in brands and people and eventually make it to the top of the corporate ladder in your niche.

It launched back in July of 2010 but I've heard a lot of chatter about it lately and seems to be growing in popularity.

The goal of the game is to be successful buying and selling virtual stocks and at the same time connecting with other people and brands though the site's social media aspects such as Shout Outs, Mentions, Recommendations, Advertising, Status Updates and the various chat rooms and communities.

Monitor Your Online Presence With Klout

clout - noun \'klau?t\ - pull, influence, strong authority

When it comes to the online world of social media do you have any clout?

The new website Klout.com does its best gauge your online influence in a fresh and fun way.

That is really all you should take it for, fun, but it can be a good way to see how well your social media campaign is going using all the various graph charts.

A downward spiral will be easily seen following an online social debacle of some sort.

Social Measurments

Klout measures a few areas of your online dominion.

Amplification - Likelihood that your content will be acted upon

Network - Influence level of your engaged audience

True Reach - Size of your engaged audience

Influence Matrix, woah

Are you a Dabbler or a Celebrity? Klout will pretty accurately place you in some sort of category based on what topics you talk about, the volume of updates you put out, who you follow and who follows you.

There are 16 possible classifications you can fall into and displays your top influencers and their classifications.

Individual Achievements To Toot Your Horn

In a page straight out of Xbox 360's gamer addiction frenzy comes Klout's achievements system to appeal to the gamer in us all.

You can then of course Tweet and Share you're achievements for all to see to show your greatness, which in doing so creates some conversation in the process and that's what it's all about.

Klout is a relatively new site that I see can only gain better features and better tracking. Signing up early can give you a great idea on how your brand is growing which can sometimes be a hard thing to visually realize, especially early on.

Social Media Optimization, A Basic Marketing Strategy Guide

In the not so distant past search engine optimization was one of the best things you could do to ensure a nice steady stream of traffic.

It's not to say that getting on the first page of Google results isn't a good idea but with the absolute explosion in recent years of social media sites you would be shooting yourself in the foot if you don't get involved in things like Twitter and Facebook.

The sheer volume of users on social networking sites alone should be enough motivation for any blogger to take serious notice and make sure their blog is "shareable." This is the basic tenant of SMO.

Updated Nov 23 - 2010

Monday Blogger's Insight: Search Marketing Mythbusting, Multiple Gmail Users, and Social Media

Here you will find links to posts I have found interesting and relevant to helping you be a better, more successful and effective blogger from the ever changing blogosphere.

Automate Your Blog Update in Facebook

	waveofweb.com - My friend over at waveofweb has made me aware through this post of a free service that allows you to automate your updates and have them posted on Facebook and Twitter. It's also a blog directory that I highly recommend as well!

29 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed

	mashable.com - has an absolute beast of a list of their best social media resources. Lots of great articles in this list for bloggers and designers like "HOW TO: Gracefully Promote Yourself Online" and "Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow".

Five Quality Score Myths Busted

	blog.traffick.com - Andrew Goodman has posted a great article on search marketing on traffick's blog. Lots of good info on Google Adwords and Pay per Click advertising.

Log In to Multiple Gmail Accounts Simultaneously Without Any Add-on

	waveofweb.com - Another great informative post from waveofweb showing us something I bet you weren't aware of. If you're like me you have two or more gmail accounts for various reasons. Find out how to use gmail effectively if you have multiple gmail accounts without any third party plug-in.

That's it for this week.
If you have a great article you think should go into the next link roundup feel free to contact me.

Seesmic Desktop 2: A Social Networker's Dream?

Pick Your Services

  Chances are you have quite a few, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube you name it. Seesmic Desktop 2 tries to bring this all together in one package. Add your accounts and with one interface update your status inside a clean UI. Promoting your blog using social media seems to be the norm these days. After all that's where most of the people spend their time.

  With Seesmic Desktop 2 you will connected to every facet of your social web. If you're a twitter fan you'll love it, it updates tweets in real time and has overall good support for twitter. At it's core right now I'd say it is a Twitter application, but there is more in store.