Should a Real Name be Required when Participating in Social Media?

This question has been floating out there for a while, but I just wanted to get it in circulation again. Frankly, I believe that if you are not willing to reveal who you really are when participating in social networks, forums, and other social media, then you shouldn’t have a voice.

Trusting Anonymous Sources
In the real world, we are responsible for our actions. We’re liable for what we say and do. Why should it be any different online?

Why should we be able to go around representing ourselves as someone else, or hiding behind artificial usernames or anonymity? People who do this in the real world are usually doing so for a few reasons:

1 - They’re hiding from someone
2 - They are criminals
3 - They are spammers

A-List blogger, Jeremy Schoemaker recently published an article posing essentially the same question, Is Anonymity Good For The Internets? In looking through the comments, I noted something interesting . . . most of those who were fervently in favor of anonymity were posting using keywords as their name instead of posting as themselves.

What does that tell you?

99% of the time when someone creates an anonymous or fake account on our BiggerPockets.com Real Estate Community, these people are there to do one of the above. Most are spammers, but there are several who are there to misrepresent the truth (lie), and many who are there to scam others. We also will not allow anonymous commenters, and I’ve now implemented the same policy on this blog as well. If you can’t represent yourself, you’re not wanted.

What do you think? Should people be allowed to remain anonymous online?

Introducing Technorati’s WTF aka Where’s The Fire

I don’t think it has quite caught on yet, but Technorati has built it’s own answer to Digg, Reddit and the rest of the social news and bookmarking sites. It’s called Where’s The Fire or WTF and covers “What’s Hot, and Why.” Considering the popularity and resources of Technorati, it seems like this should be more popular than it already is . . .

WTF Manipulation

Unfortunately, it seems like people are already manipulating the system. I was just looking and there were 4 stories on the front page of the site all promoting some blog (that is a huge POS). Each story had 15 votes and they were all in different categories for added exposure. WTF’s competition already has methods for dealing with situations like these, and if Technorati doesn’t handle the problem FAST, then it is likely that this application will turn out to be a complete flop.

User Manipulating Technorati’s WTF

If Technorati hopes to gain any ground on the competition for social bookmarking/social news, then they need to get a grip on this ASAP. In addition, publicity is going to be key . . . if no one knows about WTF, then it will never become popular (pretty obvious, I know).

Meanwhile, feel free to vote on and support some of the articles I’ve posted to WTF, or just submit some yourself!

I’m a huge fan of MyBlogLog, as it has become a great tool for building blog traffic, but I have one issue with the site that continues to annoy me:

The Problem with MyBlogLog
When you add a friend, the site redirects you back to your own profile. This is extremely annoying! When I find a user that I’d like to befriend, I want to continue surfing their profile after adding them as a friend. Once I’m back in my profile, it is difficult to find these new friends.

My Solutions
I have 2 solutions for this problem:

1. Redirect a user back to the friend’s profile . . . this seems to be the easiest, and most obvious solution.

2. Create a section on our profiles where we can see users we just befriended; there is already an area where you can see people who befriended you. I believe that this is an essential upgrade (by itself or in conjunction with the first suggestion)

How You can Help
If this problem annoys you as well, just let Eric know.

How to Reach Me on MyBlogLog
You can network with me on MyBlogLog. Either add me as a friend (my username is bigp), or join the TimeforBlogging Community!

It is hard to go very far without running into a site with entries in Darren Rowse’s latest group writing project; it was a huge hit with close to 900 entries. While it is great that people are linking to one another from this thing, it seems that many involved in the project are simply linking to the entire list of submissions. While I did participate (on another blog) and don’t ever mind new backlinks, I’m a bit disappointed that people haven’t really broken this thing down a bit.

Why link to every post? While many were good, there were some really bad posts in that batch. Do you really want to link to (and give your support to) blogs that don’t make the cut? I went through the entire list a few times to pull out posts that I thought would be interesting or helpful for the readers of this blog.

Here are a few that I felt were actually useful and worth a read (yes, I actually read every internet related post on the list!):

AdSense
• Top 5 AdSense Boo-Boos
  Blogging

• Top Five Ways Blog Carnivals Make Blogging Better
• Top 5 Tips to be the next Darren Rowse
• Top 5 Methods to Increase Comments on Your Blog
• Top 5 tips for beating blogger’s block
• Top 5 Best and Youngest Bloggers
• Top 5 Tips for a Successful Link Train
• 5 Things You Should do Before Launching Your Own Blog
• 5 Tips to Break Free From The Blogger’s Bubble
  Blogging Tools

• Top Five Little Known Wordpress Plugins
• Top 5 Must-Have Blog Monitoring Tools
• Top 5 WordPress Plugins That Help Increase Comments
• Top 5 Tools Every Blogger Should Use
• Top 5 OS X Dashboard Widgets for Bloggers
  SEO

• The Top 5 Free Search Engine Optimization Tools
• Top 5 Top Blog Posts in SEO
  Assorted

• Top Five Challenges Newbies Face Online
• Five Ways to Grow Your StumbleUpon Network: An Ode to Altruistic Stumbling
• Five Tips for Running a Successful Online Giveaway

What I thought was most impressive was that many of these great posts were written by fairly unknown bloggers. This is another sign that there will always be great new talents emerging in the blogging world and you must keep exploring to find them!

I make it a habit to support my fellow bloggers through both socializing their posts and visiting their advertisers when appropriate. Make sure you do the same! While linking is great, these things are just as important!

Finally, I’d like to mention that many of the blogs I went through were still using Blogger or some other hosted blog solution, and many others were making some of the most basic blogging mistakes. If you haven’t already, read the The Top 77 Mistakes New Bloggers Make so you’re not out there making some of these yourself!

There are tons of new bloggers online every day, and many, if not most of them make similar mistakes starting out. I thought it might be fun to compile a list of some of these. Without further adieu:

The Top 77 Mistakes New Bloggers Make
en Español, en Français

Domain & Hosting
1. Not hosting their own blog
2. Registering a blog name (URL) that has been copyrighted
3. Registering a long and difficult to remember domain name

   Style, Design, and Basic Blog Ingredients

4. Keeping the basic template that came installed on the blog
5. Using a black background or one that flashes, blinks, or moves in any other way
6. Using background music
7. Not updating the blogroll that comes with the blog
8. Not using permalinks for their blog posts
9. Not protecting their blogs from SPAM comments with easily installed plugins
10. Under-utilizing easily installed plugins
11. Not including a clear way to contact them
12. Not including a basic About the Author page
13. Not creating a sitemap for Google and other search engines

    Blog Comments

14. Keeping the first post & comment that came with the blog
15. Forcing guests to register in order to leave comments
16. Commenting on other blogs with nothing to say other than “nice post” or some other worthless nonsense
17. Commenting on other blogs and posting spamming their blog’s URL in the post
18. Not commenting on other blogs enough
19. Not thinking through what they comment about on other sites
20. Not responding to comments on their blogs
21. Asking other bloggers to link to their blog in comments
22. Gathering email addresses from people who comment and adding them to email marketing lists without permission (privacy violation)
23. Posting affiliate links when making comments on other blogs

    Links

24. Emailing other bloggers and asking them for links
25. Not linking out enough
26. Posting incorrect or broken links
27. Not using their blog’s trackback capabilities to keep other bloggers in the know

    Blog Content

28. Creating SPLOGS
29. Setting high expectations for your readers and then failing to meet them
30. Not learning blogging etiquette or blog culture before starting out
31. Not choosing a niche to write about
32. Not keeping their blog focused on that niche if and when they do choose one
33. Copying the style and substance of other blogs
34. Blogging about absolutely nothing
35. Not proofreading their posts
36. Failing to place themselves and then experiencing blogger burnout
37. Stealing blog content
38. Blogging about something they know nothing about
39. Copying entire blog posts from other sites and thinking a simple link back makes it okay
40. Failing to attribute another blog or website that you got an idea from
41. Trying to blog as some fake anonymous persona like the kids in Ender’s Game
42. Posting uninteresting titles
43. Posting huge blocks of text without using headlines, images, etc. to break it up
44. Posting at an irregular frequency
45. Forgetting that they are writing for an audience, not themselves.
46. Writing things in their blogs that may harm them in the future
47. Committing libel
48. Being unprofessional
49. Attacking other bloggers just to get attention
50. Sharing company secrets or private information on their blogs
51. Giving away too much personal information (potentially dangerous)
52. Not having their own voice when writing, instead using bland and dry language.
53. Not engaging the reader to participate in the conversation (failing to stimulate comments)
54. Blabbing too much without making any relevant points
55. Writing about what everyone else is writing about
56. Holding blog contests and not coming through on prizes you promised

    Blog Promotion & Traffic Building

57. Advertising their brand-new site anywhere
58. Promoting a site with less than 10 posts
59. Using traffic boosters to get traffic
60. Using any methods to get un-targeted traffic
61. Over-submitting their blogs to social bookmarking sites
62. Submitting bad posts to social bookmarking sites
63. Under-publicizing their best posts
64. Not entering Blog Carnivals to start building traffic
65. Not including a link to their blogs in their email and forum signatures
66. Not responding to emails or other messages

    Blog Monetization

67. Worrying about making money with their blog before they even have any quality content
68. Placing as many ads from as many ad networks as they can on their sites
69. Clicking on their own AdSense Ads
70. Allowing just about any site, even unrelated ones, to advertise on their blog
71. Writing reviews of other sites through ReviewMe or other services and doing a shit job of it. Reviews can be bad or good, but they should at least be well written (happened to me today . . . argh!)

    Feeds

72. Under-utilizing their blog’s feed
73. Not having a clearly identifiable and highly visible way to subscribe to their feed
74. Not using feedburner to optimize, quantify, and publicize their feed
75. Using Feedburner chicklet that shows number of subscribers before you’ve got at least 50-100 subscribers
76. Posting a partial blog feed instead of the full contents
77. Overusing feed advertising

I’ve seen a few other mistake lists out there, but most cover things I’ve mentioned above. Here are a few good ones:

Ten Blogging Mistakes I’ve Made
The Top 10 Design Mistakes
Blogging Mistakes Final List
10 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

Think I’m missing any important points?

I just read an interesting post over at the Bivings Report titled, Online Venom or Vibrant speech?, where author Todd Zeigler looked into a recent article on the Washington Post and examined a comment made about moderating comments on Post articles. It seems that the online edition of the newspaper gets some extremly rancorous and vicious comments.

Should there Be Complete Freedom of Speech Online?

I started thinking about the whole concept of commenting and realized that this takes place across the net including on other online newspapers, blogs, social networks (Digg, especially), etc. I know that I was quite taken back when I was the recipient of some pretty nasty comments on this blog. For a long time, I kept the comments in the moderation queue, but eventually decided that it was important to share all views, as long as they didn’t harm me or anyone else. In this and in most other cases I see, the commentor proved their ignorance by spewing hateful nonsense. On the other hand, however, had this comment taken it a step further, I would have never allowed it to see the light of day.

That said, I am amazed by all the hate that is posted online, especially in political sites like Politico and the Huffington Post. What happened to intellectual debate? Is our country so full of ignorance and hate that we are no longer capable of discussing heated topics without reverting to racist and other rants? I am saddened by this and fear that it will worsen as I have children and they grow up.

Back to moderating comments . . . .

Websites Should Absolutely Moderate their Comments

I think it is perfectly acceptable to moderate comments on forums, blogs, social sites, etc. so they comply with your personal or company goals. Why should someone have to put up with hateful comments on their personal blog? Why should a forum about cars put up with comments about sex? Why should political websites put up with people demeaning and insulting others?

They shouldn’t!

If people are incapable of posting well thought out and civil comments, why should they have a voice? All the types of sites I’ve mentioned are private property (in a public domain). Should the Washington Post allow racist and hateful posts? No! The Post is a private company with an image to uphold. I know I don’t want to read a bunch of nasty comments after viewing an article.

People talk about free speech, but fail to recognize that freedom of speech does not cover what a private enterprise can and should allow.

In case we’ve all forgotten the first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nowhere does it say that freedom of speech is protected in a private enterprise.

What do you think? Should newspapers, blogs, social networks, and other online media moderate the comments on their sites?

I wrote about using MyBlogLog a few weeks ago (networking with social media sites) for networking purposes. I now want to tell you exactly how to build massive traffic using the MyBlogLog community.

MyBlogLog is an extremely important tool for getting a blog off the ground and for building exposure to your site. Many people don’t realize how powerful it really is! This post will help you get a jump start in building traffic to your blog / website, and will also help you find new, interesting sites you never knew about before.

How to Set Up MyBlogLog on Your Blog or Website

1. Create an account with MyBlogLog. This hould take less than a minute. All you’ll need is to pick out your username, email, password, and the URL of your blog. Once you’ve created an account, be sure to upload an image of yourself as your avatar. Photos are just more personal and make things a bit more inviting.
   
   

2. To bring more interest to your profile, or simply to help users get to know a bit about you, be sure to fill out some personal information in your profile. Again, it really just helps people to connect with you.
3. You will then want to claim your blog or website. To do this, you’ll need to place a snippet of code that MBL provides you within your blog’s template. Now, when you look at your profile page, you’ll see your website.
   
   

   Both you and your website now have “communities.” Personally, you have the ability to add friends and chat with them. People must join your website’s community, but they can also chat with you through the site’s community.

4. The last major technical step in getting going is installing the MyBlogLog Widget on your blog or website. If you look in your personal profile, you’ll see a link underneath your website’s community “Get Widgets.” The one you are concerned with is the “Recent Readers” widget. This allows you and your other readers to see who has been on your site recently. Layout the widget to your liking and add it to your blog’s sidebar.

Congratulations! You’re Ready.
Here’s where the traffic building begins!

8 Steps To Successfully Building Blog Traffic Using MyBlogLog

1. Make sure you are logged into MyBlogLog. This seems obvious, but if you’re not signed in, then people on the site can’t see you when you’re surfing around.
2. Surf your favorite blogs! Start visiting the sites you’d normally visit and see if they have MyBlogLog widget installed. If they do, click on the View Reader Community link at the bottom. This will bring you to their website’s community.
3. Join the communty and also add the user as a friend/contact. This shows the user in both their personal profile and their website’s community profile that you are interested. It also gives you more exposure so others can find you more easily.
   

   (Note: When you add a user as a friend, you are sent back to your profile, not that user’s. I think this is a glaring problem with the site, as I then have to go back to the blog - to the community - to the user to find their profile again. I hope Eric and others at MBL consider changing this. It will just make things that much easier for users)

4. This is one of the most important steps: Leave a comment on either their personal profile or their website’s community profile. Make sure it is not simply “Nice site” or “Great Blog.” Be sure to leave a relevant comment so the user can tell that you’ve actually visited their site.

   As a result of your comment, the odds are that the user will go and visit your profile (by clicking on your avatar). They will then see your blog / websites and if they have any curiousity in the topic, will check them out. You’ve just exposed your site to another new person!

5. Wash, Rinse, Repeat! After a while, you’ll have targeted all the sites that you are a fan of. Don’t fret, you have much more work ahead!
6. Now that you’ve gone and let your favorite sites know about your interest, it is time to start finding new sites. There are a many ways to do this:
   

   How to find New Websites of Interest

   a) Visit your favorite site’s community pages and look at who else is commenting. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   b) Visit your favorite site’s community pages and look at who else is a member. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   c) Return to your personal profile page and see who “Viewed this Page Recently.” Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   d) Go to the “My Admirers” section of your profile. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   e) See who is leaving you comments on your personal community profile or your site’s community. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   f) Visit the profiles of other users you’ve found and see what communities they are a part of. Odds are they will likely be related to their interests. You now have a slew of other communities and sites to visit.

7. Watch the traffic begin! You’ll start to notice traffic slowly start to come from MyBlogLog. Keep people interested by continung to write quality posts.
8. Set aside some time every day to expand your MyBlogLog contacts, visit new sites, comment, and get yourself out there. Remember, every time you visit another site with the MBL Recent Readers widget, you have another opportunity for exposure for yourself. The more you’re seen around, the more likely people will want to connect with you.

Don’t forget that in addition to using MyBlogLog for traffic that there are other important methods. Commenting on other, related blogs with thoughtful messages is hugely important. This should also become a part of your daily routine.

In case you’d like to start somewhere, you can do so with me!
My Personal Profile: BigP (my username)
This Blog’s Profile: TimeForBlogging

Join up and get involved in MyBlogLog today to build your blog’s traffic!

Websites of Interest: Website Traffic Traffic