Join us at Blogworld L.A. from Nov 3-5 at the L.A. Convention Center!

Dominique will be giving a presentation on how to get more impact from your content by leveraging influencers and tribes. Click here for more info on his session.

Make sure to stop by our booth #533 in the Exhibit Hall and check your influence, we’ll be more than happy to see you!

Here is a list of the top SMM Blogs as of Oct 25th.  In the spirit of Blogworld, we’ve also marked who will be speaking at the event. Click the Blogworld icon and you will be directed to their presentation page.

Rank	Name	URL	Trend	Move	Twitt	BWELA speaker
1	Chris Brogan	http://www.chrisbrogan.com	UP	1
2	Seth’s Blog	http://sethgodin.typepad.com	UP	1
3	Jeremiah Owyang	http://www.web-strategist.com/blog	DOWN	-2
4	Brian Solis	http://www.briansolis.com	-	-
5	Logic+Emotion	http://darmano.typepad.com	-	-
6	Social Media Explorer	http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com	-	-
7	Search Engine Land	http://www.searchengineland.com	-	-
8	SocialMediaExaminer	http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com	UP	3
9	Conversation Agent	http://www.conversationagent.com	-	-
10	MarketingProfs	http://www.marketingprofs.com	-	-
11	Social Media Strategy	http://www.convinceandconvert.com	DOWN	-3
12	Online Marketing	http://www.toprankblog.com	UP	1
13	Six Degrees of Separation	http://www.twistimage.com/blog	UP	5
14	MarketingProfs Daily Fix	http://www.mpdailyfix.com	UP	3
15	CopyBlogger	http://www.copyblogger.com	DOWN	-3
16	Internet Marketing	http://blog.hubspot.com	DOWN	-2
17	Scobleizer	http://www.scobleizer.com	DOWN	-1
18	PR-Squared	http://www.pr-squared.com	UP	1
19	Jaffe Juice	http://www.jaffejuice.com	UP	1
20	Web Ink Now	http://www.webinknow.com	UP	1
21	Shel Holtz	http://blog.holtz.com	DOWN	-6
22	Brand Builder	http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com	UP	12
23	BuzzMachine	http://www.buzzmachine.com	UP	2
24	Neville Hobson	http://www.nevillehobson.com	UP	2
25	Ducttape Marketing	http://www.ducttapemarketing.com	UP	3
26	Steve Rubel	http://www.steverubel.me	DOWN	-3
27	The Viral Garden	http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com	DOWN	-3
28	Spin Sucks	http://www.spinsucks.com	UP	9
29	SocialMediaMarketing	http://www.scottmonty.com	UP	1
30	Peter Kim	http://www.beingpeterkim.com	UP	5
31	SEO Blog	http://www.seomoz.org/blog	UP	21
32	Internet Marketing News	http://www.marketingpilgrim.com	UP	4
33	ProBlogger	http://www.problogger.net	DOWN	-1
34	PR Measurement	http://kdpaine.blogs.com	UP	12
35	Amber & Tamsen	http://www.brasstackthinking.com	DOWN	-13
36	How to Change the World	http://blog.guykawasaki.com	UP	5
37	Search Engine Marketing	http://www.searchenginewatch.com	UP	32
38	Danny Brown	http://www.dannybrown.me	DOWN	-5
39	Influential Marketing	http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com	DOWN	-1
40	Drew McLellan	http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com	DOWN	-9
41	Geoff Livingston	http://www.geofflivingston.com	DOWN	-1
42	Liz Strauss	http://www.successful-blog.com	UP	2
43	Steve Rubel Stream	http://www.steverubel.com	DOWN	-16
44	Strategic Public Relations	http://prblog.typepad.com	UP	5
45	Christopher S. Penn	http://www.christopherspenn.com	UP	10
46	B.L. Ochman	http://www.whatsnextblog.com	UP	1
47	Stowe Boyd	http://www.stoweboyd.com	UP	7
48	Social Media Club	http://www.socialmediaclub.org	DOWN	-6
49	Greg Verdino	http://gregverdino.typepad.com	DOWN	-6
50	Adverblog	http://www.adverblog.com	UP	28
51	Mack Collier	http://www.mackcollier.com	DOWN	-12
52	Peter Shankman	http://www.shankman.com	UP	11
53	Harte of Marketing	http://www.theharteofmarketing.com	DOWN	-24
54	Servant of Chaos	http://www.servantofchaos.com	UP	5
55	The Buzz Bin	http://www.livingstonbuzz.com	DOWN	-10
56	Communication Overtones	http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com	UP	12
57	Edelman Digital	http://www.edelmandigital.com	UP	1
58	SmartBlog	http://www.smartblogs.com/socialmedia	DOWN	-7
59	CK’s Blog	http://www.ck-blog.com	DOWN	-3
60	Toby Bloomberg	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com	UP	1
61	Edelman	http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog	DOWN	-4
62	Search Engine Journal	http://www.searchenginejournal.com	-	-
63	John Jantsch	http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog	UP	22
64	Arik C. Hanson	http://www.arikhanson.com	DOWN	-11
65	Bad Pitch	http://badpitch.blogspot.com	UP	2
66	Hitwise Intelligence	http://weblogs.hitwise.com	UP	28
67	Dachisgroup	http://www.dachisgroup.com	-	New
68	Social Media Informer	http://www.socialmediainformer.com	UP	6
69	Outspoken Media	http://www.outspokenmedia.com	UP	1
70	iMedia Connection	http://www.imediaconnection.com	DOWN	-20
71	John Bell	http://johnbell.typepad.com	DOWN	-7
72	Brand Autopsy	http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy	DOWN	-7
73	Dave Fleet	http://www.davefleet.com	DOWN	-25
74	POP! PR Jots	http://pop-pr.blogspot.com	UP	3
75	Ann Handley	http://www.annhandley.com	UP	9
76	Josh Bernoff	http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell	UP	3
77	Altitude Branding	http://www.altitudebranding.com	UP	3
78	Ben McConnell	http://customerevangelists.typepad.com	DOWN	-6
79	Sphinn / Hot Topics	http://www.sphinn.com	DOWN	-6
80	Internet Writings	http://www.shirky.com	UP	18
81	SocialTimes.com	http://www.socialtimes.com	DOWN	-21
82	Church of the Customer	http://www.churchofthecustomer.com	UP	1
83	Phil Fernandez	http://blog.marketo.com	UP	5
84	Media Bistro	http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser	DOWN	-9
85	PR Guy’s Musings	http://www.stuartbruce.biz	UP	6
86	Techno//Marketer	http://technomarketer.typepad.com	UP	6
87	Shonali Burke	http://www.waxingunlyrical.com	UP	17
88	GlobalNeighbourhoods	http://redcouch.typepad.com	DOWN	-7
89	The Future Buzz	http://www.thefuturebuzz.com	DOWN	-2
90	Dan Zarrella	http://www.danzarrella.com	DOWN	-8
91	Ogilvy	http://blog.ogilvypr.com	UP	18
92	Brains On Fire Blog	http://www.brainsonfire.com/blog	DOWN	-26
93	Andy Sernovitz	http://www.damniwish.com	UP	21
94	Marketing & Strategy	http://blog.futurelab.net	UP	8
95	Simply Zesty	http://www.simplyzesty.com	-	New
96	Edward Boches	http://www.edwardboches.com	-	-
97	We Are Social	http://www.wearesocial.net	-	-
98	Customers Rock	http://www.customersrock.net	UP	9
99	Community Guy	http://www.communityguy.com	UP	9
100	Techipedia	http://www.techipedia.com	UP	25
101	Nick Burcher	http://www.nickburcher.com	DOWN	-2
102	Drew B	http://theblogconsultancy.typepad.com	DOWN	-13
103	Joe Pulizzi	http://blog.junta42.com	DOWN	-27
104	Paul Mcenany	http://heehawmarketing.typepad.com	DOWN	-14
105	Inside Marketers Studio	http://www.marketersstudio.com	UP	7
106	Pro PR	http://www.propr.ca	UP	7
107	Branding Strategy Insider	http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com	DOWN	-6
108	ConverStations	http://www.converstations.com	DOWN	-15
109	B2B Mkting Zone	http://www.b2bmarketingzone.com	UP	37
110	Radian6	http://www.radian6.com/blog	DOWN	-4
111	Citizen Marketer 2.1	http://blog.stroutmeister.com	DOWN	-40
112	Socialmedia.biz	http://www.socialmedia.biz	UP	10
113	Michael Britopian	http://www.britopian.com	-	New
114	Abraham Harrison	http://www.marketingconversation.com	UP	13
115	AdPulp	http://www.adpulp.com	UP	1
116	Charlene Li	http://www.charleneli.com	DOWN	-21
117	David Reich	http://reichcomm.typepad.com	UP	30
118	Chaos Scenario	http://www.chaosscenario.com	UP	14
119	Tom Webster	http://www.brandsavant.com	UP	14
120	Mark Schaefer	http://www.businessesgrow.com/blog	UP	14
121	Global Neighbourhood	http://www.globalneighbourhoods.net	DOWN	-18
122	Sysomos Blog	http://blog.sysomos.com	DOWN	-17
123	Socialnomics	http://www.socialnomics.net	UP	15
124	Shannon Paul	http://www.veryofficialblog.com	DOWN	-38
125	Personal Branding	http://www.personalbrandingblog.com	UP	16
126	New Comm Biz	http://www.newcommbiz.com	-	New
127	PR Conversations	http://www.prconversations.com	DOWN	-1
128	Communications Consultant	http://www.prblogger.com	-	-
129	Chuck Hemann	http://www.chuckhemann.com	UP	16
130	In Over Your Head	http://www.inoveryourhead.net	DOWN	-12
131	Marshall Sponder	http://www.webmetricsguru.com	UP	5
132	Webbiquity	http://www.webbiquity.com	-	New
133	Jeffbullas’s Blog	http://www.jeffbullas.com	UP	6
134	Social Organization	http://www.thesocialorganization.com	UP	6
135	Josh Hallett	http://www.hyku.com	UP	15
136	Brendan Cooper	http://www.brendancooper.com	DOWN	-19
137	Neil Perkin	http://neilperkin.typepad.com	DOWN	-27
138	Conversation Marketing	http://www.conversationmarketing.com	DOWN	-38
139	Bill Green	http://makethelogobigger.blogspot.com	UP	4
140	Adliterate	http://www.adliterate.com	UP	4
141	Christopher Carfi	http://www.socialcustomer.com	DOWN	-26
142	Seroundtable	http://www.seroundtable.com	DOWN	-12
143	PRBreakFastClub	http://www.prbreakfastclub.com	DOWN	-24
144	Fresh Networks	http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog	DOWN	-24
145	StickyFigure	http://brandimpact.wordpress.com	-	New
146	HPC | Marketing Uncommon	http://www.horsepigcow.com	DOWN	-23
147	FeverBee	http://www.feverbee.com	-	New
148	Jacob Morgan	http://www.jmorganmarketing.com	DOWN	-24
149	Emergence Marketing	http://www.emergencemarketing.com	DOWN	-7
150	Customer Experience Matters	http://experiencematters.wordpress.com	-	New

Disclaimer: Links to the BlogWorld Expo speaker profiles are only available for those who put the info in their profile.

To view lists similar to this one, including healthcare, hightech, and entertainment…check out our Social GPS.

*New means they were not in the Feb ’11 post, or they have been recently added to our database.

Rank	Name	URL	Trend	Move	Twitt
1	Jeremiah Owyang	http://www.web-strategist.com/blog	UP	1
2	Chris Brogan	http://www.chrisbrogan.com	DOWN	-1
3	Seth’s Blog	http://sethgodin.typepad.com	UP	1
4	Brian Solis	http://www.briansolis.com	DOWN	-1
5	Logic+Emotion	http://darmano.typepad.com	UP	1
6	Social Media Explorer	http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com	DOWN	-1
7	Search Engine Land	http://www.searchengineland.com	UP	4
8	Social Media Strategy	http://www.convinceandconvert.com	UP	2
9	Conversation Agent	http://www.conversationagent.com	DOWN	-2
10	MarketingProfs	http://www.marketingprofs.com	UP	6
11	SocialMediaExaminer	http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com	UP	1
12	CopyBlogger	http://www.copyblogger.com	UP	2
13	Online Marketing	http://www.toprankblog.com	DOWN	-4
14	Internet Marketing	http://blog.hubspot.com	UP	4
15	Shel Holtz	http://blog.holtz.com	-	-
16	Scobleizer	http://www.scobleizer.com	UP	1
17	MarketingProfs Daily Fix	http://www.mpdailyfix.com	UP	3
18	Six Pixels of Separation	http://www.twistimage.com/blog	UP	17
19	PR-Squared	http://www.pr-squared.com	DOWN	-11
20	Jaffe Juice	http://www.jaffejuice.com	UP	1
21	Web Ink Now	http://www.webinknow.com	DOWN	-2
22	Amber & Tamsen	http://www.brasstackthinking.com	UP	15
23	Micro Persuasion	http://www.micropersuasion.com	DOWN	-1
24	The Viral Garden	http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com	UP	6
25	BuzzMachine	http://www.buzzmachine.com	DOWN	-1
26	Neville Hobson	http://www.nevillehobson.com	UP	3
27	Steve Rubel Stream	http://www.steverubel.com	DOWN	-2
28	Ducttape Marketing	http://www.ducttapemarketing.com	DOWN	-2
29	Harte of Marketing	http://www.theharteofmarketing.com	UP	14
30	SocialMediaMarketing	http://www.scottmonty.com	DOWN	-7
31	Drew McLellan	http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com	UP	5
32	ProBlogger	http://www.problogger.net	DOWN	-5
33	Danny Brown	http://www.dannybrown.me	UP	8
34	Brand Builder	http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com	UP	11
35	Peter Kim	http://www.beingpeterkim.com	UP	4
36	Internet Marketing News	http://www.marketingpilgrim.com	DOWN	-5
37	Spin Sucks	http://www.spinsucks.com	UP	5
38	Influential Marketing	http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com	DOWN	-5
39	Mack Collier	http://www.mackcollier.com	UP	12
40	Geoff Livingston	http://www.geofflivingston.com	UP	10
41	How to Change the World	http://blog.guykawasaki.com	DOWN	-7
42	Social Media Club	http://www.socialmediaclub.org	UP	6
43	Greg Verdino	http://gregverdino.typepad.com	DOWN	-11
44	Liz Strauss	http://www.successful-blog.com	UP	13
45	The Buzz Bin	http://www.livingstonbuzz.com	DOWN	-1
46	PR Measurement	http://kdpaine.blogs.com	UP	9
47	B.L. Ochman	http://www.whatsnextblog.com	UP	2
48	Dave Fleet	http://www.davefleet.com	DOWN	-20
49	Strategic Public Relations	http://prblog.typepad.com	UP	9
50	iMedia Connection	http://www.imediaconnection.com	DOWN	-4
51	SmartBlog	http://www.smartblogs.com/socialmedia	DOWN	-11
52	SEO Blog	http://www.seomoz.org/blog	UP	8
53	Arik C. Hanson	http://www.arikhanson.com	DOWN	-6
54	Stowe Boyd	http://www.stoweboyd.com	UP	16
55	Christopher S. Penn	http://www.christopherspenn.com	DOWN	-1
56	CK’s Blog	http://www.ck-blog.com	UP	32
57	Edelman	http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog	UP	32
58	Edelman Digital	http://www.edelmandigital.com	DOWN	-6
59	Servant of Chaos	http://www.servantofchaos.com	DOWN	-6
60	SocialTimes.com	http://www.socialtimes.com	DOWN	-22
61	Toby Bloomberg	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com	UP	7
62	Search Engine Journal	http://www.searchenginejournal.com	DOWN	-6
63	Peter Shankman	http://www.shankman.com	UP	10
64	John Bell	http://johnbell.typepad.com	UP	16
65	Brand Autopsy	http://brandautopsy.typepad.com	DOWN	-3
66	Brains On Fire Blog	http://www.brainsonfire.com/blog	-	-
67	Bad Pitch	http://badpitch.blogspot.com	DOWN	-8
68	Communication Overtones	http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com	UP	4
69	Search Engine Marketing	http://www.searchenginewatch.com	DOWN	-6
70	Outspoken Media	http://www.outspokenmedia.com	UP	14
71	Citizen Marketer 2.1	http://blog.stroutmeister.com	DOWN	-7
72	Ben McConnell	http://customerevangelists.typepad.com	UP	7
73	Sphinn / Hot Topics	http://www.sphinn.com	DOWN	-2
74	Social Media Informer	http://www.socialmediainformer.com	-	New
75	Media Bistro	http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser	UP	73
76	Joe Pulizzi	http://blog.junta42.com	UP	28
77	POP! PR Jots	http://pop-pr.blogspot.com	DOWN	-10
78	Adverblog	http://www.adverblog.com	DOWN	-2
79	Josh Bernoff	http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell	-	New
80	Altitude Branding	http://www.altitudebranding.com	DOWN	-19
81	GlobalNeighbourhoods	http://redcouch.typepad.com	DOWN	-16
82	Dan Zarrella	http://www.danzarrella.com	UP	65
83	Church of the Customer	http://www.churchofthecustomer.com	-	-
84	Ann Handley	http://www.annhandley.com	-	New
85	John Jantsch	http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog	UP	57
86	Shannon Paul	http://www.veryofficialblog.com	UP	5
87	The Future Buzz	http://www.thefuturebuzz.com	DOWN	-2
88	Phil Fernandez	http://blog.marketo.com	UP	58
89	Drew B	http://theblogconsultancy.typepad.com	DOWN	-8
90	Paul Mcenany	http://heehawmarketing.typepad.com	UP	30
91	PR Guy’s Musings	http://www.stuartbruce.biz	UP	14
92	Techno//Marketer	http://technomarketer.typepad.com	UP	3
93	ConverStations	http://www.converstations.com	DOWN	-18
94	Hitwise Intelligence	http://weblogs.hitwise.com	UP	16
95	Charlene Li	http://www.charleneli.com	-	New
96	Edward Boches	http://www.edwardboches.com	DOWN	-6
97	We Are Social	http://www.wearesocial.net	DOWN	-28
98	Internet Writings	http://www.shirky.com	UP	4
99	Nick Burcher	http://www.nickburcher.com	DOWN	-6
100	Conversation Marketing	http://www.conversationmarketing.com	DOWN	-13
101	Branding Strategy Insider	http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com	UP	7
102	Marketing & Strategy	http://blog.futurelab.net	DOWN	-5
103	Global Neighbourhood	http://www.globalneighbourhoods.net	UP	40
104	Shonali Burke	http://www.waxingunlyrical.com	UP	24
105	Sysomos Blog	http://blog.sysomos.com	UP	8
106	Radian6	http://www.radian6.com/blog	-	New
107	Customers Rock	http://www.customersrock.net	DOWN	-7
108	Community Guy	http://www.communityguy.com	UP	8
109	Ogilvy	http://blog.ogilvypr.com	DOWN	-23
110	Neil Perkin	http://neilperkin.typepad.com	UP	11
111	Noah Brier	http://www.noahbrier.com	UP	11
112	Inside Marketers Studio	http://www.marketersstudio.com	UP	27
113	Pro PR	http://www.propr.ca	DOWN	-7
114	Andy Sernovitz	http://www.damniwish.com	DOWN	-32
115	Christopher Carfi	http://www.socialcustomer.com	-	New
116	AdPulp	http://www.adpulp.com	DOWN	-20
117	Advertising Lab	http://adverlab.blogspot.com	DOWN	-8
118	In Over Your Head	http://www.inoveryourhead.net	-	New
119	PRBreakFastClub	http://www.prbreakfastclub.com	-	New
120	Fresh Networks	http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog	UP	11
121	Social Media Today	http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC	DOWN	-47
122	Socialmedia.biz	http://www.socialmedia.biz	DOWN	-7
123	HPC | Marketing Uncommon	http://www.horsepigcow.com	DOWN	-22
124	Jacob Morgan	http://www.jmorganmarketing.com	UP	21
125	Techipedia	http://www.techipedia.com	DOWN	-33
126	PR Conversations	http://www.prconversations.com	DOWN	-8
127	Abraham Harrison	http://www.marketingconversation.com	DOWN	-8
128	Communications Consultant	http://www.prblogger.com	DOWN	-34
129	The Flack	http://theflack.blogspot.com	DOWN	-22
130	Seroundtable	http://www.seroundtable.com	UP	11
131	Leigh Duncan-Durst	http://livepath.blogspot.com	-	New
132	Chaos Scenario	http://www.chaosscenario.com	-	New
133	Tom Webster	http://www.brandsavant.com	-	New
134	Mark Schaefer	http://www.businessesgrow.com/blog	-	New
135	Connie Bensen	http://www.conniebensen.com	DOWN	-23
136	Marshall Sponder	http://www.webmetricsguru.com	-	New
137	Paul Gillin	http://www.gillin.com/blog	-	New
138	Socialnomics	http://www.socialnomics.net	DOWN	-40
139	Jeffbullas’s Blog	http://www.jeffbullas.com	DOWN	-40
140	Social Organization	http://www.thesocialorganization.com	-	New
141	Personal Branding	http://www.personalbrandingblog.com	DOWN	-63
142	Emergence Marketing	http://www.emergencemarketing.com	DOWN	-5
143	Bill Green	http://makethelogobigger.blogspot.com	DOWN	-3
144	Adliterate	http://www.adliterate.com	DOWN	-20
145	Chuck Hemann	http://www.chuckhemann.com	-	New
146	B2B Mkting Zone	http://www.b2bmarketingzone.com	-	New
147	David Reich	http://reichcomm.typepad.com	-	New
148	Kris Hoet	http://www.b2cmarketinginsider.com	-	New
149	Paul Dunay	http://www.pauldunay.com	DOWN	-22
150	Josh Hallett	http://www.hyku.com	-	New

To learn more about our tool and how it can help your company, join a customized demo.

Please feel free to connect with us through twitter: @ecairn or email us at conversation@ecairn.com

The team here at eCairn always appreciates any feedback!

References:

• Post on Answering your questions on ‘Top 150 Social Marketing Blogs’.

CB Whittemore states that “My most valuable content marketing tech tool is eCairn Conversation™, a platform that helps to identify virtual social communities and key influencers, as well as the relevant content they create…” More on page 14 of CCO.

About Chief Content Officer

Chief Content Officer (CCO) is the quarterly print and digital magazine offered by the Content Marketing Institute.

“CCO is the first globally-distributed magazine devoted to the fast-growing, evolving field of content marketing. It is written by, for, and about the most innovative, influential global content marketers. The magazine showcases how content marketers are finding success in the field, focusing on the tools, technologies and processes they use to help marketers learn new publishing skills and apply lessons to their own organizations.”

For more about CCO visit their website. It is currently free while they are on beta, so make sure to sign up!

Our CEO, Dominique Lahaix will be presenting during the Results track:

Case Study on Adobe Community Mapping & Influence Outreach (Forrester Groundswell Award 2010)

There is a broad community beyond Adobe’s own ecosystem, where relevant and influential people socialize online. This presentation will drive the audience through the process of finding and profiling a virtual community and manage an efficient influencer outreach campaign.

We would like to offer you a special 20% discount to join us at the event. To have your discount applied, mention priority code: SPKRM2305DL -Register here.

We are very excited to be a part of this event, and are pleased to be able to extend this invitation to you and your team to become a part of this conference.  We hope that you will make plans to attend this informative, industry-leading event.

If there are any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at conversation@ecairn.com!

The presence of social media is not something that big developers and publishers like Electronic Arts and Activision have ignored. Just last week, developers of the highly anticipated Starcraft 2 announced that they will be adding Facebook integration into their upcoming title. Big players in the video game industry always play on the bleeding edge of developments in technology, marketing and business models; social media is no exception. So, if social media is the new marketing frontier, where do game developers stand?

Let’s take a step back first; before the social media boom, publishers were already creating online forums and moderating feedback from users. You would easily find feedback from users on what features they liked the most, and what features they hated. Sentiment was as simple as collecting and organizing feedback from magazines and website reviews. Marketers and producers who were tech savvy enough would post forum polls and track discussions from commercial and independent forums. User feedback on the internet was manageable, and located in pockets of communities that the astute marketer would easily find.

Today, the widespread presence of syndicated, published and independent blogs, news about upcoming titles spreads faster than publishers plan for. Biased news leaks and raw speculation leave poor impressions in the minds of discerning gamers. It is difficult to predict and find key community influencers who spark the strongest opinions. This puts developers in a position where they have little to no control of community sentiment before the release date. There are so many different influencers and communities that affect sentiment about a product; it is beyond the control of marketing directors and community managers to find the right one.

The video game blog community is large and extremely active.

This major release comes with a brand new User Interface and some amazing new features. We worked closely with customers for months to integrate their requests. We are very proud of our product.

This new release will change how you access the application features, making them easier to discover and use. The new navigation will allow you to:

• Add and manage sources in your project – In particular, you will see the ‘Blog’ tab renamed as ‘Community’. This is to illustrate the fact that many different kind of sources can now be added to your project besides blogs.
• Access and manage conversations – In particular, you will see the ‘Posts’ tab renamed as ‘Conversations’. Again this change is to illustrate that you can aggregate posts, tweets, facebook updates, linkedin Q&A, mainstream media content and so on in one single place.
• Filter conversations to zoom on what you’re interested in – This functionality ‘Filter’ is now called ‘Topic’. Both the list in the Community tab and the Conversations tab can be filtered by topic.
• Find ‘network’ information – The functionality within the current ‘Networks’ tab will then be available under the ‘Community’ tab.

Other improvements are:

- Navigation:

1. Action buttons at the top of each tab to access critical functionalities.
2. Filter pane on the right side to narrow the list against a wide range of critical criteria.
3. Navigation between projects in one single click.

- Overall look n feel: New fonts, color, styling, improved dashboard.

- New Self-Help Center with plenty of FAQs, User Guide, tutorials and videos.

- Other enhancements specifically requested by our customers:

1. View trends on Search and Topics (previously available topic only)
2. RSS on Search and Topic
3. Date range for search (in addition to all time, day, week, last login)
4. Export up to 5000 conversations at once.

We hope you’ll enjoy this new release and our team look forward in working with you! Please, join us to a 45 minutes product demonstration on Wednesday March 10th at 9:30am PST: Register now: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/278917336

Below are screenshots of the 3 main tabs:

1 – Dashboard

2 – Community

3 - Conversations

As you’ll see, the ranking, computed with the last 6 months data is pretty   stable, with Chris Brogan moving back to the first position.

O Blanchard, J Baer and J Cass are  showing some impressive progressions over the period.

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If you want to know more on how we map communities and how to market to industry influencers,  we’re organizing a  FREE webinar next week and would be very happy to have you with us, click here to register:  Webinar

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Here is the new Top 150:

I just read the excellent article (IEEE computer Nov 08) from Bernardo Huberman (HP) on the attention economy.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry along with an excerpt.  It’s eyes opening:  Attention Economy

“…in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it” (Simon 1971, p. 40-41).

The social web is making the issue worst and quickly moves the challenge from information to attention.

We are indeed moving from the “Information Age” to the “Attention Age”:

If the “Search engine” with the eco-system that comes with it  is/was THE critical element in the Information age, it’s less the appropriate response to the “Attention Age”.

Real time search is the immediate challenge  but is still a marginal threat.  Attention on Twitter is barely better than on Google and spams, bots and old school marketers are already making their way into it.

So how would we define “Attention Engine”? :

For those who follow this blog regularly, you probably see a huge overlap with the right column and what eCairn is all about.

We’re the first Attention Engine out there.

SMM Rolodex

From a 2000 feet prospective,  social media solutions are all the same. They more or less enable brands to listen and engage with communities.

In practice, it’s way more subtle and one analogy I’d like to propose is that you’ve providers that build Yellow Pages and others that build Rolodex (we fall into this category).

Both are useful and there are differentiated benefits from both type of solutions. What is critical however is for brands and agencies to clearly articulate their business needs and select the appropriate tool-set for the task at hand. It’s also very important to think beyond the first use of the solution selected.

Social Media Monitoring Solutions tend to be easier to setup and to operate. You just plug in your brand keywords and bingo.  (This, provided of course,  one can find the appropriate set of queries to search the Social Yellow pages).

Rolodex approach requires more work, more thinking around how a brand wants to organize its Social Rolodex and how it wants to structure its listening and engagement in different communities.  This is even more important if the Rolodex is a shared Rolodex within a mid-size/large company.

Again the analogy works very well. It takes minutes to open the Yellow Pages whereas one may spend several hours a week organizing and maintaining its Rolodex.

What’s key with Rolodex is that it enable people to build a differentiated asset that will deliver value over multiple enterprises functions and systems.

Let’s take a not-so-fictive example of an IT company that’s delivering services & product for Cloud Computing.

Using a Yellow Pages approach, it can get some pretty solid indicator relative to share of voice and (with rating) sentiment. However, without any qualification of the sources of the information (expert, influencer, audience, position in the community, analysis of what this person says over time, level of connection with the company or with competitors), it ‘ll be very difficult to transform this into actionable knowledge.

Using a Rolodex approach – and spending the time to built it-, this company will be able to:

• Build a common repository of people that constitute the community of  “Cloud Computing”  & listen to them wherever they  write, tweet and comment (blog, twitter…),
• Perform targeted sentiment analysis on these key stakeholders.
• Spot whether any of these stakeholder are over time more positive or negative about them. Build action plans to change perspective.
• Influence specific clusters through outreach, buzz and content development.
• Thru regular participation in the conversations,  build up trust.
  
• Prevent crisis, making these influencers  more careful propagating rumors or false information about the brand i.e people that they know and trust.
• Perform deep qualitative analytics. Since the “river of news” is built from similar sources and is noise free, it can be mined with greater results.
• Spot candidates for virtual focus group, crowd sourcing of new ideas (btw, I’m amazed that people embark in crowdsourcing without targeting. If a brand makes a strategic decision to focus its solution for small business, wouldn’t that make sense that it restrict s the crowdsourcing of new ideas from the specific small business community ?).
• Develop communication strategies that leverage community and influencers
• Socialize their corporate web site with the voices of these trustable sources and their audience.

and so on…

From a strategy standpoint, these approaches also differ widely:

On the Yellow pages one: the goal is to spend as less time as possible in social media, while grabbing as much as what can be learned with a Google Search like interaction. But there is no social engagement. People even dream of automating sentiment and are totally adverse to the idea of reading conversations.

One can even say that here, brand uses technology to mitigate the risk of not participating in the conversations.

On the Rolodex one: the goal is to capitalize every minute spent in social media and putting this capitalized knowledge at work for maximum benefits.

Here, listening and engagement is view as an asset and an opportunity, not as a liability.

Two paradigms, Two solutions … and so many opportunities.

Using Lee’s example of  hybrid car, let’s start building a fictive business case: you’re Toyota and you want to use social media to market a new hyper efficient car.

Lee provides us with the a sound social media roadmap:

audience => objective => strategy

and using Radian6, a well-known social monitoring platform, and a series of keywords, Lee comes back with the list below as the target audience, ranked by influence.

The problem is that these blogs may be both very influential on one end and blogs having recently talked about hybrid cars on the other end. But in no way do they define a community. They are therefore of very limited help for social marketing.

Looking closer, it’s  a patchwork of green blogs, auto blogs or blogs that come from the Personal Finance community like GetRichSlowly. We also have sites like Engadget, Digg, Youtube, Autopia and AOL.

What would a real social marketing program for the Highly efficient cars be then ?

1) First, Toyota should define the communities it wants to market to.

They could be the:

• green community
• community of car addicts
• the one of people in market for cars
• the frugal community

2) Next, Toyota should characterize these communities in terms of:

• influencers
• people positive/aware about high efficiency cars
• people that are negative about high efficiency cars
• people with existing ties with its competitors
• and so on

3) Last, Toyota should develop unique strategies for each segment.

Strategies may be just listening, monitoring interest, crowd sourcing ideas or explaining the key benefits of its new offer by participating in the communities (and again, there are tons of ways to do that from buzz to outreach to advertising).

But it’s not a one size fits all:

- for the green community as an example, the challenge for Toyota may be to convince people there is more environmental return in investing in a fuel efficient car than improving one’s house or commuting with other people.

- for the auto community, it could be to demonstrate that it has solved some issues like autonomy on electric cars… or that a car can be fuel efficient and fun, featuring an hybrid nascar car youtube video.

- for the frugal community, it could be providing templates so that the reader can evaluate the ROI of making the move, or advertising financial services that ease the initial purchase.

I’m not a car marketer so this is way oversimplified. The point I want to make is that social/community marketing is mainly executing marketing strategies while leveraging communities and the social web.

It’s not a one click affair and requires a different approach than “conversation monitoring”. It requires a top down approach strongly aligned with a company marketing strategy (that can be fueled by monitoring) and cannot be implemented keywords up.

It takes time.  Most of the benefits come when every marketer in an organization is able to leverage communities and the social web to increase its productivity, maximize the relevance and impact of its action… and measure it … thru monitoring .

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