How Complete is Your Social Media Profile?Everyone who has a persona in multiple social networks knows that:
- Social media site profile pages show up in search engine searches for your persona username and/or real name
- These pages can be valuable links to your other web properties
- You should use a consistent name and avatar for both meme-power (mind share) and semantic weight- both for search engines and for brand momentum with your audience
Some of my friends in social media have established strong consistent personas in multiple SN's. With the three points above in mind, I wanted to see how some of the most effective in social are doing it.I did a quick research project to answer the following questions:
- What sites are most adopted by both social media power users and my social media friends?
- What sites rank the best in Google for these people?
- Who has the most complete social media profile (presence in these SM sites)?
My method was to check the rankings of persona user names in Google for 27 social media websites. The list of sites was culled from the top 20 rankings of these same user names.
Inconsistent Profile Names: Problem?
The research is imperfect, because some people use different user names in different networks. However, it could be argued that this is not best practice, so when we rank users by the number of networks they're in, their score should be lowered by not using consistent user names. However, it could throw off the findings by website. Anyone who wants to take the time to do more users, more sites, and deal with the possibility of 5 or 6 different user names: feel free to do a better study!Another thing that complicated this study was that I really wanted to include LinkedIn, but since it favors real names over profile names, I didn't feel it fit the study method.
Networks Included:
- blogcatalog.com
- boardsus.playstation.com
- brightkite.com
- bumpzee.com
- clipmarks.com
- digg.com
- flickr.com
- friendfeed.com
- gooruze.com
- hubpages.com
- identi.ca
- ma.gnolia.com
- mixx.com
- mybloglog.com
- plurk.com
- pownce.com
- qik.com
- sitehoppin.com
- sphinn.com
- spike.com
- stumbleupon.com
- technorati.com
- twitpic.com
- twitter.com
- ustream.tv
- winksite.com
- youtube.com
- zimbio.com
- aimclear
- briancarter
- darthguru
- davesnyder
- doshdosh
- jkukral
- lauracallow
- martinbowling
- michd
- odenized
- scobelizer
- sexyseo
- spostareduro
- sugarrae
- utahseopro
- viperchill
Most Adopted Social Media Sites:
- twitter (14)
- sphinn (12)
- mybloglog (10)
- digg (9)
- stumbleupon (9)
- technorati (9)
- friendfeed (9)
- Zimbio (1)
- Twitter (2.5)
- SU (6.3)
- YouTube (6.5)
- Digg (7)
- darthguru (15)
- utahseopro (13)
- spostareduro (12)
- odenized (11)
- doshdosh (10)
I think the biggest lesson for me, since I am only in 8 of these sites, is to make an effort to be present in more social media sites. It's clear that some users have gone out of their way to adopt sites that others may not even be aware of.
You could call this your social media persona's social media footprint. It makes sense to increase the size of your footprint. Some people have footprints that are deep (a lot of activity on a few sites), but small (they could be present on more sites).
Since we know that links from multiple domains are valuable, and that this can result in more search engine listings for the same persona or search, getting a wider social media reach makes sense.
