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Hunting for Engagement Opportunities on Twitter

Build it and they will come? Most of the time, it’s not that easy.


We can’t all be Starbucks or Disney. We can’t all gather a half-million Facebook fans in a week, or a hundred thousand Twitter followers in a month. It’s a simple fact that a large number of lesser-known companies live in industries where Social Media adoption is lagging behind, and those companies are going to have to work extra-hard to uncover the opportunities for engagement. However, if these companies look hard enough, they’ll find that there ARE people talking about their brands. There ARE people talking about their products. There ARE people who WILL engage with them. It just take a little hunting to find them.

Now, you’ll notice the title of this article is ‘Hunting for ENGAGEMENT’, not ‘Hunting for Sales’. This approach will NOT work if all you want to do is blast sales messages. Engagement and interaction is the key to being a superstar in social media communications. So, with that in mind, let us continue.

The first step, aside from starting to Tweet in the first place, is to scour Twitter for any mentions of your brand name, product types, competitors, industry organizations, and any other keywords that relate to your business. The easiest, most effective way to do this is to utilize the multitude of free alert services and advanced ‘Twitter’ search sites that exist. These can help you uncover any Tweet that gets posted on any number of topics with any combination of terms and keywords.

Some of the best tools I’ve found are:

Advanced Twitter Search – http://search.twitter.com/advanced
• Search Twitter using extremely detailed search criteria, including exact phrases, language, with links or without, positive or negative attitude, and more.

TweetAlarm – http://www.tweetalarm.com/
• Like Google Alerts, but for Twitter. Sends email reports to you of any mention of any number of keywords, and allows you to exclude Tweets from certain users (like yourself). Get real-time, daily, or weekly reports.

Who’s Talkin’ – http://www.whostalkin.com/
• Social Media search engine that examines multiple sources for any and all mentions of a specific keyword. Sources include Google Blog Search, Twitter, WordPress, and more.

SocialMention – http://www.socialmention.com/
• Similar to Who’s Talkin – Allows you to drill down further and look at comments, images, news, etc, and provides positive/negative sentiment indicators. Also provides detailed metrics on the mentions it finds.

Example of SocialMention search results:

Ok, so now you’ve found a handful of people talking about your product. What do you do next? It’s a very simple 3-step process:

1 – Follow them – This is essential to creating a sense of appreciation and goodwill to them, letting them know that you’re not just spamming. Also, adding them to a custom list would be a good thing as well.

2 – Respond to them – Not just an @ message with a canned ‘check us out!’ response, but an actual reply to their message. Did they post a link to a photo? Say it was cool, or better yet, RT it with a personal message. Did they have an issue with their product? Offer help on their specific problem. Don’t just say ‘call us at 1-800-BLA-BLAH.

3 – Follow-up – Do they respond back to you? Then respond back again. Always be the last one to respond. This way you always leave the ball in their court, and if they have any other desire to talk with you, they will.

The point is this: If your company exists in a very specific industry, or a very niche market, it may not be common knowledge among your customers that they can get help/knowledge/information through Social Media channels. They may only use it for personal reasons, oblivious to the fact that there is a wealth of knowledge and interaction that you can provide to them.

By actively finding THEM, instead of waiting for them to find YOU, you’re kick-starting your community in a very positive way. You’re letting them know that you’re listening, that you care about what they have to say, and that you really want to help.

5 Awesome Reasons & 5 Terrible Reasons to Give +K on Klout

There’s been a great deal of talk recently about how the current iterations of ‘influence’ measurement don’t really measure the actual influence that individuals have over their followers. What they were really doing is simply extrapolating the amount and type of social media activities that the individual engages in, and then repackage them as a superficial measure of influence. For a while though, it’s all we had to use as a yardstick to compare how we were performing in the world of social media communications.

Now, Klout has introduced the +K system, which allows users to manually apply ‘influence’ to individuals based on certain topics of interest. It’s a definite step in the right direction. Now, rather than simply be based on the raw numbers of tweets, followers, and mentions, someone can be marked as influential on a topic based on their CONTENT and the effects that they have on their audience. In my opinion, this is a far more reliable measure of how influential someone is.

Of course, there are loopholes and ways to game the system. The first one that I’ve seen rear its ugly head is people flat out asking their followers to give them +K points. Really? Doesn’t this completely defeat the purpose of the +K system? If your followers don’t take it upon themselves to give you +K on their own volition, perhaps you’re not as influential on your topic as you may think you are.


Image linked from: http://www.socialfresh.com

This got me thinking about what would really be a good reason to give someone a bump with +K. Should you just give them to your friends? Should you give them to the most popular users in hopes that they notice your action and return the favour? Possibly.

But maybe, just maybe, we should be selective in who we give influence points. After all, don’t the people we recommend provide insight in to who we are and what we’re all about? If someone said they are influenced by some loudmouth malcontent who just posts drivel and garbage, my opinion of them may decline a little bit. Who we look up to is indicative of how we strive to be, so in the long run excessive generosity with +K points could reflect poorly on you.

Here are what I believe are 5 great reasons to give someone +K:


Image linked from: http://cooleycooley.blogspot.com

1 – They fascinate you

If someone continually posts articles that you absolutely must read, they may be deserving of +K. If they have a lifestyle or philosophy that you admire, they may be deserving of +K.

2 – They make a difference

If someone you follow is generous in their community, helping everyone without thought of reward, they may be deserving of +K. If someone you follow is dedicated to a charitable cause, and advocates for those who cannot advocate for themselves, they may be deserving of +K.

3 – They give you advice that you use

If you ask a question, and they give you a solution that you can use, and it works, they may be deserving of +K. If you take an article they wrote and actually apply the concepts to your everyday life, they may be deserving of +K.

4 – They are tremendously successful

If they continually win at anything they do, sharing the stories of their success as they go, they may be deserving of +K. If their customers/clients continually win as a result of working with this person, they may be deserving of +K.

5 – They give you ideas you never conceived of

If they share a new idea or concept that stops you in your tracks and say ‘WOW’, they may be deserving of +K. If they constantly surprise you with solutions to problems never before considered, they may be deserving of +K.

Now, with any type of reward system, however simple it may be, there will always be those who use it in awful ways that make kittens cry. Here are five of those ways:


Image linked from: http://rob.nu

1 – Giving +K to people who are already ranked at the top of a topic

Does giving Barack Obama +K for politics do anything for anyone? Not really. Does giving Starbucks a +K about coffee make others go ‘OK, maybe I’ll try it’? If they haven’t tried it by now, very few things will push them to change.

2 – Giving +K to people because they are your friends

We all want our friends to succeed, but you wouldn’t recommend them for a job they’d be terrible at, so don’t do the same here. If they don’t ACTUALLY influence you on the topic in question, don’t say that they do just to be nice. Everyone has something they’re great at, so if you’re going to give them points, do it on their real topic of influence.

3 – Giving +K to people solely because they gave it to you

It’s a nice gesture, but just don’t. I didn’t give you the +K just to get some from you. I really felt you were influential on a topic so I gave you a bump. If you’re just being nice, then say thanks, or start reading my blog and give me your feedback. Your opinion and comments are far more valuable than a ‘gimme’ to my Klout score.

4 – Giving +K to people to farm for your own +K

As indicated above, there are those who like to reciprocate when given appreciation, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in this instance it does more harm than good. If you purposely look for those individuals known for reciprocating and give them +K just to get more for yourself, you’re just gaming the system.

5 – Giving +K to gain popular Twitter followers

No secret: It’s hard to get the attention of some of the big Twitter personalities out there. Really, really hard. They get countless mentions and replies every day, so how do you break through the clutter? By doing something ‘extra’. Giving someone who is really popular a shot of +K could be the ‘nudge’ you need to get them to follow you back. If this is the only reason you’re doing it, then you’re flat-out doing it wrong. Do you really want to get followers by cheating? (Hint: Please say ‘no’.)

So there you have it. For the first time, measures of online influence can finally have some kind of ‘meat’ to them. But just like any other metric, they can easily be skewed to the advantage of unscrupulous individuals, rather than used for their intended purpose. I sincerely hope that the majority of users out there really make use of the +K system as the creators of it clearly intended: To place the power of real influence measurement in to the hands of the community. We finally have the ability to effectively gauge influence based on the effects of the content being produced. Let’s not ruin it, ok? Thanks!

3 Lessons About Social Media Marketing Learned From Transformers

Social Media is awesome. Transformers are awesome. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide.


Lessons can be drawn from anywhere. Not long ago I remembered an old poster titled ‘Everything I need to know about life I learned in Kindergarten’. I also stumbled across one of my old G1 Transformers toys the other day. These two memories combined in to the inspiration for this post. There are some great pearls of wisdom that can be drawn from the epic struggle of Autobot vs. Decepticon, many of which can be applied to your approach to Social Media marketing. Here we go…


1 – More than meets the eye.

Ah yes, the ever-famous tagline of the Transformers franchise. It’s simple message: Don’t always believe things are how they look on the surface. The perfect example of this is the typical ‘Twitter is useless’ or ‘Facebook is for kids’ stereotypes we hear all too often. A deeper look at Social Media reveals that there are mountains of helpful information being shared all the time on Twitter, and Facebook is proving to be one of the most powerful relationship-building tools businesses have ever seen.

The Lesson: Never assume that first-glances tell the whole story.


2 – Never underestimate the little guy.


Bumblebee and Laserbeak were arguably the least ‘powerful’ Transformers in the series, and yet many episodes saw these little guys play crucial roles in the outcome of the battles. They had unique skills that they could bring to the table, just like the lesser-known or smaller Social Media tools. Just because a Social Media tool doesn’t have hundreds of millions of users doesn’t mean that you should ignore it. The more options you give your audience to connect with you, the more they WILL connect with you. By limiting your audience to only a few channels, you’re also limiting your ability to hear what they have to say.

The Lesson: Recognize the benefits to every tool you have available.


3 – Your success depends entirely on your team.


Every time the Decepticons started out a new plan, it went really well…..at first. Inevitably though, their infighting, aggressiveness, carelessness, and general contempt for everyone surrounding them led to their failure. Social Media communities don’t tolerate those individuals who attempt to game the system, speak in condescending tones, and generally just act like jerks. The keys to success In Social Media are respect, honesty, and a genuine desire to be helpful, just like the Autobots.

The Lesson: If your team is full of jerks, don’t expect to do well.

In short, if you recognize all the real benefits of Social Media, make use of every option you have available, and approach it with the right attitude, you’re well on your way to developing an effective Social Media marketing strategy. It may seem like simple, obvious stuff, but all too often it’s the simplest lessons that get ignored.

Pics linked from: http://tfwiki.net/

A Different Kind of Influencer – Find Your Enthusiasts

I have a really hard time putting any kind of stock in to a Klout score. It just seems extremely artificial to me. After all, a quick look at those with scores of 100 yields an awful lot of pop music personalities, whom I shall not name because they clearly do not need any additional referrals. Klout strongly believes that these individuals hold a massive amount of influence, but the question remains: What are they influencing people to do? Retweet their stuff? Buy their song on iTunes? Big deal. Above and beyond that, the real influence of celebrities doesn’t really amount to too much.

One can easily argue that individuals who are ‘experts’ on a particular topic have far more actual influence than celebrities, because they often post blog articles and advice that people will put in to practice, thereby changing the behaviour of their audience based on the information that they share. If they share a review of a web design technique that works, or tips for communicating in the social media world, many followers will heed their advice and put those tips in to play for themselves. This, in my opinion, is a much more accurate description of ‘influence’.

But there’s a third group of people who hold ‘influence’ in the digital world. They’re not celebrities. They’re not experts. They are what I call the ‘enthusiasts’. People who are absolutely nuts for whatever it is they are talking about. They live it and breathe it. Whatever it is, it is their passion. It could be cars, PC’s, flowers, web design, photography, woodworking, travel, or antique toys. Everyone is passionate about something, and everything has someone who is passionate about it.

These individuals are a new kind of influencer. Finding these individuals and engaging with them can create a brand advocate of far greater strength and loyalty than any well-known expert. After all, if a popular expert endorses a product or service, there is a good chance that there is some mutual benefit coming back to them from that company. Either they got the product for free, or were paid to do a review, or simply got the benefit of being featured on the company’s website. Not to say this is bad, because most popular experts got to where they are by being good at what they do. They evaluate products and services very methodically, and tend to have broader experiences to draw comparisons from. But an enthusiast? They probably paid for whatever it is out of their own pocket.

There’s something to be said for having super-passionate enthusiasts interacting with you, sharing their opinions and reviews, and becoming your best friends. Social media amplifies their voices and creates a whole new level of word-of-mouth. Someone with 200 followers who’s crazy about your company tweeting about your stuff for weeks (or months) on end can have far more reach and influence than a single tweet in the daily stream of an expert to an audience of 30,000.

Ultimately, if you are carefully checking Klout scores and looking at follower counts in order to determine if mentioning or responding to a specific individual is ‘worth your time’, you may be missing out on a huge untapped resource of ‘influence’. Every single person who mentions you is worth your time. You never know who’s voice will really carry the farthest in the social media world.

4 ‘Share’ Button Tips – Choosing the best buttons for the job.

There are as many types of ‘Share’ buttons as there are Social Media sites, so how do you pick the right ones for your site and avoid the clutter?

There’s no denying that you need to have share buttons on your site or blog. They are an absolutely essential feature, and are crucial for anyone who wants to encourage sharing of content in an easy way that’s familiar to your users/readers. But there are SO MANY options out there, how can you effectively choose the right buttons without cluttering up your pages?

Each SM site provides code for their own button designs, and often there are multiple options that are different sizes, shapes, colours, etc. In addition, there are mutli-source sharing button options that pull in virtually every possible share option in to one expandable button, like those from AddThis or AddToAny.

Should you use only a couple of the most popular buttons? Or maybe just go with a multi-share button that covers every option? Or just go with the one share location that you WANT people to use? Well, there are a few good rules-of-thumb that I’ve put together that might help you choose which ones are really the best choice for your particular application and audience.

1 – Size, colour and shape

Visually, your share buttons should both blend in with your site, and stand out enough to be easily noticed. Sound like a contradiction? Perhaps, but think about it this way: the ignition on your car could be a tiny slot concealed to blend right in with the dash, but that would make it hard to locate when you need it. Or, you could make the ignition super-easy to find by using a big red button the size of your fist, but that would look out of place and silly.

• Your share button should be sized to be proportional to the other elements on your site.
• Your share button should be the right shape for the location of the button so that there’s a decent amount of space around it, without being too close to other elements or sticking it in the middle of nowhere on your page.
• If you have a dark background, use a lighter button. Light background, darker button. Just like text, dark-on-dark and light-on-light = bad.

2 – Location, location, location.


Example: Mashable is great at placing their share buttons in an easily accessible spot, and makes them scroll with the page so they are always visible.

Where you put your share button is just as important as how it looks. I’ve seen some web pages with the share buttons at the very bottom of the page, lumped in with things like the privacy policy or the ever-useful site map. Other times I’ve seen it scattered in multiple places on the same page. Ideally, you want your share button to be easily accessible, but not intrusive. In sidebars, below product title headers, or at the end of blog posts are all great locations that make it clear what information you’ll be sharing.

• Very rarely do you need more than one set of share buttons on a page.
• It should be clear to the ‘sharer’ what content will be shared.
• If your share button isn’t easy to find, it won’t get used. Don’t throw it at the bottom of your site.

3 – Single-site share buttons vs. multi-site share buttons.

This is where things get tricky. It really depends on the type of content on the page, and the type of users you are attracting. If it’s a blog, for example, you’ll likely want a multi-site share button so that readers can share it in any way they want (Tweet, Like, StumbleUpon, Re-blog, email, print, etc).

If it’s an individual product, then a pair or a trio of individual site share buttons (A ‘tweet’ button, a ‘like’ button etc) may be the best way to allow users to simply indicate that they endorse that particular product. In addition, those individual site share buttons usually come with a ‘counter’ to display how many people have liked or tweeted the page. If your users appear to have an affinity to one particular social media site, Facebook for example, providing them a native share button for their preferred site may encourage them to share more.

Also, there are combo-buttons that typically feature Facebook ‘Like’ and Twitter ‘Tweet’ buttons with counters, as well as a multi-site ‘Share’ button that ties in all the other sites. These are great all-round solutions since they combine the best traits of each option in to one share tool.

• Multi-site share buttons are excellent for educational/informational materials that users would share in many different outlets.
• Single-site share buttons are simple, easy ways for users to share that they ‘like’ or approve of a particular product, service, or singular piece of content.
• Combo buttons provide the best of both worlds.

4 – Familiar trumps freaky.

Do a Google search for ‘social media icons’ and you’ll get countless options of funky, sleek, crazy, and cool social media icons made by graphic designers that you can use on your site. The only problem is that the majority of these really only appeal to other graphic designers. The vast majority of your users will simply be looking for the ever-familiar Facebook ‘F’ or Twitter ‘T’ icons in the official colours used on those sites. Even a passing glance will generate instant recognition of what it is and what it does. Using an icon for your button that looks like a bottle cap or a lab experiment beaker may get the occasional user to think ‘wow, that looks neat!’, but hardly encourages your average user to click on it.

• Always use the official logo, colours, and appearance whenever possible for your share buttons.
• If your share buttons look different from everyone else’s share buttons, you may lose potential sharers because they don’t recognize them.

Overall, what you really need to look at when deciding how to setup your sharing options is what really fits with your site or blog. This is one instance where the Keep It Simple Stupid mantra really should be kept in mind. Just like all things in web design, people like simple navigation over complex, clean design over cluttered, clear calls to action over hidden links, and ease of use above all else.

Don’t forget that all of these buttons and widgets will come with analytics so that you can easily monitor how they are performing, and how users are interacting with them. Be sure to check these regularly, for they will reveal fascinating insights that you can use to help refine your ‘sharing’ strategy to encourage more and more shares.

Here’s a list of share button resource links that you can choose from when incorporating share functions in to your site:

Multi-site Share Buttons:
http://www.addthis.com
http://sharethis.com/
http://www.addtoany.com

Single-site Share Buttons:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/
https://twitter.com/about/resources/tweetbutton
http://www.linkedin.com/publishers
http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/share_button
http://www.stumbleupon.com/badges/landing/

4 Questions to Ask Anyone Trying to Sell You Ad Space

You can never know 100% for sure if something is going to work before you try it, but their reactions to these questions may help uncover if they’re offering you a real solution, or just trying to make a buck.

As the marketing manager for a B2B company, I get solicited. A LOT. Industry trade magazines, pay-per-click ad providers, online directories, and trade show organizers are but a few of the kinds of people calling me asking for a piece of my precious marketing budget. The thing is, I’m no pushover. Never have been. But in today’s business climate, there’s no way you can afford to throw dollars at every marketing option that calls you up. The vast majority of them simply don’t work, and even those that are worth your time and money only work if you use them in a way that makes sense for your business.

So how do you determine which options are worth a dollar, and which ones you should tell to kick stones? I wish there was an easy way, but the truth is that it can be very difficult to figure out. Effectively evaluating marketing options in today’s world requires you to look deeper than the traditional criteria of ‘page views’ and ‘circulation’, and examine the information that few of those solicitors are able or willing to provide to you.

I’ve put together 4 key questions that I use as the starting point whenever I get solicited by someone trying to sell me space in a magazine, online directory, or trade show. I’ve also noticed that there are certain ‘red flags’ that seem to consistently appear when dealing with some types of solicitors that can be early warning signs to tip you off that you’d best be cautious moving forward. I’ve included these after each question.

Let’s take a look at the questions now:

1 – First thing: What’s the range of costs?

This sounds really, really obvious. And it is. What you should be aware of is that very rarely is actual cost discussed up front. Most of the time, they’ll open with a ‘what is the #1 problem facing your business?’ kind of question that forces you to think of a negative aspect of your current situation, and give you the impression that they can help solve your problem. This is intentional, as it tends to disarm us a little bit, and leaves us more open to their suggestions. Solicitors who are confident in their product/service and can prove a real benefit/ROI will have no problem letting you know cost right up front. After all, if you don’t have flexibility in your budget to accommodate their product, then going in-depth just wastes your time and theirs.

Red Flag: If you answer a call from a solicitor, one of your first questions should of course be ‘What is the cost range for all your different options?’. If they answer with something like: ‘before we talk about that, let me ask what your goal is?’ or just flat out won’t tell you immediately where their prices start and where they end, be very wary.

2 – Who’s the REAL audience?

This goes for all types of marketing options. Magazines, directories, trade shows, you name it. Typically the solicitors will make available very basic stats that don’t really reveal much about who their actual audience is. For example, lets look at the infamous ‘circulation’ information for magazines, which outlines how many copies go out to their ‘readers’, and what kind of businesses they are sent to. The thing is, these commonly-used stats can be very deceiving. They may simply be pulling the information based on the name of the person on the address label, like the owner of the business that it is sent to. But who’s to say that this is the person who actually reads it, or even receives it in their hands? Especially in larger businesses that receive many MANY different pieces, only the most crucial pieces ever get opened by anyone. The rest? Either gets junked or ends up on the coffee table in the lobby. Make sure they can prove that their recipients are also actual readers.

Red Flag: If the solicitor can’t quickly back up their claim with readily-available hard data and testimonials from actual audience, and vaguely cites their own ‘internal’ surveying data, chances are they are making some pretty broad assumptions about who actually reads their rag.

3 – Can I do a short-term trial?

Contracts abound in the marketing world, and you’ll often find yourself staring down the barrel of a big fat commitment before you even know it. Smart solicitors who truly believe in what they are selling will be eager to have you try it out before you make any major commitment. If they don’t suggest it first, make sure that you do. Sometimes they’ll offer to do a short-term trial period at the same rates as a long-term program. Occasionally you may even find they’ll offer a free trial, depending on what kind of service they provide. Companies that openly offer a short-term trial are displaying not only confidence in their services, but also flexibility to your needs.

Red Flag: Sometimes the very suggestion of a trial period can offend some solicitors. If you find their tone or demeanour changes dramatically for the worse after suggesting a trial basis, you may be headed for a very inflexible and rigid relationship further down the road.

4 – Give some examples of your success.

Prove it. That’s ultimately what we all want to know. Ask them to provide stats showing what other advertisers have seen as a result. Have them show you data and testimonials from other advertisers/exhibitors that are similar to you. What works for one won’t necessarily work for another, but at least you’ll have a general idea of what kind of businesses are generating results. This is easy to do these days. Web tracking makes monitoring conversions and success nearly effortless. They should be able to tell you things like the number of referrals they’ve generated for specific types of businesses, as well as provide qualitative testimonials from companies similar to yours.

Red Flag: Any web directory or online ad provider should be able to give you buckets of reports that illustrate how their advertisers have benefitted from their services. If all they are able or willing to show you is ‘hits’ or ‘page views’, RUN AWAY.

Ultimately, B2B marketing people like us are trying to do the most we can with limited resources of both time and money. If they’re trying to sell a product or service to you, they need to realize this. Selling ad space to people like us really all boils down to a simple two-part strategy: Be to-the-point, and be able to back up any claims. If they don’t waste your time with a lot of preamble and vagueness, and they can prove to you that you’ll see a real, tangible benefit, I’m sure that you’ll be much more successful by doing business with them.

Bonus Red Flag: When they won’t let you get a word in.

This one really gets me riled up. The thing about providing effective service is that you need to listen to your customers. In my experience, you can’t really do that very well if you won’t let your customer finish a sentence. I’ve been solicited by countless salespeople who inexplicably decide that the perfect time to begin their next sentence is right in the middle of the one I’m currently speaking. It’s maddening, because I’m TRYING to let them help me. I’m TRYING to communicate my needs so that they can figure out how to help solve them. In a nutshell: If you’re the one trying to sell someone something: Know when to shut up and let them talk. if you encounter a salesperson who seems to follow this pattern, flee.

Sharing the web, your way. – A look at the BO.LT web editor.

Last week, Avinash Kaushik tweeted about a new service that allows you to edit and customize web pages before sharing them. Called ‘BO.LT’, this concept intrigued me, and I promptly signed up to give it a shot. After playing around with it a bit, I’m struggling with how to best use this tool. It has major benefits, but also some downsides, which I will examine after I cover the basics of how the service works.

Signing up for a BO.LT account is done by submitting a request to join and then waiting a short time to be accepted, unless you are given an access key from an existing BO.LT member. Fortunately my account was approved in just a few days, so the wait is not unreasonable, and when you do get invited to join, you are given an access key that can be shared to create two additional accounts for friends.

Once you sign up, you must enter what will be your subdomain, which acts like your own personal URL shortener. Every link you create with BO.LT will begin with your subdomain and then a random string of letters, just like a bit.ly link. EG: http://jonbarrick.bo.lt/3yv6d You can even customize the link, just like with other URL shorteners.

BO.LT takes any URL that you give it and creates an exact duplicate of it that is hosted with one of the best wordpress hosting providers and you can edit using a simple editor interface. You can delete images, text, links and whatever else you want, while maintaining the integrity of formatting and anything else you leave intact on the page.

In addition to deleting unwanted things, you can also replace existing elements with your own. Images can be substituted, text can be edited, embedded links can be altered. It’s an incredibly powerful tool to make any web page the way you want it to be.

There are many advantages to editing a page with BO.LT before sharing it. Not the least of which are that it allows you to clear out the clutter. For example, web pages on news digest sites are typically jammed with ads and links to other stories that hold little to no relevance to the reason you want to share the page. Often times, you are only sharing a tiny portion of the page, and the rest is essentially junk. BO.LT allows you to remove all the extra ‘stuff’ from a page to make it easier for your ‘clickers’ to see only what you intended for them to see, and to relieve them from the otherwise constant stream of banner ads we are exposed to.

However, the downsides of this kind of tool are also plentiful. Web pranksters will quickly discover this to be a dream come true, as they are now able to create 100% visually accurate parody pages of legitimate sites with minimal effort, complete with altered links to not-so-nice content that can easily deceive all but the most vigilant of users.

And while removing banner ads and unwanted content from pages is great for readers who are fed up with the constant barrage of ads flashing in their eyes, advertisers will not be pleased if their revenues plunge. We all know that many of the sites we value as content sources are supported through advertising revenue, and those advertisers will only continue to pay for those spots if they’re generating clicks and views. Otherwise, many sites will need to seek other sources of revenue in order to stay alive.

Of course, it’s still way too early to tell if this service will catch on with the majority of users, but even a handful of the webs most prominent content sharers could have a significant impact by using this tool to strip out unwanted content before distributing it to their massive audiences.

One last major issue with this tool that I can see is the time needed to alter pages before sharing. Instead of simply clicking the ‘tweet’ button, users now need to copy the URL, paste it in to BO.LT, edit the page, save, and then share it. Any page that you choose to edit before sharing immediately takes significantly longer to get distributed. Of course, we’re only talking a matter of a several seconds to a few minutes, but relative to not editing at all, that’s a major difference.

Overall, there’s no doubt that it’s a cool service. Very cool. And I’ll continue to play around with it, especially on pages that, as Avinash would say, ‘totally suck’. After all, if I can make the content I share more pleasing to my readers, isn’t it worth it?