Flag Influencers for Press, Backlinks, Social Media Optimization with BuzzStream
For promotional and media relations pros who need a savvy, elegant entrance to social media, navigating through the scenes of movers and shakers - with all the negotiation and careful observation of mores that implies - can be a daunting task.
Many applications exist for monitoring social media buzz, but what about tools for the first step of online promotion: Creating the buzz in the first place? BuzzStream attempts to address the issue by allowing users to bookmark and track potential media and backlink contacts. It's an unusual solution, and one that we find intriguing. Read on for more info and beta invites.
Using two ubersimple bookmarks, users are able to flag pages or sites as belonging to media contacts or backlink contacts. BuzzStream then scans the website for all available and relevant information (email addresses, phone numbers, Twitter handles, etc.) while allowing users to enter information in a CRM-type form for later access.
In the entry forms, users can drill down for more information, from PageRank and site age to WhoIs lookup data and Technorati rank. As a group of people who get a lot of inbound mail from PR folks, we can tell you that this is a good thing. The more a press-seeker knows about the journalist in question, the more targeted and welcome the appeal for coverage is likely to be.
A welcome addition to this part of the app would be a tag cloud to ensure the contact is a relevant match. For example, we occasionally get pitches to review non-web related hardware. A PR pro or other evangelist could use such a feature to determine that our site might not be the best place to pitch his product.
Also, unless we missed something, we didn't see a good way for discovering new media or backlink contacts. A referral system ("Users who made this author a contact also added...") would probably be an awesome tool for users.
On the link-building side, the app allows users to denote the stage of the relationship, the method of link acquisition, and other relevant factors. We wish it showed whether links were search-bot followed or no-follow links, but perhaps this request will be heard and discussed for future releases of the product.
Once a contact is added, Twitter and email conversations with that contact can be easily indexed for future reference. Watch the demo video for a closer look at how contacts and link-building campaigns are managed from the back end.
What we like about the service is that it addresses the problem of social media optimization. In modern times, SEO is no longer enough to supply a site with competition-killing traffic. No-follow links are no longer the huge bummer they once were. Organic search traffic counts, and social sharing traffic counts, too. BuzzStream takes this all into account rather nicely and simply and allows busy PR and social web folks to efficiently and profitably manage those relationships.
As a new site, BuzzSearch is still a bit buggy. Not all available information is correctly and automatically indexed. Still, it's a good start and we look forward to seeing what these guys do next.
Two hundred fifty beta invites are available at the BuzzStream site. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to send in your feedback to the founders.
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This looks exciting!
I hope they get all the "bugs" ironed out, and we can all start using the services to get even more links back to our websites
take care
Jen
I've known the Buzzstream guys for a long time now and have been helping them out as much as I can. So that disclosure aside, the PR and social media product I can tell you, as a PR person, kicks butt.
Healthy habits are baked right in, and it helps you scale the 1:1 human goodness that is so important to all relationships online.
Also, Eric Ward had some really nice things to say about the linkbuilding side of the house, so much so that he became an advisor:
http://searchengineland.com/how-a-twitter-reputation-algorithm-needs-to-work-19017
We like about the service is that is addresses the problem of social media optimization. In modern times, SEO is no longer enough to supply a site with competition-killing traffic. No-follow links are no longer the huge bummer they once were. Organic search traffic counts, and social sharing traffic counts, too.
Amazing tool! Can't wait to use it. Just what I've been looking for. It's like a delicious but for people.
Sound interedting for newbies like me, time to learn something new.
Thanks for the thorough review, Jolie. The two areas where we'll focus most of our development effort in the future is enhancing our automated research capabilities (i.e., building a social profile for an influencer, identifying topics of interest, etc.) and automated tracking of your interactions with them. Your tag cloud idea fits nicely into that first bucket.
One clarification. BuzzStream does detect if a link is a nofollow, but we only alert the user when it's a nofollow link (so that they can manage by exception).
Paul May, BuzzStream CEO
Interesting!
I feel like there is a scarcity of good marketing today. Good marketing means which can convert the leads into sales. The only marketing that has moved me in the last couple of years is Social Media Optimization.
Online marketers providing search engine marketing services have started using the popularity to their aid. They are using the social media as a powerful and potential tool for online marketing. In order to have the desired impact on their business, these marketers are using the social networking sites to promote their products and services and providing backlinks to their websites.
Thanks for the heads up. Backlinks really plays an important part for your site to have better online visibility and higher SERPS ranking. And one should really focus on building quality one everyday. Angela's backlink service is really hot in the market right now.
Dave
Great post!It will me a lot for my backlinks activities.
As a group of people who get a lot of inbound mail from PR folks, we can tell you that this is a good thing. The more a press-seeker knows about the journalist in question, the more targeted and welcome the appeal for coverage is likely to be..
Anything that make SEO an easier function gets my vote, I look forward to further updates.
I totally agree, SEO is hard enough, atleast this way with have a fighting chance with some site exposure.
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Unless you sign a contract with the insurance company for your goods，you are not entitled to a repayment for the goods damaged in delivery.
This is brilliant for those of us trying learn about the power of backlinks. Thanks for your help.
Finally!! Something easy to use for us backlink builders!
If they could include a follow or nofollow tag this would be 100% perfect.