Everyone is piping up about Sphinn and some articles made me think about what it takes to get to the top and how it can be used.
Sphinn in 60 Seconds
- What it is: Danny Sullivan’s brand new (launched July 12, 2007) SEM social network setup like digg, but exclusively for search engine marketers. The site lets you submit articles, vote “sphinn it” and comment on them. You can also “stalk” users to see what they’ve posted, befriend them, message users, view the most robust profile I’ve ever seen, add events to a community calendar (great way to find out what’s happening locally/nationally!), sort users (nice for the SMOs searching for top users) and subscribe to various feeds (comments, inbox and more coming soon).
- Sphinn is not the first site of its kind, but is by far the most user-friendly and widely adopted network though still in its infancy.
- This is a great way to sort through RSS feed noise and comment without losing track of everything.
- This is also a great way to make a name for yourself in the industry and network. As Neil Patel has mentioned on countless occasions, personal branding is huge and worth your time. I was putting much of his advice into action without knowing it, because a lot of it is common sense! Use the same avatar across multiple sites and have a unique voice. The Sphinn profile is massive and an amazing networking and self-promotion tool, not to mention the ease with which you can track comments on other’s posts and submit your own quality articles.
[back to my rant]
Contrary to the masses, I could care less about who is on Hot Today (currently the Sphinn homepage), instead I focus on what. Many have argued that Sphinn is a popularity contest, but maybe I’m too unpopular to notice? When I visit the site I scroll through the homepage to see if there’s anything that peaks my interest either for educational, informative or entertaining purposes. Sometimes I see ridiculous stories from “big names” and great stories from “no names” and vice versa, the point is, I’m looking at the article names not the avatars!
I don’t even see why this is an issue, the big names are such because they’ve obviously done something right whether it was befriending well-connected SEOs, providing great reviews, being the first to break news stories or simply knowing how to sell something. Either way, they only remain a big name because they continue to do the “right” thing and for that they DO deserve a little more attention. They’re making it easier for me to learn from their hard work. Either way, everyday someone new is getting a little bigger themselves, but it probably won’t happen overnight with a single post on Sphinn… so quit whining and write something worth reading!
[rant over]
Note - I wouldn’t have posted this at all, but it was too large for a comment and would have been submitted to several places. Here’s hoping I caught their attention!
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