It’s been a long journey since I started in the search marketing industry and over the years I have had the chance to meet and interact with a number of great search and social marketers. Many of whom I have come to look up to in one way or another.  Each of them bring upon their own talents and expertise. However, when I think of all of the different people I interact with on Twitter, or Facebook, or LinkedIn I realize that there are a handful of folks that I am constantly looking towards for new inspiration and information. And with that I developed a list of the top 5 search and social geeks I wish I could spend just one day with to see their processes and how they work.

David Harry
Twitter: @theGypsy
www.huomah.com

David Harry, AKA ‘The Gypsy’ is one of the first search marketers who really got me to think outside the box.  He helped me to understand patents better and the importance of understanding information retrieval as a means to bettering my SEO. When we first started chatting it up a year or so ago I would spend hours scouring the net for new knowledge, patents, and information.  Unfortunately as time has passed and my kids have gotten older a lot of that free time has gone by the wayside, but his inspiration is still there and he is still someone I greatly admire and look to for new ideas.  If that weren’t enough, he also writes the SEO Dojo SEO Newsletter to keep me abreast on any geekiness I missed.

Tamar Weinberg
Twitter: @tamar
www.techipedia.com

Tamar is probably one of the first social savvy internet marketers I began following in my early days on Twitter and even Plurk (remember Plurk??). I’ve always loved how well she can cross over between the search and social realms and still display a balanced level of expertise.  Many marketers you come across are strong in one more so than the other, but I have always found Tamar to be a knowledgeable source on both ends of the spectrum.

Melanie Nathan
Twitter: @melanienathan
www.canadianseo.com

A friendly face and a sweet personality aren’t the only things that put Melanie on my list.  In fact the one thing about Melanie that I admire most is her passion for link building, of all tasks.  It’s not rare to find Melanie spouting off on Twitter about the latest sweet link she got hold of, nor is it uncommon for her to share some juicy link building tidbits on various blogs.  But what I admire is that SHE LIKES IT! As a search marketer one of the tasks I have always loathed is link building. Part of that may stem from the limitations I have to seek out quality links at my workplace, but I would love to know what it is she does that makes her link building efforts so fun.

Samir Balwani
Twitter: @samirbalwani
www.samirbalwani.com

I’ll call him social marketing’s rising star, because in my eyes he is.  I have seen Samir take leaps and bounds in his blogging and his marketing career over the last year and I don’t see any signs of him stopping either.  Another great mind whose posts have often forced me to think, Samir does a great job at giving folks some rhyme and reason to their social media marketing efforts and also gives some great insight on how easily it is to mess it all up. Samir’s knack for understanding social media, tracking social metrics, and interest in social media education are just some of the many things I have come to appreciate in Samir’s writing and in our interactions.

Audrey Seiberling
Twitter: @shirleytipsy
www.missshirleytipsy.com

The funny thing about having Audrey on my list is that 1) she is the one who started my search marketing career, and 2) I have worked under her not once, but twice.  In fact for almost a year we worked within 5 feet of one another.  But during that time I have never really seen her process as a search marketer. With taking over a lot of her duties upon her leaving my current company I have gotten a little bit more insight into how she worked, but haven’t really pieced together the whole process.  With a strong background in PPC and SEO and the fact that this whole thing started because of her, I would love to just have a day to see how it all comes together.

So there you have it, a handful, but by no means all of the search and social geeks I look up to on a regular basis. Who are some of the search and social marketers you admire?

Before Google Reader I would visits websites and blogs on a daily basis to get the latest news on whatever interests I most wanted to read about that day.  If I came upon an article or site that I wanted to save for later I would either bookmark it or add it to my del.icio.us bookmarks.  And if I wanted to share it with a friend I’d send it via e-mail, IM, or through another social website, but with the introduction of Google Reader that has all changed.

I realized the other day that the features available in Google Reader have changed my internet habits in such a way that I am now using fewer outside sites or services to read my feeds, share articles, bookmark articles, and comment on things people are sharing.  Google Reader has for the most part become a one stop shop for me, which is great for me, but could have a negative impact on the sites I read.

Google Reader: My One Stop Shop

First off Google Reader allows me to read blog updates directly in reader, assuming that the feed is displaying the complete article.  As long as the complete article is being shared via RSS I never have to actually visit any of the sites which I regularly read.

Second I find myself using social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us a lot less than I did in the past.  Instead I can simply star the article in Google Reader and reference it from my starred items at a later time.  I’ll admit this isn’t as organized as something like del.icio.us, but being able to search my starred features makes retrieving things fairly simple.

Third I find myself sharing fewer blog posts through social outlets like Twitter, because I can share with my friends interesting articles directly through my shared items on Google Reader.  Not only can I share with them, I can also add comments about the article that aren’t limited to a 140 characters.  That’s not to say that I’m not sharing articles through other sources, but I am finding that only articles of the highest quality are getting this extra attention.  Articles I feel are informative and useful to people, but aren’t really anything over the top incredible will most likely make it through with just a share in Google Reader.

Lastly Google Reader has moved some of my interactions and conversations about articles away from sites like Twitter and into the new Google Reader comment feature.  This was a feature that I have wanted from a long time, mostly because if someone shares something I find useful or interesting I want to thank them for it, or sometimes give them my thoughts on it.  The ability to comment directly to the person who shared the item in Google Reader is quick and efficient and it doesn’t require me to login or open another service just to comment on the item shared with me.

For me the ability to do all of this in one place is a blessing.  It’s much more efficient and it still allows me to store and share information I find useful.  However I feel that this comes as a disadvantage to some of the blogs I read.  I’m not going to sites anymore, which means I am not seeing advertisements.  I’m not storing articles on sites like del.icio.us as much as I have in the past and therefore not passing the value of a network like del.icio.us in terms of links and traffic.

Similarly I am not sharing sites the way I used to.  Sites I have to physically visit to read an article will more often than not get a Digg, Stumble, Mixx, or the like because from the site I can use my Shareaholic toolbar to quickly spread the item.  I understand that I could consciously do this regardless of whether or not I read the article in reader or not, but for some reason it just doesn’t click for me to do this all the time.

Finally my means of conversation about articles has changed drastically, which greatly reduces the number of people who see my comments about a certain article.  Commenting about or sharing comments on articles through means of Twitter and other social websites allow for a great number of people to potentially pick up on the conversation.  On Twitter I have 496 followers that could pick up on the story and potentially share it, link to it, bookmark it, etc.  In reader I am sharing with 18 people, which is a significant decrease in the number of people which see my shared article.

The Remedy

As a blogger or webmaster this is something to consider when it comes to your RSS feeds.  I’m sure I’m not the only person doing this, meaning you are potentially missing out on some great opportunities.  To remedy some of these issues I would suggest the following:

1. Don’t provide your complete article via RSS.
2. Plug ads into your RSS feeds for those who don’t come to your physical site.
3. Develop reader call to action. Ask for feedback or peoples’ thoughts at the closing of your posts to entice readers to comment on the post. Commenter’s will be required to visit your site to share their insight.

These are just some ways in which you might improve your visitor traffic and better visitor interaction, but I’m sure there are other opportunities out there.

What are your thoughts? Do you use Google Reader or a similar feed reader?  Have you found that it changes the way you interact with some of your favorite blogs and websites?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

In what has recently seemed like a decrease in user activity it appears that Plurk is trying to change its image a little.  When I head over to the social site this morning to login I was greeted with this new home page layout.

But is it enough, and did they really come up with a new design that is really going to attract new users?  It’s always been my opinion that the one thing Plurk fails to do is make itself stand out amongst other social networking and microblogging sites on the net.

Plurk is unique in the fact that it is built around a physical timeline and makes it easier for friends and fans to interact freely in the plurk timeline .  Unlike Twitter you are able to see everybody’s response to a person’s Plurk regardless of whether or not you are following the person.  The opens up the conversation significantly and can also open you up to meeting other interesting Plurk users.

Sadly Plurk has never done a very good job at selling these points to users on their site and has never had a very appealing home page.  The new design is even less appealing with a boring white background and the usual lack of anything of real interest on the home page.  At this rate it makes me wonder how much longer Plurk will stay afloat.  Most of my social media and SEO guru friends left Plurk ages ago and I only check it a couple of times a day.

What do you think of the new Plurk home page?  Do you think its an improvement or has Plurk fallen back into the days of early 2.0 sites? Are you a Plurk user?  Have you seen a decrease in user activity as well?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.