2008 was a great year for Social Media University, Global (SMUG), with total traffic up by more than 225 percent over 2007. Here are the posts that were most viewed:
- Top 10 Facebook Business Uses. It’s kind of wild that a post I wrote in Aug. 2007 would be the most-viewed post for 2008, but this one typically shows up in the top two Google results in a search for Facebook business uses.
- B2B Facebook: Limited Profile. This one also is from Aug. 2007, and probably pops up high for some of the same reasons. It’s #1 in Google for B2B Facebook.
- Why Organizations Should Join Facebook Group Land Rush. More gold from Aug. 2007, a few months before Facebook developed Pages as an official presence for businesses.
- 8 Steps to Successful Change – A review of John Kotter’s theory on organizational change that I wrote in 2006.
- Facebook Business (Page) – A compilation that pre-dates the SMUG makeover. I had been writing a bunch of posts that were related to using Facebook for business, and so I decided to pull them together.
- Best Buy Using Social Media for Employee Engagement – Finally, something from 2008! This is a post I wrote from an Advanced Learning Institute conference I attended in February. Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling had a great presentation, and the winning video from their employee contest was hilarious.
- Facebook Group Organization Examples – Another 2007 post highlighting various applications of Facebook groups by organizations. Again, this was from the pre-Pages days.
- Simply RSS: Add RSS Feeds to Your Facebook Profile or Page. A tutorial from late last year that helped me to start thinking that my niche for this blog might be the kind of educational courses that have become SMUG.
- 12-Step Social Media Program for PR Pros. I wrote this one in conjunction with a conference at which I was a panelist, to give the participants some concrete steps they could take to explore social media. Another precursor to SMUG: in fact, it was subsequently renamed Social Media 101.
- 4 Tips to Prevent Facebook Identity Theft. This is one I wrote, somewhat in exasperation, during a time when there was some buzz about Facebook being used to steal people’s identities. I believed that the concerns were seriously overblown then, and still do today. But when people search Google for Facebook identity theft, this post comes up #2.
Some more recent posts that finished just out of the top 10 for the full year (but should be strong contenders in 2009):
Facebook 101: Introduction to Facebook
Facebook 109: Uploading a Video to Facebook
SMUG $100 Facebook Hacker Challenge – A response to what I consider overblown concerns about the security of Facebook groups.
Facebook 210: Professional Profile, Personal Privacy – A tutorial on how you can use Facebook for both personal and professional networking.
SMUG exemplifies The Long Tail: The rest of the posts combined got more than twice as many page views in 2008 as these top 15 or so. Once the content is created, the cost of making it available to anyone who wants to find it is zero. And thanks to Google, it’s easy to find. So even a year or more after a post is published, it’s still providing value.
I’m glad you’re among those who have found your way to Social Media University, Global. If you haven’t yet enrolled, I hope you’ll do so today, and begin your journey of hands-on exploration in social media.