5 Favorite Social Media Tools (Yeah, Another Meme, But At Least It's Useful)

Todd Defren tagged me for the Top 5 Social Media Tools meme, so here goes:

• del.icio.us. Bookmarking site that's being increasingly used for PR purposes.
• Flickr. Picture-sharing site. The possibilities for using this in PR are tremendous and still not fully realized.   
• Crispy News' New PR. A new site based on the Digg concept and featuring votes-based content about PR and marketing. 
• co.mments. Tracks conversations, so gives you a deeper look.
• YouTube and all the new kids on the block. See comments under Flickr.

Also Technorati, Blogger Web Comments (Firefox), Skype and many others not even touched on here, as well as the Social Media Club and Google Group's New Media Release group.

Ok, you're next: Robert Ricci, Jennifer McClure, Josh Hallett, Robert French, Richard Bailey, Greg Royal and Asi Sharabi (yes, that's 7 and no, that doesn't mean two people can opt-out).

Meme's like this are interesting because you learn something about the people writing them (for example, isn't there a difference between someone who uses NewsGator and Feeds 2.0?) and because you can usually pick up at least a pointer or two.

So -- yes, this is a big stretch -- along the I-like-learning-more-about-my-fellow-bloggers vein, check out MarketingProfs Ann Handley's post Is a Blogger Still a Blogger If She Doesn't Have a Blog?, inspired by Typepad's latest outage. Ann realized that "the 'blogger' label seemed inadequate to describe the various nuances and little-known personal histories of the people I read and interact with every day," so she asked a few bloggers (me included) to share little-known facts about themselves. Curious? One of my secrets was being on a show about redheads. 

(Social Media Club pic from Chris Heuer)

Comments

[Jordan]

Love the new design! How did I miss that??

[scott]

love the new look of your site...who designed it for you?

and thanks for not pinging me ;)

[Andrea Weckerle]

It's been a "stealth" design change, done in stages -- usually late at night and after midnight (no, I'm not kidding) -- by a wonderfully talented individual whose identity will be revealed when all is done, hopefully tomorrow :-) Although I'll post about it later, let me say here that I absolutely love the design!

Scott, I figured you wouldn't want to be tagged... and apparently neither did the others, since so far only Greg has responded.

[Greg Royal]

Yeah and at 12-30 in the morning, bleary eyed. I am a sucker for a challenge. :-)

[Hans]

The New PR site seems like a good way to keep track on PR related news and blog posts, thanks for the tip!

[Mary]

Thanks for the list! As a new PR pracitioner, I will make sure to know these sites. Robert French is already teaching me so much about these, but there is always more to learn on your own. I am beginning to realize the endless possibilites available with social media. Your blog gives us so many helpful tips. Thanks again!