Google Social Search is Now Live to Experiment With
The news came out yesterday that Google’s new social search is now in labs and ready to be experimented with. You can join the experiment here.
It looks like to get the maximum benefit of this upcoming tool, you will have to have a Google account and be signed in when performing your search. For Internet marketers, advertisers, promoters, etc. who have been using social media or plan on using social media, this could be huge. As long as you are posting relevant and useful content, your social media contacts should start finding you when they are looking for answers related to your niche.
I have signed up to start experiencing this in my search results and am excited to see it progress. Not sure if you have a Google profile yet? Create one or update yours here.
Watch this brief demo video to see how it works.
12 of the Best Social WordPress Plugins
I have used WordPress to develop multiple sites and have found that there seems to be a plugin for almost anything you can think of. Having spent hours searching the web for the most useful plugins out there, I have come across some gems. However, instead of just list a bunch of plugins that I think every WordPress site should have, I decided to brake them up into categories. This particular post relates to the best social WordPress plugins available (at least that I have came across so far). And by social, I mean plugins that will allow and ask your readers interact with with the site and keep up to date about what is going on there. If you see any missing below that you have come across and found useful, please share by commenting below. If screenshots were available with the plugin, I used those. If not, I created my own real quick so you could see how they are used.
blippr
From wordpress.org:
Enhance your blog with ratings and reviews from blippr.com. Simply install the plugin and your content will automatically be scanned and enriched with the blippr plugin (don’t worry, we don’t change your actual posts – you can turn it off at any time by disabling the plugin).
Example:
digg digg
From wordpress.org:
Integrate “Digg”,”Reddit”,”dZone”,”Yahoo Buzz”,”TweetMeme(twitter)”, “fbshare(facebook)” and “Polladium” Into WordPress Content
Example:
disqus comment system
From wordpress.org:
Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system can be plugged into any website, blog, or application. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.
Example:
microkid’s related posts
From wordpress.org:
This plugin makes it super easy to manually select related posts. You can search and select posts that fit your criteria, all from within the write/edit post screen.
Example:
referrer detector
From wordpress.org:
This plugin displays a greeting message to visitors that come from different urls (known as referrers). For example, you may want to welcome Diggers with a message that reminds them to digg your story, or you may want to ask Del.icio.us users to bookmark your post, and so on.
Not only about a cool greeting box, it greatly helps to more efficiently interacts with your readers and build a better relationship between you (your website) and them.
Example:
sexybookmarks
From wordpress.org:
Though the name may be a little “edgy” for some, SexyBookmarks has proven time and time again to be an extremely useful and successful tool in getting your readers to actually submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites. Our sole aim was to stray away from the “in the box” thinking behind most social bookmarking plugins, and add a little flair that would entice your readers, rather than deterring them with microscopic icons that get lost in pages heavy laden with content.
Example:
subscribe2
From wordpress.org:
Subscribe2 provides a comprehensive subscription management and email notification system for WordPress blogs that sends email notifications to a list of subscribers when you publish new content to your blog.
Example:
twitter widget
From wordpress.org:
Adds a sidebar widget to display Twitter updates (uses the Javascript Twitter ‘badge’)
Example:
wp cumulus
From wordpress.org:
WP-Cumulus allows you to display your site’s tags, categories or both using a Flash movie that rotates them in 3D. It works just like a regular tags cloud, but is more visually exciting. Clicking the tags can be a little hard (depending on your speed setting) but does take you to the appropriate page :).
Example:
wordpress 2 ping.fm
From wordpress.org:
Links and integrate your WordPress account to Ping.fm. Once linked, the plugin will update all your social networks every time you publish a post. You can customize the look of your pings, send custom pings, and set rules for which posts you want to notify your social networks about. This is la creme de la creme of social network plugins, created by people who just happen to specialize in communication and social networks. You will need a Ping.fm account and an application key to use this plugin, which you can get for free at http://ping.fm
Example:
wp-email
From lesterchan.net:
Allows people to recommend/send your WordPress blog’s post/page to a friend.
Example:
newsletter or wp email capture
Both of these plugins allow you to capture email addresses and then to send out newsletters to those who sign up. I currently use newsletter, but both have their benefits. It would be nice to combine the two! Visit each of the links above to see more details about them.
Example:
