1.    Being Unprepared Is No Excuse.  

2.    You Know The Threats – Get Ready For Them. 

3.    Know What You Want To Say Before They Ask. Knowing the risks is just part of the battle.  Preparing for the questioning is another matter. The first step in getting ready for any crisis is identifying your worst nightmare questions. No sugar coating is allowed, you need to be critical – just pretend you’re Mike Wallace. If you understand the kinds of questions you’re likely to face, preparing good key messages is much easier. This exercise should take no more than 20 minutes for each of your top threats. Within two hours, you can knock off your worst nightmare questions and develop the key messages for each of the five top threats facing your company.   

To check out the other seven, click here.

Every blog post should link to at least three appropriate external posts. This helps validate your own work while showing appreciation for others. Bottom line, good bloggers link to other top content, but how? A Google search and scanning your RSS reader are good starting places, but often it won’t find you the exact post you need. Here are some tools useful for finding the best possible content to link to in your post:

• Radian6 is a paid for service, but is a full featured tool that helps listen to the social web. Radian6 finds aggregates content from blog posts, tweets, video and more. This tool allows you to conduct precise searches in order to find the exact content needed.
• IceRocket allows users to find all different types of user generated content. It has a simple user interface, is fast, and allows you to track most forms of social mentions on one dashboard. The drawback, the time frame for the search only goes as far back as two months.
• Social Mention often has slow upload times, but the idea is great. It aggregates user generated content from across the Web, Facebook updates, tweets, blog posts, comments, videos, images and more, all in one location. It also provides great basic analytics for search terms.
• Ensembli automatically monitors stories that match your interests. The more you use it the more closely inline search results will be with your interests because the tool generates stories based on the content you read, similar to Pandora.
• Gravee allows users to search bookmarks, blog posts, videos, and images and easily share the content. Smartly, Gravee also recommends posts based on your search interests and asks for feedback on the relevance of the result set, ensuring future results are more focused.
• Maholo is another social search engine that creates an all in one dashboard for searches including top Web results, news results, images, videos, tweets, blog posts and Q&As.
• ChaCha has answers to most questions. If you are curious about what something is, type in a keyword and it will provide links to the answer.
• Topsy is a search engine powered by links shared on Twitter. This is a wonderful tool because top content has a tendency to go viral on Twitter. Users can also search by date, and find other people on Twitter that share in your interests.
• Kurrently.com: “A real-time search engine for Facebook and Twitter.”
• Twiangulate: “Twiangulate is the leading tool for search, analytics and mapping of connections between Twitter friends and followers.”
• Technorati, the most widely known blog search engine, has recently gone through a major overhaul. It remains a good place for finding recent blog posts about your topic, but remember to refine your search for more accurate results.
• Google Blogs is a blog search engine which tracks RSS feeds. It is more likely to catch spam and message boards than some other social search engines. Its advanced search options make it particularly powerful.
• Ask.com/blogs is similar to Google Blogs in that it offers helpful advanced search features, and it tracks message boards, non social RSS feeds, and blogs. Ask.com also offers search engines for videos, events, images and more.
• Digg allows users to discover, share and vote on content from across the Web. This improves search because people are often the best judge of quality.
• Stumble Upon lets users submit content that they find on the Web. Similar to Ensembli, users can also find increasingly relevant content through its personalized browsing tool – users are taken directly to content matching their preferences.
• Delicious is the leading human driven bookmarking service. It is a great place to find and save top web articles and allows you to organize your online finds.
• Creative Commons Search and Flickr: The Commons are great for finding sharable photos.

Additionally, when conducting online research, the following sites are helpful:

• Alexa.com: “Free traffic metrics, search analytics, demographics, and more for websites…”
• Websitegrader.com: “Free SEO tool from HubSpot that provides an Internet Marketing Report for your website.”
• Google.com/trends: See and compare the volume of searches and press for particular keywords.

The last point: When you find a post that you like, tip your hat by leaving a comment. What tools do you use to gather content for your blog posts?

Trendrr is a social stat-tracking service that allows users to graphically track how the social web is trending in real-time. The service also captures helpful measurements like Twitter followers, Flickr images, etc. allowing users to see the impact of a company, brand or person on the web and compare with other search terms.

The company says, “Trendrr captures and illustrates accurate, real-time market intelligence in an easy-to-use, digestible format. Users can track pre-set data sources or review others’ graphs to discover trends as they happen.”

Positive

Trendrr monitors major social search engines such as IceRocket, Twitter User Stats, Vimeo, and many more, and then delivers comparable visual information from each in an easy to read/understand graph. These graphs are perfect for blog posts or presentations. It’s powerful to see how topics are trending across different online medium such as micro-blogs, blogs and online news outlets – both past and present. Adding to the service is the ability to compare search terms by dragging and dropping into customizable graphs.

Users can also see the hottest buzz based on the latest top content. The Firefox API and ability to easily share Trendrr content are also pluses.

Negative

Trendrr is useful and Trendrr delivers a great final product perfect for blog posts and presentations. Yet, it does not attempt to deliver all news stories in one location as other social search engines do. Being able to generate Trendrr’s powerful graphs and seeing the content behind them would make Trendrr even more powerful.

Conclusion

In general, Trendrr offers a very user friendly and trusted graphical solutions for both past and present online trends.

The market for improved communication tools and real-time collaboration may soon have a new leader, as Google Wave may change the way people communicate and manage their Internet experience. Google Wave’s API site says, “A “wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

Going into all of the Wave’s features is beyond this blog post, but for more details you can see a video here (note it’s almost 1.5 hours long). There are a few features to highlight here, though.

The Wave is an advanced email interface. It allows users to collaborate, adjust and edit files of all types in real-time throughout the collaboration process – wiki style! Users can even rewind the collaboration session to see what was said, by whom, and when. Additionally, Google Wave is open source, allowing Wave apps to be developed for social networks and more. This will make the Web far more collaborative and social.

Positive

With Google Wave’s advanced interface, users can drag and drop attachments while managing work or personal projects. Users can also import apps within a Wave, including social apps built for Facebook or Twitter – heck, you can run your Twitter, your YouTube channel, and even administer your blog and blog comments from your Wave. It also will be mobile, as iPhone and Android are developing apps.

Negative

It won’t be released until later this year.

Conclusion

Google Wave is the next step in the evolution of email and the social web. Not only will Google Wave compete with your standard email, with the ability to develop and build applications on it the Wave will completely change the way you view the Internet. Once released, expect to see Waves all over the Web.

Buzz Meter Ranking: 3 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive:

Drop.io’s webinar management makes it easy to control your presentation and share information in an appealing, functional way. The user interface makes commenting, sharing and uploading files a snap. While managing of a drop you have control over what drop attendees can do – be it chat and comment on files, add files, download files, etc.

Impressively, a new drop comes with its own URL, phone number with voicemail, and even its own email address. Additionally, drop.io has numerous plug-ins, widgets, and apps to enhance the experience. For an upgrade, you can also encrypt files. Drop.io also leverages the hottest social networks and Web 2.0 tools. For example, permanent messages (“notes”) entered into the drop can be shared via an RSS feed, Twitter, Facebook, and more.

Additional benefits include the price and the fact that there is no initial signup! If you are just a casual user and won’t be posting much multimedia, or if you’re primarily using drop.io to share word documents, free simply can’t be beat.

Negative:

Drop.io’s advantage is in its simplicity. It advertises that users are able to complete virtually all tasks in just two clicks. However, if you’re tasked with running a complex project, such as a large video conference while sharing multiple documents, there are other webinar services that offer this higher level of complexity. Of course these services are also more difficult to manage and are more expensive.

Conclusion:

Drop.io allows you to share content with whom, when, and for as long as you want. And like all good Web 2.0 tools, it’s easy. Next time you need to conduct an online presentation that includes video, photos and documents, or you want to manage an online project, consider using Drop.io.

IceRocket advertises itself as a commercial search engine that “puts the consumers before advertisers.” IceRocket searches MySpace, both the blogosphere and the Web for news and images, Twitter and tracks trending topics.

Buzz Meter Ranking: 3 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive:

IceRocket’s most useful search option is Big Buzz. When searching within this section, IceRocket pulls together the latest blog mentions, tweets, news, and images from across the Web, all in one place. Additionally, the blog search component is great because it shows a ranking, number of references, and it provides useful analytics including posts per day and total posts for particular keywords. This provides a great comparison with that of other search providers such as Technorati. Another useful component is the Trending Terms feature, which allows you to compare up to four different trending topics at once.

Negative:

IceRocket also has a Rocket Mail, blog tracker and RSS builder. Though it’s nice to have a very simple blog tracking and RSS feed builder, there are more powerful tools available that are also free, such as Google Analytics. Additionally, IceSpy, which shows what other IceRocket users are searching for, is interesting because you can see trending topics, but it’s also random enough to not entice you to click on the feed.

Conclusion:

IceRocket’s sweet-spot is search. It captures social mentions and blogs that other social search engines may miss. However, you might look elsewhere with regards to blog tracking and RSS needs.

Creative Commons’, a nonprofit, Creative Commons Search will help you find photos, music, text, books and more, which are available to share online. Creative Commons Search also clearly identifies if the original creator has indicated if “some rights [are] reserved” and what those rights are, or if “no rights [are] reserved.”

Buzz Meter Ranking: 4 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive:

Web 2.0’s greatest promise is acting collectively, more efficiently. Creative Commons Search is a key tool for doing just this. It allows users to take something someone else worked on, add to it, share it, or use it in a completely new context. The beauty of Creative Commons Search is that it does so simply.

Creative Commons Search will search the web through Google, Google Images, Yahoo! Flickr, Blip.tv, Jamendo, and SpinXpress to find you just the right color you need to get noticed online. It also provides a Content Directory that allows you to search for particular types of music, videos, images and more. Other useful aspects are its Firefox and CC Search, which allows you to search directly from your Firefox web browser, and the license your own work section.

Negative:

Creative Commons Search is not perfect, and will occasionally generate results that do not have a Creative Commons licensing agreement. Particular care should be made when search results are coming from Google or Yahoo! Per http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CcSearch, “You should always verify that the work you are re-using has a Creative Commons license attached to it.”

Conclusion:

Adding additional images, videos, music and text will add needed color to your online sharing. Bookmark Creative Commons Search, and make it a regular part of your blogging and online sharing formula. Also, be sure to credit the original content creator, acknowledging their efforts. Happy sharing!

Buzz Meter Ranking: 3 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive:

Often one of the most difficult things to do is finding local activities. What makes All for Good a potential hit is its emphasis on local actionable activities. If you’ve got some downtime in Washington, DC, for example, it is easy to use All for Good to find the latest, hottest activities you can participate in to affect change.  Another great feature is the ability to organize activities and share your own good works seamlessly through Facebook, AIM or social sites. The All for Good Gadget can be customized by location and activity; once posted to your blog it will stream activities based on your personal interests and search criteria. Lastly, All for Good provides a number of apps, has mobile functionality through Android, and offers an open API, providing developers with an open template ready for creative new applications.

Negative:

All for Good is a new search tool with a lot of promise, but currently, not all volunteering opportunities are posted. As more applications are added and the number of visitors increase, the more information that will become available.

Conclusion:

I’m always for a higher level of organization, especially when it comes to search. All for Good fills a niche, and with a great resources behind it. Currently the search engine is simple and effective. The real power, however, is All for Good in the hands of developers. Look for great applications to come!

Influencer relations is a challenge, and engaging with stakeholders on a personal level is labor intensive. BuzzStream helps organize your online relationships and track online outreach through two different tools.  BuzzStream for Link Building is an automated CRM for keeping track of links. And BuzzStream for Social Media helps manage online WOM marketing activities and organize and personalize influencer outreach.

The Link Builder service comes in three tiers – individual (free), small teams ($49/month) and large teams ($249). Each tier incrementally permits more users and the tracking of more contacts and websites.

Buzz Meter Ranking:  3 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive:
Personalization is the difference between fostering a relationship and a lot of wasted effort. Keeping track of links – the currency of the web – by monitoring backlinks and tracking linking activity, BuzzStream promotes successful outreach.

Adding links with BuzzStream is a synch through its built in bookmark. Once a link is bookmarked, BuzzStream automatically searches the domain for the contact information and captures it. It then begins tracking the conversations you have with these contacts. It doesn’t matter if you contact them through Twitter, email, or blogs – it tracks it all with next to no additional effort.  You can also note why these individuals are relevant, and organize your links by category, keywords within links, and more. Also, being able to delegate work to different team members and displaying page rank details are great additional features.

Negative:
PR professional want to spend their time generating the most possible buzz, fostering relationships, and thinking creatively for their clients; clients want to see what their consultant has done for them lately. For PR professionals, creating metric reports can be a significant undertaking, and any help doing so is wonderful. BuzzStream helps the PR professional generate the buzz efficiently; however, the service could do more to show results by including detailed analytics.

Conclusion:
As with any web 2.0 tool, BuzzStream is only as good as the person behind the keyboard.  BuzzStream makes it easy to update and track contacts, but success will depend on your dedication to adding links to BuzzStream as you come across them, as well as your strength as a communicator when conducting outreach. Overall, BuzzStream is a great tool for link building, and when used properly, operates as a powerful social CRM.

Buzz Meter Ranking:  4 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive:
What makes CoTweet different from many other Twitter services out there is that it supports two dominant ways that companies use Twitter, supporting proactive marketing communication and response-driven customer support. CoTweet allows multiple editors to communicate on one Twitter account. The service facilitates the scheduling of posts, simplifies search, and manages and assigns tweets to appropriate editors for response. Unifying multiple voices helps company’s promote a unified brand on Twitter, all on a simple, email like interface. Even non social savvy employees from across all departments can get involved. Another great feature is that editors can leave comments about Twitter users for all editors to see.

Also useful is the OnDuty feature, which allows the Twitter editor currently “on duty” to receive emails for @replies and DMs; to promote transparency CoTweet will also sign with the editor’s initials who the Tweet came from. CoTweet also archives tweets for later analysis, helping to track Twitter sentiment and measuring your Twitter account’s impact.

Negative:
CoTweet is still in beta, and the service will likely come with a price tag once fully released. Though CoTweet’s functionality is great for companies with multiple editors, it may not be necessary for smaller companies using one social media manager who handles all tweeting.

Conclusion:
Big name brands such as Whole Foods, Starbucks, JetBlue, and Oracle are using CoTweet, and for good reason. CoTweet makes creating relationships faster and easier, almost turning CoTweet into a customer relationship manager (CRM) for Twitter. Provided that Twitter maintains its position as a dominant social media platform, CoTweet will see rapid adoption.