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How Business Can Benefit From Using Alltop

How Business Can Benefit From Using Alltop

Nov 24, 2009 -

Like the Thanksgiving table itself, the digital space is similarly a place of abundance. With tons of web sites, blogs, Twitter feeds, podcasts and so on, it's easy for you – and your customers – to get overwhelmed by the bounty.

Alltop, a site co-created by Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens, and Guy Kawasaki in early 2008, aggregates and organizes that vast pool of content from around the Internet. In fact, its founders set out to create an "online magazine rack," aggregating and organizing content and solving the filtering problem that many of us have.

But Alltop is also a business tool. Here are a few ways to consider:

1. Stay on top of the news in your industry (and beyond).

Because business or industry news is organized on one site, Alltop provides instant access to what's happening in your field and beyond. It also helps identify which events and topics you should pay attention to, by seeing (at-a-glance) which issues are garnering the most attention. 

2. Improve your headlines.

Alltop is a great way to improve the quality of your titles. By quickly scanning dozens of titles at once, you'll see which ones grab your attention and you'll begin to get an idea for what makes an effective headline.

3. Keep tabs on the competition.

You can track what moves your competition is making by keeping up-to-date on the news in your space. Having access to multiple news sources covering a particular industry means you'll have exposure to what's happening in many companies in each industry.

Bonus: If your competitors are blogging, you can track their blogs to see the effects of their efforts. 

4. Get your extra traffic.

List your company's blog in Alltop's directory. That will not only send your blog more traffic, but also help raise its visibility and awareness. 

5. Use it as a research tool.

Want to draw inspiration from other companies' marketing efforts? Or are you about to switch into a new product division? Alltop gives you the ability to quickly get up to speed on new product areas and the marketing that's being created to promote those products.

Other ideas: Use it as a source of for your Twitter feed, use it as a feed reader, and more. Check out other ideas from Mack Collier here.

What else might you add?

Bio: Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs.com, which provides strategic and tactical marketing know-how. She also blogs at her acclaimed personal web log. Follow her on Twitter @marketingprofs.

Photo credit: back garage


Tags: alltop, ann handley, duct tape marketing

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Article Comments (1)

  • Systems Advisor, Coach, Speaker & former…

    (Nov 30, 2009)
    Ann
    I use ezines a similiar way; in fact I have an email address for subscriptions that I don't usually read in full; but use them to keep up on trends, etc.
    To the list you created above, I would add that I like seeing what other speakers, who speak on topics simliar to mine, are doing. I've actually gotten speaking gigs from seeing someone else's calendar and contacting the company or organizaiton.

    Maria

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