First up is ClevelandIdeas.com — a social media project conceived, developed, self-financed, promoted and maintained by the good folks at DigiKnow, Inc.

Per the ClevelandIdeas.com website, DigiKnow is sick and tired of negativity. And they’re looking to use the “Wisdom of Crowds” to generate good ideas that might be used to make Cleveland and the region stronger in the future. I interviewed King Hill (President/Principal) and Scott Chapin (Director of Consulting Services) with the following questions:

1) How did you conceive of ClevelandIdeas.com and what inspired you to invest so much into the program?

We decided that in 2009 we needed to increase our awareness locally, so in March, we created an open contest to the staff to generate a campaign/marcom idea for DigiKnow in 2009. The results of this were several strong ideas that were integrated into our “We Know” tagline. Since our theme was centered around knowledge, we came up with the idea of using the wisdom of crowds to help Cleveland brainstorm ideas.

2) What’s the primary platform that powers ClevelandIdeas.com? What unique features does it allow?

The website is built on the open-source Pligg platform that functions much like Digg or the SalesForce application that Dell’s IdeaStorm and myStarbucksIdea.com are built on. The system allows users to register and submit ideas/comments and allows any visitors to vote, pushing them up/down the list accordingly.

3) What other social media channels are you using to support or supplement the program?

Twitter was our primary social media channel to drive awareness of our efforts. We built a script that identified all of the local twitterers in the Cleveland market and followed the top 1000 users. We tweeted any interesting activities on the site as well as general activities relevant to our Cleveland audience. Facebook and LinkedIn pages/groups were also setup but were not heavily promoted. Several lively discussions developed in LinkedIn surrounding our overall concept and the need to generate ideas for Cleveland.

4) What cross channel marketing support have you used to drive awareness and participation?

The website was promoted through traditional media including radio and outdoor, through PR in local newspapers, radio and TV in addition to the social media promotion via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

5) What’s been the most surprising result or lesson learned thus far?

There have been several interesting results from this campaign. The most profound is the balance of traffic that was generated by social media, advertising and PR. Attributing website traffic as best as possible, there was a relatively even mix between these three marketing channels. The engagement of visitors was another surprise. The average time on site was 5 minutes, but more surprisingly, the average for visitors that submitted an idea was 25 minutes.

Results after 5-weeks:

• 293 ideas
• 1,885 votes
• 501 comments

6) What actionable results or intelligence have been discovered?

By controlling all of the pieces of this marketing puzzle and having full data on the site activities, we were able to see which activities we did triggered what level of response. Within this Petri dish, we were able to tweak relatively small activities and see the results. A good example of this was inviting people to follow us on Twitter. In each round of following, we got about a 50-60% follow back rate and an obvious spike in visitors to the website.

7) How will you measure the success of ClevelandIdeas.com – for the City of Cleveland and/or DigiKnow?

Our goal is not only to get the best ideas into the hands of local leaders, but to help push them to happen. Success in that sense will be to have an idea from the site become a reality and benefit the city. From DigiKnow’s standpoint, in addition to helping the city, the awareness created and the positive feedback we have already received makes this campaign a success for us.

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According to MuckRack.com, “What if you could get tomorrow’s newspaper today? Now you sorta can. Muck Rack makes it easy to follow one line, real time reporting.” Basically, it aggregates all the journalist feeds per a particular publication such as the New York Times or the Washington Post.

To me, it’s interesting to read rough, stream-of-consciousness tweets from journalists whose work we otherwise only read when it’s completely spit-polished by editors. They also offer photos — many very amateur looking, but real. For news and media junkies, it’s a must-bookmark.

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I love to go grocery shopping with my wife. And by “grocery shopping” I mean hanging out in the magazine aisle for an hour thumbing though the magazines. I usually feel guilty after receiving the inevitable “this-isn’t-a-library” glare from the stock boys, but whatever.

Now I can peruse to my heart’s content at Alltop.com – a self-described “online magazine rack” of popular topics. Basically, it’s a directory site (like old school Yahoo in the mid-90’s) that has hundreds of subject categories and thousands of listings. Interested in cycling? Got it. Photoshop? Check. Shanghai? Yep! There’s even a category dedicated to Social Media. Not surprising, there are a TON of blogs included here, including this one.

So if you’re pressed for a one-stop-shop of Social Media coverage (or any of the other thousands of niches), I’d recommend putting AllTop on the top of your bookmark list. And if you’re of the sharing ilk, you can register with MyAlltop to create your own custom selected news to be shared with anyone else. You hand pick the sites that interest you and share them with your friends and associates. Here’s my example.

And if you want to stay up-to-date with new categories, be sure to follow Guy Kawaski on Twitter as he’s known to drop an update or two on occasion. OK, maybe more than one or two…

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