I recently came across the following article from .eduGuru’s Michael Fienen. If you’re not familiar with .eduGuru, they’re a site dedicated to the pursuit of Internet marketing in higher education. It’s a great read for anyone doing marketing for a non-profit or educational institute, but also great for bloggers and marketers of all persuasions. An excerpt from the post is below along with a link to the full text of the article. Thanks to Michael for this awesome post!

Using ShareThis to Mobilize Conversations

One of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 (and man, do I ever hate that phrase) is the new way in which conversations are taking place across the world wide webbleness.  It’s not just a case of giving people the chance to make simple comments on a blog now - these days a blog might end up on Digg or Slashdot or shared on Facebook, and entirely new conversations can take place based on your content, but not in your venue.  Universities across the country are finding new ways to inspire these conversations lately: Facebook pages, YouTube accounts, student blogs, etc.  The only real way to track their impact though is to find a way to quantify their existence.  This might be easy with some tools (tracking Facebook fans), but harder with others (who’s Stumbling a press release).  The goal is that we should strive to give visitors the tools to facilitate their conversations wherever they want them to take place.  Part of successful web development and marketing is understanding that you need to cede a certain amount of control, and instead just watch the viral aspect take affect.  A tool perfect in this regard is ShareThis.

To continue reading the full blog post click here.