In a Web 2.0 world packed with online voting/referral tools like Digg and Sphinn, DJ Francis of the Online Marketer Blog has decided that there's one he likes best: StumbleUpon. Though he acknowledges the quality of the traffic isn't always the greatest, the volume more than makes up for this deficiency. And in a recent post, Francis offers a best-practices primer on using StumbleUpon to its greatest advantage:

Don't vote only for your own posts. You might be tempted to try this. But Francis-who did-says it must be a "big no-no" because his site was virtually ignored.

Get involved in the community. "Duh, I should have known this one," he says. By making friends at StumbleUpon, he exposed more people to his work, and earned more recommendations.

Remember it's not a zero-sum game. Voting for other bloggers doesn't hurt your ranking-in fact, judicious praise can help. "Give thumbs up to authors you trust," says Francis, "and SU seems to give you more props for knowing good content."

The Point: According to Francis, you should pick the networks you like best-and stick to them. "Joining a half-dozen social voting sites will dilute your efforts," he notes. "I guarantee you will get more traffic by working through just one or two voting networks."

OK, you're supposed to be in-the-know about Social Media and B-to-B outreach. You can define "mashup," and report how it can best serve your clients, in 25 words or less, right? Yeah. Thought so.

Here's a short list of terms, from a recent E-Commerce Times article, that might help. Hide it in your desk, for the next time the boss approaches with a question:

Mashups. "A mashup brings together multiple sources of data and creates a single application, often created as a Web service," Columbus says. Think Twitly, which helps arrange Twitter followers into a group, or Twitzu, which helps manage events: you send out invites, and then clients respond to you via Twitter.

RSS. Really Simple Syndication. An approach to syndicating content from Web sites, blogs and social networking sites to be read in RSS readers. "This is a must-have for any company website or blog," Columbus says, "as it allows people to track current news via their RSS Feeds."

Tags. Simplistic technology that gives users the flexibility of bookmarking specific Web pages and sites of interest. "This is the basis of the approaches used by Digg and del.icio.us for reporting popularity of specific blog posts and Web pages."

Wikis. A collection of Web pages that allow anyone to add or edit content. Wikis have been known to help nurture collaboration among clients on specific projects.

The Point: Stay in touch. Ongoing research into the ever-changing hotspots in Social Media will help you keep on top of the latest client outreach tools-and help guide their social efforts as well.