A couple of weeks ago I read a post about “Why the SEO World is like High School” and it really made me giggle. The SEO Chicks are the Cheerleaders of the SEO World, ha ha! Now, after chuckling for a while at this post I started thinking “Hey I wonder what all the other SEO Chicks and Chicklets were like at High School?” and whether that could make a good “just for fun” post. I sent an email to all the chicks and chicklets and asked them to send me a photo and a blurb. AND OH MY GOOGLE was it funny. We are probably the most Unlikely bunch of cheerleaders! Don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind being called cheerleaders in your post Ken. Quite flattering really, especially when you see the evidence below of what we were like at high school. Can you guess who’s who? Some are quite obvious
“The Goth Rebel Geek”
In my four years of hell, aka high school, I was in the Math Honor Society and was the editor of the school literary magazine. I also wrote “Julie is God” on all the desks that I sat in, skipped school in order to steal my old grandmother’s car and drive to the next town over since they had more skateboarders to watch, read Lolita under cover of a hymnal in church, and went through a LOT of eyeliner. The only thing I ever cheered for was the newest Cure album.
“The Last Amazon Geek”
I wasn’t really a part of a group at high school, but always stood up for whoever was picked on and always got into fist-fights to defend others. I was nicknamed “The Last Amazon” as I had… ehm…a slight short fuse and plenty of attitude. When I wasn’t busy beating someone up I spent my time trying to make people laugh. I wasn’t popular with other kids OR the teachers. I did come second place for prom queen though, but not because I was pretty; My mum insisted that wearing hot- pants and fishnet tights would be totally cool on prom night. I looked like a hooker!
“The Actual Cheerleader Geek”
My family loves sports so I was groomed from the start to be a cheerleader. I was a cheerleader from 2nd through 8th grades, and then chose to simply be a “booster” (pep squad) during high school. By the time I’d hit my high school years, I was already too geeky to be a cheerleader. I didn’t necessarily “look” geeky (I don’t think), but I hung out with the geek crowd, which was not conducive to making the cheerleading squad.
“The Eclectic Geek”
I defined myself as ecclectic by listening to heavey metal, working at archaeological sites, hanging out at museums and wearing crystals. I cruised through school, bored with everything except the computer lab where I spent much of my free time. I learned how to make friends & date online in the mid 80’s. Martial arts and spirituality filled my teenage years with meaning and shape. I spent time in Israel at bording school where I learned how to field-strip and fire an M16. I always thought I’d be a lawyer and work with my dad. Never did I ever think I’d move to the UK and get married.
“The Rock Chick Geek”
In high school I played Varsity Softball and rock music. I didn’t usually go to many classes but ended up graduating with honors. I considered myself a rebel and a bad girl. I hated jewelery and fashion but loved chains and the color black. Never in my wild dreams did I expect to be working for a Top 20 Interactive Media Agency.
“The Mermaid Geek”
From the age of 11 to 22, I spent nearly thirty hours a week under water, so I don’t remember all that much about high school apart from how much I disliked the uniform. The first two years of high school were the best because I wasn’t swimming all that much and I had more time to hang around the Wellington train station and flirt with Wellington College boys. After that, everything gets a bit chlorinated.
“The Fitness Geek”
“Not so unlikely cheerleader actually… I started our first cheerleading team in High School back in South Africa. Me and my friend Luiza actually held auditions for team members and had proper pom-poms - aaahhh the good ole’ days…I’ve always been a bit different and a lot crazy. I love dancing, but was unfortunate enough to graduate in a time when academic achievements were the priority. So I never pursued this passion. Instead I spent a lot of time cruising between my other two passions - marketing and fitness. Never in my wildest dreams would I have not gone for something I believed in. I’d rather try and fail (as many times as it takes) than never to try at all - not shy and retiring, me…”
“The Punk Geek”
I was the last person you would have thought was a cheerleader when I was a teenager. I wore a lot of black (okay some things never change) read all the time and went to a lot of punk shows. By the time this picture was taken I was more nerd than hellion.
“The A-Student Geek”
In high school I played softball and basketball for a couple of years, was generally a straight-A student (unless I got lazy, in which case a few sold B’s streamed in every now and then), and wasn’t uber-popular but well-known enough to have friends in most every social group or clique. My junior year of high school I got suspended for making a web site (on Geocities!) that complained about my school and a couple of teachers that I had. Since I was a good student, however, I was able to make up all of the assignments I missed during my suspension, so I guess you could interpret it as I got 5 days off from school. When I returned, I found out that a lot of classmates had rallied around me in support of Free Speech. That whole sequence of events landed me the honorable title of “Most Likely To Take Over The World” my senior year of high school.
—————————————————————————————————
Laughed enough at the ridiculous outfits and hairstyles? Actually some of these photos looks relatively “normal”, ehm except from me and Julie of course (the words yodeling and crack springs to mind??!).
Now, I thought it would be quite fun to make a little meme out of this, a “High School Meme” (I’m so original), so that we can laugh at some photos of YOU when you were a teenager. So I’m going to tag 5 people and challenge/dare you to post a photo and a description of what you were like in High School (and then tag another 5 people etc):
EDIT: Just had a second thought, we REALLY should tag Ken that started this whole High School thing. Ok I know I said tag 5, but since we are starting the meme, we can bend the rules. So KEN YOU’RE IT!
Twitter is just another one of those social platforms that you didn’t want to grow attached to but knew you would. It has become unavoidable at this point. If you don’t tweet, I bet at least five of your Facebook friends have synched up their Tweets to their status update. It’s gotten to the point where even my friends who aren’t within the internet marketing industry (all 5 of them) have a Twitter account, whether they know how to use it or not doesn’t really matter. I doubt they will sign up for Pownce and the whole point of any of these wastes of time are for them to exist for the masses.
I have noticed that it all breaks down to 3 different types of Twitter users:
1.There is the Twitter user that tweets all of the time. This is the person who just tweets nonsense once an hour. You read their tweets but might form an opinion on them just based off of the value of their update. Maybe they are humorous and you appreciate the smile it gives you or maybe its just random crap that doesn’t even flow and becomes annoying. Sometimes these people also converse with each other too much, they should be instant messaging each other. If you know these people you might want or not want to follow them.
2.Then there is the marketer twitter user. This twitter account might be owned by a blog, a news source, or a blogger. The updates might be fed by a bot and are on a schedule. The only purpose of these tweets are to inform you when they add new content to their site. This has become really useful because I don’t always have a chance to read my reader and I am updated about blogs I read through a second source.
3.Finally there is the tweeter that I favor the most which is a great combination of the two. This person tweets things that come to mind, links to things that they like, links to things they are marketing (whether it be a personal brand or a client) tastefully. I’d like to think I am this kind of tweeter. Donna, also does a great job of this.
There are still many people who are well recognized in the industry who don’t like Twitter and choose not to use it ….like Lisa. In my opinion it is not as necessary to use Twitter as it is to use Facebook. You can simply use Twitter scanners like Terraminds (which has been on the fritz lately) or Tweetscan for market research. I have had huge success from using these tools.
Just like any other social media trend, micro-blogging has to be used on a schedule. Some tweeters update once and hour or more and this can be really annoying if you are running a Twitter api like I do. It can be super distracting if your api uses sounds and your computer just tweets all day, but of course you can control this. However I like it because it makes me feel like I am working in a park somewhere with birds……
Keeping tweets to a regular 5 to 10 time basis keeps your followers familiar with you and the types of updates you are doing. Likewise you don’t want to be updating with links at heavy work flow hours because chances are nobody will click them.
Another thing to keep in mind is tweeting during or at conferences. This is how Twitter became popular. During conferences Twitter goes crazy with updates and can be really distracting if you are not attending but helpful if you are looking for links with info about the conference. Because of SWSW and SES NY. I have turned my Twitter sounds off because it is just too annoying.
Nevertheless you can chose to be the Twitter user you want to be for whatever purpose you are doing it. But as with any social content platform; know your audience, be present, and be consistent.
If you are new to Twitter, there is a special language spoke, please refer to the Twitter Glossary beforehand.
PS: Color wars are happening now at Twitter. Here is a great video that explains what this is…
I’m so excited to announce Donna Fontenot aka DazzlinDonna as a guest blogger here on SEO Chicks. She is officially an SEO Chicklet. After minor stalking from me and Julie =) Donna has agreed to contribute to SEO Chicks. Now, how cool is that?!!??
I’m going to get a bit soppy here and tell you just how big of a deal this is, for me and the other chicks. Donna is one of the pioneers of this industry, and although she probably doesn’t realise this, one of the reasons I became passionate about this industry. She has the technical knowledge to roundhouse kick any smart arse SEO dude and the humour to get away with it And she is such a damn nice person. Ehm yeah I know, I am her stalker….The first blogs I followed in the SEO world, was Donna’s SEO Scoop blog and SEOmoz, and I read it religiously, so it goes without saying I’m super excited that THE DazzlinDonna will be guest blogging here, right here…wohoo!
Donna will be posting her first post in the next few days, so watch this space!
UPDATE: It has come to my attention that this post looks rather weird if you’re viewing it through a feedreader. So don’t. Click through, I tell you!
To start, I’d like a show of hands. Who uses Gmail? I hope everyone in the room has their hand up at the moment, because Gmail is one of my favourite things in all the world. It has its problems, it’s had is security flaws, but it has always treated me very well. Believe me: I’ve been around the block when it comes to email providers. I was a long-time user of Yahoo! and I was also one of Yahoo! Mail’s more loyal fans. Y! Mail just wouldn’t do all the things I wanted it to, and its constant badgering that I should “upgrade” to its newer version drove me nuts. The newer version also made me want to put a fork through my face. About two years ago, I beat out all the other Jane Coplands and snapped up a desirable Gmail address. It was heavenly.
However, there is always a little price to pay for lovely free things, and Adsense is that price when it comes to Gmail. Targeted Adsense is always a source of amusement, but it’s even more amusing when it thinks its targeting your personal emails.
I was going to just post screen shots of the ads that have made me laugh, but this would be far more interesting as an interactive game. There are no prizes for doing well… I’d promise to send you an SEO Chicks tee-shirt but I have no control over such things and I don’t want to get in to trouble with Lisa.
Honestly, I know you come here to learn. But you can learn all you like next week at SMX West, or by reading the recaps. Thus, I present to you, Jane’s Amusing Gmail Adsense Game.
There is no question associated with this advertisement. I believe it speaks for itself.
Question 5:
Question 6:
Question 7:
Question 8:
In all seriousness, you sometimes cringe when you think about the content with which your ads might be associated.
However, that was fun, wasn’t it? You have no idea how long it took me to make those polls not mess up the pictures’ alignment, so please look grateful. Have a nice Sunday and see some of you next week in Santa Clara!
There is always one question on my mind when I am working on Social Media; How am I going to track my efforts? And what is a waste of time? It is very difficult to perfectly determine what type of Social Media pieces have potential to go viral without practice and patience. Thankfully, there are people out there who put a lot of time into this research.
Yesterday on ReadWriteWeb, Dan Zarrella wrote an article about the new tool he developed which helps Diggers test out keywords, before they submit a story. The tool researches the keywords from within the title and description of the top 33,000 front page stories that made it to the Digg holy homepage in 2007. This is quite an impressive database!
Obviously we are all aware of the benefits of Digg, but there are also hidden dangers. If you are in the Brand Management field you might be afraid that people who find your story on Digg want to blog negatively about it, or leave tons of negative comments, etc. Of course this is a possibility on any social platform and needs to be monitored.
By using the tool that Zarrella has created, we might have found a safe tool the check the history of similar content. In the end this might save us a lot of time doing research, and having failed attempts.
Many clients and even some of our peers don’t really understand the space that is Digg. This tool might help to explain some efforts that are used. And naturally… new tools are a lot of fun!
No, not really. I just spent ten minutes thinking up awful, topical titles so I chose to go with a completely unrelated one instead.
My first post as an SEO-Chicklet (or Guest Blogger, for those of you who like proper titles) and I’ve sat here for two commercials with my fingers on the keys, unsure of what to write. Since getting into SEO eighteen months ago, I’ve only ever written for one SEO site. It’s like I’m leaving my favourite bar for the first time and stepping into a new one. How to you talk to people here? Do they like the same jokes as you? At least I’ve started off my tenture as a Chick well: talking about booze. Hi, Lisa and Julie!
Just in case you missed Lisa’s introductory post, I’ll recap who I am and why I’m writing here: I’ve been working at SEOmoz in Seattle for the past year and a half. I’m from New Zealand, moving to the U.S. in 2002 in the typical style that my family tends to embrace: because it seemed like a good idea at the time. By the sheer grace of God and relatively good social skills, I landed a job at SEOmoz in September 2006 after enduring the most inventive and completely horrifying job interview process known to the Internet. My only previous experience with SEO was the complete delight I experienced as a college Junior (Third Year) when a classmate explained to me how the Googlebomb worked. I remember sitting in my apartment and thinking, “Christ, that’s awesome.”
In case you’re not interested in reading the very long article about how SEOmoz hires people for entry-level jobs, here’s a run down of how I came to be an SEO: the six finalists for my position had to write blog posts that were published on SEOmoz’s blog. Readers voted on which one was best, and they also commented on them. I knew enough about online communities to truthfully believe that I was going to be torn apart. I didn’t know how to blog. I knew how to write upper-level English, History, Political Science and Sociology papers. I knew words that only existed in Roget’s Thesaurus but I didn’t know how to talk to people, rather than write at them. The post I wrote is cringe-worthy. It isn’t badly written and its contents aren’t awful, but it’s the work of someone who knew she was in over her head. People who are now my friends commented on it and said much the same things that I’d say now if it had been written by somebody else.
Given that I knew next-to-nothing about SEO when I first took my seat in the offices, I am the typical one-company employee. I brought nothing with me and thus learned the SEOmoz way of doing things. Less kind individuals may say I drank the Kool-Aid. However, coming into the industry with no experience and figuring out everything while while I worked has been a fantastic way to learn.
Obviously, I learned a lot very quickly about search. I distinctly remember the moment when I learned that underscores didn’t serve the same purpose as hyphens. I remember the first time I heard the term “duplicate content”, and I didn’t immediately realise that I’d hear it again every day for the rest of eternity. I learned how to write basic HTML in about two and a half minutes after finding out pretty quickly that it was easier than expecting Dreamweaver to do it for me. When you’re learning something that’s quite foreign to you, you go through phases of thinking that you’ve gained no knowledge at all. Then, out of nowhere, you realise that you have acquired more knowledge in three months than you did over four years at college.
Just over a year ago, I wrote a post titled The Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know and I’d like to update those ten bullet points now to include things I’ve learned about SEO and the Internet Marketing industry in the past thirteen months.
Most “penalties” are nothing of the sort. I hear a lot of questions about people’s sites experiencing “penalties” when their rankings have dropped two or three places. Most recently, the “-6 penalty” had webmasters up in arms. I was quite proud of my guess that it wasn’t a penalty, but an unexpected result of bigger changes.
The best defense is not a good offense. It’s knowing when to close the comment box and proverbially STFU.
Google is great at eliminating spam, unless your search term contains the word “lyrics.” I want to be the person who does SEO for abc123lyricsmp3sfreedownloads.com. They could spam mattcutts.com and not be penalised.
PageRank doesn’t really matter to you when yours drops. Pah! It’s not even accurate. How silly to get upset about such a ridiculous little piece of Google propaganda.
PageRank matters a lot to you when yours goes up. You knew those whitehat efforts would pay off at some point.
It’s a good thing when people spell your name incorrectly… if they’ve written something unflattering about you. Google doesn’t have a “did you mean?” for Copeland versus Copland
People who you see on the Internet also exist in real life. Those of them who use weird screen names and odd avatars also expect that you’ll know exactly who they are when their human form bowls up to you and says, “Hi! I’m John!” when they should say, “Hi! I’m herbo_29 from the blog. My picture is a squirrel riding a German Shepherd.” Then you’ll not just stand there with that look of stupor and embarrassment on your face.
Nofollow has many purposes. Siloing. Editorial discretion. Comment protocol. Pure spite isn’t a great reason to nofollow something. Unless it’s a link to Wikipedia, and it’s not like they need it. Some social media sites don’t nofollow anything. It’s not spamming: they should just know better.
Each search engine is very very different, but when people ask your advice, use your consulting services or comment on your writing, they only talk about Google. I’ve seen instances where people really don’t care that they get next to no traffic from Yahoo! and only a small amount from Live. Learning more about how Yahoo! and Live work looks to be a great idea: you may well be one of a small number of people who really pays them the attention they deserve.
Jericho just came on the TV. I’ve been waiting for this series to come back for about a year so this list is one point short. Although Jericho is still kind of relevant to what we do: it was teh internetz that brought the series back! And the ads are telling me to “keyword search “Jericho” on my Sprint mobile phone”, just as a commercial last Friday advised that I should “look it up on Yahoo!” Cute.
Thanks for letting me join the SEO Chicks community, everyone. Until next time, enjoy those meta tags.
“Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.” Oscar Wilde
My alternate title for this piece was “Page View Syndrome” but then I thought that sounded like something you’d catch by using the computer terminal at an Indonesian whorehouse. Oh, and that is the title of the article that prompted all this…
There’s a thought-provoking piece that PC Mag did that details the dangers involved in basing what we see on the web on popularity. In the case detailed in the article, the author likens our internet future to a Max Headroom-style situation (look it up you crazy youngsters) and discusses a writer being fired from a publication because his articles weren’t popular enough. This popularity contest is a seriously scary thing to consider and here’s why…
First of all, if you ever went to high school and you aren’t Mystery Guest, you may have suffered a bit. Popularity isn’t always pretty. Mystery Guest IS always pretty, however. ANYWAY, popular kids weren’t always popular because they were the ones who’d go on to save the children, end poverty, make clean water available to everyone, and become a lean-to in the forest. At the risk of this turning into a blog post about me crying and watching Pretty in Pink again (why didn’t Andy just want Duckie Dale?), I do think that we should all consider the dangers of anything that’s popular with the masses.
I’d like to say that yes, in some cases I think that mainstream popularity can be good. Ben and Jerry’s for example, is pretty popular and I have absolutely no issues with it other than that I feel weird paying 5 bucks for a milkshake that I’ll slurp down in 5 minutes. The same thing holds true for my beloved and much-maligned Starbucks. Many things are popular because they ARE as close to perfection as you can get, like Cherry Garcia. You just can’t fall into the trap of letting popular opinion constantly tell you how to think. Lots of people have STDs…you sure don’t want to go and contract one just to be a part of something do you?
It’s just as bad to like something for being liked by everyone as it is to hate something because it’s liked by everyone. However, you have to think of everything in the world that’s caused a stir, and how that benefits society. These people and things aren’t always popular but they’re sure as hell important. Caravaggio caught some flack for painting using corpses as models. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was banned. Trite examples, perhaps, but this isn’t the place for a lesson on all the people in the world who were once seen as being of no relevance, and who ended up being tremendously important. This is a lesson in not using a black and white measurement in order to determine what gets put out there for the public’s consumption, and unfortunately, popularity tends to be determined BY a black and white measurement.
The main issue here is that if popularity of page views, for example, ever becomes a standard for who publishes and what gets published, we’re in for serious trouble. You simply cannot gauge true importance by large numbers. If I may again draw an analogy to the arts, think of all the films and albums and paintings that were never popular but that enjoyed massive critical aclaim; online content is really not that much different.
Getting caught up in numbers for the simple fact that they are a discrete measurement may have made sense at one point, but it doesn’t today. It’s difficult to explain nuances, though, so while you may realize that there’s more to an SEO campaign than the number of new visitors in a month, it’s very tricky to explain this to a client, or your boss, without sounding like you’re simply trying to get out of something. It’s also easy to fall into the extreme of this, and justify poor numbers in one area by making a crazy interpretation of what another number means.
So without launching into a day’s worth of data interpretation and doubletalk for the people who care about your sites, how will you let them know what’s truly going on? Can you use ANY numbers to accurately reflect success or failure? If you think that you can, what are those numbers, and how can you justify their importance? It really isn’t very clearcut right now.
If anybody remembers the IMNY Charity Party last year, it was a great place to network.
It was also my very first networking event in the industry and it is also where I met a very friendly Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing. He is the writer of the NowSourcing blog, which is the place to be if you are interested in learning more about Digg, Mixx, Twitter, etc.
Brian is really on top of his Social Media game! I often catch him online at 2:00 AM, Sphinning, Digging, and other things that can easily turn into verbs. So I asked him to share some of his expertise with me!
1. You are very active in the blogosphere. How long have you been blogging? And when did you learn that blogging became crucial to your social media status?
I’ve been blogging off and on since 2001. Blogging is an inherent factor in social media success since social media needs content to thrive. Think about it: if you post once a week, that’s 52 pieces of content. It looked to me the blogging and social media would be a huge driver about a year ago.
2. Often we see many posts about falling victim to Social Media time consumption. How often do you spend on Social Media per day?
More than I’d like to admit some days. However, I try to lead a balanced schedule, and fit social media in when time will allow. Social media can really lead to burnout, so everyone should be careful of this.
3. Why is everyone so crazy about twitter? Can it be used as a Marketing tool, or is it just social noise?
People are crazy about Twitter since it has been gaining adoption with a larger audience. A tool is only as good as its adoption. So if you look at the rise in the number of users, average time spent per user, and the number of mashup applications being developed, things start to make sense.
Regarding the noise factor: if you find specific individuals to be too noisy for your tastes, you can simply just stop following them. Some users create a company Twitter account while others keep their more personal Tweets (gosh, personal Tweets should be an oxymoron) over on their own name. Businesses can and should leverage Twitter, but as always, try to understand the community before you potentially damage your brand.
4. Digg has been retiring top diggers left and right with no remorse. Some people say Digg is cleaning itself up to get ready to be sold…What do you predict for the future of Digg? And how will it reflect on its top Diggers?
I think a better word for “retiring” would be “banning” . Many top Diggers, banned or not, are getting a bit fed up with the state of Digg these days.
My prediction is for Digg to be sold within the year, and some of the top Diggers will bail from Digg and go out to other social sites. Mixx in particular has become a Banned Digger magnet. This isn’t to say that all influential Diggers will leave, but it will likely change the landscape.
5. You launched the Social Media Ninjas Contest not too long ago… Is it really all just a popularity contest?
Much of social media is a popularity contest. Seriously though, we are about to announce the final winners, so stay tuned!
6. Everyone tries to have the most recognizable avatar. It seems like it’s all been done before. If you had to create a new avatar for yourself today, how would it look?
I’m pretty fond of the big green N, and it is recognizable. Sometimes people put too much thought into their avatar and make it too detailed and complex. Nearly all sites keep your avatar at 120×120 or less, so think about sizing issues.
If I had to make a new avatar today, I’d be sure to make something creative, colorful, and memorable – and pass it out to a few friends for feedback.
7. Feed readers are as important as breakfast nowadays, skip it in the morning and your whole day is thrown off. It is sometimes hard to find good Social Media Bloggers who share really great tips, without reading the same thing over and over and wasting time. Can you recommend a few Social Media bloggers who have changed the way you do things?
Not particularly fond of RSS, as I prefer to really get the feel for the post and the community by visiting the site directly. That being said, it is difficult through all the noise and regurgitation to see which social media bloggers are truly worth watching. Folks that truly have a unique voice that have had my attention recently are: Lyndon, Copyblogger.com, CopyBrighter, Glen (viperchill.com), Tim, and Shana (socialdesire.com). They all talk about different things that hold my interest.
However, Kathy Sierra’s blog headrush.typepad.com is probably the best of anything like this, but unfortunately she may never be posting again.
8. What is your quick advice for anyone looking to improve their social media campaigns ?
Quick advice: Don’t be stupid. Many people dive head first thinking that if they just submit their own stuff, people will automatically love it. Guess again. Understand your community before submitting a thing. Observe, take notes, ask around.
I want to thank Brian for allowing me to interview him and learn from him. You can add him on all social networks as “nowsourcing”, and I advise that you do! Follow Brian’s advice and maybe you too could be a Social Media Superstar!
Editor’s Note: after reading this and having a friend comment that it didn’t flow, I’d like to say that the whole point I’m trying to make here is that you shouldn’t listen to all the people who tell you what not to do. I apologize in advance. This post kind of sucks but it IS my turn.
What are words for, when no one listens anymore? (Missing Persons reference. I’m sure you caught it.)
There’s a fairly inane little article in MarketingProfs about 100 words you shouldn’t use in an email subject line, although it’s not much more than a list without any explanation of why these words are so bad. I can’t be arsed to test whether or not certain subject lines will really get your email blocked though, even though I may write to Mythbusters to see what they can do. What’s the SEO angle on this? Obviously there are plenty of ways of getting around the rules, which we all know a lot about and that’s a good thing. So there you go…and here you go.
Obviously you know that there are certain words that you can’t use in Google Adwords, for example. For such a totalitarian group of fascists (and yes I really am using some hyperbole), they aren’t all that fond of superlatives. They’re also not fond of ads for gambling but I know plenty of people who’ve gotten around that, at least for a bit before they get caught, so here is why you should completely ignore yet another so-called rule: this is all a game to see who can last the longest.
Being somewhat argumentative, yet still a delicate flower, I tend to want to do whatever someone tells me not to do. Immediately, usually. It’s childish, I’ll admit, but the minute I am prohibited from doing something, I have an overwhelming urge to do it, especially if it involves cursing or drinking or spending money (what are commonly referred to as my three graces.) The web is chock full of blogs and sites telling you what not to do, and that’s all fine and lovely and beatific BUT it’s also geared towards the mainstream people who follow the rules without question.
I really do have a point here, I promise.
Following rules is definitely a good thing in many instances. If something is for the greater good, then I’ll do it if I can keep my dress on. There’s a fine line, though, and the fear-mongering that we see online is really wreaking havoc on the way that so many people conduct their online business. I understand the argument against cloaking, for example, but I still think it’s fine in many cases. And really, who’s been mutilated and left for dead by a cloaked page? You may have been misled but if being misled is the worst thing that ever happens to you, my congratulations. You’re an ass-ton luckier than anyone else.
So why do we have such an overwhelming amount of advice about how to stay orderly and look at the back of the neck of the person in front of you? Nothing good can come of that, I assure you. Just keep your minds open when you read this crap (and when you read the crap we write too.) I’d be in less of a mood if I were writing this and listening to something other than Sisters of Mercy but really, I get quite sick of constantly reading about all the things we shouldn’t do or say, especially when there is no explanation offered. I guess you can’t really argue when someone doesn’t give you an explanation…is that the point then? Do it. Follow the rules, don’t question them. Feck arse.
The good thing about this whole mess is that it does tend to make people get a bit more creative…black hats wouldn’t be nearly as cool if they weren’t subverting the dominant paradigm you know. I mean seriously, Esrun is only interesting to me because I know what he can do. OK that’s a joke…his deviance is fascinating too. You think John Lydon follows the rules? Yes I know he’s annoying. OH! Irrelevant but where else can I interject this? I’m off Adam Ant after seeing him cry in the video for “Wonderful.” What grown man cries in a video? I am so embarrassed, I can’t even link to it.
What has more than 59 million users? Has 250,000 new members per day since January 2007? Has more than 14 million photos uploaded daily? Has More than 65 billion page views per month?
Here is how People were using Facebook in August 2007:
It was only a matter of time before every SEO, Link Bulider, and Internet Marketer in general saturated this amazing Social Networking site and took over. When the opportunity arrived over the summer to include applications and more recently Business/ Fan Pages there are more and more Facebook marketing campaigns popping up everyday.
Facebook made headlines many times this year. From when they sold a portion of advertising rights to Microsoft for a whopping $240 million, beating out Google’s bid. And then more recently Facebook has been battling their issues with the newer Beacon addition (Beacongate), which was heavily discussed in the blogosphere. Growing at such a rapid rate, I am sure that Facebook will definitely show up in the headlines for both negative and positive reasons more frequently.
Facebook has become an important tool for not only internet marketers, but all kinds of business. However, it is difficult for some (including me) to keep Facebook at work being ultimately work driven and not include social fun, but somewhere there is a thin line.
So if you are not using Facebook as part of your Social Media or Social Networking campaign, here is a list of blogs I find super helpful to keep yourself updated on whats new on Facebook:
Face Reviews - An awesome up to date Facebook news blog for marketers.
Facebook has definitely changed my work-flow (and my life) over the past 6 months and has improved Brand Management, Traffic spikes, link building, and it has opened up HUGE doors in my career through networking.
Questions:
Has Facebook changed your life more so than other Social sites, such as Myspace, Bebo, LinkedIn, etc?
How often do you use Facebook?
Do you include Facebook in your marketing campaigns?
Stumble this post!
It was also my very first networking event in the industry and it is also where I met a very friendly Brian Wallace, President of 
Categories
Archives
Blogroll
Meta