Cameron Olthuis

So according to MyBlogLog social media optimizers are spammers.

Tonight they introduced tagging and a bunch of related features, one of them being a way to tag spammers…

Spam – If you think someone is spamming you, tag it out loud! Internally, we like to call a user who games the system a SchMOe (Social Media Optimizer). Tag anyone who spams you with the term schmoe.

That’s a pretty low-blow for those of us social media marketers that DO NOT spam. I don’t understand why they couldn’t just use the word ’spammer’ as the actual tag instead of giving us another black eye. It’s hard enough distancing ourselves from the word ’spam’ as it is.

People that spam social media are not social media optimizers, they are spammers, simple as that.

The ironic thing is MyBlogLog recently hired their own community manager, which is somewhat equivalent to a social media marketer.

I had no idea I was a top stumbler on StumbleUpon until tonight but that’s pretty cool. It’s nice to be a valued member in a community that you’re so actively involved in.

Our most active and helpful members. To become a Top Stumbler, simply use the toolbar on a frequent basis, clicking I-like-it at any page other members would like to stumble upon.

I’ve been a big fan of StumbleUpon for over a year now and use it on a regular basis. I know it inside and out but never imagined I would be considered one of the top users among the millions who use it.

If you’re not using StumbleUpon I’d highly recommend checking it out, its a great way to discover new sites of interest as well as sharing your favorites with others.

Chris, from 97th Floor did some nice research on the Google results for Fortune 100 companies. He found that 29 of these 100 companies have at least one negative result that shows up on the first page of Google when you search the brand name.

That’s a pretty pathetic statistic if you are one of these companies. There’s really no excuse for any of these guys not to have a perfect 10 on their results. Like Chris, I’m surprised more companies aren’t doing something to fix this.

I spoke at OMMA last week on a panel about social media sites affecting search results. One of the points I really tried to get across was that brands need to be doing more reputation management to control their search results. My point was that social media sites have a lot of authority in the SERPs so all that user generated content has a better chance on making it’s way to the top.

I used Comcast for an example because the night before when I googled their name two negative results showed up, both from social media. Coincedently those results are now gone from the first page, maybe someone from Comcast was in the audience.

** BTW – Serph is out of beta so you now you can catch your Google top 10 before it’s a problem.

Update: Last.fm’s chart looks good…

Last year I wrote a couple of posts on how getting on TechCrunch isn’t a viable marketing plan. While a TechCrunch write up can certainly be a great kick-start to your marketing campaign, by no means is that traffic spike alone going to make your company a success.

A good comparison would be getting on the homepage of Digg. They will both result in a huge spike in traffic, attention from key people, a few sign ups, and a bunch of links from other bloggers but the problem is that after a few days you’re back where you started. Ok, so maybe you have a little more traction but it won’t be enough so you need to keep moving forward. Unless you have a solid PR strategy and this will be an ongoing campaign you need to have a more well rounded marketing strategy, one that results in a graph that is up and to the right, not spikes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Todd has been on a roll lately with one good post after another. One of the posts that really caught my attention was the SEO Marketing Manifesto. All 10 of the points Todd lays out are great but I wanted to bring special attention to #7.

7. Social media can be optimized
Optimization does not mean manipulation. Optimization is examining the rules of the game and using them to your advantage. Social media increases both exposure – as well as the level of public scrutiny. People appreciate when bias is disclosed, and conversation is HUMAN.

The other day I came across this other post from Brian Oberkirch, where he says there’s no such thing as Social Media Optimization. I obviously disagree with Brian and have been wanting to post a reply for a couple days now. Once I saw Todd’s post I figured I would just quote what he said because I don’t think I can say it any better myself.

I don’t think Brian understands the concept of SMO, just like he doesn’t understand SEO.

You drag that bullshit practice of SEO into the social media world

I realize a lot of people hate SEOs and it’s obviously the few bad eggs that we can blame for this. But the people making the accusations are also to blame because they don’t do the research to understand what they are really talking about. SEO is by no means a “bullshit practice”, in my opinion you’re a “bullshit marketer” if you really think that and ignore search.

When we say that we optimize sites for social media that doesn’t mean we spam it. It just means we fine tune it. That can mean something as simple as improving usability or something such as creating viral content.

Here’s a good Introductory Guide to Social Media. It is a thirty-page pdf download that is aimed at educating larger corporations on everything social media. If you or your company needs to be brought up to speed then give this a read.

[via: Micro Persuasion]

I’m sure you’re probably just as sick of reading all the different opinions of GooTube as I am. Here’s one of the better ones that I’ve come across though, and while it’s just a theory, it makes perfect sense.

Two years ago Google had one data center. Today they are reported to have 64. Two years from now, they will have 300-plus…

…and you will have the latency and speed to pipe HD video into any home in the US….

Google bought YouTube as a stepping stone to grab the largest market share of internet video, which will be monetized once we all sit down in the living room to watch the latest movie releases from YouTube on our big screen TVs.