Cameron Olthuis

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.

Design custom MySpace background images based on your brand. Then release them to all your brand’s friends on MySpace.

One potential problem with social search could be in the long tail. If the majority of searches are only performed a couple of times there won’t be enough human participation to make for good results.

Social search is already occuring on Google but people are “voting” with clicks instead of knowingly, and Google can even do this with the long tail.

What do other people think of this?