So, while I still have a couple SearchFest recaps to post, and a ton of links to hand out to everyone that drank with me afterward – I’d like to take a moment to gripe.
Twitter “users” are beginning to annoy me. Bots are one thing, but the amount of real people that sign up and then fail to use Twitter is driving me nuts. Twitter is not a difficult product, and if you don’t feel like sharing, kindly leave.
If you are feeling like taking the plunge, here’s 5 tips to make it worth your and my time
Find tons of people
The most daunting thing about Twitter when you first sign up is wrapping your mind around why all your friends have told you to sign up. When it’s just you and 2 of your friends that use Twitter it can be hard to have any other conclusion than all of your friends are mental. This is not the case (for the most part), in reality, we just have a lot of people that interact with us. More people mean more conversations, more opinions, more links, more thoughts and a more interesting tool. Go to Twitter Searchand find people that are talking about things you’re interested in.
Follow people that interest you even if you don’t know them
What the hell? Really? Yes. This isn’t Facebook or myriad other high school reunion networks, this is a live conversation. Following people you don’t know can be the gateway to finding people that either you do know, or that are uncannily similar to you. All of a sudden you have more people to talk to on Twitter and more people that want to talk to you.
For God’s sake, stop following the Twitter prompt
While it’s cool once in awhile, do not feel that you must be doing something. The most useless updates to Twitter are the “is brushing his teeth. Gonna get ‘em clean!” Oh? Well, good for you. I don’t give a shit. The problem when I don’t give a shit is that you’ve Tweeted yourself into a corner. If you do this sparingly, that’s fine. Doing it all the bloody time means you’re boring and are going to lose some followers – namely me. Give us something to work with, show us a cool site, tell us what you’re listening to, ask a question, say something witty, funny or depressing.
Do not use Twitter.com
Twitter’s beauty and strength comes from the countless applications and plugins that allow you to post and read posts how you like. Get Twitterfox if you are on FireFox all day long, get TweetDeck if you want to be really organized, Twitterrific for a simple and functional app, there are hundreds of apps out there – find one and use it, you won’t be avoiding or forgetting about Twitter ever again.
Make use of the @
You know what made Twitter take off for me? Replying to other users. All of a sudden the quirky thought bubble that Twitter had been turned into a constant conversation. I was no longer in my corner posting about how clean my teeth were going to be, but instead arguing back and forth with new acquaintences about topics that I’d not thought anyone else was interested in.
Oh and above all else, start using the damn thing and you’ll probably see people start following and interacting with you too. Which, in the end, is the point after all.
It all stemmed from this test. Streko had tweeted (is that the past tense verb of one who has logged into twitter and posted) the test, so I decided to take it. The first question asked me to identify the phase that is commonly attached to the owl in…here’s the pic:
I had to know that the owl’s caption was O RLY? I did, and then I moved on to answer all but 2 questions correctly (207) on this test about various web memes. Since I did so well and because I’m arrogant (207), I sent this off to a friend of mine, who is also in the business. The conversation follows:
Luke: what the hell?
Syzlak: ?
Luke: what caption is this owl known for?
Syzlak: yeah. It’s a test.
Luke: WTF?
Syzlak: The idea is that you answer based on the options they give you
Luke: is horrible, this quiz
Syzlak: it’s a little slow yea
Luke: i am done with it
Syzlak: wow that was fast, what’s your score
later…
Syzlak: …too embarrassed?
I then assumed that he got through the first 3 questions and then bailed…if he got that far.
So, why do I care? Are memes that interesting or important? No, they aren’t, well, at least they shouldn’t be. I mean, outside of my web personality as Syzlak (that’s right) does any of this shit ever come up in conversation? Actually, yes. I do verbally say “O RLY” and I have uttered the phrase “I can haz [insert inanimate object]?” I find myself referring to online personalities by their handles not their names, I comment on forums like I’m replying to tweets. I’ve sang the bananaphone song, the minute our team got back from SXSW I watched the infamous Facebook interview. And yes, every once in a while, I am the man now dog.
Should my friend have known what was going on the minute he saw that owl? Not necessarily. There are many people in our society that simply do not follow culture. I’m sure a coal miners’ view of the world is a bit smaller than mine. However, when it comes to coal miner culture (starting to regret this example), I’m sure there’s quite a bit that they would consider to be important cultural knowledge. So, do memes matter? Yes, I think they do, and thinking that they don’t only limits one’s scope as a search marketer, social marketer, etc. Traditional marketers would watch cartoons to learn what’s hip for kids; therefore, web marketers should watch the web.
After 3 grueling days of recording, I ease my way back into being a search professional by attending SearchFest at the Oregon Zoo.
Ok, so I’ve been gone for 4 days (only 3, but I’m lumping in this morning since I was hungover) and I’m a little behind at work; thus, we’re going to do the review a bit differently (as if I have a fucking standard for anything over here).
Highlights
March 9, 10:30pm – Sunday night (always the best night to hit the bars – very few Christians (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and very few hooches. Mostly old men that absolutely have to get their drink on) I finish doing most of the tracking on the new Donerail album. Upon returning home, my old co-worker calls me up for a drink as he’d just got into town (time change made him miss the flight). 20 minutes later I’m able to finally meet Stoney and Rebecca! This was a thrill for me because I was finally meeting personalities whose work and character I respect, but I only knew from the wide world of search & blogs. I always meet somebody, but usually I don’t care.
An hour later I’m drinking at Kelly’s Olympian downtown. It (like always) was great.
March 10, 9:30am – I think people ask me “where are you from?” more often than other people. Perhaps it’s because I have a subtle midwestern accent, maybe it’s because I’m an loud, arrogant, asshole in a city of gentle folk (for chrissake no one here uses their car horn! You paid for the horn to be in the damn car, it’s a form of communication since you honestly can’t be heard yelling at the car in front of you. So when someone cuts you off, use your words). Whatever the case, I usually answer this question “Iowa.” Enter the age old and ever continuing debate about the meaning of the question “where are you from?” There are generally 3 4 takes on what this could actually mean:
Where do you live?
Where were you born?
Where have you lived most of your life?
Where do you call “home?”
The last one is bullshit to me, because the other 3 answer it, but I added it anyway. So, I was born in Iowa, but I only lived there for around 2 years. We went there for vacation every summer (screw Disney, we got corn!!!) and most of my family was there. At the same time, I’ve lived in Portland/Oregon for most of my life. Therefore, some people force me to say that I’m from Portland or Oregon. I find this irritating whilst understanding their point; after all, I don’t really have any ties to Iowa anymore, nor did I grow up within the culture, etc.
Wherever, I’m supposedly “from,” the fact is that I’ve lived in Portland/Oregon for most of my life. This is important to note because for some reason I couldn’t find the Oregon Zoo. I’ve been to the damn place probably 10 times in my life too, so it’s not like the area is foreign to me. After driving around, lost in the West Hills, I find the zoo and make it in time to have missed Rand’s keynote, which at the time I thought nothing of. Yeah, I like Rand, but I thought for sure I was going to hear some variation on the proposal/social media speech, which I’ve heard a few times.
What it was, was apparently nothing short of spectacular – it even ragged on Bend, which makes anything spectacular.
10:00am – I’m late to the first session, and only hear half of Stoney’s speech on site architecture. Very well done, some of it old news, some new, some advanced, some basic pretty much the formula for speaking at an SEMpdx event. We’re not SMX or SES (my mind immediately jogs to a Simpson’s ref: It’s not your fault, you can’t control the birds. You will someday, but not now). My favorite piece of advice from Stoney was that not every page needs a META description. He said that some pages are better off when the search engines are left to “write” the description for you. I definitely think that’s true and adhere to that rule myself, but it’s nice to hear someone else say it.
During Aaron Kahlow’s speech about usability someone has thrown something at me, but will not own up to it…and honestly, aside from that and when he said “irregardless” (genius) I have no other highlights. Next however, was Ian Lurie. I liked this speech a lot. All about analytics, how to review, what to look for, etc. Awesome. I’ve never actually been in a session where someone was talking so directly about what I do and how I could do it better. My favorite takeaway was about how some sites, pages, etc. should be expected to have a higher bounce rate. Again it’s a common sense thing, but it’s not one I’d thought of yet.
I had to work the next 2 sessions, running around with a microphone and trying to keep doors quiet. I don’t remember being very interested in anything outside of Rebecca’s speech on link bait and Paul Colligan’s speech on…well, basically all things social (oh, and not letting the robots win).
2:00pm – Managing your online reputation with Marty of aimClear. This is gonna be good. If you’re a regular here, then you’re aware of my fundamental disagreement with how Marty presents himself online. Well, out of left field he fully admits that he handled his rep in the wrong way. Well shit, how am I supposed to grill him now? Throw in the fact that later he barely stepped on my toe and then apologized profusely for it, and now I’m starting to like the guy. That being said, the truth is that I don’t know him and if I did, I may like him, but I still don’t care for how he carries himself online. I wasn’t a big fan of the fact that after coming out of his SU experience he gives a speech about how to manage your rep online, owns up to some mistakes, but then calls social media “bully pulpit channels.” I also didn’t like that he still seems to think that he’s done nothing wrong in the situation. Had he taken the time to interview one of the Stumblers that “attacked” him, he would have learned why he was “attacked.” Instead he feels that he’s done no spamming, no self promotion, no mis-categorization, nothing that would irritate the community…while plugging his Sphinned articles 4 times.
In the next speech I heard one of the most ironic utterances ever, when Lisa Williams talked about what to do when you’ve “gone off the reservation and said something stupid.” Really? Was that the example of something stupid to say?
3:15pm – Hot Seat with Rand, Stoney and Marty. Damn this was good. The SEMpdx Hot Seat is a remarkably simple and brilliant event, that should really be marketed more than it has been. Hot Seat’s are always fun, and usually seem to provide something for everybody. This Hot Seat was friggin’ epic. Personally, I loved the fact that the minute Rand stood up to speak, I leaned over to a friend and said that he was going to plug one of his tools…and then he did. Can’t blame him though, I’d have done the same. I left the Hot Seat early to expel urine and was pleased to see that the bar had been setup, and drinking had begun. This is why I always leave conferences a few minutes early. That way you can get to the bar before everyone else and have 1 or 2 drinks before the line is outrageously long.
Later – The memory fades very quickly nowadays. After about 3 drinks, I seriously can’t remember things clearly at all. I’ve lost days (mostly nights ) from having a few drinks. Beer’s more gentle than bourbon, but all in all the end result is always the same, so here’s what I can remember.
I went to drink with EngineWorks in the Pearl, talked about figure skating and the Blazers.
Was almost convinced once again to join SecondLife.
Met with David from Business.com
Then I headed home form more drinking with an buddy from middle school.
Is it because they are elusive, word of mouth characters in a world populated by cogs in the machine that is life? Is it that they subvert what is the norm in order to enlighten those that are willing to listen?
Or is it that you’ve been searching for the prophets in all the wrong places (e.g. MSN), when in reality they’re in Houston and named Chuck.
Chuck, or the Poetic Prophet aka m0serious as he’s known on his YouTube profile, is an interactive strategist (SEO/SEM/SMO – just like me!) at Pop Labs. Why is he a prophet? Because he delivers the Gospel of Search through rap. About damn time! [a note to regular readers, I may usually have a sarcastic tone, and you may think I'm being sarcastic right now, but I assure you I am not]
Everything from paid search to link building is covered by the Poetic Prophet. My personal fave? Social Media Addiction Rap
Huzzah! A great way to spread the fundamentals of search. More people should check out search through song, maybe then we wouldn’t get quizzical looks everytime someone asks what we do for a living.Oh, btw Chuck, we’re putting together our own tune in response…be ready
Today, Danny posted about last month’s SEO Reputation debacle. While I think that it’s important for us to bring up our own image problems, I don’t think it really gets us to do anything about it unless we figure out why we have a bad image. Clearly, Danny got to see some of that after the gaffe involving Wired’s wiki and the subsequent backlash. However, I don’t think as many of us deal with our reputation, let alone SEO’s, nearly as well as Danny. This is probably because Danny has the presence of mind to view himself as an ambassador of SEO and all things search.
Thus, the first of our 5 problems:
1. We don’t see ourselves as ambassadors of SEO & Search
When we write blogs, post in forums, join social networks, we are immediately noticed. We do not blend in. We know and understand the inner workings of many of these networks, and thus immediately look foreign. Although we may understand how to get to the top of Digg or how get substantial traffic to one of our sites through StumbleUpon, we don’t understand how to not look like a shady marketer while doing so. Speaking of which,
2. We look like shady marketers an awful lot of the time
Take this guy from The Times (UK), he went around the web spamming the hell out of social sites. Right off the bat he exhibited the first reason we have a bad rap, while completely embodying the second reason. If this behavior is replicated often enough, we’ll never get a good reputation. Albeit a lot of this is comes from shady-assed marketers, one slip up by a clean member of the search community and we’re all in the same boat. For that matter, how many people outside of the search community do you know who even have an inkling as to what we do? More often than not, people I talk to think I work with pop-ups or at Google.
3. We’re only just past our infancy as an industry
Yet we seem to demand the respect of a well established auto manufacturer. At this point, we’re really just a blip in business time. However, how many people do we know, or are friends with, that seem to behave as though we’re going to last forever? That have a holier than thou attitude about what we do. Shit, I like what I do for a living too, and I’m glad to have started at a relatively early point in the industry’s life-span, but I don’t walk around with a chip on my shoulder as though SEO is a prominent aspect of everyone’s lives.
4. We don’t take the time to understand why we get a bad reputation
Recently my friend SEO-Hack was flagged by the StumbleUpon community as being a shady-assed marketer. They technically called him an SEO, and said there was no place for him on SU. While I don’t disagree with calling him an SEO (although I’d use the term loosely), I did disagree with this being viewed negatively. So much so, that I took one of the SUers to task for doing so. I got his permission to use our conversation for your information and knowledge.
Tyfus and I corresponded over a couple of messages, I think that the most important explanation for the onslaught of SEO hate is the following:
The last 6 months have seen a huge influx of aimClear-like miscatting, selfsubmitting, link-exchanging bastards, so for the moment and the foreseeable future SEO is a huge red flag. There are some really nice guys that do seo (Colincochrane, moojj spring to mind) but as long as every few clicks of the stumblebutton brings me blatantly spammed marketing drivel it’s my most hated thing around these parts. Apart from glitter and bad webcomics and lolcats and other things.
If the SEO-stuff wouldn’t invade our nice little community with a tsunami of boring crap you wouldn’t be hated on this much.
My general response was as follows:
Fair enough, and that does suck. I guess to me, people fail to see it isn’t a problem with SEO, per se, but more a problem with abuse of a system. I’d even wager that a lot of the people that submit useless sites have no idea what SEO is and just think that SU is a way to get traffic…which ends up being a pain in the ass for both you and me
See, by taking a half an hour, I was able to find out just why aimClear, SEO-Hack, et. al. were getting flagged. Why did I do this? I did it for the community (see reason 1), I hoped by getting this knowledge the community could start to regulate themselves, thus earning us a better reputation on SU. After that conversation, I went back through my old profile (as well as my current one) and “un-thumbed” my client’s sites and any other questionably spammy “thumbing” I’d done.
5. We whine about our problems instead of fixing them
After all, with a pinch of humor, they make great link-bait.
The community of SEO, I implore you, take the time to be a better person, a better search marketer, a better SEO, a better social member. Never forget to learn, discuss and adjust.
I’ve been to the damn place probably 10 times in my life too, so it’s not like the area is foreign to me. After driving around, lost in the West Hills, I find the zoo and make it in time to have missed Rand’s keynote, which at the time I thought nothing of. Yeah, I like Rand, but I thought for sure I was going to hear some variation on the proposal/social media speech, which I’ve heard a few times.
) from having a few drinks. Beer’s more gentle than bourbon, but all in all the end result is always the same, so here’s what I can remember.
See, by taking a half an hour, I was able to find out just why aimClear, SEO-Hack, et. al. were getting flagged. Why did I do this? I did it for the community (see reason 1), I hoped by getting this knowledge the community could start to regulate themselves, thus earning us a better reputation on SU. After that conversation, I went back through my old profile (as well as my current one) and “un-thumbed” my client’s sites and any other questionably spammy “thumbing” I’d done.