Internet marketing Archives - Page 7 of 47 by Mark Murnahan

Social Media Self-Analysis: How Are You Being Influenced?

I think it is safe to say that some people are self-conscious when it comes to social media. After all, as an audience builds, it kind of takes on something not so different from public speaking. Many people are terrified of public speaking, and being on a stage where others can pick apart every nuance.

Scarier yet, social media is kind of like public speaking where everything you say is recorded so people can go back later and catch all of your screwups, point them out to others, and make a mockery of you.

Those public perceptions, especially the criticism, can change how you think, how you communicate, and how others will treat you. In fact, I believe that strong peer influences like this can create a profound impact for many people. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes it is bad.

I think it is also safe to say that there is another opposite end of this self-awareness spectrum where people have little or no consciousness at all. They really don’t care what others say, and they take little benefit from criticism or good advice. These are the people begging for you to follow them on Twitter, sending Facebook friend requests to everybody … from a business profile instead of a Facebook Page, and have an urgency to achieve over 500 connections on LinkedIn because if the profile says “500+” it will make them feel more important. They are the ones using tactics without a strategy, and may never understand the greater value of social media.

They don’t let criticism from others affect their actions, and they think it is all done in the name of marketing … which really irritates me. These are the people who will send you automated messages promoting their website that you have absolutely no interest in, and use their favorite keywords instead of a real name when they comment on your blog. It is almost creepy to even glorify it with a mention, but it has become a huge part of our online world.

Here are some examples of utter absurdities in social media that I have discussed, and I think each of them are worth a read. Other people thought so, too, and the reader comments are definitely worth attention.

Does Bad Influence Become More Acceptable En Masse?

We should question whether bad influence becomes more acceptable in large groups, or if it is just more tolerated. What we should be really clear about, though, is that it does not become more effective or useful.

Spam and other ineffective thinking is here to stay. As society has adopted social media as a preferred communication medium, we have each encountered even more spammers and atrocious thinkers than before. As social media begins to reflect an even more accurate cross-section of our world as a whole, the smaller thinkers and late thinkers come in greater abundance. A few will develop excellence, while the majority will try to slide by on the least possible effort. This is very well defined and quantified in the long-standing Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule.

This tends to affect us all, as we become more skeptical and we scrutinize things just a bit closer. Otherwise, in many cases, people just begin to believe whatever the masses (that 80 percent) tell them as they give up any “common sense” filter. After all, if the masses are saying that you need more Twitter followers, and you don’t already know any better … you must need more Twitter followers, right? It created a Twitter follower frenzy, and a similar frenzy is in place across other networks. It is absurd, but it is a strong reflection of where these people receive their influence.

As my father would sometimes question, “If everybody was jumping off a cliff without a parachute, would you jump, too?”

People Adapt to Their Surroundings

There is a whole lot of truth to judging people by the company they keep. I don’t care how hard you argue against this, it is a fact of life. If you spend enough time around people with a regional accent, you will likely develop an accent over time. If you consume bad information from small thinking people, you will begin to adapt to that, as well. People don’t even need to know the company you keep, because it is written all over you.

Fortunately, a similar type of influence occurs when you surround yourself with bigger thinkers, with better ideas. It is why some people try hard to leave a ghetto, while others settle in and join the gang.

I hesitate to imagine that the bad influences of social media are actually more influential than the more beneficial influences. However, what I can say for certain is that they are in much greater abundance, and can create a whole lot of noise.

The more tragic part yet is when the ones making the noise are the same ones I mentioned earlier that do not learn from criticism or good advice, because they don’t even hear it. It becomes a case of the blind leading the blind, and even helping to take away others’ vision.

Avoid Becoming a Schmuck!

Yes, I could rant on this kind of thing, but the question at hand is whether you give enough self-analysis to your online communications efforts. I think it is something valuable to consider, because it is what sets the tone of who you are, either as a person, or as a company.

Watching where you pick up your influence, and asking others’ opinions can be important to helping you avoid schmuckdom … or is it schmucknaciousness? It can also help you to avoid influencing others in a bad direction.

I was reminded of it today as I went through a list of new people following me on Twitter. I found myself making fast judgments about them, to decide if I should follow them back and get to know them. It all got me to wondering how I might look, on the surface, and before people get to know me. I was giving myself a cursory audit of sorts.

We often only have a brief moment to make an impression. I think it is important to be aware of those things we do which can tarnish that moment. It should not be so surprising that a lot of it can come from who we listen to and interact with.

I hope I have encouraged you to step back for a self-analysis. Try to imagine how others see you, and how much it is influenced by others. You may find that you are not making the best connections, or that you are accidentally imitating some of the wrong elements.

What do you think? Do you notice how the people around you affect how you think, and how you communicate?

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Balancing SEO Practicality and Social Media Popularity

Balancing SEO and Social Media Takes Effort

There must be a squillion discussions of SEO versus social media out there on this vast Internet. Many of them are promoting one approach to website marketing, and suggesting that one is more important than the other. What often keeps them at odds is the perspective of the author, but let’s examine the truth of just how much they work in synergy.

A biased “this versus that” view of SEO and social media will often downplay the things that hold these two subjects together inseparably. Each can be used with practicality, and each can be used to create popularity, but let’s take a closer look at their respective roles. I want to use plain and simple logic to suggest ways to balance the two for the benefit of your business.

Do your eyes hurt? If your eyes are getting tired, just click play and listen. It’s the same thing, without the strain.

I could take this thinking tangent in a lot of directions, and for each of them, I could probably find arguments against my own ideas. That doesn’t mean I’m unclear on this, but simply that there are a lot of variables. I’ll save our thinking tangent for your comments and we can build on these thoughts together, but here is what I’m thinking.

In marketing, there are no one-shot miracle bullets to bring down the huge beast that will feed your clan. It takes a combination of many efforts to build a brand and to create a successful online business presence. Two very popular methods for creating success online are SEO (that’s search engine optimization) and social media marketing.

These two tools each have great benefits, but there is often a compromise to be made which favors one or the other. They work in synergy, with each building upon the other, but there is a balancing point. I want you to consider this in terms of SEO being more leveled toward a sales approach, with social media being more geared toward your branding. Of course, they can both produce sales, and they can both produce branding, but just go with this for a moment.

First things first, I want you to consider this simple fact, and I hope it doesn’t shock you. People are selfish. Wait a minute, though … that does not mean they are evil! It is simply to say that people care more about other things than they care about your brand, what you have for sale, or helping you to promote it.

I don’t mean those people out there using social media are all just out to squish your hopes, or that they will not lend you a hand if you ask them nicely. What I mean is simply that people have an instinctive drive to meet their own needs and desires, while your needs and desires probably don’t come at the top of their list.

Give Them Good Reasons to Share

If you don’t provide good reasons that people will want to share what you have to say about your brand or your industry, your social media efforts will lose a lot of their potential impact. Sure, you may have a perfect customer model drawn out, and you may be just certain that you are reaching the right people with your message, but consider this: Reaching the people who reach the people can be far more valuable to your brand. That is “influence marketing” and it is an art of reaching your market through their influencers. It works on the known principle that somebody referring others to your business is better than trying to promote your sales pitch directly to the consumer.

One of the greatest scenarios of social media marketing is when people share your brand message. It can make the marketing value far greater than your own reach or budget would withstand otherwise, but it starts with something much more than a sales pitch.

This sort of “influence marketing” is frequently spread far wider, because it makes use of more than just who you encounter, but also includes who they encounter. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that just because you give them good reasons, that they will use them, or that you will benefit. It just increases the probability, but when it is a hit, it is usually a bigger hit than expected.

Why SEO Allows Stronger Call to Action

People search for things online 24 hours per day, and some of them are shopping. If they search, but you’re not there with your offer to help them, the odds are pretty slim that they will become your customer.

There are many ways to target your market using social media, and it is extremely important. In fact, here is a great example of gathering data and targeting a market using Facebook (see “Facebook Marketing: Pages, Customer Modeling, Promoting, and Awesomeness“). However, you simply cannot downplay the fact that when somebody searches for something on Google, it is based on their intent to find something and not your intent to find them. They are searching for it on their time frame, using their criteria, so if they find you, there is a good chance to make them a customer. Even when it is not a shopping quest, they are clearly interested in the topic of the search or they would not have been searching.

When these same people who search the Internet are using social media, they may be shopping, too. Let’s not count on that, and let’s consider why branding is often a much smarter objective.

As a side note, something very practical about SEO is that it can produce both short-term profit gains and also long-term results with comparatively minimal maintenance. Social media has similar long and short-term benefits, but it will require highly attentive ongoing efforts.

Why Social Media Provides Stronger Branding

It is pretty clear that social media asserts a different set of standards to selling. If somebody reads your “buy it right now because you really need this and here’s why ours is the best” statement after searching for it, that’s great! Hopefully you will make it really easy for them to buy it right then.

On the other hand, if they see your pitch in their Facebook, Twitter, or other social media spaces, they may not be put off by it, but they are certainly not as likely to be in the market, currently. Unless it is an impulse buy, or something unique and special, your message will often be better received if it is branding-focused versus being overtly sales oriented. If you want it to be both popular and sales-oriented, you had better plan for there to be something in it for the people … like free money, free food, or something compelling.

The difference between overtly sales-focused efforts and branding is often made obvious by a much softer and customer-oriented approach. That is because, although a strong call-to-action may have good intentions for the customer, branding involves a process of giving people greater reasons to love the company.

In comparison to that SEO pitch I described, try to think of a branding approach more like this: “Yes, we sell that, but let us tell you all the cool stuff you can do with it. If you are looking for one of these, we will be delighted to assist you. Oh, and if you know somebody else looking for one of these, we would love to meet them and we’ll take good care of them.”

Bringing SEO and Social Media Together

Companies implement good SEO to make their website show up higher in search results, and for more search terms. It all makes good sense, and once people find them in a search, it is easier to drive a call to action. You know … giving them good reasons to buy, and asking for the sale.

Balanced Marketing is Productive Marketing

Social media is a bit trickier in some respects. If you are trying to sell something, it is important to know that if you do it with branding in mind, and make efforts to be useful and interesting, you will find that a lot more people will share your message with others. When they do that, they will share it in the form of links to your website. Those links to your website are what will help the shared content, everything it links to, and the whole website to rank better in search engines. Thus, you get the benefit of both the SEO and the social media.

Many people try hard to make these two things look totally divergent. Some will look at SEO as some kind of technical trickery, like maybe it is all in the website’s source code. In fact, there are many ways people will try to make SEO very confusing when it really isn’t. Yes, it is a very technical trade in many respects, but those who will have you believe that it involves machines more than it involves people are the same kind who will look at my source code to try and figure out my “tricks”. If you have a good sense of humor and are not easily offended, go ahead and look.

Sometimes, in a perfect world, you may find opportunities to strike a good balance by making something both “SEO Practical” and sales-oriented, while still having something useful enough to be “Social Media Popular” and shared by others. Although it is not always possible within the same content, it can happen, and I’ve seen it done. It requires balancing a good amount of usefulness and branding, while also having a strong call to action.

Summing it up: In the spirit of good social media, I hope you found this line of thinking useful. If so, please add your comments and share this article with others. In the spirit of SEO, click here to contact me and hire my services before your competition does. I only have an opening for one new client, so contact me right now, before I am booked solid and you miss the many great opportunities I can create for your company.

You see how that works? It is nice, isn’t it? Now what do you have to say about this?

Photo Credits:
Tightrope by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr
Barely Balanced by Frank Kovalchek via Flickr

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Marketing Clients vs. Crybaby Sissy Bed-Wetters

When people lack confidence in proper marketing, they lose! They lose time, they lose opportunities, and they lose money … lots of it! I don’t even feel a need to prove this, because for people who don’t get it, we have a phrase for that. The phrase is “survival of the fittest”, and if you have some guts, you are far more fit than a lot of your competition.

Believe me when I say that most of your competitors are total wimps! If we took them back to elementary school, you could see most of your competition walking to the office to call Mommy and ask her to bring a dry pair of pants to school. They are scared, and to say they are “pants-wetting scared” is not such a big stretch.

I mean, look at yourself … aren’t you just a tiny bit creeped out? Doesn’t it give you the willies just a little to do what it really takes to grow your company?

Seriously, if you never knew this, you deserve to know. Most people making decisions about marketing for their company are scared to death of marketing. I am going to share a real-life story with you in a moment to emphasize the point, but for a moment, just take it on faith.

This common fear of marketing is especially the case with the good kind of marketing that comes with proper research, solid strategy, efficient forecasting, and net profit … yes, positive return on investment. The reason the good profit-generating marketing is scariest of all is because it is the kind that requires decisive action … and money!

Drat! It’s another one of those long reads. Don’t worry, though, because I recorded it for you. Just click play and listen if you like. It is sure to give you some food for thought and a laugh … I’m sure of it!

The Way Many Companies View Marketing

A lot of companies seek the lowest possible effort and the highest possible return. That is smart business, but they often focus more on that low effort and completely lose sight of the highest return.

You see, now that every reception desk has a computer, marketing is pretty much free. Just look around and you may discover that this is how your competition sees it. Anybody can prepare and execute a brilliant marketing campaign. All they have to do is sign up for one of those Facebook thingies, Twitterize 25-26 hours per day, and put some smiley-happy employees and customers on YouTube.

Voila! The marketing is fixed, and the money train will be chugging down the tracks in no time!

It may sound crazy to you, and I hope it does, but this is really how a lot of companies approach their online marketing. It is so simple that all it will take is a tweet or a Facebook mention. They see companies like the ones mentioned in an article I read in Telegraph.uk. Here is a quote:

Ticketmaster estimates that every time one of their customers posts on Facebook that they’ve bought a ticket, their friends spend an additional $5.30 with the site. When last year’s Google conference was taking place, they tweeted the morning of the conference: “100 tickets left, 550 bucks a piece, use this promotion code”. 11 minutes later they tweeted, “Sold them, thank you.” That’s $55,000 in sales with one tweet in 11 minutes.

Rub a lamp and wish for a genie! You don’t have Ticketmaster demand or Google reach. Something is stopping you, though, and it is not the tools … it is the planning and strategy. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will likely keep getting what you get. If it is time to step it up, then step it up and do something brilliant. Do something with a strategy! On the other hand, if it is time to lie down and die … do that, and go peacefully. Just don’t keep waiting for that magic genie to arrive. He’s not coming!

Break for a Wise Marketing Tip:

Some people actually screw this all up and think that what they are paying for with proper marketing is just a task. Any moron can do a task, so it should be cheap, right? I provided some examples of this train wreck mentality in the articles as follows:

Social Media Marketing Pricing Like Cab Rides by the Pothole“

… and the profoundly absurd

“Hourly Rate for Setting Up Social Media Profiles?!“

Damn the luck, it seems that somebody tried to shove the whole population of marketing professionals into the same cage as if we are all the same critter. The good and bad are all mixed into one, and along with my high-end marketing buddies, I guess people surely think that we get paid for what we do.

The larger truth is that we get paid for what we know, how we know how to know what we know, how we think and analyze, who we know, and the other really unimaginable stuff that comes with experience, marketing talent, and brute creativity.

Pete and The Amazing Pee-Pants Pizza Parlor

I have a story about a guy named Pete. Seriously, this is a true story. Pete is very excited about selling his wildly amazing and awesomely marketable pizza franchise across the USA. He will possibly succeed, once he gets out of his own way, but he is still walking around in wet pants and trying to keep from vomiting at the thought of finally bringing it to market.

Sure, Pete logically knows that marketing is his most important asset. He realizes that Starbucks was a little coffee company and Subway was a little sandwich shop, and still would be without great marketing.

Actually, his name is not Pete, and his business is not pizza, but I’ll use that. His name is close enough to Pete, and his retail food franchise business is close enough to pizza to make the same point. The story is about a series of calamities that just drive me nuts. Nuts enough to share my opinion, and to welcome yours.

Here is the “hot sheet” version of how things have gone so far. Pete contacted me a year ago about his business. He was referred to me by a friend whom he trusts. Our mutual friend told Pete that the project was way out of her league. She explained that based on his hopes for massive adoption of his new franchise opportunity, he needs Murnahan (that’s me). Not a guy like me … me!

When Pete first contacted me, he was in an urgent rush to get his marketing in order. He was very concerned that he had already waited too long. He was afraid that based on his time frame for other business plans, he needed me on the project “yesterday”.

Pete was more than just a little blown away by things I shared with him about the possibilities for his business. I guess it was stupid of me to start dolling out free brain-juice, but heck, he was a referral, after all. Based on his own wildly flattering statements toward me, I was assured that he wanted to be my client, so I let fly with a few pan drippings from my brain in the roasting pan.

Dumb dumb Murnahan … I knew better, because giving too much freebie talk is a big open door to truckloads of non-paying brain work. I do it though, and it almost always bites me in the ass, because people really hate that transition to actually paying for the knowledge they need.

Skipping forward a damn long year and a whole bunch of phone calls that he has never paid for, Pete is calling me with wet pants again. He needs some serious help, and he talks like he is actually ready now.

The huge pause in his business was a funding snafu. Wouldn’t you know it that somehow those banking folks actually like qualified market projections in the business plan before they fund a deal. It is too bad Pete never thought of getting some better facts to work with. Maybe a year wouldn’t have spun by so rough for him.

Well, I guess we’ll kill the hooker tonight and worry about it tomorrow. Now we can just wing it on a half-assed budget and hope to make the bank happy. Yep, that’s how we roll, right Pete and Pete-like thinkers?

By the way, when I tease Pete about his wet pants or describe him as a shaky handed sweaty little fella who pulls the blankets over his head so the monsters don’t get him, I want to note that I like Pete. I like him plenty fine, even if he is a crybaby sissy bed-wetter and horrific planner.

Pete is a fine fella, and he will likely do very well in his business. His first and scariest step will be to listen to the consultant / strategist as much as he talks. Actually, before he can meet that scary challenge, he will have to get up off his steamy little pee-soaked wallet and pay for the scary monster he needs advice from.

The craziest thing I ever heard was when he finally rubbed his wet panties into my telephone ear yesterday and started asking for references. What the hell? We covered that last year! He has been putting his short-n-chubby in my ear all this time, reading my blog, sending me Facebook messages, email, and asking me for more brain-drippings, and now he’s asking if I’m qualified?! This is the same guy who has referred others to me when they needed serious help!

His biggest expressed concern is that I am a few hour flight away from his cozy little blankie. He wants to be able to manage my work close-up. Well if that isn’t silly … all it takes is money. If he is doing it right … I mean, right enough to sell 150 pizza franchises in the next two years, the least of his worry should be the cost of an airline ticket!

Somebody just effin’ give me a tequila, a hooker, and quarter to call home and I’ll sell more damn pizza stores than this guy can handle.

Pete has hopes, but they are only hopes so far. They are not goals, because he doesn’t have the market data to set goals yet. He is pretty reluctant to gather it, too.

Why do people try to kill me like this? Is it because they don’t have confidence in their market offering? Is it because they are so scared they would rather go broke than invest wisely in their own futures? Is it because they have no balls? What the hell?

I swear, if I put Pete in a room with the guy I recently wrote about hoping to put “100 percent” into his health and beauty industry marketing, but yet keep the budget under $10,000, I could slow down time enough that my trip to the looney bin will feel like a whole lifetime! Maybe my conniption will be worth it.

OK … that got a little teensy bit rant-ish, but sure was fun! Go ahead and level me out. Be my friend and help me to calm down and breath slower.

😉

I sincerely believe that marketing in itself is the hardest field of all to market to clients. It is because in damn near every other product or service I have ever marketed, there is always some sense that the potential customer has two brain cells to rub together. This is often simply not the case when people are in the market for marketing services. Not since the invention of the Internet money-train.

One more thing … Can somebody tell me who I need to whack over the head to get a decent client with dry pants?

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Do You Accept SEO or Social Media Marketing Contracts Under $10,000?

I could sit here at my computer all day and tease people who are willing to take on small contracts in the field of SEO and social media marketing, or the clients willing to pay them. Many of those clients are broke, and there are a lot of bad people with an SEO and social media flag waving to attract the last of their money.

Giving them a hard time can be very fun, but it is not really all that productive. After all, there is a huge majority of small businesses who seek somebody to help them, but do not have the needed resources for a grand entrance to the online market. There are also some talented marketing minds who like working with small or short-term contracts. I prefer to help bring them together.

I don’t accept those contracts, but not because I am an arrogant jerk who thinks he knows it all. I don’t arbitrarily look down upon those companies, and I don’t automatically look down upon the people serving them. It is just not my market, and I turn away business every day because of this.

If you accept small projects in SEO and social media marketing, I have some free leads for you. I don’t mean just a bunch of shabby sales leads from people hoping to spend an hour of research online to find a free website that will earn them a squillion dollars. I mean real companies hoping to make an entrance to their market.

This does not mean that I am a bad option, or that I am expensive. I return huge profits for my clients, and I am worth many times my rates. It also does not mean that you are bad, or “cheap”. We all have our market space here, and mine is in long-term and well-funded strategic projects. In fact, you can use me as an example to show your potential clients that you are not just trying to rip them off. It really does cost a lot of money and work to create success. Bigger success takes bigger experience, bigger money, and bigger strategy. Those are the projects I accept.

I believe that we both have a similar challenge of building confidence in customers. I even expressed some troubling truths only a few days ago in a long-winded article about a short-sighted customer who has done business with me for years. Check it out for yourself: “Marketing ROI Factor: Are You a Client or a Customer?”

In reality, the upfront cost of an optimal campaign in SEO or social media is prohibitive for the majority of companies. Sure, if they could pony up the money for a well-researched campaign, they could turn over their investment at a much higher velocity. As it is, they will have a higher opportunity cost by cutting corners, but that is often the only option. It is an option that you may be able to deliver.

Even when the cost is not the biggest hurdle, putting money into an online marketing campaign is a damn scary proposition for many companies. Even when and if they can swing the money, they will dip their toe in to check for sharks before they go swimming. It is frequently not the best option, but it is a popular option. Again, it is an option that you may be able to deliver.

Note: Sharks are my friends, and whales are my clients. The other fish are looking for you. You like fish, right?

People probably ask you a lot of questions about this industry. You will sometimes need a third-party resource to help make your point. I am happy to help you ease their tension, and to help them make better decisions. My blog is always here, and there is a lot of useful information in my archive. I don’t even want a finder’s fee to send paying customers your way, or to help you explain the benefits of SEO or social media marketing to your customers. Not at all, because if you have a small budget to work with, the last thing you need is to spiff me with money.

I love spiffs, but I prefer to pay them rather than receive them. Reference my article earlier this year titled “SEO and Social Media Reward: $5,000 for Introduction“. Yes, I really do prefer to pay you a $5,000 finders fee than for you to pay me a hundred. I am a money-spending madman like that. 😉

The Caveat … Yes, The Fine Print

The first thing to do is add your comment here on this article.

Of course, I don’t just want every cockroach in the Twinkies dumpster to hold out their hand for a free crumb. I want to hear from people who actually have a quality value proposition. The big catch is that for each person with their hand out, I will be watching. Yes, I will be looking at you, and judging you. I intend to provide a small degree of vetting. If I like what I find, I may put a spotlight on you in a follow-up article.

Because we are talking about people who looked to me for help, I am not about to mess up my reputation by referring them to somebody who will rip them off. I will watch my server logs to see how much and how long you have read my work. If you have been reading, and if you have subscribed, it is far more likely that we share similar principles. I will also notice if you have been a blog troll or lurker. If you are a non-communicating type of person, start communicating, and stop hiding in the shadows if you want my referral business.

Very Important: I will notice whether you are honest with your comment, and with your communications elsewhere on the Internet.

I welcome you to add your comments to explain your value. Feel free to spam all you like. If you seem spammy to me, I have a delete button for that. I tend to react pretty abruptly to people who annoy me. For example, don’t even think about commenting with your favorite keywords in place of a name. I am looking for people … real people with real names … who want more business.

The upside of my offer is that if you are legitimate, I would like to help my readers with appropriate options, and for us to possibly work together for mutual benefit. I am serious when I say that I want quality people to refer small project business to. If you are good and honorable, we may work together a lot in the future.

I have assembled a phenomenal team for producing massive success, but there never seems to be enough marketing talent to trust with the smaller projects.

I would also ask that in the event that you are ever over your head, that you consult me. You may find that you have enough resource to help that whale of a client after all.

Other Cost-Related Articles
Although it may seem hard to turn away a client only because of their budget, there are minimums I simply don’t work below. For more thought-provoking articles on the cost of SEO and social media marketing, and perhaps help with explaining cost to your clients, I offer the links as follows:

Photo Credit:
Broken Piggy Bank by Images_of_Money via Flickr

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Bashing SEO and Social Media Experts: Humor or Hazard?

I had to ask myself whether this is humor or hazard for me to give a swing at our ever-increasing population of SEO and social media “experts”. I guess the idea gave me just a little guilt pang at first, because I always heard that I should treat people the way I want to be treated. Who am I to tell anybody they don’t have what it takes?

Then I grinned from ear to ear, tucked my sweet love-everybody nature back in my shorts, and put my middle finger in the air. After all, this is not “biting the hand that feeds me” … this is harsh and very real truth. This is about educating, and saving a few lucky others from huge disappointments. This is about shining a spotlight on liars. This is a glimpse of reality! In fact, it is a reality that I intend to illustrate for you very clearly.

Are All SEO Liars?

No, not all search engine optimizers are liars. There truly is an enormous value in the trade, but because of that, it has attracted a lot of liars. Any good SEO knows that there is no reason to lie about the service. They may even help you to understand the most common lies of the industry. For example, here are a couple useful articles: “7 SEO Lies: How to Know When the SEO is Lying” or Good SEO vs. Bad SEO: How to Tell the Difference. Each of these include objective means to weed out the liars and cheats.

On the other hand, many self-proclaimed SEO will make claims like the one I found on Twitter pictured below. I am only listing one, but not because I have a problem with this one in particular. I just picked this one at random, but I actually dislike all of the squillion others out there lying to people about SEO. I just don’t want to waste more time making a huge list of them.

The Classic 2000 Website Visitors Per Hour Pitch

Khubah Jogja offers the opportunity to “make money online” and “get 2k visitor per hour”. That’s great, right?! I guess it may sound great, but then I checked out this Twitter user’s website and imagine what I found … some reality! The funny thing is that they actually have their website statistics viewable to the public using a service called “whos.amung.us”.

The biggest hour I found was three visitors, and the maximum visitors in a day was sixteen. In the image shown here, the one visitor represented was me. That is kind of a stretch from 2,000 per hour.

I don’t want to leave this up for too much confusion, so I checked with Alexa, Open Site Explorer, and others. Two thousand visitors per hour was not to be found. Then again I knew that already when I saw the article claiming that keyword meta tags make a big influence in search ranking. Not just that it was total crap, the article was not dated 1998 … it was from this year! If you think that old meta tags pitch is true, it will serve you well to read “SEO Meta Tags: Oh, You Must Be Another SEO Expert!”

Social Media Expert / Cattle Farmer

Perhaps not every instance is so extreme as the social media strategist / cattle farmer depicted here, but I really need to share this with you, because it almost made me pee myself with laughter and sob at the same time!

It is funny, but actually sad when you think of how widely accepted total confusion has become in social media.

I know that farming and ranching is hard work. It is really tough to get ahead in that industry, so why not augment the income and work as a social media strategist? That may just be the perfect fit!

Social Media Strategy ... or Cows ... We Have it All!

Yes, you can call me a jackass for singling this poor dear out. I mean, after all, at least she didn’t use a picture of some young hot chick in her profile, the way so many others do. In fact, she looks downright sweet, and wholesome. She is probably a really nice person, too … but she is also lying to herself and others. Her appearance would absolutely not turn me away if I was in the market for cows and chickens. Social media strategy, on the other hand, requires something other than just being sweet.

According to her website at “Lynda’s Social Media Strategy“ she is suggesting to “Use Social Media to Promote Your Business”. She even has descriptions and very low prices for her services. It includes pricing for a service that I pointed out as an absurdity and largely a rip-off a while back when I wrote “Hourly Rate for Setting Up Social Media Profiles?!”

How We Do it Down on the Social Media Strategy Farm

Contrary to her own advice and service offerings, when I clicked on the social media links on the right side of her page where it says “Follow”, I found a non-existent Blogger profile, the link to edit a LinkedIn account, links to Digg and Delicious (but not to a specific profile), an incorrect Feedburner link, a Facebook personal profile with 28 friends, a MySpace account, and a Twitter account.

Being a social media strategist, you may think she would use social media a lot. She was pretty scarce across the board, but I enjoyed this example. Within the Twitter account, the last five updates included a lot of weather change as follows:

“Snow outside. Good time to do some ghostwriting.” (on 20 January)

Then, five tweets and six months later …

“It’s hot no rain pasture’s drying up feed bill going up everything’s going up except my pay. Oh well…could be worse.” (on 19 July … earlier today)

I thought to myself that maybe she is actually doing what she says, and using her social media strategies for her own business down on the ranch. No, there was not a single social media instance of anything whatsoever at the Belle Manor Farms website. Go ahead … see how Lynda’s social media strategy is working out for her. Check out the Lynda’s Social Media Strategy Facebook Page that I only found after looking it up on her personal Facebook profile (not on her website). Maybe you could give it a “Like” for sympathy, since nobody else has.

Perhaps I’m just not clear on this yet, but it seems that Lynda, like so many others, is struggling with confusion of the difference between social media strategy and social media tactics.

Now Let’s Bash Murnahan

I know I may seem to be a real jackass when I ask questions like “Why Do You Want to Become an SEO and Social Media Expert?”

Maybe I’m just jealous of them for having a lack of a conscience. Maybe I’m bitter with them for becoming experts without actually having to spend decades to learn about marketing. Maybe I’m pissed because they get to have fun jobs outside of the Internet, while I am stuck here all day as CEO of a decade-old Internet company.

Sure, if I could have done it so easily, I would have a lot less gray hair today. Let me explain something for you, though, before you start calling me names.

Just because a person has a new computin’ machine does not mean they have an equal shot at this mythical money generator that people make the Internet out to be.

Just because “everybody” said you will miss huge opportunities by not being on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and the many other social metworks, it does not mean those “huge opportunities” are what they told you, or that they will come to you without equally huge effort.

Maybe “everybody” was exaggerating just a tiny bit when they said you would “earn millions online … easy … in your pajamas!” Maybe “everybody” was not lying to you, but just made it a little easier to lie to yourself.

There are a lot of damn liars out there on the Internet! Worse yet, the online marketing fields of SEO (search engine optimization) and social media marketing have them breeding like cockroaches. I think that an astonishing number of them are lying to themselves.

I hope you don’t let them lie to you, too. There are no “innocent victims” in these cases, because we each have the same opportunities to gather due diligence. The victims are better described as “ignorant victims”.

So, was it humor or hazard that I chose to share this with you? In my opinion, the humor is that anybody could actually be fooled by such absurdities. The hazard is that such absurdities even exist.

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