ethical SEO Archives by Mark Murnahan

Is Today’s Marketing Mostly Just Lies?

Have you ever felt so sick of people feeding you lies about marketing that you can still taste it the next morning? Those lies often leave us, as a society, with a bad taste in our mouth for the whole concept of marketing. It creates a heightened level of cynicism that was not there before, and it spreads like a bad rash.

Isn’t it time to take inventory of what you’ve been accepting on faith, and start to question it? I think so, and I think it should apply to marketers and their clients alike. Of course, that will require a shift toward using due diligence and common sense. When you wonder if what you’ve been told is a lie, do you accept the responsibility to find the truth, or do you just give in and believe it because it is what you want to believe?

It is not my full-time job to be a whistle-blower about the abundance of bad marketing, but I’d say I definitely have a knack for it. I also have a sense of industry responsibility to balance out all the worthless junk and cons with some common sense and honesty … brutal honesty. Maybe I shouldn’t harp on it so much, but there are many instances when I see just how badly lies about online marketing can hurt a company. It is true that many marketing efforts can cause a net loss even greater than the upfront price paid.

I’ll wrap this up with a real life example of a company that was scammed for many thousands of dollars, but this is also about the course that brings them to accept their defeat rather than fight back. I’ll begin with some observations, and I’ll include some links throughout this article to extended resources on related topics. You may like to give attention to those.

Convincing Evidence of a Marketing Decline

I am fully convinced that the majority of things people are promoting to fix your online marketing is a string of lies. I see it all the time that somebody lied to somebody else, and now they are out to sell it to you. I suspect that many of the people lying don’t even know they are lying … they believe what they have been told so completely that they actually see it as the truth. There is a huge component of the blind leading the blind, and taking inspiration from even the slightest of success stories they read about on the next amateur marketing blog. I can prove the concept, too … just have a good hard look at this piece about the sad state of SEO and social media marketing experts.

Consider this: How many times have you heard how important it is to use Facebook? I like Facebook just fine, and it can be very useful for marketing, but how much of what you hear is hyperbole and lies? After all, how much do you actually expect to buy from that guy on Facebook trying so hard to sell you his stuff? Do you think the answer is completely different if you asked him the same question about you?

This is not about Facebook, and I actually know for a fact that Facebook can play an amazing role in a marketing strategy. Facebook has performed wonderfully for my wife’s cakes and confections company (of course, she is far sweeter than I am), and it has become invaluable to many of my clients. What I am very unsettled about is the utter loss of common sense I see surrounding “miracle cures” like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the rest of the wagon full of assorted snake oils.

Sure, maybe snakes have great oil, but do you rub it on your feet, fry with it, put it in your bath, or what? There is no perfect single-source cure for your every marketing objective, and it takes much more than just showing up! It is important to note that “everybody” is not your target market, but that’s how I see a majority of marketers promoting marketing these days. If you are hoping to earn squillions of dollars, or even a few dollars, just by being on Facebook without a strategy, you will be disappointed. Let’s try to be more realistic … please!

The Internet has largely become a society of marketing. Whether it is marketing to have more friends, more business, or just to feel more connected with society, it becomes a reflection of how we each market ourselves, our ideas, our thoughts, and our beliefs. We must question “how much of this is real versus imagined, and accurate versus lies?” Otherwise, don’t we all suffer?

For your enjoyment, I have included a video about lying.

It is easy to see how the industries related to marketing a business online became so hard to trust. After all, who doesn’t want a commission … a job … a paycheck? Many people will lie to get those things. You will find a massive abundance of them in marketing … especially online marketing. The end result is that it does not matter if the lies are due to ignorance or greed. Lies are lies, and there are no innocent lies, nor innocent victims, as long as the truth is available. There are just the willingly confused.

Great Marketing Professionals Are Not Just Mythical

I’ve got to say that there are some amazing marketing people out there. There are also many of them with a lot of integrity. I know they exist, because I’ve met many of them. I’ve also trained many of them. The trouble is that the field of marketing was flooded with newcomers like a tsunami. Now that it all looks so “easy” to reach a huge audience online, there is little wonder why everybody wants to be an expert. It is a mathematical truth that most of them are not, and will never be very good at marketing. Marketing takes training, it takes experience, and it takes aptitude, but since the majority of today’s online marketing newcomers have very little of these things, they lie … even to themselves. I suppose it must seem easier to lie than to go through the hard process of working and learning their way to the top. Only the few with high integrity and strong work ethic will survive in the long run, but there is a constant flow of new liars … so look out!

There is also a huge audience who are swallowing those lies like a free bacon sandwich and washing them down like sucking free grape soda through a garden hose. It is maddening that they are in even greater abundance than the lying newcomers shamelessly taking their money. They are getting more gun-shy with each leap of faith, so it makes me wonder what it will look like when the whole thing collapses like a house of cards, and there is nobody left to believe it when they actually do encounter the truth. Have you seen the housing market? Most people thought that would never collapse, but it did!

The Marketing Con Job I Promised

I told you I’d wrap this up with an example of a company that was scammed. In this case, it is a friend of my friend and colleague. It is driving him nuts to see his friends get ripped off, so he asked me to help.

The company is paying thousands of dollars per month for search engine optimization services. They have previously paid multiple SEO companies to optimize their law firm websites to reach their target market, but each time, the results were just as bad. They have largely lost faith that online marketing can help them at all, but at the same time, they are strangely afraid to stop sending the checks … just in case.

The latest rip-off has performed so horribly that more than five months into their $36,000 contract, they are receiving under 30 monthly website visits that are even from the same country as where they provide their legal services. The last report I saw showed just over 600 monthly website visits from Southeast Asia, while only 28 were from within the United States. When the law firm asked for a list of the work performed, the marketing company replied with what one could logically estimate at under an hour of work … total … after months of being paid thousands of dollars per month.

The law firm has said they want my help, but they are “waiting it out” to see if the crooked SEO provider will do right by them. It becomes really upsetting as I consider how frequently I hear stories just like this. They keep hoping the lies will somehow miraculously become the truth, even when they have been presented with concrete proof that the SEO company is actually hurting their efforts … quite likely well into the future.

What do you think? Why do people allow themselves to be ripped off? Should marketing companies be willing to lie, just because it is how others do it? Shouldn’t we all use more due diligence and common sense? Am I doing this all wrong by trying to be honest in a dishonest world?

Please answer me!

P.S.

If you question how it can possibly be the majority of marketing that is plagued with lies, be sure to notice that there is a lot more marketing that you never see than what you do see … but yet, somebody is paying for it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Google Panda, Google Bowling, and How Bad SEO Can Kill Your Business

Google's: Watching from Above — Google's Panda: Watching from Above

Your search engine ranking efforts may be hurting your business a lot more than you think! Whether you are the person handling your search engine destiny, or you have hired a search engine optimizer to handle it, this is information you should know. I’ll start with some simple facts.

Google makes frequent changes to their algorithm (roughly 500 per year). Yes, algorithm … the mathematical methods used to determine which websites will rank higher or lower in searches. On occasion, the changes are quite significant, such as the “Panda” series of updates (most recently Panda 2.5). We should expect changes, and it is a very good thing.

Google has a lot at stake in continuing to deliver the most relevant results when we go searching. From a search user’s standpoint, it is excellent, because it helps us find what we are looking for, easier and faster than ever. From a business standpoint, it is a huge cause for concern to many people, and often rightfully so.

Should you worry about Google’s changes? Perhaps yes, and perhaps no. Let’s see if I can answer that question. I’ll address some changes in layman’s terms, including a blast from the past that seems to be making a resurgence, which is “Google Bowling”, and it is not to be overlooked. In fact, I’ll explain how the methods of link building which many SEO sell to their customers is the same tactic other companies use to negatively affect competing websites. Please don’t click away if some of this seems too basic, or too advanced. There is value here, and I’ll make it easy to understand.

In Google’s Own Words:
“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”
Source: The Official Google Blog

I often challenge search engine optimization providers for their abuse of people’s fears by telling them SEO requires constant technology changes to keep up. What the abused SEO-buying public hesitates to understand is that SEO is not a function of technology. It is generally very untrue that search engine changes will adversely affect rankings based on technology issues. I have extensive proof of this in competitive markets where I have ranked websites at the top of searches, but made absolutely no changes. Some have not been touched in a decade, but still rank in the top one to three positions for competitive searches. Of course, that only happens if you are doing things above board, and not trying to cheat your way to the top … or paying somebody else to do it.

The problem that is hitting many websites hard with the new Google changes is that they have, either knowingly or unknowingly, used practices which Google has recently cracked down on harder than ever before.

What Google Changed in Panda Update … In Simple Terms

Some of the most recent Google algorithm changes are making a broad impact across the Internet. Big change always sends the cockroaches of the search engine optimization industry scurrying for a new patch of darkness. This time, the changes are in a series of updates called “Panda”, with the latest to date being called “Panda 2.5”. The focus of the updates is to wipe out some of the most prevalent and slimy tactics companies use to try and trick their way to top search engine rankings. I’ll share some reasons this could affect your online business future.

Panda Update is Good News ... Unless You're the Bamboo!

Unique Content Matters: Copycats Don’t Have Nine Lives!

One hard-hit area is companies taking content from other websites and re-purposing it on their own website. This can be as simple as a retailer re-using a manufacturer’s description, or a lazy content producer stealing somebody else’s work. An extremely hard hit area is auto-blogging, which automatically scrapes content from other websites to increase blog content. The more “innocent” instance uses automated means to replicate product descriptions from a manufacturer or supplier database. It happens a lot, and has been widely accepted for years, but many companies are finally seeing the downside. If you are unsure whether this is being done with your website, you may soon find out … the hard way.

What’s worse, is that a lot of people are paying search engine optimizers who use links from this kind of reduced-quality website to link to theirs. These dirty SEO tell the client that more links are a good thing, so they create thousands of them, but they don’t tell the client the rest of the story. It is extremely common, and very destructive, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

A huge number of websites are hit by Google’s more hard-line approach with Panda updates. It is often because somebody opted for the easy way, instead of the right way. This is the way of the dark side of the SEO industry, but somebody keeps feeding the SEO monster, and it’s not me.

I cannot call anybody a victim if this hits them in the wallet, because there are no victims. There are only “willingly confused“. Due diligence and common sense often go out the window when it comes to marketing, and especially as it applies to the Internet. People really want to believe that “easy success” actually exists.

Many people previously decided that the easy way is the better way, but its not true, and Google is proving it. It takes a lot of work to create truly excellent unique content that will perform well in searches. A lot of companies fell for the notion of trying to save money by using cheap SEO tactics and taking shortcuts, but Google is fighting back. Now people are finding out that the cost of shortcuts is a whole lot more than doing it right in the first place. If you who want to know “How much does SEO cost”, I suggest searching Google for it … but be sure to look for this article while you are there: “How Much Does SEO Cost?” is The Wrong Question. It won’t be hard to find … I wrote it.

Links Are Not Created Equal!

A tactic that Google is aggressively punishing is buying or trading links from other websites to make your website falsely appear more credible and “important”. This has always been a sore spot for Google, but more today than ever, as the Internet’s growth accelerates. Google wants to judge the Internet by what people like and find useful, and not things which have been falsely inflated by “content farms” and low-quality link gathering. It is why I have always spoken out against such tactics. An example is my article titled “Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work!“. I don’t think I can be a lot more clear than that.

Acquiring links is something that most search engine optimizers will tell you is very important. What too many of them don’t explain is that doing it the wrong way will, with near certainty, cause more harm than good. Link building strategies are not created equal, and a huge number of SEO are doing it totally wrong! It is another in a long list of lies SEO tell.

Google knows who links to your website, and who links to the websites that link to your website. There are no secrets here … if there is a link in a public place on the Internet, it is Google’s intent and responsibility to know about it. From all of those links, Google creates and evaluates the website’s overall link portfolio. It is a primary factor in determining what will be listed in search results, and where it will appear on the list. If the links in a website’s overall portfolio of links are not relevant, or are not what Google can logically (algorithmically) expect as a natural conclusion, the website will suffer.

Google Bowling and Bad SEO

I touched on some of the things Google does not like, but now, let’s imagine reverse engineering this. What if somebody else tried to make it look like you used these tactics? One way that seems possible is “Google Bowling”. That is the practice of buying or otherwise acquiring low-quality links to a competitor’s website in hopes of affecting a penalty against them from Google.

Wait! It seems crazy if there is actually a value in this kind of links that they could be used for harm, right? Well, there is not a value in them, and Google Bowling is a real thing … just google it. Directing a high volume of those low-quality links that so many SEO are selling is actually often used against competitors. It is an old trick, but it appears to be making a resurgence since Google’s Panda updates.

That is a dirty tactic, but does it work? Many indications show that it can and does work. Before you worry, here’s the good news: It will generally only have an affect against websites with a weak link profile. The bad news is that if you don’t have a mature and high-quality link profile, it may include you.

This came to mind recently, as I discovered nearly 300,000 new links pointing to my blog, here at “SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog”. They all sprung up in only a few days, which is a bad signal to Google of somebody buying links. Some people would surely say “Wow, that’s great! Hundreds of thousands of free links!” To say the least, I was not so delighted. Somebody is trying to Google Bowl my blog. I discovered it because of excessive Google Alerts, and also signals in my Google Webmaster Tools. See the example screenshot below.

Note: A few days after I took this screenshot and wrote this article, the new link creation peaked at over 2.6 million new incoming links.

Screenshot of My Google Webmaster Tools Links Report

The good news is that I already had a baseline of over 150,000 incoming links. Some are good, while some are not so good, but it is a good balance. It is a mature link profile with a significant volume of high-quality links in the mix. If not for that, I would be worried, and with good reason.

With a good existing link profile, the worst scenario would be to file a reconsideration request with Google and explain the issue. With a link profile built on weak tactics, the challenge to recover becomes much more tedious, and emphasizes the value of being proactive.

Summary of Google’s Panda Update

When you have thousands … millions … billions, and even squillions of companies competing for the same space, it is pretty easy to see how trickery and fraud could flourish. It is easy for Google (and other search engines) to see this, too. They have billions of dollars at stake, and some of the brightest minds working to thwart that kind of trickery and fraud.

It should be no surprise why, as high search engine rankings became more challenging, the masses have scurried to try and figure out social media. Social media is an important signal which Google uses to measure a website’s value. In actuality, Google is the biggest example of social media there is. The links to and from websites are the most profound social measurement across all social media. It reflects what the people like and do not like. When that is faked, Google has a lot of ways to measure it.

As long as you are not sending false signals by trying to cheat search engines, you have little to worry about when they make changes. The sad fact is that many people are sending false signals, and they don’t even know it. They relied on search engine optimizers who offered a good pitch and a low price. The outcome is often far more costly than doing it right in the first place. Doing it right does not cost money, it pays money. Doing it cheap and haphazard is where the big cost comes in.

Search engine ranking holds many businesses’ success or failure in the balance. Where your website is ranked in search results, whether you accept this or not, can make a huge impact in your business. Most companies don’t fully recognize the degree of impact, because they have never been ranked very well. It is true … most … and that is because the space at the top of the list is very limited.

P.S. If you are the thumb-sucker behind trying to Google Bowl my blog, know this: People are sick of your kind of useless tactics. They already wasted their money trying it your way, and they are pissed. That’s why I often write about your type of SEO, and warn people. I suspect you are pouting like a wet toddler who never got enough love, but you won’t bump me from your favorite spot. Count on it!

Photo Credits:
Panda by geopungo via Flickr
Panda Floss by istolethetv via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

SEO and Social Media Fear of Being “The D Word”

Beware of The D Word ... They May Be Right!

I believe there is an unrealistic fear that challenges many people in my line of work, and I am bold enough to address it even if others are not. I also seek your input, so please don’t be shy.

There are certain elements within the fields of SEO and social media marketing which cause many misunderstandings and hardships for reputable people with good means, and good intent. People have chosen many names for the people representing those bad elements, but one stands out more prominently than others. For now, I’ll call it “the D word”, and it is something that wise people must be cautious of being tagged with.

It seems that the bad elements in social media and SEO have caused some quality people to become unreasonably afraid to properly promote their goods or services. It affects many other industries, and it seems to have created an overall hypersensitivity which causes many people to only hint about how they actually keep their business running, rather than be upfront about it. This is often an unreasonable fear, but definitely worth some consideration. I’ll explain this with a story.

Not so long ago, I tried my best to be less self-conscious about what others might say, and become more promotional of my own services. Yes, more promotional, rather than less. It felt kind of awkward, because that is the opposite of what I often suggest to others. This is because over-promoting your own value is often looked down upon, regardless how worthwhile it is. Being less promotional and more promotable by focusing on others often leads them to do the promoting for you. The trick is in having a good balance. After all, even if you are astonishingly good at something, if you rely solely on others to do your promoting, you will often be let down.

Finding a Promotional Balance in Social Media

What I am describing can really go either way, and finding just the right balance between self-promotion and being promoted by others is a tricky matter. You see, there is this awkward little piece of our psychology that makes us far less likely to promote something that benefits somebody else more than it benefits us. This often holds true, even if we actually think something is worth promoting. It is a bit cynical, but it is a common reaction of people, and it is hard to change that.

An ideal marketing balance lies somewhere between remaining highly “promotable” by others while still effectively promoting things which actually sustain our business needs. To meet this challenge, it is often considered best to keep our efforts more useful to others than to ourselves, and I believe that’s an excellent goal. It makes us more creative and helps us to be more fun and entertaining. It can also have a really big downside.

In my case of seeking that balance, it is not about a lack of confidence. I know that what I do for others benefits them more than it benefits me. I work hard to be useful to others, and I have a solid record of helping companies to become very successful by implementing effective marketing strategies. I am extremely good at getting websites ranked in the top of search engine results, and I know how to make something very marketable … except my own services.

So why is it that I find it so challenging to create a balance? In simple terms, I don’t want to be one of “those people” who are unfairly chastised for trading money for the things in my brain. You know, because people often think things like experience and knowledge should be free. For more on that mentality, I seriously suggest reading “Strategic Marketing Failure: Are You Giving it Up Too Easy?”

Why the Social Media Promotional Balance Occurred to Me

My moment of introspection came differently to me. It was not because anybody called me “the D word”. It came after several friends told me that my own self-marketing didn’t have enough “bite”. Really, they told me I needed to be more upfront by saying “Hey, look at me! I accept money from companies to make them more successful in their marketing … and I have a hell of a track record of success!” They said I needed to be more clear that the things I write about are the things I get paid to do, and that i don’t cost companies money … I make them money.

That should be simple, and I can support that with facts.

My argument was that I didn’t want to be one of those “douchebags” (the “d word”) so many people were talking about. I didn’t want to be berated for that horribly ugly term, “self-promotion”.

I am very critical of the way some people promote themselves in my line of work, because I can see through the hype. I despise the dishonesty and sleaziness of many people’s marketing approach in my industry, and I refuse to do it. I have always been extremely opposed to taking the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach, even to the point of under-hyping myself to less than half the level of my own credibility and experience. If I boasted with truth half as much as others in my field boast with lies, I could knock a bunch of them right off the totem pole … but risk being a “douchebag” by doing it.

I even felt really awkward the first time I placed ads on my blog, because “douchebags” do that. I was even more concerned when I added that awesome popup reminder to subscribe to my blog … but now I’m really glad I did it. I described the considerably tiny amount of friction I got from it in my earlier article titled “Social Media Goals and Complications of Winning“, but it has been an overall success.

The Cynics Are Not Buying your Lunch!

I have said it before, but it is worth reiterating … The cynics are not buying your lunch!

It is easy to forget that many people are cynical and insulting without good reasons. I realize some people will not immediately recognize that I actually teach people good and sensible no-hype ideas about their marketing. Most people who look a little closer change their mind once they get to know me, and my work. Unfortunately, that initial concern of a “douchebag” moniker held me back, and still does to some degree. The good news is that I’m getting over the concern and finding it easier to say “Hey, look at me! I accept money from companies to make them more successful in their marketing … and I have a hell of a track record of success!” I am also finding it a lot easier to say “I would like to talk with you about improving your marketing.”

I’ll tell you why it got easier … because it is all true, and it is how I earn a living. Just because some few outspoken people do not like it does not change the fact that I am still providing more value for free than many people do for pay.

I was reminded of all this today as I went through a list of new people following me on Twitter. I found myself making fast judgments about them. It all got me to wondering how I might look, on the surface, and before people get to know me. It made me wonder how many people suffer on one side or the other of this balancing act. It appeared to me that more of them were afflicted on the opposite side of the self-promotion equation.

I think it is an important thing to be aware of in either instance, and I hope I have encouraged you to step back and try to imagine how others see you. Maybe you are a little too “douchebag”, and maybe you are not quite enough “douchebag”. If you are like me and not making it clear enough about the action you want people to take, you may need some more “bite”, too. It is worth some consideration.

This sort of insecurity has begun to fade for me, and it is because I took another look at just how successful I have helped others to become in their businesses. Yes, in the end, I came to understand that I really am damn good at what I do. If you hate me for it, maybe you just hate me for being a “douchebag”. As long as it is totally unfounded, I’m OK with that.

I’d like to know what you think. Have you encountered this, too?

Photo Credit: Shattonbury via Wikipedia

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Does a Slick Sales Pitch Work in Social Media?

Have you ever seen one of those slick sales pitches that seem to suck the money right out of your pocket? You know, like those vacuum cleaner demonstrations where they show you how their vacuum will pick up nails and screws, and even lift a bowling ball with its superior suction.

These are the sort of clever sales tactics where they show that even after all those nails and screws, it will still pick up the dirt that your tired old machine leaves behind. The dirty “proof” is right there in front of you, and you don’t really want your home to be that filthy, do you?

With all the filth of nasty bacteria and dust mites, it is only a matter of time until your kids get asthma, and the doctor bills will cost you a squillion times what their vacuum cleaner will cost. So, really, they are not selling you a vacuum cleaner. They are saving your kids’ lives, and keeping you from going bankrupt with all the medical bills.

This is really not a laughing matter, and it all goes to prove why you need the Sucker Sucker 4000! The massive power of the Sucker Sucker 4000 will suck up dirt better than the competition, but at a fraction of the cost. When you add in those medical bills, it actually pays you to buy this machine!

Plus, every spouse is more amorous when their back is not hurting. Think about how many times your wife complains about hauling that big old heavy vacuum up and down the stairs. She won’t be complaining of a backache with the Sucker Sucker 4000! You like sex, don’t you?

Guess what! Your tired old vacuum will do most of that stuff, too! It is a sales pitch, and it is not designed to save your kids’ lives. It is designed to get the money out of your pocket and into theirs.

The Tragedy of Social Media Pitches

There is no disputing the value of good marketing. Marketing is where the sales come from. Marketing builds companies, and puts the money in their bank account.

Marketing has changed, and many companies struggle to adapt. They are trying so hard to hold onto yesterday’s values, that their marketing sucks as strong as that vacuum cleaner. They are still trying to sustain the lies and deception of old-school pitches, and excessively boastful statements, while the market passes them by. The smart ones figured out that they just needed to provide the best offerings they can, and be honest, and their fans will do the boasting for them.

People got smarter, and many cleverly devised mysteries were revealed. The semi-honest tactics that used to bring in customers may still work for a while, but not forever. It mostly works on the naive, who do not take the extra effort to shop around and pay attention. Those naive and impulsive people are wising up. The most naive of all were the same people who took the economic collapse extra hard. They were suckered far too often, and now they are mad! The ease of comparison shopping and more cautious spending makes the slick pitches less effective.

Just look at my industry for an example. How many people in the SEO (search engine optimization) industry do you think have built up sales with sleazy tactics? I see it all the time, and when customers find out the SEO is a fraud, and their tactics are more harmful than good, they change their company name and go into hiding like Osama bin Laden. It happens a lot more than you may think. It is like those traveling magazine salesmen. By the time you realize you never got the magazines you paid for, they are in another town, scamming another would-be reader.

What about social media marketing? Have you happened to notice the massive number of people who became “social media experts” in the last few years? How did that happen? They were not trained in marketing, or have decades of experience, but now they know a bunch of buzz words and how to suck up bowling balls with a vacuum cleaner.

It happened because people really want to have hope, and that is the big con job of the majority of social media marketing people. They sell ridiculous hopes that they will save companies from destruction by setting them up on Facebook and Twitter. As with other industries, people are figuring things out the hard way, and now they are starting to shop more carefully. Many of the “social media experts” are not so expert once you lift the curtain and turn on the lights.

A strong case can be made about the uneven distribution of intelligence among our population. Yes, there are a lot of very unintelligent people out there who will buy anything! You are different, and I know that, because you are here and reading my blog. You have a higher I.Q. than a potato, so you can surely see beyond the common trickery.

Some Truth About a Sales Pitch

The truth about a sales pitch is that they are designed to bring you to an emotional peak, and then close the sale while you are still excited about the product or service. The numbers may vary by industry, but there is generally less than one percent of people who will come back for the purchase if the sale is not closed immediately at the conclusion of the presentation.

That is the old school pitch, and it is very hard for companies to let go of that power, and to work hard enough to earn a customer’s business based on truth and trust.

Even in cases where the sale is not made right then, the buyer’s decision has often been made. They are either committed to the sale, or further consideration of the sale, or they are not. This goes for any pitch.

How this is applied to online marketing, and especially in social media marketing efforts, is that the buyer has a lot more control of the sales pitch. The process is more long-sighted, and it allows customers to make better decisions. It also requires companies to work harder to avoid “no” until they get the “yes” answer they wanted.

Along with a social media pitch, customers will Google your name, check for reviews, and see if your equivalent to the Sucker Sucker 4000 is what you claim that it is. If it really is, they may decide to watch you and think about your product or service for a while, until they are ready to buy. That scares the heck out of a lot of companies, because it is so foreign.

The good news about the sales that come from social media sources is that the customer is often far more aware of the offering, and will be a better customer because of their higher level of confidence.

If you are doing your job right, the customer will pay attention. They will bookmark your website, subscribe to your mailing list, and they will think about the wonderful day when they will own what you sell. Until that time, it is your job to make it easier for them to remember you, and how much better they will feel once they make their purchasing decision.

Once they are your customer, it is your duty to be sure they love your brand enough to tell their friends, and give you positive reviews across the Internet. When this happens, the sales cycle comes full-circle, and you are on a path to growth.

Some Options for Your Sales Pitch

The way I see it is that you have some options to consider. There are many degrees of how much you will incorporate these extremes, and finding your perfect balance is important.

Option One: You could just keep sucking up nails and looking for more people to present your pitch to. You can keep dismissing the non-buyers as idiots and child abusers for leaving their home so filthy by not buying your Sucker Sucker 4000.

Option Two: Another option is that you show more longevity, take a long-term approach, and help others to do the selling for you. You can give the real facts, keep the hype a bit less creepy, and cultivate a customer base who love you for your integrity and fine offerings.

Option One focuses on short-term drama and urgency, while Option Two focuses on long term success and building trust in a market segment. There really is a good balance between short-term and long-term objectives for any company.

Long-term social media objectives often come with more pain in the short-term, and short-term objectives often come with more pain in the long-term. Sometimes success is a matter of determining your tolerance to pain.

Oh, and by the way … did you Google me, check my background, and subscribe to my blog, yet? Come back any time to read some more. I’ll be here when you are ready to do business. 😉

Photo Credits:
Arco Wand Vacuum Cleaner by Marxchivist via Flickr
23.4.2009 by Miika Niemelä via Flickr
Hey Dorks, Who Is Your King Now??? by Rob Boudon via Flickr

Podcast: Play in new window | Download