Maybe the rebel in you says “Who cares what Google has on me?” Maybe you really don’t care, but if that’s the case, let us consider reasons why you really should care. Maybe you just gave up trying to have a “clean” representation on Google. Too many people view it as a futile effort and throw in the towel, give up, and just live with it.
It may shock you how many websites collect information about you, and what they are presenting to anybody looking. What Google is telling people about you matters more than ever before. Just one ugly social media rant on a bad day – or worse, one politically incorrect slip on your part may cost you, big. Add in some faulty information or somebody with the same or similar name, and it can be a big problem – but avoidable.
It recently struck me, as I decided to re-publish this old blog after taking it down five years ago. I want my own words to be there when they Google Mark Murnahan.
Even if you don’t care, somebody probably does care what the Internet says about you. It isn’t just about looking good among friends. It can cost you a future job – or even a current job. It could keep you (or your kid) from getting that college acceptance letter (true story). It could mean you don’t get a second date. It could even hurt somebody near you. As a father, you can bet I’m Googling the kids that my kids hang out with, along with their parents.
The reasons to be aware and manage what’s out there are numerous. An estimated seventy-five percent of companies will Google your name to make hiring decisions. I suspect that’s a low estimate. What if you are not looking for a job? Maybe the threat doesn’t feel as grave, but bosses eventually retire, quit, or move on. What if the new boss wants to know you a little better?
What will they find?
What about a date? It may seem all magical at first, but when they stop responding to your messages, it may be time to see what they found online, and freshen it up a bit.
There are many reasons to consider what’s out there in the wild, with your name on it. Information doesn’t even have to be true to cause damage. It’s really worth the minutes it takes to find out, and begin to address it.
Being proactive and building positive information in search results is the best answer. That makes it much harder for the ugly stuff to build up later. If it’s already a bit messy, it is time to give Google something positive to show people.
I want to share a tool I found useful, and unlike others I have seen. Note that this is unsolicited. I am not paid to write this. If I seem excited about it, that’s because I found it to be a very useful and informative site. I am highly impressed.
BrandYourself offers a free tool to help you discover things that may be holding you back or harming your good name, online. It will find things you may not realize are out there in the wild, including a thorough look at search and social media sites. The results may surprise you.
A free BrandYourself profile will give you another page that will climb the search rankings and help knock down another of the things you don’t want in the top listings. It will also help the good information that you list on your profile, such as your LinkedIn, Twitter, your blog, or other pages, to rank better and hold their position. This makes it a great tool, both proactively and reactively, to improve your online reputation.
The tools of BrandYourself are robust, well-researched, and include useful tips to help you do it yourself. You can also set up notifications to keep an eye on your progress. They have service upgrades available, and even a Concierge Service in case you need their professional help.
Rather than explain it all to you, here’s their “Shark Tank” pitch from 2015. Notice that they turned down millions of dollars from the Sharks, but went on to do far better elsewhere. Since that time, they have grown the tools on an impressive scale. The social media tools are very robust, and the search value is excellent.
Here is an example of a BrandYourself profile: Mark Murnahan
Social media should be an invaluable asset to a job seeker. At least that is the case if what we read is true. There are many stories of people landing a dream job with little more than a tweet on Twitter. Others will say it was their really great connections on LinkedIn, or friends who helped them spread their word on Facebook.
We’ve all surely heard that recruiters rely heavily on the use of social media for filling positions. It’s why we take down all of the party pics on Facebook, and stop beating our chest about politics or religion on Twitter. Those recruiters are watching. Right?
According to some people, recruiters and hiring managers are filling their quotas with the use of what they call “social recruiting”, but is it actually the way they’re telling it? Is social recruiting really the way jobs are being filled? I know what they’re saying, but I see something very different in what they’re actually doing.
As I see it, there are three very useful functions of social media for recruiters, as it applies to job candidates. I question how recruiters view each of these, and I have tried to identify which functions are considered important to them – if any. If you are a recruiter, please share your insight with other readers. In my estimation, the best social media assets for recruiters are as follows:
Networking/discovery of candidates
Candidate research
Communications with candidates
Many people will claim that social media is highly important to recruiters, but I think we should test this theory in the real world. Actually, I already have done a bit of testing, and I have some good reasons to question the importance they place on each of these three facets I’ve listed. I will share what I have found.
First, for job seekers, I want to point out that the “old fashioned” job seeking methods are still very important. I will explain this by sharing my experience, and I really believe it should not go overlooked.
“Old Fashioned” Job Hunting is Still Important!
My search started out really exciting, but a little bit “old fashioned”. Even as a person who has written more than a million words about social media, including a book, my first efforts were the old fashioned way, combined with the use of social media.
It was a calculated effort. I carefully considered companies where I would love to work, and I did my research on them. I connected with employees, asked questions, learned about the company culture, and developed a good picture of the company and their needs.
I defined their expectations, and I formulated my approach. I wrote out a brilliant résumé and some amazing cover letters. I built my case by explaining all the great reasons I would be an asset, and also how much I would enjoy being a part of their organizations.
I sent my letters to the people in charge at the companies I had so greatly admired. I even sent them by FedEx to be sure the right people received them. That should work, right? It should at least help.
Recruiters and Social Media Candidate Research
Where I imagined the social media would be most important to these chosen companies was in the area of candidate research. If the human resources department and hiring managers were going to use social media as a hiring tool, they would find out a lot of great things about me.
In fact, if they gave social media much weight at all, I would surely stand out. My reputation is squeaky clean, people say nice things about me, and I’m even pretty popular by most standards. I have a ginormous blog readership (and no, I’m not calling you “husky”). Google search results for my name paint a picture of a successful executive – and not an ax murderer. I have over 25,000 followers on Twitter, a solid Klout score, and I look good by all of those other superficial measures that some people think matter. To top it off, about the most incriminating photo of me on Facebook is when I was caught wrapped in a pastel blanket and napping on the sofa snuggled up beside one of my children.
Incriminating Image of Murnahan on Facebook - Yes, He Sleeps!
If social media was actually a significant factor to these recruiters, I should be a shoe-in.
Oh, but it is not so simple. I followed up on my efforts with telephone calls and letters. I refrained from belching, cursing, or any of the other big deal breakers. I subsequently discovered there are many reasons for not landing a particular job – or even getting an interview. There is a lot of competition.
Timing is also very important in a job hunt. Many companies will advertise that they are hiring for a given position, but that is often long before the position is actually to be filled. Some of them have already made their choice for a candidate and plan to hire from within, but they still go through the motions of seeing what else is out there. The list of challenges can get long.
There must be a good way to reach those recruiters at the right company and at the right time … right? After all, what about those amazing stories you hear about people getting jobs by way of social media?
I will share some example communications with recruiters by way of social media. This covers the rest of those three areas where I believe social media can be most valuable to recruiters – Networking/discovery of candidates, and communications with candidates.
Recruiters and Social Media Candidate Networking, Discovery, and Communications
I’ll offer just a couple of many examples I have seen. I intend for this to be constructive for the human resources/recruiting industry, and job seekers alike. I have heard things very similar to these examples from peers, and witnessed many other instances while watching companies closely. These are just two recent observations from my own personal search for the right company. I have every reason to believe that these are not just isolated incidents.
Please Note I do not wish to bash any particular company, so I’ve blurred their identities. I am only sharing observations and trying to open discussions as a person who has been deeply involved in social media since long before we even called it social media, and very successful in business – online and offline. I invite you to share your perspective and discount what I have to say here. I am still ready to listen and to learn.
I will begin with an instance of a thriving company that approached me on Twitter. I want to note that they approached me publicly, and based on my research, nobody else before or since. Here is what they had to say:
Are You Interested, Murnahan?
It seems they may have been interested, so I responded on Twitter within minutes and followed up with my resume and cover letter the next morning – March 7th. I never heard anything back from them by way of Twitter or email, so I followed up by email and Twitter on March 16th – ten days after their initial communication. I still never heard anything – but is this an isolated incident? Absolutely not!
Here is another instance where I have made significant efforts at communication with a company that is in the business of recruiting. They are seeking a VP of Marketing for their own company, and I have applied. I reached out by email, LinkedIn, Twitter, and comments on their blog. I have followed up very thoughtfully, and given them reasons to recall my name. I am not offended in the least if they are not interested, but I have done my part to show my qualifications, and given good reasons and opportunities to communicate.
Beep beep! Here comes a convoy of irony for you.
In a recent article on their blog, they suggested ways for people to use social media in their career search. There is about three truckloads of irony in that blog. Their company has a relatively anti-social social media presence, and frequently fails to respond to their audience at all – I’ve been watching. In fact in that very blog article, they were the only user to tweet it in the first day it was published, and I was one of only two people to comment on it.
My comment has still never received a response, and if you only have two comments on a blog, responding to them is Social Media 101 – the most basic. The writer has accepted my connection request on LinkedIn, but she stopped short of actually responding to my friendly email greeting – so she is just another blank space … a name and a picture. When I went to the writer’s Google+ profile, there was nothing to see, because she had not shared a single item publicly – only to her own Google+ “circles” and “extended circles”. She had not even made the articles she had written on the company blog visible to the public. To me, this seems to indicate a need for some training.
Look, I don’t expect anybody to hang on every word I say, but I believe that if I shared all of my communication attempts with this company, you may think they are nuts to not follow up with me. It would seem they should at least to keep me impressed with their company, because who knows – I may know a person or two. I’m trying my best to be unbiased, and I can legitimately say that this company is missing the big picture.
Incidentally, I was fortunate to have a few words on Twitter with the CEO / hiring manager for that VP position. I would describe this individual as a “Grand Poobah” of the recruiting industry, but yet, I would not call this person, or the company, an earnest user of social media. Here’s how it went:
Communications With a Grand-Poobah of Recruiters
I followed up on this short communication with email on the following Monday. Then, after a ten day pause of complete silence from the Grand Poobah – and I mean the Poobah has not even sent a single tweet to anybody (publicly at least), I decided to check for a pulse and I sent this message on Twitter, and also another follow up email.
Are You Still There, Grand Poobah?
I Respect Recruiters
I respect recruiters – I really do, because I know it is a tough job to find the right people. I have been a CEO, so I know the challenges well. At the same time, I have my doubts about the weight recruiters place on the use of social media, and whether it is really as important as many people will say.
I recently read a study that claims recruiters only spend an average of six seconds per résumé as they scan through squillions of them. Unemployment is high, so there are a lot of people applying. It makes me wonder if recruiters ever really feel a need to look very carefully to fill a position. It also makes me wonder if they even have enough time to make a good assessment of an applicant’s qualifications – or disqualifications – based on social media.
That knocks a pretty big hole in the list of three things I estimated to be the most important uses of social media for recruiters.
With these examples in mind, and my assurance that I have a big stockpile of further examples, I want you to be the judge. If you are a recruiter, I want to hear your take on this. If you are a job seeker, I want to hear from you, too. Please add your comments and pass this along so others can share their insights.
Job seekers: Please feel free to give yourself a plug, and include a link to your résumé.
As a final note, I’m still looking, and I will relocate to anywhere in the USA for the right company. If you’re looking for me, too, please take a moment to get to know more about me and review my résumé.
One great benefit of social media is the ability to communicate with others in the format and space they want to communicate. Some people will choose to discuss a topic on Facebook, while others choose LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Amplify, or a squillion others. Many people will pick a handful of networks to focus their attention, based on their interests or their intended audience, and monitor them vigilantly. Google+ is climbing the ranks of preferred networks very quickly!
Blog readers and writers take note: You probably don’t notice this challenge much from a reader standpoint, but if you are a blogger who is paying attention to where your content is being discussed, you probably see this all the time. Do you ever notice that there are comments in about 37 different contexts spread across a handful of networks, all related to a single blog post?
As a blog article spreads, it is threaded into a lot of places with a lot of different conversations. Although they usually include a link back to the original article, very few of those outside conversations really do a good job of connecting the audience to the central conversation, or vice versa. After all, those comments somewhere else are seldom seen by the people reading the article, so they don’t get the benefit of those other peoples’ thoughts and opinions … and it squelches opportunities for them to network together with those other like-minded people. Sometimes that is a real shame.
It is great when your article is being shared and discussed. It would be foolish to discourage it, but when the conversation … the very genesis of the topic … begins with a blog article, it can also have some downsides. The message can become very muddled, and the conversations often stray far from the original topic. I have seen it a squillion times that the conversations do not even touch on the topic of the original blog article beyond the headline or description.
Again, this can be great in some ways. The evolution of a topic can be fascinating as it is morphed through enough various groups’ brain filters. However, even in the best scenario that it does not lose all of the author’s well-crafted thought provoking intent, this can still lead to a pretty messy challenge for the originator to keep up with the many conversations. When it comes to blogs, either reading them or writing them, those opinions count. Sometimes the best part of a blog article is in the comments that build upon the topic.
Native Blog Comments vs. Off-Blog Comments
When conversations are broken apart, each of the individual discussions will often lose a lot of the best and most well thought out responses from the smartest and most worthwhile participants. Also, as I already mentioned, it significantly discounts many opportunities for others with like minds to network together.
In the end, let’s face it … more people are going to see the original article in its native environment than they will on any given reader’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ profile. With that in mind, if you really have something to say, you will do the author, yourself, and other readers a much greater service by including your comments on that blog article. Best of all, your comment is usually just as convenient, and can often even be shared in duplicate, with a single click, to your other social networks if you should choose. That way, others can see what you thought of the topic even before they go and read the article.
Some social networks have helped to make accommodations for this challenge, but others still have some work to do. I am hopeful that this will be a part of future Google+ improvements.
An example of a huge leap forward toward connecting blogs with outside conversations was in Facebook comments, which allow for comments to be shared both on the originating blog and on Facebook simultaneously. This is one way I think that Facebook is still whipping Google+ in a huge way, although I expect that to change.
Similarly, Disqus does a fantastic job of connecting conversations across networks, although it could still be better at pulling in off-blog comments with higher accuracy. BackType used to fit this need by bringing in conversations from all over the place, but they kind of wrecked that system in favor of other money-making hopes.
In any case, I think that making a greater connection with those off-blog comments is a responsibility of the blog owner, and should always be taken seriously. There are a lot of ways to monitor those conversations, and none of them are a perfect magic bullet. It takes a lot of attention, but should not be overlooked.
Google+ vs. Blog Comments
Google+ is an excellent platform. I really like it for many reasons, and not the least of which is the high level of interactivity that I have encountered there. It seems that people are really enjoying a lot of conversation on Google+.
Of course, some of that active engagement may be because it is still a bit of a novelty. It could also be that, although it is a much different type of platform, people are seeing it as a chance for a “do-over” by handling it differently than they handled their Twitter or Facebook. Whatever the case, it seems to me that people are using it in great ways, and it is far less spam-riddled and spam-prone than many other networks.
Sadly, Google+ also poses a greater challenge for monitoring and participating in the outside conversations about your topics. I hope it will change, but in the meantime, I think it is worth being aware and attentive to as many as possible.
What Makes Sense to You?
It is an extreme example, but do you ever see a comment on an outside network about a blog article and it shows without a doubt that the person responding did not even give a passing glance at the original context, beyond the headline? It could frustrate the originating author, but for me, I mostly just chock it up to another brainiac trying to sound smart without the will to actually be smart. You know, like reading beyond the headline before replying. Yes, this is an extreme example, but here is something I find to be common: comments directly on a blog will nearly always be more on-topic and more beneficial to the community.
The greatest variable across all of this wonderful technology is you. Nobody is going to tell you how to use a blog, either as a commenter or an author. The best I can hope for is to give you some encouragement … you know, a nudge. Where you take it from there is up to you. In my opinion, as well as my actual usage, I find it beneficial that if I am making a comment about a blog article, I duplicate it with a simple copy and paste from the original article to whatever network I am sharing it on. That is, if that option is not already a part of the blog itself, which it often is.
What do you have to say about this? Go ahead … put it on some other network where nobody but a few of your friends will see it. Otherwise, feel free to join in and stop being so damn elusive. What are you afraid of? These people don’t bite!
P.S. Biters please refrain from biting other respondents … just this once. 😉
Related Articles: You didn’t think this was my first go at an article about blogging, did you? I think these will give you some really good food for thought!
Klout is a social measurement tool that places a numeric value on a person’s influence within their social media circles. The service currently pulls data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare for their influence calculations, but plans to add Google+, YouTube, Facebook Pages, and others for a total of 20 networks by the end of 2011.
On the surface, it may sound positively impersonal, and even a bit absurd to make judgments based on a number, but is it really? We’ve been doing it for many years with credit scores. I don’t think it is a good idea to become obsessed about statistics such as these, but I do believe it is valuable to be aware.
Klout seems to have really honed in on a couple of interesting psychological and business needs of social media. I will explain what I mean, and how it could have a real-world impact for a lot of people, whether they like it or not.
I wrote about Klout back in 2010 in an article on the topic of social media measurement tools and what they know about you. It raised a question of what this type of service may know, and what level of accuracy or inaccuracy they may reflect. This type of data collection across multiple networks is subject to errors. Reliability is simply not guaranteed, but it is getting better.
Klout Score and Perceived Personal Worth
Klout hits on a very personal psychological need for a lot of people, which is the need to feel valuable. I think we can largely agree that we all want to feel like we make an impact. We want to know that we are being heard.
This is not to say that we are all Narcissistic for using social media, but only that it would not be so fun to communicate if nobody listened to us or acknowledged us. If that was the way we wanted it, we would just keep all of our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media thoughts to ourselves. We could keep them on our own computers and we wouldn’t need this Internet to share them.
It's OK to Be Proud Sometimes
The desire to share and collaborate clearly creates a strong psychological drive for many people. I do not think it is at all strange for somebody to feel a sense of greater personal satisfaction when their thoughts or ideas receive Facebook shares and comments, or Twitter replies and retweets. It is no more Narcissistic or bizarre than how it feels to receive applause for any job done well. In some cases, it can actually be quite humbling, like when the whole restaurant starts singing “Happy Birthday” and you just want to sink deep down into your seat as you blush. At the same time, it feels kind of alluring and it makes you smile.
When it comes to social media, it is easy to be just a bit allured by the objective measurements. I’ll be the first to raise my hand. When I see a squillion people sharing my work, I love it. It makes me happy, like sucking free grape soda through a garden hose, while eating from kiddie pool piled high with bacon. It feels very satisfying, and validating.
So, I am sure you can imagine how this psychological desire applies to Klout. Klout measures a person’s influence of others. People want to know their Klout Score, and it is pretty hard to fault them for that. This makes it easy to understand why it has had such a strong level of attention, and how it holds huge potential for continued growth.
The Business End of Klout
Far beyond the typical consumer desire to be measured as accepted, popular, or influential, there is a strong business side of Klout that is undeniable.
Klout Affects Hiring DecisionsThousands of companies are using Klout’s information in hiring decisions, purchasing decisions, and in their communications strategies. Whether you like it or you don’t, and whether it is right or wrong, numbers are a front-line component in our business world. Scoring such as offered by Klout is being relied upon more all the time as Internet static continues to flood into our business communications.
There is magic in numbers! I am a marketing guy, so I rely on a lot of different sets of numbers. Many of the numbers that are conventionally viewed as important don’t mean a damn thing to me. Inaccurate or meaningless data would be an easy way for a guy in my line of work to waste a lot of time, and burn through huge amounts of money. That means I need the good stuff. I want the least fallible information I can get my hands on, and that is where my attention is focused.
Klout’s data is largely based on activities across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but there is another component that allows a sort of industry-specific peer review. Yes, Klout also includes industry-specific information about an individual’s influence. In this peer review model, others may enhance a person’s Klout by clicking to give them “+K” for a given segment, and it is like a vote. The “K” is wisely limited so that a user only has five “K” to give out per day. So, if I wanted to give you a “K” because you influenced me in some way, I cannot go wild and spike your Klout score. If I really liked you, I could come back each day and give you “K”, but that would not provide unreliable data, because it would reliably reflect your high level of influence upon me.
Klout also attempts to define a style in which a person influences others. These styles provide an interesting overall view of how the individual uses their social media. There are sixteen different styles, and they are described as follows:
Klout Style Definitions
Curator: You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience. You are a critical information source to your network. You have an amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about. Your hard work is very much appreciated.
Broadcaster: You broadcast great content that spreads like wildfire. You are an essential information source in your industry. You have a large and diverse audience that values your content.
Taste Maker: You know what you like and your audience likes it too. You know what’s trending, but you do more than just follow the crowd. You have your own opinion that earns respect from your network.
Celebrity: You can’t get any more influential than this. People hang on your every word, and share your content like no other. You’re probably famous in real life and your fans simply can’t get enough.
Syndicator: You keep tabs on what’s trending and who’s important to watch. You share the best of this with your followers and save them from having to find what’s hot on their own. You probably focus on a specific topic or cater to a defined audience.
Feeder: Your audience relies on you for a steady flow of information about your industry or topic. Your audience is hooked on your updates and secretly can’t live without them.
Thought Leader: You are a thought leader in your industry. Your followers rely on you, not only to share the relevant news, but to give your opinion on the issues. People look to you to help them understand the day’s developments. You understand what’s important and what your audience values that.
Pundit: You don’t just share news, you create the news. As a pundit, your opinions are wide-spread and highly trusted. You’re regularly recognized as a leader in your industry. When you speak, people listen.
Dabbler: You might just be starting out with the social web or maybe you’re not that into it. If you want to grow your influence, try engaging with your audience and sharing more content.
Conversationalist: You love to connect and always have the inside scoop. Good conversation is not just a skill, it’s an art. You might not know it, but when you are witty, your followers hang on every word.
Socializer: You are the hub of social scenes and people count on you to find out what’s happening. You are quick to connect people and readily share your social savvy. Your followers appreciate your network and generosity.
Networker: You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.
Observer: You don’t share very much, but you follow the social web more than you let on. You may just enjoy observing more than sharing or you’re checking this stuff out before jumping in full-force.
Explorer: You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it”, we predict you’ll be moving up.
Activist: You’ve got an idea or cause you want to share with the world and you’ve found the perfect medium for it. Your audience counts on you to champion your cause.
Specialist: You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.
These are not handed out at random, but rather based on the outgoing and incoming data about each given profile. Although, for some really crazy but totally flattering reason, Klout measures me as a “Celebrity”. Of course, to that I’d say “Heck yeah … roll out the red carpet and pop the champagne. There’s gonna be a party!” Is That Paparazzi I Hear Approaching, or Just More Naked Coeds Running to Greet Me?
Is Klout Accurate?
Do I think that Klout is entirely accurate? Absolutely not, but I do believe they are doing a good job. One reason is the sheer volume of their data. They are currently compiling data about more than 75 million users, and expect to include information from 20 different networks by the end of 2011. The numbers become more accurate in higher volume, but that is not enough. What about how that data is processed? This is where Klout really stands out, and pulls away from the crowd.
Klout organizes data from more sources and uses more factors than other companies trying to compile and present a numeric score. The broad diversity of data acquisition makes it much harder to cheat a Klout score, and thus, more reliable than other online influence measurement tools. If you have not already done so, it is worth taking a look at how Klout compiles scores. There is clearly a far more in-depth process than what is described, but it will give you a good overview.
Like anything else, Klout can be manipulated for an increased score, but not without a high degree of talent, and significant efforts.
Historical data is critically important in many business processes, but let’s not overlook the value of predictive data. With the right data at hand, I can imagine predictive data becoming a part of the Klout algorithm in the future, as people seek those who are on the rise. Imagine the business value of finding those with high potential who are just not on the RADAR yet.
Is Klout Good or Evil?
Is Klout good or evil? This is a question that it seems a lot of people struggle with about any company which acquires a lot of data. I think it is good, and it helps to meet some challenging needs of businesses and individuals surrounding trust and reputation.
Everybody wants to have influence, but it comes in a package with other factors. Those other factors of trust and reputation are often even harder for companies and individuals to put their finger on. Klout offers some broad insight about an individual and how others view them.
Would I weigh an important hiring or purchasing decision, or a business partnership choice heavily based on Klout? I guess you would have to define heavily for me to answer that, but in many scenarios, I would definitely have to consider it a factor.
Let’s face it, we are each measured every day. Whether it is for the style of our hair, the car we drive, the company we keep, the way we walk, talk, and even how we chew our food. Somebody will always be watching and summing us up. Klout takes it to the social web and makes well-founded estimates about us based on observations.
Perhaps the best answer, for anybody who does not like it, is to consider the other ways in which we are judged based on less reliable factors and guesswork. In the case of Klout, I don’t think it is any more an invasion of privacy or an intrusion than people-watching in a shopping mall.
In the instance of social media, if you are doing the equivalent of standing there picking your nose, somebody will probably notice. In fact, they may even share it on Facebook, and get a higher Klout score for it!
Now if you’d just go and tweet this, Facebook it, give me a Klout “+K” bump for social media, and make a lot of comments about it, maybe I will get that new dreamy offer I’ve been seeking and share some of my Klout with you.
Fine, even if you don’t give me any “K”, I urge you to check it out just to see what Klout knows about you. It may uncover people that you influence and didn’t even know it, or it may introduce you to somebody new to connect with. It’s free, so you don’t have anything to lose, and quite possibly something to gain.
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.
2000 Visitors Per Hour Reality Check
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!
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.
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.
