social networking Archives - Page 3 of 14 by Mark Murnahan

The Least Expensive Hour in Social Media: Study Time!

Have you ever wondered what is standing between you and a more successful social media marketing campaign? I am not going to read your tea leaves or make a bunch of speculation here, but I will tell you where a lot of people fail miserably.

I want to relate this to something that should get your attention, and that is cost. Have you ever considered the cost of social media marketing? We can break this down in many various ways, but the fact is that social media will have a cost, whether you take action or not.

If you don’t take action with social media, it will cost you lost opportunities and dwindling market share, and that is usually the biggest cost of all. You probably understand this, or you would not be reading my “SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog”. So, I am going to take a big leap here, and assume that you intend to take action. Maybe you are already taking action, and in that case, you probably want to do it even better.

Many business people choose to spend more time than money in their social media marketing efforts. I guess they feel like the cost of time is less than the cost of money. The fear of monetary failure hits a lot of people harder than the fear of lost time.

Since your time and money are both valuable to you, I want to help you discover the least expensive hour in social media. That hour is the one spent taking in knowledge. No, not just seeking knowledge, but finding it and absorbing it. That means you will need to prepare yourself to fight the boredom and be ready to work hard at learning from others’ work. It means it is time to go back to school and treat it seriously. Just like most schooling, you will not be interested in everything you need to learn in order to be successful, but it is still there for your benefit.

I may never understand why so many people try hard to become a social media expert, but it is the way of today. I can’t fight that, and I don’t try to. I can’t understand a father studying dentistry to fix his kids’ teeth, either, but if I had a dentistry school, you can bet I would try to help them.

The Cost of Social Media: Time and Money

When you take action with social media, it will cost you time and money. You can weigh them out and spend more of one or the other, but in business, nothing comes from nothing. Regardless what you may have read somewhere on a marketing blog, success does not just come out of nowhere. Success in business comes from taking action. Not just that, it comes from taking well-calculated action.

That means you will need knowledge to balance your expenditures of time and money. Good, reliable, factual, knowledge will take the edge off, regardless how you reconcile your time and money dilemma. Think of it like a shot of whiskey before the surgeon starts cutting.

Unless you are some kind of gifted alien from another planet, or simply do not care about your business, time and money have heavy influence in your decisions. Time and money are both very precious resources to a business, and so they must be allocated with diligence.

Stop Chasing Wild Geese!

Now consider that since you don’t know it all (none of us do … even Google), knowledge is an important building block. It is why we tell our kids to go to school, and it is how we begin our careers. It is hard to dispute the value of good information, but yet, it is easy to neglect it. The Internet also makes it extremely easy to lose your attention and assume that maybe there is something even better “over there” behind the next flashy, blinky, brightly colored link.

Maybe there is something better over there, but it is even more common that it is another “wild goose chase” that will send you chasing in circles. This makes it more important than ever that once you find good and reliable resources, you hold on to them and use them and stop the goose chasing.

What is the cost of sitting in front of your computer learning? Sure, you can waste a whole lot of time. There are some astonishing statistics on how much time people waste with social media. For example, did you know that Zynga, the company that produced Farmville and Mafia Wars was recently valued at over ten billion dollars? Seriously, let’s look at that valuation in numerical format … $10,000,000,000! That says a lot about the time spent in social media websites. If you are in it to help your business, avoiding the time-wasting, and finding good resources will be essential. Ten Billion … seriously, can you believe how much time people are spending playing games? That probably includes some of your competitors, so while they cultivate their Farmville farm, you should be studying!

If you are concerned about wasting time, as I am, I hope that you will take a serious and sincere approach to this. It is easy to get caught up with the mystique and the unrealistic hype of the Internet, but if you take it seriously as a business, the results can be astonishing.

The whole thought of this occurred to me when I read and commented on a friend’s blog. My friend, Mark Harai wrote an article titled “Social Media Tire Kickers – Dead on Arrival“. It reminded me of things I tell people when they ask me about my work in social media. I will share a portion of my comment, but you may read the rest on Mark’s blog.

“I tried the approach of common sense, and appealing to a brain in their heads, but it is tough for people to jump over their own barriers. Ages ago, I quit trying to sell the SEO and social media marketing services that I provide (I still sell the services … I just quit “trying”). I found that many people worry about the cost more than they consider the return, and fears devastate their business hopes.

I often suggest to potential clients that if they don’t have enough desire to build their business to spend an hour or more in my blog archive to understand the benefits of my work, they are not ready.”

Within the context of Mark’s article and with the complete comment, I think it makes sense how much I really believe in sharing ideas and helping people create value for their business. I don’t always put it in nice and comfortable terms, but you can bet that I am very dedicated to sharing good information.

There are a lot of others out there who adhere to similar values, and I want to share a short list of them with you. If you truly want to enjoy your least expensive hour in social media, do yourself a favor and spend an hour in the archives of each of the blogs listed below. I am just going to get you started with a small selection of people I respect and trust. I have a longer list, but I would like to see yours. Who do you pay attention to, and who do you think belongs on a list of good thinkers who can help progress your efforts rather than distract you? Add your comment with a link to your favorite social media thinkers who inspire you.

I included a link to the latest article from each of these blogs, but don’t assume their latest is their greatest. Take some time to learn from them and use the knowledge they have worked hard to produce for you.

I have said it before that a small amount of good information is worth a lot more than the whole Internet’s worth of bad information. Once you get the good stuff, it is likely that your money and your time will both come into a much greater balance. I hope that you will spend some time in my blog archive as well. I have written about an extensive list of topics relating to search engine optimization, social media, and other marketing issues. They may not all interest you or inspire you, but I can say without a doubt that if you take it seriously, your time will not be wasted. I am confident that you will find useful information that you can implement to benefit your business.

Some of the best lessons in social media are the ones which inspire your own thinking and your unique adaptations to their successes. When you find those, you will be far closer to your own success.

Once more, here is the link to my archive. Don’t assume it was all written just for the sake of my own ego. It is there to be helpful.

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What Did Farmers in 1951 Know About Social Media?

The 1950’s may seem like an early time for social media, but what I will tell you is the way social media has worked since long before it existed as you know it today. It is also the way social media at its very best still works in 2011 and beyond. You don’t have to trust me on this, but I think you will.

When my “Baby Boomer” mother was a little girl of five years old, her father died unexpectedly from a very fast progression of cancer. He was a successful farmer who used all of the magical farming chemicals of the day. Although the new technology kept the pests off his crops, nobody told him it would cause him to leave his family early, at only age 38.

When my grandfather died, farmers came from miles around to help harvest his crops for the sad widow and her three little kids that he left behind. They didn’t do it for self-seeking reasons, but they did it because it was the right thing to do. They were all a part of a community which came together for the benefit of one and all. They were a part of a social network that you probably never heard of, and it was called Mount Ida, Kansas.

Mount Ida, Kansas was a farming community where they worked harder than most men can survive today. They did a very good deed for my family, and they brought in the crops that my grandmother and three kids of ages three, five, and eight could not.

Were Those Farmers Just Crazy?

In today’s society, there are some people who may look at these overexerted farmers at the height of a short-lived harvest season as crazy. They left their own crops in the ground in order to look out for somebody else. This is the kind of thing that some of us are privileged to witness, and a few of us are honored to replicate.

You can say that people don’t come together that way anymore, or that things have changed and nobody cares like that these days. Sure, we see things like a homeless person being beat up and nobody coming to their assistance. We witness atrocities of all kinds. What you may be surprised to discover is how often others band together and do what it takes, like that community of farmers in Mount Ida, Kansas, and do good things for others without an overzealous hope for immediate personal or business gain.

As I said before, you don’t have to trust me on this, but I think you will. That spirit of giving and being good to others is making a comeback. It has always been an important component of business growth, but now it is more visible than ever. It is happening in social networks today, just as it was in the 1950’s. If you take a close look at social media, you will find many instances of small communities of people sharing what they can, and offering their hand to others.

Some are giving what they know, and others are giving what they have. Some are aware that by giving to others, they receive more than ever. Some just do it because they saw it somewhere else and it made good sense to them.

How Were Those Farmers Repaid?

Those farmers would not take a thing from my grandmother. Not even a hot meal. They did what they felt was right, and you can bet that their hearts swelled by doing it.

They have been repaid, in some way, and probably even far beyond just the good feelings it gave them. Doing good deeds simply cannot go unrewarded forever. It is against everything I know, and everything I believe. This concept is steeped in history, and was even the focus of my 2009 book “Living in the Storm: Creating Joy and Inspiration When Everything is a Mess“.

When you consider why these farmers did what they did, and what it repays them over time, then you understand social media better than ever before. They planted a crop within a community, and not just in their fields. They did something which made them more endearing, and showed that they were more kind than greedy.

The Give and Take of Monetizing Social Media

For as long as people have been giving, they have always had needs of their own to address. It was impossible for television to be completely free, and it took money to build those networks … a lot of money. The same thing is true for the Internet, and all of the useful information you find here. Whenever something is given, something must be returned … somehow, someday, it must be returned. It is why we have the term “what goes around comes around” and why doing good things are reciprocated in some way.

People are still talking about those farmers’ good deeds more than sixty years later. It begs the question of what we can do today so profound that people will recount it kindly in the 2070’s. Those good farmers did not intend, forecast, or otherwise expect this. Their word is still spread because being helpful was in their nature. From a marketing perspective, many companies can take a good lesson from those Mount Ida farmers.

I hope I have been a good farmer today, and that you will use this small piece of my thoughts for the benefit of others around you.

You are welcome to subscribe and keep coming back, but what I really love are those people who will talk to me. Please give me your comments.

Just one more thing! I thought I would give you some perspective, in case you wonder “where in the heck is Mount Ida, Kansas?“

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Building Equity in Social Media vs. Interruption Marketing

Interruption Marketing vs. Social Media

I know this may seem impossible in 2011, but I discover many companies that do not yet fully appreciate the value of social media and the long-term equity it can build for their business.

A lot of companies understand the value of their brand being visible in many places online, and some will understand the value of those people who help to grow its visibility. Only a relatively few actually look forward beyond the horizon to understand the greater value that social media represents over an extended time.

When I hear people say things like “we just don’t have time for all of that” or worse, “we don’t have the staff for that”, it always leaves me shaking my head. It reminds me why only a small percentage of businesses account for the lion’s share of their market. It is explained well by Joseph Juran’s well documented “Pareto Principle” named for Vilfredo Pareto. Many people know the Pareto Principle as the 80/20 Rule.

Consider the Interruption of Marketing

Think as a consumer for a moment, and consider the way you shut down to marketing. Think about how your brain just goes in another direction when companies interrupt you with their marketing and try to sell you stuff. We are each inundated by a constant barrage of commercial information about everything from A to Z in our daily lives. This is why we fast-forward through commercials on television, we screen our telephone calls, and we are seasoned to ignore advertisements on websites.

Interruption Marketing Train Coming Through

Unless you are really tired and vulnerable, you probably don’t stay tuned to that late night infomercial about something you really never knew you needed. Although, I can almost bet that you can remember a time when you thought “why in the hell am I still watching this?” Perhaps you can even remember thinking “Holy crap … I was about three seconds from picking up the phone to buy one of those” or even “Damn, I bought this … why did I buy this?!” It happens, and we each have our weaknesses, but let’s face it, we are far better adapted to turning away from all the hype. Otherwise, if marketers had their way, you would own one of everything, and you would have worthless crap in every nook and cranny, and stacked to your ceiling.

For the most part, we consumers make efforts to avoid these awkward moments which compel us to buy things. Why? Maybe it is just because, deep down, we hate saying “no”. If we can avoid the pitch, we can avoid wanting something, and thus, avoid saying “no” to our own urges, and the urges of those squillion salespeople out there.

Maybe you are different, and you enjoy that marketing interruption, but in that case, you are not like most people. I am addressing most people.

Marketing Got Sneakier With Social Media

Since there was so much information out there interrupting our days and nights, as a collective group, consumers became more cautious. We decided to make companies earn our business. Of course, the economy of the past few years has helped this along faster than ever. The timing was perfect for social media marketing to explode like a shot from a gun.

Maybe you like it, or maybe you don’t, but let’s face it, marketing got a whole lot sneakier. It became more targeted, and marketers became better spies. Effective marketing today utilizes more information, better strategies, and just a bit of James Bond 007-style of thinking.

Marketing Became Targeted and Marketers Became Better Spies

As consumers, we became more cautious and protective of ourselves. We got really smart and created clever ways to filter our television ad consumption, filter our email, and filter our social media.

In order to effectively reach us consumers, marketers have been forced to provide a greater value proposition. This is a hard concept for many companies to grasp. Today’s successful companies are giving before they take, and the ones giving the most are receiving the most.

Today, people are more likely than ever to make purchasing decisions based on trust, reputation, and a good old fashioned sense that the company gives a damn about us. We have come to expect it, and whether you feel this way yet or not, it is a sweeping trend. People want to do business with people, and with brands represented by people. The world is building relationships with brands, and those relationships are worth money … a lot of money. Missing this fact is a very costly mistake.

You can consider it sneaky, or you can consider it a welcomed gift, but brands are in our lives to stay. We will always need to buy things, and we buy from the companies and the people we feel good about. When the brand is there to help us with information, and with a legitimate desire to help us make good decisions, they win, and we buy.

Shortsighted Brands Damage Their Social Media Future

A huge obstacle which gets in the way of social media marketing is time. Companies want everything, and they want it right now. It is understandable, but when companies forget the importance and value of longevity, and when they feel the breath of their competitors on the back of their neck, they can be quite irrational.

Smart Companies Have a Social Media Vision

Smart companies look far ahead into the future. Rather than take a reactive and panicked approach to a weak quarterly report, they work with an eye toward longer goals. Strong companies can look farther ahead, and that is why they succeed farther into the future. Applying this to social media marketing means doing business the right way, and not simply with the urgency of trying to force a brand down the consumer’s throat. This means doing business on the customer’s terms and timelines, and not only in a one-way company-centric method of the past. Consumers respect companies for this, and they return with even more consumers following closely behind them.

What About Social Media Marketing Equity?

I know that for some people, it is easy to look at social media as a bunch of time-wasting crazy people who believe that somehow the world’s consumers will come flocking to their front door just by using a nice, soft approach and patting everybody on the butt with nice words. Well, maybe yes, and maybe no, but there is a very significant value in a good reputation. Reputations do not just happen … they are built. It takes a lot of effort to build a good reputation, and it takes both words, and deeds.

Anybody in business today should understand the value of word of mouth. What people say about a company, whether good or bad, forms consumer’s perceptions of a brand. More than ever before, they are not just picking up the telephone and talking to a friend, or talking about companies at a lunch meeting. They are talking about them in large groups such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and etcetera.

Whether the perception is good or bad, they will be talking. Either outcome cannot be controlled by a company, but when a company is not involved in their own brand message, they are missing huge opportunities. Even a negative statement made in social media is an opportunity to make things better with customers, and other potential customers who are silently watching.

People really do notice what companies are doing online. I realize that for a lot of companies, this just seems impossible, and they do not have a good grasp on how to track their reputation. Just because a company does not really “get it” does not keep them out of trouble. This would be about as silly as trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket just because you didn’t read the speed limit sign. It just doesn’t work that way.

If you feel a bit lost about the value of social media, it is time to read the signs.

I will leave you with a video which I believe makes some very good points. I believe that this video titled “The Thank You Economy: How Business Must Adapt to Social Media” is well worth your time and consideration.

If you feel like you still have more to learn, please subscribe to my blog, and as always, feel free to email me or ring me on the phone. I am always happy to hear from readers and to brainstorm.

I hope that you have found this useful, and I would really appreciate your comments.

Photo Credits:
Skyline photo by Hackfish via Wikipedia
Train Crossing photo by Paul Heaberlin via Flickr

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Social Media Express: Avoiding The Social Media Train Wreck

Social media is more than just a little bit special to me. Perhaps, if you have been using social media for a while, you feel this way, too. I have lived with my Internet connection close by my side for many years, like a good friend. Just like any longtime friend, it has changed. It has built me up, and it has let me down.

Social media has helped me to meet many wonderful people that I never would have met elsewhere. Those people include some of my closest friends of the last 15 years, and even my wife and mother of our three children, whom I met back in 2000. I think a lot of people can relate to how I feel about this special part of my life where I laugh, learn, and spend many hours working.

I still cherish many memories of times when social media was simpler. I guess it must feel kind of the way my 94 year old grandmother feels when she recalls her earlier days. The pace was more manageable, and people would still wave from their window in a train, and take more time to visit with the passengers around them.

Today, I want to encourage you to slow your social media train to avoid a crash. Yes, I said slow down … take your time. Read about one of the worst hazards of social media, and consider how you may avoid it.

Don’t Let Your Social Media Train Derail

Over the past few years, we invited the whole world to board the “Social Media Express”. It has created a time in our society which can adequately be termed “astonishing”. Now that the train is full, we all want to go somewhere, and get there fast.

Sometimes it seems that social media is like a runaway train with a huge payload of information and passengers just sitting there oblivious to the derail ahead of them. I have ridden this train to many derails, such as Yahoo! Groups that fell apart, and services that eventually phased out and friends lost communications. In cases where I looked far enough ahead, I could see it coming and warn my friends and we could slow the train down to resume our comfortable ride.

I feel very fortunate for the many people I met through social media and still communicate with regularly after teens of years. It took some effort to avoid the scattering effect of a train derailment, but it has been very worthwhile to me.

The big crash that I have emphatically warned people about is trying to “follow”, “friend”, “connect”, and etcetera, with excessive numbers of people with whom they never have any intention or ability to build a meaningful relationship.

I understand the huge urge for people to feel popular. I hear it all the time, even from people who have no real agenda to have a squillion connections, but just enjoy the appearance of being popular. If I had to point a finger at one single overriding challenge in social media, this would be it.

What so many people overlook is that having real communication and meaningful relationships with a smaller group who really listen to you or care about you is much more rewarding. This is true for both personal and business purposes, because it only takes about 150 people sharing something worthwhile to set it on a path to “viral” communication. Don’t try to argue this point with me, because I really will win this one.

Robin Dunbar Meets The Social Media Express

Have you ever heard of Dunbar’s Number? I will explain with a quote from Wikipedia:

“Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.”

I watch people trying to push Dunbar’s Number to a breaking point every day. Once they run through each passenger car on the “Social Media Express”, they burn out and jump off the speeding train when they don’t get what they hoped for. They don’t pull the hand brake, they don’t say goodbye, and many of them will never board the train again. They broke their social media train.

I can certainly place a good amount of blame on the implied importance of somebody with a lot of “friends” in social media. After all, I must be more important if I have xxxxx followers on Twitter and xxxx friends on Facebook, right?

There is another big challenge created by the many desperate people producing deafening levels of static while trying so hard to become marketers. With enough of that static, it causes many people to build up stronger than ever communication barriers. This overheats the train’s brakes, and sends more than a few passengers jumping off between stations.

Can You Share in My Guilt?

I witness many examples of pending challenges in my own use of social media. For example, I tend to tune out a lot just in order to keep up with people communicating with me directly. I am always available to anybody on this Internet, but it takes a lot of effort to reach out and see what all of those people have to say. So I let them come to me. I have even found out shamefully late of people who died, because it took me a long time to make my rounds to their Facebook profile.

I do my best to put friends and interesting people into lists, and I try to keep up, but nobody is immune to the challenge of “keeping up”. Many of the people I used to hear from every day stopped participating in social media, because they felt burned out and like nobody heard them anyway. Twitter makes a profound statement in this area, and has a horrible churn rate. It is not just specific networks, either. Many bloggers have expressed concerns that although people are reading, their comments have diminished. I certainly see it here, as well. Even while my readership is consistently high, it seems that many people don’t want to discuss topics the way they used to.

Do Those Big Numbers Really Matter?

I have studied this dilemma for years, and I know the importance of reaching a lot of people. Sure, it may increase your odds, right? Well, the truth is that if those are not the right people, and they are just a number for the sake of numbers, your impact will not be proportionate with your efforts. When you see somebody with a lot of friends, followers, and whatever you want to call them, it generally happens for one of two reasons: They either sought a lot of people who were also looking for big numbers for the sake of numbers, or they earned those numbers by reaching an appropriate audience who cared what they have to say and pay attention. One method imitates popularity in order to appear important or to throw spam at the wall and hope it sticks, and the other method is to do something people care about and presenting it to the right people.

I recently looked at my Twitter followers to find that many thousands of them had not used Twitter at all in the last six months. I filtered them out by those who had not sent an update in the last 90 days, and found that for many of them it had been over six months. I unfollowed 1,000 of them, which were mostly just nameless and faceless to me, and then I stopped. I realized that it was a waste of time to keep sorting through the graveyard of fallen Twitter users. I had only followed them in the first place because they had followed me, so I don’t feel some huge loss of a close friend.

Back before it became so popular to try and follow everybody under the sun, I used to see a huge value in Twitter. I liked it enough that I was asked to write a book about Twitter. I wrote it, and it was pretty good. I published it in July 2009, but I wish I had written it a few months sooner, before the Twitter graveyard started filling up.

Back in the good old days of social media, even as recently as Twitter, people paid attention to others. There were more conversations, and the conversations turned into friendships, and many times into business.

Today, I tweet something and it can sometimes seem to go unnoticed, even if it is totally hilarious or brilliant. Very few people respond, and almost nobody retweets things, compared to earlier years. Is it because they all hate each other, or is it because they simply went blind and only communicate if you go directly to them?

It is a tough call, but the numbers clearly indicate a speeding train.

Do You Slow Down and Say Hello Enough?

As a person who works and socializes here in this social media world, I have sometimes wondered “Is it me? Did I do something that changed things? Did I contribute to the extra hustle and bustle?” I really don’t think so, but I always try to keep myself in check.

I still find great value in many areas of social media, and it is still a very good place to make friends, build relationships, and produce new business. In fact, far better than any other, but it requires greater effort than ever before. It is not as easy as it used to be, and it can be more challenging than earlier years. It sometimes makes me wonder if I hadn’t been in my industry for so many years, what it would look like to me today. I have watched it evolve, and I have evolved with it nicely, but for somebody new here, I think it could get pretty overwhelming, and lose its luster quickly.

The Social Media Train is Human-Powered

I have written volumes of thoughts on the human aspects of our technical world. I write it in books, blogs, and I talk to groups about the importance of the real human communications that social media is so great for.

We control the pace of the train we are on, and the direction it travels. There are no rails, and plenty of great people and places to see. I only hope that more people will enjoy the ride, consider the people, stop running from car to car seeking more people to irritate with bad marketing, and avoid the train wreck.

Here is just a small selection of things I have said to try and caution others, and help them become more cognizant of the people around them. The longer list is found throughout my blog archive and in my books. I would not say these things if I didn’t mean them, and can stand behind them.

A Story from My Social Media Train Car

Something slowed my train nicely a few days ago. As I was unfollowing that 1,000 people on Twitter, as I mentioned, I came across several old friends who had dropped off the face of Twitter. One of them was Tom Roquemore, whom I met on Twitter a couple years ago. I like Tom, but he stopped using Twitter last October, and we hadn’t communicated since then.

Remembering good talks we had shared, I put him on my list of people to contact by phone. Before I even got around to calling him, my phone rang and it was Tom. We talked for a while and it was great to hear from him again. The timing was kind of uncanny, but we probably would have talked even sooner if our train was just moving a little slower.

How Does Tom Roquemore Affect My Social Media Train?

I have used social media, in one way or another, since before Yahoo! purchased GeoCities. That has been a long time, and I have seen a lot in those passing years. One thing that I have found to be the most valuable of all is to focus on a core group of the right people who really listen and feel strongly about the value you represent. That is where true and worthwhile popularity stems. It is like the initial spark of an explosion, and it starts very small. This holds true in the largest of all marketing campaigns, and in the smallest of groups. If you focus more on value over volume, your success and your enjoyment will be far greater. You just have to slow the train to recognize it, and find the truth in what I am telling you.

If some of you great people will slow down and add your comments here on my blog, maybe we could show others the start of a better habit. A habit of taking the time and effort to bring better communications back to social media, and not just rushing to the next thing that seems urgent.

Conga line image credit to fallingrock via Flickr

Are There Any Dumb SEO Questions?

I want to introduce you to Michael Colemire, a Kentucky artist, and newly initiated asker of dumb SEO questions.

I talk to a lot of people about SEO and social media marketing. It is my job, so that makes perfect sense. I answer a lot of questions, debunk a lot of myths, and develop a lot of ideas. I brainstorm with industry know-it-alls, and I brainstorm with people who know little or nothing about these topics, but want to grow their business.

Something I found interesting while I recently visited on the phone with my friend and long-time reader of my blog was that he was afraid of asking dumb questions. His name is Michael Colemire, and he is a very talented sculptor and wood carver. He is not a marketing guy, but he has some great works of art to market, so he wants to learn.

Michael said that the reason he often hesitates to comment on my blog is that he didn’t want to bother me with dumb questions. Also, being such a nice guy, he did not want to feel like he was taking advantage of me. After I picked my jaw back up and thought for a moment, I realized that he had expressed a pretty common and legitimate sentiment. I want to shatter any misconceptions about this.

You see, I have a pretty tricky task of writing a blog about SEO and social media marketing. These are topics which reach people from every different skill level and many different schools of thought about best practices. I try to produce something useful that will cover many skill levels, and that is the trickiest thing.

Why I Want Your Dumb SEO Questions

Reader’s comments are very important to me, because they help me to understand what people already know, or want to know more about. Comments (including “dumb” questions) help to keep me sharp with an appropriate answer, and they give other readers opportunities to look at things from other angles, and cultivate their thoughts.

Let’s take a break for an Internet truth:

A sad truth of the Internet is that it is very easy for people to be selfish. A lot of people will not do something for other people “just because”. It is common that if people think it may benefit you, more than it does them, they will just pass on by. They won’t comment, they won’t retweet it, and they won’t share it on Facebook … unless there is more in it for them than for you.

Something I shared with Michael, and I’ll tell you, is that those “dumb questions” also provide other benefits to me, such as better ranking and recognition in lists that measure a blog’s value to readers. No, it doesn’t pay me money, but it does bring me a bit closer, and it is like a big warm hug and a pat on the butt. I think that every writer needs a pat on the butt and an “attaboy” now and then.

I guess you could say that your comments and dumb SEO questions directly benefit me in a lot of ways, but what about how they benefit you?

Afraid of a Dumb SEO Question or Comment? Think Again!

I know that a lot of people will totally overlook this, but when you add your comment to my blog, it will probably benefit you even more than it does me. This is because when you add your comment, you can add a link to your website, which can have a real benefit to your search engine rankings. It also comes with networking benefits as I described in a recent article titled “Why Disqus May Be The Best Social Network of 2011“,

Do you know what a link from a high-traffic and well ranked blog can do to help your search engine rankings? Well, I’ll just say that it is why I delete a constant flow of spam comments from people who want no more than a link from this blog. Yes, I kill the useless spammy comments, but the legitimate stuff stays here.

Your sincere questions and useful answers deserve to be rewarded, and that reward comes in the form of the number one highest valued SEO treasure there is … a link to your website. Not to mention a great opportunity to network with other readers who may decide you are pretty cool.

One more thing: If you are a super great person like Michael Colemire, I may even credit an article to you.

Thanks for the dumb questions and for taking advantage of me, sculptor and artist Michael Colemire.

What SEO Questions are Dumb?

There are a lot of things which I may think are obvious, but then, this is the work I do every day to earn a living and feed my family. These things are supposed to be obvious to me, after about 15 years in the industry. Let me assure you that they were not always so obvious. I have worked hard and spent a lot of time to develop a solid understanding of my job. Practice makes a world of difference.

I can’t carve or sculpt like Michael Colemire, and I probably never will. If I asked him how to carve a piece of wood into an intricate design, my questions may sound really basic to him, but only because I don’t know the answers.

I guess my point here is that the dumbest questions about SEO are simply the ones you neglect to ask. I would love to say that there are no dumb questions, but I am not ready to commit to that, just yet. I have heard some pretty damn dumb stuff over the years. Most of the questions about the work I do, and the things I write about are just kind of like the questions I would ask Michael. Not dumb at all, just inexperienced.

On the topic of SEO questions, I have listed some of the most common SEO questions, created lists of things people should know about SEO, and have a pretty lengthy blog archive. I welcome you to read these, but in any case, I hope that you will never hesitate to add your comment or question about an article I write. After all, answering questions a primary goal of this blog.

So, what are your dumb SEO questions? Bring it on!

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