Right and wrong in social media

I woke up this AM to find two new Twitter follower notices. This was not uncommon but what was interesting was the the difference in these two specific followers.

As a general rule, I review each new follower to see if they are wroth following back. I feel it is the least I can do. I am looking to see if they are authentic in what they post to twitter and for someone who talks about things I would be interested in following.

Obviously, I pick up followers in a variety of ways myself and so their is a large diversity in the type of people who chose to follow me. Very often I get the impression that I am being followed as part of that persons SEO or presence efforts and that was the case for both of this mornings new followers.

What was interesting is both these new followers presented themselves as SEO or Presence experts. What was even more interesting was the dichotomy between the two in their efforts and apparent results.

So here is my thoughts and opinions on both their efforts on twitter.

My first follower was

gilscorner

His basic information shows as:

User Name: Gil Corner
Friends: 1799 
Followers: 1289  
Location : San Diego CA
Description : Dad of 4, love dogs, skiing, music and living life on my own terms. Fascinated with social media. How about you?
URL : http://www.gilscorner.com

Ok at first snap I am a bit wary of user names that are more about their business or website then themselves but it is a minor issue I looked past. I like the real name and personal information so I moved on to the twitter feed to see if there was value there and what indeed was being tweeted about.

Looking at Gil’s last 20 post it seems all the content was quotes and or blatant plugs for his website. This was a big red flag and for that matter the lack of conversation here was significant. But something more was odd in the feed in that all the posts came out in closely spaced mechanical chunks. Also none of the content on Twitter was actually his other then the attention links to his blog.

• The shortest distance between two points is under construction. -Noelie Altito #quote - Dec 25 6:07 am
• i’m over here —— http://www.gilscorner.com - Dec 25 6:06 am
• In unix there are no morals, only determinism. -Faisal N. Jawdat #quote - Dec 25 6:05 am
• Here’s a good rule of thumb; Too clever is dumb. - Ogden Nash Too clever is dumb. - German proverb #quote - Dec 25 6:03 am
• Foreign Aid - the transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. #quote - Dec 25 6:03 am
• We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. -Aesop #quote - Dec 25 6:02 am
• if you want the goods on internet marketing from a normal guy that’s making normal money -> http://www.gilscorner.com - Dec 25 6:01 am
• Current American thought has its underpinnings in the past 30 years of bad TV. -Gabe Underwood #quote - Dec 25 5:59 am
• Health is simply the slowest possible rate at which one can die. #quote - Dec 25 5:58 am
• Be sober and temperate, and you will be happy. - Benjamin Franklin #quote - Dec 25 5:57 am
• Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hand and at whom it is aimed ~ Joseph Stali #quote - Dec 25 5:56 am
• Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know. - Marvin Minsky #quote - Dec 25 2:25 am
• so? have you read the new blog post over http://www.gilscorner.com ? have you added your comment yet? - Dec 25 2:24 am
• The first step to solving a problem is to be a bastard… -Faisal N. Jawdat #quote - Dec 25 2:23 am
• pardon me for being crass but: who cares. -Kate Cronin #quote - Dec 25 2:23 am
• We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. - Whole Earth Catalog #quote - Dec 25 2:22 am
• I know what art is. and I AM NOT TELLING. -deathpunkassbitch.org #quote - Dec 25 2:20 am
• Life is a forge, and the purest metal comes from the hottest fire. #quote - Dec 25 2:19 am
• We neither get better or worse as we get older, but more like ourselves. #quote - Dec 25 2:18 am
• Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. - Pablo Picasso #quote - Dec 24 11:08 pm

Clearly Gil is looking to drive traffic and in some senses in a very effective way. Despite having no desire to follow Gil, I decided to check out this corner he was pushing so hard.

The first post on Gils Corner was SEO part3 – The Tools I Use which was very telling. Here I found that the authors SEO belief includes this brief recap of his theory:

“SEO is all about getting great rankings in the search engines, which in turn drive traffic to you. You will then need to build your list with that traffic and start email marketing.

Those are your 3, and only 3, pillars to succeed in internet marketing – Traffic,
building your list, email marketing.

Focus on them and you’ll be well on your way to success in this industry.

Move away from these 3 at your own risk.”

Gil’s message show a strong passionate belief in a traffic centric SEO effort. However the tools he recommends shows somethings that were a problem for me as a potential follower. It seems he uses a service which in his words “automates everything twitter. It will find relevant things and tweet about them, it will grow your follower list by thousands on autopilot, it will add promotional tweets to the mix with your affiliate links in them. It does it all and it’s hands free. WOW is all I can say.” Well NOT is all I can say. Here is the heart of what bothered me about his twitter feed which is generated by a machine and is really little better then fly paper trying to drive traffic to his web site.

His website is either promoting him and or the book which is clearly shown in the right sidebar of his blog.

In short despite the solid 2.25 score which twittfilter.com gave Gil’s twitter feed in recommending I follow him back I think it is clear that Gil’s theories are effective at faking out computers and even getting me to stop by his web site but it is not enough to capture my attention beyond a drop in. Maybe Gil has lost sight of the goal in the effort to drive traffic which in an of itself is not the goal. They may come but they will not stay if there is no value and even if there is value in his blog I was turned off by the method.

Now my second follower was:

danschawbel

His basic information shows as:

User Name: Dan Schawbel
Friends: 57748 
Followers: 62512  
Location : Boston, MA
Description : The leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. Author of Me 2.0, blogger, speaker, publisher & social media specialist at EMC
URL : http://personalbrandingblog.com

I like the use of a name or identity as the twitter user name (I use firqby which while not my proper name is an alias truly unique to me and easily tracked back to me) but I can immediately see that Dan is about personal branding and I am wondering if this will be another attempt to connect for purely SEO reasons. While I am a strong believer in the need for controlling ones online presence it must be about something worth while for the people you attract to your presence.

So that being said let us check out Dan’s last 20 tweets:

• Something to consider: Personal branding existed before social media. - Dec 25 9:51 am
• JOB SEARCH: The 5 Worst Excuses for Not Networking During a Job Search http://short.to/11nlf BarbaraSafani - Dec 25 9:44 am
• Thanks for reading Me 2.0 erikaverill DeanWagman willhardison - Dec 25 9:25 am
• RT dmscott Web Ink Now: 48 ways to explain Twitter to skeptics http://bit.ly/7ZSrPp - Dec 25 8:46 am
• plz rt Merry Christmas - Dec 25 6:33 am
• StudentBrandingBlog/ 3 Holiday Wishes for the Job Seeker http://bit.ly/5ILtcr - Dec 25 4:55 am
• My Blog / Recognition Breeds Interaction: If you have expertise that can help an entire community, how you approach… http://bit.ly/7zBlU4 - Dec 25 4:32 am
• ADVICE: 7 Ways to Clean Up Your Site For The New Year http://bit.ly/5FOtPC - Dec 24 5:41 pm
• RT BrazenCareerist: Gen-Y: What makes a company a great place to work? Join the discussion here: http://bit.ly/8xDzhr #Brazen - Dec 24 5:30 pm
• RT BrazenCareerist: Social Media and PB: Link Roundup and Advice for Nonprofiteers http://bit.ly/75Xj0u (via ajlovesya) #Brazen - Dec 24 12:53 pm
• RT: NWK_Jobbed - 5 Things Not to Say to a Job Seeker During the Holiday Season: http://ow.ly/Pk6H (via barbarasafani) - Dec 24 11:18 am
• My Blog / Free eBook: 100 Job Search Tips From Fortune 500 Recruiters: I hope everyone is gearing up for Christmas … http://bit.ly/6Ihtkf - Dec 24 8:15 am
• My Blog / Talk About Who You Are Not What You Do: When you read the title of this post it seems fairly simple right… http://bit.ly/4wfgyC - Dec 24 5:19 am
• How many people are taking today off from work? - Dec 24 5:19 am
• willhardison - thanks! - Dec 24 4:57 am
• StudentBrandingBlog/ Gen Y: Entitled, Unprofessional, Interpersonally Inept http://bit.ly/8FOaBK - Dec 24 4:55 am
• JOB SEARCH: Use the holiday week to career advantage http://tinyurl.com/ydlqxyc - Dec 24 4:23 am
• RT BrazenCareerist: New FortuneCity.com PB Post: The 5 Ps Of Marketing In the Peace Corps http://bit.ly/8fkSkk (via wendylee86) #Brazen - Dec 24 4:05 am
• JOB SEARCH: Secrets to Enhancing Your Resume http://tinyurl.com/yzvms33 - Dec 23 9:36 pm
• REPORT: $2.2 billion in social networking advertising in 2009 http://tinyurl.com/y9sqd6n - Dec 23 8:43 pm

Here I see a good mix of retweets, @replies, promoting of others content and self promotion. Dan who promotes himself as a personal branding expert for Gen-Y. Author of Me 2.0, blogger, speaker, publisher & social media specialist. Obviously Dan is promoting a book, magazine, and him self but it is done in a more organic and win win way. I do not feel I am a conquered statistic for Dan’s SEO effort and while I am sure Dan did not personally find me and decide to follow me as a valued addition to the 57,000 people he is following, I do feel there is potential value in my becoming one of Dan’s more then 62,000 followers. In the end, it is interesting that Dan who only scored 1.25 in twittfilter.com notification email to me and despite being one of tens of thousands of people Dan chose to follow, I clearly felt he was worth of following and Gil was not.

Now I do not think that either of these connections was about much more then Dan and Gill promoting their brands, services and ultimately increasing their traffic with the goal of potentially selling their books, services or simply getting some traffic for their web sponsors.

Ultimately I followed Dan but not Gil and had it not been for this post I would not have ever expected to get anything more out of either connection other then potentially some interesting content (I am always in need of good ideas for future ExecTec topics) from Dan’s twitter feed. Given both Dan and Gil’s marketing backgrounds I fully expect both will notice this post however my purpose here was simply to point out the difference between the two and my reaction to both.

I will admit that this post itself by its very nature has a high SEO aspect and will have the mostly unintentional consequence of drawing a large variety of readers. If you have read this far and found anything I said interesting feel free to check back here for my occasional mutterings, follow me on twitter or if you are in Los Angeles and or are passing through some Tuesday join me and my networking group for dinner in Westwood.

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