Just had to fire in a quick post about the twitter story competition being run by @copyblogger — write a story in EXACTLY 140 characters, post it on twitter, add a link to your tweet in the comments on the original blog post, and be in with the chance of winning an 8GB iPod Touch and lots of other goodies.
Outstanding!
I love the way twitter makes you condense your writing, squeezing the maximum out of every character. Here’s my swiftly penned missive:
Think you can do better — get tweeting, there’s not much time left.
We all know how crucial attracting and retaining bright, talented people is to the success of any organisation. Now is a particularly crucial time on the recruitment scene. The bright young stars of tomorrow — true digital natives (PDF File) — are entering the workforce… and things are changing.
These connected whiz-kids are looking around, wondering where they should work… and where are they looking? Online, naturally; but they’re not just looking at company and jobs websites, they’re checking out your online reputation on social networks like Facebook, MySpace and others, and are looking for the profiles of executives on professional networks like LinkedIn.
Social screening is a two way street
You read a lot about how employers are trawling these networks both to “check” applicants’ details and looking for prospective employees; about how candidates should have their professional profile up on LinkedIn, and how they should be aware of their online footprint and watch what they post. What you don’t hear much about is the fact that those same candidates are doing exactly the same thing in reverse. Be under no illusion, your prospective employees are checking you out too… and as digital natives they’re in their natural environment: i.e. they’re probably better at it than you are!
In a nutshell: if you don’t measure up, then sorry, you don’t get to employ the best and the brightest — and that could hurt the long term prosperity of your business.
Jason Calacanis is no stranger to courting controversy. Not so long ago the serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur had the SEO community in uproar with his public comments at various search marketing conferences.
SMX Social 2008, Long Beach, CA: “SEO is a wasted industry. You’re wasting your time fighting off ranking problems instead of creating great content. You’re just spinning your wheels hoping the Google gods won’t kick you out. It’s a bad way to live your life. Using a human service is a better way to go about it.”
SES 2006, Chicago: “SEO is bulls**t…90% of the SEO market is made up of snake oil salesmen.”
The firestorm that followed reverberated across the social web….
At the risk of attracting a little vitriol, I have to say that there’s truth in both of those statements.
I’ve been using Twitter in earnest for a couple of weeks now, and I have to say it’s genuinely surprised me. At first I was sceptical. What possible value can you squeeze into a 140 character post? Plenty, as it turns out.
But the real value of twitter (and I guess other micro-blogging/short message broadcast services like Jaiku and Pownce) isn’t about individual messages — it’s about the cumulative stream of messages: what that reveals about you and the people you’re connected with. I love it.
In the short time I’ve been using Twitter I’ve realised that it really can add tremendous value in lots of ways:
Some of twitters strengths
- you to feel more connected and in touch with the people around you
- it helps strengthen your relationships with the people you already know
- it’s a great way to hook up with like-minded people you don’t know
- you can follow thought-leaders and innovators in your field, see what’s on their minds, and gain tremendous insight from that
- it puts your finger on the beating pulse of your industry — if it’s happening people are talking about it on twitter, and linking to valuable resources on the web
- it’s a great way to harness groundswell to promote new products and services through social media (as witnessed recently with @patphelans remarkable Twitterfone launch) — see Pat’s Twitterfone launch summary on his blog.
I’m sure there are plenty more. Of course it’s also a big distraction and potential time waster… but I’m working on that 
.
But now the subject of Twitter Spam has reared its head, with the publication of a new Twitter Black List.
Which begs the question, is spam really going to be a problem on a service that’s fundamentally based around opt-in? You only see the tweets of people you choose to follow, and you can opt back out again at any time if they start posting lots of spammy tweets. From my admittedly limited experience you don’t need a blacklist to spot potential twitter spammers — you just need a soupcon of common sense.
When someone on twitter follows you, resist the guilt reflex to follow them back, and check their profile and their twitter-stream to see if they have anything interesting to say. If they do, great, if not… or if you see a lot of spammy links, don’t follow them… simple.
Where’s the problem?
Danny Sullivan posted a terrific summary of the twitter spam issue over on his Daggle blog recently. It’s definitely worth a read.
One thing in Danny’s summary — about Twitter’s @replies confused me a bit though.
Danny says:
@replies. By default, you will only see messages from people who call you out using your name (like @dannysullivan) if you are following them. This means you’re initially safe from unwanted messages — no one you don’t know can show up in your Twitter stream. But some change the default to see @replies from anyone. I do — and it’s a great way to meet new people you aren’t following. If they say something interesting, catch my attention somehow — I’m like great! A new person to follow. But it also means potentially, people you don’t know can get into your Twitter replies tab or if you use a tool like Twhirl (love it, recommend it!), then they’re potentially even more in your face. Yeah, there’s a “spam” potential there, and hopefully it won’t grow. If someone is abusive, you can block them individually. See this on Twitter for more about @replies.
Now, I interpret the Twitter Support page on @replies a little differently from Danny. I think the @reply settings on your Twitter profile relate to @replies SENT TO OTHER PEOPLE by the people you follow. The options are:
- You receive @replies sent from the people you follow only if they’re sent to other people you also follow. (this is the twitter default setting)
- You receive @replies sent from the people you follow to any user regardless of whether you follow them or not. (this is my preferred setting and a great way to find new and interesting people connected to the people you’re already following)
- You don’t receive any @replies sent by the people you follow to anyone other than yourself.
You will ALWAYS receive @replies directed at your particular username from anybody (i.e anyone who types in @yourusername), regardless of your settings and regardless of whether you follow them or not. Your Twitter @reply settings will dictate whether you see replies sent from the people you follow to other people… if you follow that!
To test this I just created a new user (not following anybody and not followed by anybody) and sent an @reply to my main account. It got through perfectly, as did the reply I sent back in return.
So — is the fact that ANYBODY can @reply anybody else, without the “Follow” opt in a good thing, or a potential loophole that spammers could exploit in the future… comments please!
An article in today’s Sunday Times outlines how spending on SEO in the UK is on the increase as businesses vie for potentially lucrative organic search listings in Google.
According to the article SEO spending in Britain will reach £400 million this year, and the figure is growing 60% year on year.
The article also highlights another, less welcome trend: basically that newspapers really don’t get Search Marketing!
When it comes to describing SEO I found it simplistic. Keeping things simple for the sake of clarity is of course a good thing… but in this case the article manages to be simplistic and confusing.
For example, Author James Ashton describes SEO as:
Part crystal-ball watching, part trial and error, it is the practice of improving lacklustre internet commerce by getting a firm noticed on the results pages of search engines.
Hmm! Not sure that’s really it.
Summarising how companies go about SEO he adds:
Most companies achieve SEO by peppering their websites with keywords that Google’s technology can easily read.
While comparing SEO and PPC he ventures:
Of the two, SEO was invented first, with the concept of paying for positions in search results introduced only a decade ago by Goto.com, now part of Yahoo.
Strictly speaking the article isn’t inaccurate, and it has some interesting facts and figures in it, but overall I found it a tad misleading.
Perhaps my biggest problem with it though is the unwritten implication that SEO is about gaming the engines — when of course (at least for legitimate businesses looking for long term rankings), that’s really not what it’s about at all.
Think I’ll stick with this SEO theory.
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