PR 101

This blog generates a lot of comments. Many of them end up in my spam filter. Not unusual I am told. The ratio seems to be one legitimate comment for every 20 or so spam comments.

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what I was getting so much spam. It didn’t appear to be hackers or anyone trying to do something malicious. I used to just hit the spam delete button without bothering to ever look at anything that in the filter.

Curious a couple of weeks ago about where all this detritus was coming from, I started looking at the senders’ email addresses. The light bulb went on. The spam generators were attempting to use my blog for “Black Hat” search engine optimization. They were attempting to raise their sites Google rankings by placing links on my blog site.

It works this way. Search engines, in particular Google require ways to confirm page relevancy. One method is to examine for one-way links coming directly from relevant websites. The more links into the website, the higher the search ranking.

Since most people searching for something rarely go beyond the first page of Google’s results, companies work very hard to increase the links to their pages. How they do that is called search engine optimization or SEO. I use “White Hat” SEO tactics for this blog.

There are a number of ways to do that, including using key words that will show up in search engines, trading links with other bloggers, and posting links to my blog in public forums. All of that is accepted practice perfectly legitimate.

Then there are the Black Hat tactics. As I like do, let’s use an example. In this case, let’s discuss that well-known department chain J.C. Penney.  During the 2010 holiday shopping period, the department store started showing up on the first page of Google for almost every product it sold. Highly unlikely that would happen on its own.

In February, the New York Times reported that it had “asked an expert in online search, Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media in New York, to study this question, as well as Penney’s astoundingly strong search-term performance in recent months. What he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating.

“Despite the cowboy outlaw connotations, black-hat services are not illegal, but trafficking in them risks the wrath of Google. The company draws a pretty thick line between techniques it considers deceptive and “white hat” approaches, which are offered by hundreds of consulting firms and are legitimate ways to increase a site’s visibility. Penney’s results were derived from methods on the wrong side of that line, says Mr. Pierce. He described the optimization as the most ambitious attempt to game Google’s search results that he has ever seen.

“Actually, it’s the most ambitious attempt I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “This whole thing just blew me away. Especially for such a major brand. You’d think they would have people around them that would know better.”

What someone did – Penney’s denies it had anything to do with the effort – was place links on thousands of websites all over the world that led directly to JCPenney.com The more links, the higher the Google search ranking. When the Times notified Google, punishment was swift, the newspaper reported.

Google pushed J.C. Penney search results to its back pages. (The Bob Dylan reference is intentional.) Suddenly it was very hard to find anything the company sold.

J.C. Penney paid the price for someone’s overzealous marketing effort. To me, Black Hat SEO is like an athlete who uses performance drugs. Would that person have won without the chemical boost?

The sad thing to me, beyond the unethical practice, is how Black Hat SEO calls all search results into question. I am willing to be bet that 99.9 percent of people on the Web don’t cheat. But all it takes is few people to try and game the system to make everyone suspicious. That benefits no one.

I get an email from the friend the other day, asking about particular social media site. My friends will often ask me which sites I recommend or what I think of a particular site.

Well, as I confessed to my friend, I had never heard of this site. That got me thinking. It seems like new sites are popping faster than dandelions in my lawn in June. But is each of these sites necessary? If someone did a business study of every social media site out there could many of them make a case for their existence?

Obviously, I am active user of social media. I am a social media consultant. I blog, I tweet, I post on Facebook, I use Linkedin incessantly and I am moving more and more onto YouTube. I can make a case for all of those sites. A large part of their appeal is that they are the biggest and easiest to use (more about that second point later.)

I also am a member of Orkut and I just joined a Chinese site called Ushi. I joined Orkut because it has a large number of users in South America and India. Ushi is self-described as the Chinese Linkedin. I do not currently do business in any of those places. But there could time when I do, so I want to have a presence there.

The key to all these sites is simplicity and ease of use. I don’t have to do much to interact with them. Which is good, but I am very busy. The less time I have to spend getting the maximum benefit is what I look for.

I also belong to Plaxo and Xing, but I am not sure why. I really don’t get much out of them.

Frankly, I think I am connected to enough sites. I don’t need any more sites. Yet, I keep getting invited to join others – a couple everyday. The latest is Facebook’s BranchOut. I joined it because I was curious, but so far I see no value in it. It doesn’t do anything that Linkedin or a regular Facebook doesn’t already do.

That’s my complaint about many of the newer sites. They are just duplicates of what’s already being done. Yeah, they might a couple of their own bells and whistles, but not enough to make them significantly different.

I am all for competition if it improves things, but I don’t see any improvement coming out of any of these. They are just not unique. I think this is an area that pretty much been covered.

It kind reminds me of television. ABC has “Dancing With the Stars,” so Fox comes out with “So You Think You Can Dance.” How many cop and doctors shows are on network television. It is all about being a copycat. Eventually, the market gets saturated.

People keep talking about the new Facebook or the next Linkedin. But the sites that might beat those are going to be something entirely new. They are not going to be clones of what already exists.

The newer sites that have taken off, Groupon as an example, did something new.  I belong to Groupon because I reap the benefits.

As long as I am ranting here, I have another beef about the new sites. There are just to many hurdles to join most of them. You want me as a member – make it simple. I think Groupon took me about a minute to join. Not so most of these new sites.  Name, email address, and a password are all that is needed. I will decide if I want to post a profile or a picture. It takes too much time. Yet, they ask for a lot of information. It is not worth my time to supply it.

When the dandelions take over, I pull them out by the roots. When I get site requests, I just ignore. It’s the best of both worlds.

A lot from people who are just beginning to work with social media ask me: “how do I get a lot of followers?”  My reply is “why do you think people should follow you?”

I see a lot of confused expressions. People have seen so many ads from self-described social media “gurus” promising thousands of followers with only a mouse click or two. Those charlatans have people convinced that building a list of followers is as simple as picking up a gallon of milk. My question always comes as a shock.

The answer is both simple and complex. In order to build a good list of followers, you have to provide something that will be of interest. A blog or an informative website is a good place to start. In other words, content is king. I am going to talk about blogs because I think a blog is the foundation of every successful social media campaign.

Don’t think providing interesting content is enough – it’s not.

This blog has several thousand which took a long time to build That readership took a long time to build. I have been publishing now for almost two years and I am proud to say this is the 137^th blog I have written and published.

The growth has been organic. In other words, people found me. I post my blog links on a number of sites, but that’s the equivalent of posting a billboard.

My readership numbered in the 10s of people for the first couple of months. I hope my readership grew because people found what I wrote interesting. I pushed this blog on every site that would let me. That led to curious people checking it out.

If they liked what they found, they told others. Those people started to read me and they spread the word. You get the idea. That support – for which I will always be grateful for – led to potential clients seeking out my business. That in turn led to clients hiring me.

None of that would have happened, or continue to happen, if I had not given people a reason to follow me. They will stop following if I don’t continue to give them something they want.

Writing a blog is not easy. I have an advantage in that I have been a professional writer for most of my adult life. I am used to cranking out copy. But first, I have to come up with a topic. That is not always easy.

It takes me at least four or five hours to write the blog and another hour to rewrite it. If the blog is a false starter – if I don’t like the topic after all, or the copy is just not flowing – add in a couple of hours to find another topic.

After that Heather Asiyanbi generously proof reads and edits it. After a half an hour making the corrections she has made, it takes post takes another 30 minutes or so to get ready post. Actually posting takes about an hour, give or take. It is a large time investment.

It is worth it though. First I enjoy writing blog because my core skill. For me, writing is more of an avocation than a job. I cannot imagine doing something that doesn’t involve writing.

Second, people seem to enjoy it. I average about 10 comments a blog, posted both on the blog and on various social media sites. Also, it gets retweeted a lot, something else for which I am also very grateful.

Third, it gets the word out about my business and myself. I have had clients contact me because of the blog. That is very gratifying.

If you want more followers, give people a reason to do that.