June 5, 2008 By 4 Comments

Sour Grapes?

I have an entry in the Marketing Pilgrim’s SEO Scholarshipcompetition. There are 30 other articles in that competition, and I have been slowly reading through them all. One of those articles struck me as being ultra popular because it has almost 3 times the amount of comments as my article.

“That’s interesting” I thought…

I will go take a look at the blog of the person who wrote this because they seem to have a large following and I want to see what I can learn from them. I was disappointed, however, to find that on the front page of the blog was a link-reciprocation article flat out asking for links to their entry in return for links on the blog.

Now the rules of the competition state
9. Any incidence of spam or “black hat” techniques will result in the disqualification of the entry. If in any doubt, ask yourself if you would apply the same techniques in a campaign for a company such as General Electric or Apple.

To me this blogger’s tactic doesn’t sound like something GE or Apple would be pleased to see their marketers would be doing. But maybe that is just me. It sure isn’t spam or absolute black hat, but its a pretty shitty way to earn links and traffic.

From my perspective it is not in the keeping of the spirit of the game.

Maybe it is just sour grapes from me….What do you think?

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May 30, 2008 By 2 Comments

Into the Unknown

Many years ago I was married to an alcoholic.  When I realised I could no longer go on living with him I refused to let him back while he was in a detox unit. With two small children of 3 and 5 I was taking a terrifying leap to assert my independence. No income, no prospects and two small children made life a pretty steep learning curve.

Knowing I needed some kind of help sorting my self out I went to a self help group. This experience was the turning point for me as I changed entirely my way of thinking about things. But the issue was, as I was in the transition period, practicing things I was I unfamiliar with doing, I felt like a complete fake.

It is perfectly natural, though not exactly comfortable, to have these feelings. When doing something you are not used to yet want to make it part of your persona, your conscious mind is second guessing what is going on and yelling out “Hang on, this isn’t me!” When I entered Marketing Pilgrim’s SEO Scholarship competition this week I was feeling this big time.

My article is quick and easy tactic to utilise FriendFeed’s social media aggregation service to improve traffic, reputation and visibilty of work created.  I would really like you to read it and tell me what you think One Egg One Hundred Baskets: Social Media Leverage

The feeling of “fakeness” is coming from offering something I feel is useful to the greater internet marketing community whom I see more experienced and less forgiving than I am. Who do I think I am to do this? I am not some massive guru who has made a squillion dollars perfecting their craft! To my inner voice I say “Bah!”.

Please read my article, tell me what you think and if applicable, give it a go and tell me how it goes.

Thanks!

Filed Under: Me-anderings, Projects Tagged With: , , ,
May 24, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Then I Go And Do The Complete Opposite

Yeah, yeah on Friday I was all about resting and looking after myself by staying in bed and reading a book. That hasn’t happened and here comes the justification.

Remember my post about a couple of ways I was willing to swap my time for a free MacBook Pro. One of those being an entry into the Marketing Pilgrim’s Search Engine Scholarship competition. Come Friday night I knew I was way too fatigued to get my head together to write something of any value so I wrote it off as an “oh well next time” kind of thing.

I woke up Saturday morning feeling pretty fresh and was checking out my Google Reader when lo and behold I see the post that Andy Beal had extended the deadline. Now to me that means two things, one there has not been many entries or not many of any note, and two I had the whole weekend to give it a crack.

Up went the motivation levels and I quickly scribbled down a diagram about what I was to write about. About two hours effort later (shockingly inadequate but all I am going to spend) I have submitted it. I really wanted to to be proof read by someone else before doing so, but Twitter is up and down like a bride’s nightie at the moment and on impulse I pressed send. Then I saw a typo in the text…. *sighs*

When it is published on the Marketing Pilgrim site I would like everyone to have a look and be genuine in your feedback and social love. I have not really put myself up as any kind of font of knowledge in this area before and have relied heavily on how I would like to see articles written.

Anyway each attempt is one step up the ladder in experience, and even if you think it is total crap I will learn from it.

Hot on the heels of that piece of work I submitted another two articles to Knewsroom and saw them published. That is another $300 in the kitty. If I keep this up I will have enough for a fully kitted out Macbook Pro in just over a week….still have to see the cash yet.

So here it is Sunday afternoon and I am writing a couple more Knewsroom articles and only then will I put some time into my eBook. I have the feeling that every day I don’t get it published is a bunch of sales down the drain, but maybe that is just my incurable optimism. The revised day for publication will now be more like next Friday.

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May 13, 2008 By 2 Comments

Free Macbook Pro – Continued

The story so far…. I want a free Macbook Pro.

By free I mean I do not want to pay for it.

I am willing to swap my time, my imagination and any unwanted goods for this baby. Knowing me I will spend more time than the AU$4k I would need to buy one, in time scheming how to get one. But isn’t that half the fun?

So what have I been up to

A

First I hit up Twitter to see what was being thrown about in the Twitterverse. There were some interesting results coming out of Tweetscan.

  • Spotted this blog that is giving away free MacBook Air and iPhones. I need an iPhone and I could use the Air to leverage to the Pro maybe . Really need that iPhone….fancy a blog giving away all that stuff. I will be back to check  out via RSS feeds I think!
  • Apple appear to be incredibly generous with their replacement parts and upgrades with many 140 character missives praising them for replacing this or that for free, outside of warranty, or just plain upgrading for nix.
  • A person I follow scored a Macbook pro as “in kind” for some training work he did for them…. nom nom nom
  • Most people who are looking for a free Macbook Pro are participating in the US-centric referral type sites which is no good for lil ol’ Aussie me.

Time spent: 1 hour

B

Next on the list of potential methods of gaining a free Macbook Pro is to win the Marketing Pilgrim’s Search Engine Marketing Scholarship and swap the prizes with a rabid marketer for a MacBook Pro. I think that is a pretty good deal if done properly. Winning of course would be ultra difficult, but the backlink to the blog will be handy.

Budgeted time : 8 Hours

C

The Thirty Day Challenge kicks off tomorrow with whispers that there will be some FABULOUS prizes being given out along the way. This may get me deleted from many friends lists, but I am prepared to spam the crap out of everyone to win whatever is on offer and then leverage it.

Actually i lie, I wouldn’t subject my friends to more than one spam, my acquaintances on the other hand…mwuahahahahh!

Actually..I am on my knees now, begging you to follow any link I put up to the Thirty Day Challenge *puppy dog eyes*

Time Budgeted: Unknown at this stage

D

?

Ideas anyone?

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