The first element is one that just about everyone is good at – The size of your network.

I say everyone is good at this element because all it takes to massively increase the number of friends in your MyBlogLog, BumpZee, YouTube, Facebook or other community is hitting the ‘add friend’ button and doing it over, and over, and over, and over again.

But here’s where it gets interesting, the fine line between social marketing and spamming is drawn when the relationship and more importantly permission and consensus are factored in.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve datamined someone’s email, cell phone from the net, your attempt to game the social network for personal gain falls flat on its face if you don’t have the relationship to back it up.

You might be wondering if this is merely ‘theoretical’ or ‘hypothetical’ or how well it works in real life…

Look at what happened to me last year…

I’ve been active on the WickedFire affiliate marketing forum for some time, giving advice on my pet area of blogging. So having been invited to be a ‘Blogging Guide’, I spend more time on the forum and create an instructional thread on “Blogging For Bucks”

And one day I read a thread on the forum about this new Super Affiliate’s blog, Super Affiliate Mindset.

And after talking with PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta for some time, we decide to jointly work on a product, which eventually becomes the Super Affiliate Accelerator. (the site is being upgraded at the moment).

The project is intended to create a series of custom training to provide business strategies and PPC tactics to new and experienced affiliate marketers.

Part of the program involves inviting other established Internet Marketers in on some of the mastermind sessions we’re organizing.

So I ask my friend Wil Reynolds, founder of top SEO agency Seer Interactive, to join in on one of our upcoming calls.

And as part of my research, I watch some of Wil’s videos from Shawn Collins and Missy Ward’s Affiliate Summit Seminar.

If you’re new to Search Engine Optimization, undoubtedly, Wil’s suggestions to check out 3 key blogs to keep you up to date on SEO developments will be intriguing.

What are the 3 blogs?

• SEOMoz: Seattle-based SEO agency, headed by Rand Fishkin
• Aaron Wall’s SEOBook
• Google’s Matt Cutts

Listening to Wil’s recommendations, I opened my copy of SEOBook I’d purchased early last year.

I’d glanced through it a number of times and picked up great SEO tips and subsequently listed it on my recommendations page.

Now, with the weight of Wil’s endorsement, I re-read it (all 350 pages in a 2 hour sitting).

If you have not read it yet, you will not know that it goes beyond SEO, to encompass Aaron’s copywriting strategies and even PPC management. More importantly, Aaron includes elements of his Internet Marketing journey from spamming links to creating quality white hat links.

If you haven’t yet, why not spend the opening days of this year, checking out Aaron Wall’s SEOBook.

Top row: Spot the guy who traded the giant red paperclip for a house?

That’s me in the top row, 2nd from the right.
In Tino’s own words:

There are dozens of social networks that bring the blogosphere together, with Technorati and MyBlogLog being two of the biggest. I wanted to bring a whole bunch of bloggers together on one page. 2000 bloggers to be exact!

Lots of familiar faces among the 300 listed there.

Top row: 4th from the left, Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney) holding his $132,997.94 check from Google

Bottom row: 3rd from the left, Kris Jones (Pepperjam), Jim Kukral (Blogkits) is right next to him

Also spotted in the mass of bloggers are:

• Robert Scoble
• Matt Cutts
• ProBlogger Darren Rowse
• Todd Malicoat
• John Chow
• Chris Sandberg
• My buddy and forum specialist Ryan Chua
• Japanese “Cash Quest” babe Kumiko Suzuki

and a host of others.
—

One thing I’ve noticed is that there’re quite a number of blogs hosted at WordPress.com and Blogspot.

If you’re a recreational blogger, I believe it’s ok to host it at a free site.

However, if you see yourself as a serious blogger/SEM/SEO, and you are building a brand and PageRank and backlinks to your blog, would you really want to host it at a free blogging service?

Granted, it’s free.

But if web hosting costs you $100 a year. Don’t you think your branding is worth at least 10 times that?

You could potentially (and I know of cases) of bloggers losing their free domains because of a violation of the terms of service (whether deliberate or inadvertedly), a perceived ‘excessive’ attempt at monetizing their blog, ‘excessive’ traffic coming to their blog.

I’d suggest two steps to “professionalize” your blogging efforts:

• Get a domain name. NameCheap.com is my preferred domain registrar.
• Get low cost, reliable host. I especially like BlueHost.
• Go with a hosted WordPress blog. BlueHost provides a one-click idiot-proof install of WordPress through it’s comprehensive control panel.

It’ll enhance your blog longevity.

For more information on Tino’s project, visit:

–> 2000 Bloggers

• SEO/SEM

Shoemoney put out a tasty post and buzzed industry contacts with the hypothetical “Would you hire Matt Cutts? If you had to come up with a dollar figure to offer him what would it be? What would his job title and job description be?”

A number of informative and insightful responses from the likes of Kris Jones (CEO PepperJamSearch), Patrick Gavin (CEO Text Link Ads), Greg Hartnett (Best Of The Web), Christine Kim, Rand Fishkin (Owner SEOMOZ), Jason Calacanis (Former CEO Weblogs INC & AOL Exec), Neil Patel – CEO ACS Web Consulting, Danny Sullivan, Aaron Wall – SEOBook

Here’s the link: Would You Hire Matt Cutts?

—

• Blogging

Robyn Tippins looks at the backlash from the bloggers perspective from the proposed acquistion of Performancing’s assets by PayPerPost (as mentioned earlier PerPerPost Acquires Performancing Assets). The PPP and Performancing deal nixed? Good thing or bad thing?

Here’s the link: Pay Per Post and Performancing Deal Nixed
—

• Affiliate Marketing

Has Click Fraud been blown out of proportion? Jon F gives his perspective and gives his fix to the solution. The fact that he filed his post under “Industry Bullshit” will give an indication of his straight up, in your face perspective on the issue. (I’m looking forward to checking out his session together with Shoemoney at Affiliate Summit West)

Here’s the link: Click Fraud – The Overrated Internet Killer

—

• Social Traffic

Social Marketer Michelle MacPhearson is back. Having given birth to a beautiful son, Colum, expect more social traffic tips from Michelle this year. I learned quite a bit from her about social traffic generation last year and will be expecting more good things from her this year.

Here’s the link: 1 Day Old