I had a twitter conversation with TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden about the launch of WebProNews’ new Twitter directory/indexing service Twellow.com.
Great things about Twellow:
Categorizes twitter streams by vertical/niche, eg: automotive, movies, blogging, news
Groups related twitterers together
It’s offset by one major flaw, which unfortunately is tied to Twitter’s current state of development – analytics don’t mean much more than a brute force “followers” number.
The higher the number of followers, the higher you’ll rank in the results, with the net effect that Robert Scoble is ranked first with 28,000 followers, followed by Jake Marsh with 12,000, in the blogging category.
The results are limited by the enrollment of your twitter feed into the system for benchmarking and indexing.
But I’m having serious doubts about using followers as the determining criteria.
I was looking at MyBlogLog product manager Ian Kennedy’s post on the recently launched MyBlogLog API.
[also contains video and links to the tech specs of the API].
One feature of the API is that it is “the only API that I know of that allows you to look-up a person’s identifier across social networks”
Does that mean a spam marketer using the MBL API can scrape all your social network IDs and populate your twitter streams, MyBlogLog message feed, and spam comment on your Flickr photos and blogs?
If the process can be automated, or the captchas can be overcome fairly easily (I’ve heard of a number of programmers who’ve been able to optimize OCR algorithmns on even massively distorted captchas…)
So if the spam barrage hits you on your web 2.0 accounts,
That would be pretty terrible, unless there’s a verification process involved in authenticating the ID of the person initiating the search…
So let’s keep our fingers crossed that enough safeguard are put into place, so that email “mass marketing” doesn’t become “web 2.0 mass marketing”….
In this edition I had a chance to chat with Jason Bailey (right), who’s recently launched his Facebook Application $uperRewards, and he’s also one of the management team at CPA network Millnic Media.
Jason’s previously been very actively marketing on the MySpace social network and has recently focused his attention to the Facebook social network.
Hear his thoughts on how Facebook squares off against MySpace, which are the other social networks you should take note of (and generate income from).
This is part one of a 90 minute interview I conducted with Jason recently.
If you’re already in the social marketing game, this is a session you need to listen to…
Each social networking site has a specific purpose and can help you achieve your business goals. Although LinkedIn seems fairly limited in terms of functions, it can be used to enhance your Internet Marketing efforts if you approach it with the right mindset.
Initially set up for the business community to network, share contacts and recommend acquaintances for open job positions, it appears the site has been attempting to expand its scope.
It is a presence on the Internet though, with an Alexa rank of 149 and Google PageRank 7.
Some negative points against it include: Adding Google AdSense ad blocks detracts from its corporate image, as has some discussions in its questions and answers section which seems to have devolved into a discussion of network marketing opportunities and online scams.
Add to that the seemingly limited interaction and communication functions and you might have the receipe for a social network which could be a “killer app” for corporate headhunters, but something that merely stumbles along for the rest of us.
Admittedly, LinkedIn has helped me connect with a couple of university mates, but to squeeze some networking juice out of your profile requires some “out of the box” thinking.
If you don’t already have a blog, submitted articles or press releases or have a Squidoo lens or Hubpage up, perhaps this will help you rank for your name.
Be sure to include your profile details, including specializations.
Instead of “content developer” or “writer”, here’s your chance to mention that you’re a “direct response copywriter” or “advertorial writer” or “technical writer”.
Besides making your profile more relevant to human readers, the keywords will help others searching for a specialist to find you more easily too.
So you might list your specialities and perhaps get a job offer direct from an employer. But more likely a headhunter will be farming LinkedIn’s userbase for specific profiles for their database, such as “Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) markeitng specialist”.
Where I think Internet Marketers will benefit more is to find joint venture partners or collaborators who might fill in the missing piece of the puzzle for a project they’re working on.
From the demographics I’ve seen, I’d expect that LinkedIn users would be (more…)
Linkbaiting on social networks like MyBlogLog, MySpace and BumpZEE is common, especially when Internet Marketers use pictures of bikini-clad women as their avatar.
While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the practice, I feel that it sets up expectations that the blogger or website owner will have to deliver on once the visitor lands on your page.
If you can keep your readers happy, you’ve laid the foundation for a successful and low cost (possibly free) traffic generation model.
The sad reality is that more than 90% of the sites using such techniques have average (and usually sub-standard) poor content.
At best, this is gimmicky in my opinion and best used for one-off, throwaway adsense-oriented traffic.
But if you’re a serious Internet Marketer in this for the long haul, you’d do much better to build your brand, which means either using your photograph, or an image which represents your online presence.
Credibility and reputation are essential to your long term success, and being consistent in your online branding build rapport with your visitors. Consistent branding will bring you (more…)
In this edition I had a chance to chat with Jason Bailey (right), who’s recently launched his Facebook Application 
