It's so easy that even people who aren't born yet can do it! Yes, some enterprising geek expecting a baby got antsy about the baby kicking and came up with a way to set up a belt for mom that has sensors in it that communicate through some nifty homespun software to send Twitter updates in-utero.
Ok, that's either crazy or genius, I don't know which. But once this thing comes out of prototype, I know young internet professionals who may alter their family planning schedules to be able to use something like this so their kids can be among the first generation of social networkers who got started before they were even born.
For the rest of us, it's a little easier, since we have working digits and can use keyboards and all...
One of the most basic quick-Twit tools is the Firefox Twitter update add-on, Twitter Bar. This cool little gadget inserts a special icon at the end of the address bar for you. You just configure the add-on with your Twitter user info, then go to the address bar in the browser and type. When you're done with your status note, mouse over the little icon (which is a grey minus normally) and it will turn into a green plus and tell you how many characters you have left in your message. Then you click the green plus when you're ready to broadcast and presto... your Twitter post fires off into the ether without you so much as changing your browser direction.
One of my favorite Twitter update tools is another service called Ping.fm. I can put most of my social media profiles in here, like Facebook and MySpace and so forth, then update them ALL with a status message whenever I want. The best part is the GTalk account that Ping uses - I can literally post a message in IM through Gtalk and Ping.fm will tinyURL-ize my links and broadcast my status update to ALL of my social profiles at once. Seriously, that's an awesome timesaver.
Twitter is an integral part of the social media marketing service that I offer through one of my other projects, LollipopSocial.com. Several of the clients that I work with through Metric Voodoo are beneficiaries of this service without even realizing it, as it's also a staple of most of my business SEO strategies. It's so easy to utilize Twitter, that it's practically foolish not to use it.
Example 1, to generate straight e-commerce business:
build a list of people to sell to - find competitors or complimentary types of business who share your demographic, and look up their Twitter followers. Follow those people who really do seem to fit your demographic profile. A good percentage of those people will follow you back. Spend a couple of weeks Twittering really useful things, like breaking news, clever sayings, links to useful pieces of information, cheat codes for videos games, things that will "train" your followers to click the links you send out. Then surprise them with a discount code for your e-commerce web site. "Use code XYZCODE for 10% off at *tinyURL*" and check your web analytics in a few hours to see what happened.
Example 2, to find out what other people are thinking: (marketing research)
build a list of people to watch - find sites or groups you are interested in, where you feel folks from your target demographic should be hanging around and look up the followers on those sites, and follow them... yes, this is just like the example above, but it's what you do afterward that's different. In this instance, we don't care if anyone ever follows us back - we want to see conversations and status updates that take place on these other profiles, to see if we can gain a sense of what's important. One of the most unrecoverable mistakes a marketer can make is to misinterpret or misunderstand their target market. Reading through the status updates and ocassional personal remarks of those people who should be part of your demographic can give you some insights into other aspects of personality and habit that you may not otherwise be aware of. For example, who knew that 30-something moms were so touchy about having aching backs? If you kept up with the Twitter Motrin Meltdown, now you know...
So there you go, two really easy and legitimate ways to use Twitter in your everyday internet business strategy. And who says there's never anything useful on this site?
Monday, December 15, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
SEO Secret Ingredient - Part 1
I am a little reluctant to claim I originated this practice, but to date, I've never heard anyone else describe it, I've never read about it, and it usually takes me 20 minutes to describe it to other SEO professionals before it makes sense... however, to my backward/sideways mind, it makes perfect sense and I'm surprised I don't see more evidence of it around.
The blog you're reading is called Metric HooDoo and is the playground area for me with respect to information that I might not want to put on my main PPC/SEO site, MetricVooDoo... and yes, if I think I can come up with enough jibberish to populate it, I might very well create another free blog on blogs2k.com or wordpress.org called Metric DooDoo. Don't think I haven't thought about it.
But this isn't an exercise in variations on a theme, although that's kinda fun too... it's an exercise in spreading the word - your word - putting what you have to say in more than one place and then letting those places talk to each other. In fact, it's almost a certainty that I will set up at least two more free blogs with names all their own (not related to Metric or Voodoo) because I usually have so many opinions on things, I can populate half a dozen blogs rather easily.
Google Really Is Your Friend
You might have noticed that over there in the sidebar, there's a section that says "MetricVoodoo, All Around..." and it lists 5 Article titles. That's the RSS feed from my main site. After that site had been up a month or so, I came over here to my Google friend, Blogger/Blogspot and set up another, less serious blog, knowing full well that there's a gadget in here called RSS Feed. This gadget, when populated with the RSS URL of another blog, will pull the headlines and excerpts into the Blogspot blog.
A quick check using the Firefox plugin called NoDoFollow tells me that the links on my Blogspot blog are all followable, so those links count as external links back to my main site. For good measure, I'll also sprinkle links throughout various articles that go back to where I answer questions or talk more deeply about ideas that I might start here, or vice-versa, to spread the linkage around a little. I need to check the settings on my Blogspot blog and make sure that I've given permission for the Search Engine to index my blog and detect not only the articles I put in here, at which time it may also follow the outbound links...
Does that make anyone go "hmmm" yet?
One of the by-products of creating the Google ID necessary to get my Blogspot blog is that now I can use that ID to also set up Google Reader. I can add the RSS feed of my main site into Google Reader then mark some of the individual articles as Shared... we'll come back to this later, but you need to get acquainted with the sharing features of any blog readers you use. I'm using Google as the first example because it's simple to figure out and it's also included in some other tools, like FriendFeed, which we'll explore later.
So, at this point I have these things in operation:
You don't want to overdo the blog accounts - you don't want to end up with more than you can feasibly handle because that will divert your focus - it's better to populate two or three blogs with good solid writing than populate 12 blogs with inane or redundant comments (and Adsense Blocks) that are not likely to be naturally linked back to by anyone because they're lame.
A lot of bloggers can't decide "who" they want to be on their blog - it's more fun to write one way, but more profitable to write another, and what if I want to stick up some video content? Do I want all that stuff cluttering up the bread-n-butter site? It's useful but will it trash up the neighborhood? And maybe it would be nice to have a place to rant once in a while... These are all indications that you have what it takes with your writing to be able to feed at least two blogs, maybe three. If so, this might be a viable tactic for you to try. Just make sure your blogs contain valid non-duplicate content, and don't break any of the SEO Commandments.
Stay tuned for part II
The blog you're reading is called Metric HooDoo and is the playground area for me with respect to information that I might not want to put on my main PPC/SEO site, MetricVooDoo... and yes, if I think I can come up with enough jibberish to populate it, I might very well create another free blog on blogs2k.com or wordpress.org called Metric DooDoo. Don't think I haven't thought about it.
But this isn't an exercise in variations on a theme, although that's kinda fun too... it's an exercise in spreading the word - your word - putting what you have to say in more than one place and then letting those places talk to each other. In fact, it's almost a certainty that I will set up at least two more free blogs with names all their own (not related to Metric or Voodoo) because I usually have so many opinions on things, I can populate half a dozen blogs rather easily.
Google Really Is Your Friend
You might have noticed that over there in the sidebar, there's a section that says "MetricVoodoo, All Around..." and it lists 5 Article titles. That's the RSS feed from my main site. After that site had been up a month or so, I came over here to my Google friend, Blogger/Blogspot and set up another, less serious blog, knowing full well that there's a gadget in here called RSS Feed. This gadget, when populated with the RSS URL of another blog, will pull the headlines and excerpts into the Blogspot blog.
A quick check using the Firefox plugin called NoDoFollow tells me that the links on my Blogspot blog are all followable, so those links count as external links back to my main site. For good measure, I'll also sprinkle links throughout various articles that go back to where I answer questions or talk more deeply about ideas that I might start here, or vice-versa, to spread the linkage around a little. I need to check the settings on my Blogspot blog and make sure that I've given permission for the Search Engine to index my blog and detect not only the articles I put in here, at which time it may also follow the outbound links...
Does that make anyone go "hmmm" yet?
One of the by-products of creating the Google ID necessary to get my Blogspot blog is that now I can use that ID to also set up Google Reader. I can add the RSS feed of my main site into Google Reader then mark some of the individual articles as Shared... we'll come back to this later, but you need to get acquainted with the sharing features of any blog readers you use. I'm using Google as the first example because it's simple to figure out and it's also included in some other tools, like FriendFeed, which we'll explore later.
So, at this point I have these things in operation:
- the main web site/blog where most of my substantiative articles go
- a secondary blog on Blogspot (a Google property) that I have pre-determined will be for things that are valid, but not quite ready for prime time, which is posting links via RSS feed back to my main site for 5 instant external links
- a blog reader with a handful of shared articles
You don't want to overdo the blog accounts - you don't want to end up with more than you can feasibly handle because that will divert your focus - it's better to populate two or three blogs with good solid writing than populate 12 blogs with inane or redundant comments (and Adsense Blocks) that are not likely to be naturally linked back to by anyone because they're lame.
A lot of bloggers can't decide "who" they want to be on their blog - it's more fun to write one way, but more profitable to write another, and what if I want to stick up some video content? Do I want all that stuff cluttering up the bread-n-butter site? It's useful but will it trash up the neighborhood? And maybe it would be nice to have a place to rant once in a while... These are all indications that you have what it takes with your writing to be able to feed at least two blogs, maybe three. If so, this might be a viable tactic for you to try. Just make sure your blogs contain valid non-duplicate content, and don't break any of the SEO Commandments.
Stay tuned for part II
{Editor's note: Need advice on where to find the easiest blogging platforms to get started on? Yep, that's on my other blog.}
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
What is HooDoo?
7 dictionary results for: hoodoo
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
hoo·doo 
[hoo-doo] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, plural -doos, verb, -dooed, -doo·ing.
[hoo-doo] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, plural -doos, verb, -dooed, -doo·ing. –noun
–verb (used with object)
| 1. | voodoo. |
| 2. | bad luck. |
| 3. | a person or thing that brings bad luck. |
| 4. | Geology. a pillar of rock, usually of fantastic shape, left by erosion. |
| 5. | to bring or cause bad luck to. |
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
| hoo·doo (hōō'dōō) Pronunciation Key n. pl. hoo·doos
tr.v. hoo·dooed, hoo·doo·ing, hoo·doos
[Of West African origin, possibly from voodoo.] hoo'doo·ism n. |
(Download Now or Buy the Book)
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
hoodoo
hoodoo
1875, "one who practices voodoo," Amer.Eng., probably an alteration of voodoo. Meaning "something that causes or brings bad luck" is attested from 1882.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
| hoodoo | |
noun | |
| 1. | (geology) a column of weathered and unusually shaped rock; "a tall sandstone hoodoo" |
| 2. | a practitioner of voodoo |
| 3. | a charm superstitiously believed to embody magical powers [syn: juju] |
| 4. | something believed to bring bad luck |
verb | |
| 1. | bring bad luck; be a source of misfortune |
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Hoodoo
Hoo"doo\, n. [Perh. a var. of voodoo.] One who causes bad luck. [Colloq.] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Hoodoo
Hoo"doo\, v. t. To be a hoodoo to; to bring bad luck to by occult influence; to bewitch. [Colloq., U. S.] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
Hoodoo
Hoo"doo\, n. A natural rock pile or pinnacle of fantastic shape. [Western U. S.] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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