As you all know by now, it’s the level of gangster rapper in you that makes you succeed or fail in social media. I am going to make 10 strong arguments to why this is the case. But first put on this track, kick back and read this 5 bullet advice stack.

1. Beef it
Ever heard of a true hip hop beef? It can make you or break you. Just as in social media, if you can handle the open battle with another rapper and come out on top, then you’re the new black. So many of the high rollers in social media today have built their success on beefing with others.

2. Listen to the beat and go with the flow
Just as in hip hop you got to learn to hear the sick beat of the street. If you don’t then you’re out the door faster than a rabbit … You cannot prepare for what’s going to be around the next corner, but you have got to be ready for it. By keeping your ear in the direction of the people you trust and follow your heart, then you shouldn’t be worse than any other bloke out there.

3. Give shout outs to anyone you got love for
This is something real gangster rappers do all the time. They shout out to anyone in their click worth mentioning. This rule goes for social media as well. Do them retweets, do them links from your corporate blog, pack people together and connect the dots. If you do, then you set yourself as the crew front man (woman), and that’s where you want to be. If you can take the heat.

4. If you’re different, thou shall be noted
Just as on the hip hop scene the originals come up faster than the ones running main street. You want your mix tape run by the illest dj’s, played on the sickest radio stations and promoted by the realest people. One thing in common for these people is that they have to stay on top of their game. They have to stay fresh. Provide them with new and original stuff and you’ll have a greater chance of making it. Keep that in mind when constructing your rhymes, social media strategy or next marketing campaign.

5. The Gunz come out
It is for real and you got to be able to handle the heat. This means you have to get your crew in sync and make sure you have everyone’s loyalty. Just as in the hood, you cannot have any snitches in a world wide organization. If you stay true to the street this will never go wrong as you will get all the street cred you deserve.

Listen, it is the rules of the street out there and you can’t just come running with standardized forms for people. They just won’t give a damn. It might even be so that it is what makes them pop you instead of letting you go.

That’s the realest advice I can give, for you to take with you during the weekend!

Possibly related posts:

• Related posts on Ghetto media
• Yesterday, Today, Forever… Wow that sounds cheesy!
• thugz cry – bizzy bone

• Related posts on Social Media
• Jive buys Filtrbox to make one-stop social media offering for …
• Jive Software Acquires Social Media Monitoring Startup Filtrbox

• Related posts on social media strategy
• Facebook Thoughts | It's Open – Social Media Strategy Consultancy
• Social Media Should's And Should Not's | Conversational Currency

On Saturday (28th of November) I held a talk at Searchmeet in Stockholm arranged by Per, Simon and Johan. They had done an excellent job finding speakers that would compliment each other in a good way and make this the best conference I have been attending for a really long time. No one seemed to be there to sell or overcome each other in the “I know the best” category. Simply excellent execution from start to finish.

Speakers during the day was Gary Beal from Vanguard SEO who held a presentation on the 12 SEO trends of 2009. Bo Tidelius had a interactive session on how one would market Ahlgrens bilar. Just before that Johan from Dinwebb, one of the organizers talked a bit about what they do. Post that group activity I took the stage and gave a session on the Value Ladder. More on that later. Then Cristoph C. Cemper from cemper.com took over and dished out a link building beating worthy it’s name. All speakers nicely molded into each other and there was a clear sense that this day was not like other days aiming to be this day. It was extremely nice, and I’ll leave you with that.

Irrational Conversion

My talk wasn’t very much about irrational conversion principles at all. First of all, it is a very complex topic to cover in a 20 minute session, and secondly it is probably only two people in an SEO crowd that get a hard on by listening to me getting side tracked by all ideas I get when talking on the topic. Instead I decided to recommend an excellent book on the topic – The Psychology of Economic Decisions by Isabelle Brocas and Juan D. Carillo. For this purpose you’ll only need to read the first chapter in Volume I. But for those of you interested in the intersecting space between psychology and economic theory, I suggest you read the rest these two have written as well.

Keep in mind that this is a highly disputed area of science and even though the research that supports these theories is highly accepted, there are still a lot of exceptions where these rules do not apply. Well…. they are in fact no rules at all, but they give you some insight into how the human brain works and how we make decisions about our money alone or in groups. Many times we find ourselves deciding over our own money in the wierdest and most irrational kind of way. We pay more for the same just to get it now. We get insecure and vulnerable. We feel threatened and pacified. However, our worst enemy when working with being rational in our economic decision making is our perceived well being. Anyhow, read the book. You’ll like it.

Presentation on the Value Ladder

Instead of digging any deeper into the actual theory base of the topic of the day, I started talking about how one can split conversion into several steps and that the user enters your site with a specific frame of mind that you need to take into account if you want to convert him or her. This ladder was first introduced to me by this guy Henrik from Litium, but I have since then elaborated on it quite a lot and built it into a model for customer value and investment in time/money.

The video will be added (I’ll tweet when I add it) as soon as I get it. That way I do not have to transcript this whole session which would be a bit of a mess anyhow since I really don’t remember what I said. I might come out looking like a retard, but from what I could tell by the tweeted feedback, people seemed to get some entertainment at least .

I enjoyed the railing discussions I had with the people at the conference. Please visit Searchmeet.se to find more info about who was there. I guess you know how to use google.com/translate right

Thank you all that was there today for a fantastic day! Connect to me on LinkedIn if you’d like a place to stay in touch easily.

//Jesper – who hasn’t had this many outbound links ever..

Just press play on this one and then start reading the text below. If you’re one of those struggling “social web advocates” out there. Just keep this in mind whilst on your way to work in the morning. I have this text on the cubical wall in my work area. I read it through every day. I smile at it and I am happy to know that I was late in figuring this one out. Bob Dylan already thought about this soooooo long ago that I wasn’t even born. The times are changing… and even though this is another version than the one that Bob does himself…. since it is evening when I am writing this post… this is the most suitable…

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

Facebook pages are one of the key features when engaging your company in social media. It is a simple way to get up and running in a very limited time. This post is the first in a series about Facebook Fan Pages. The index for this tutorial will be listed under the Social Media option in the top navigation.

First Create your Facebook page, then think what to do with it

The first lesson of social media is to never think about what you do in social media. Just do it, test it, and obide to the general rules of being nice and transparent with your intentions. No one know what fans you will get before you actually take the first step. You do get the fans you deserve. If you have a successful business online and/or offline, you will find loads of similarities in the social web. It is a lot more like traditional business than what you are used to from the static web.

1. Fist step: Page creation and account setup

Start out by visiting the advertising entry page of Facebook.  Make sure you have logged out from your private, personal account first. Otherwise your private account will have a never ending relationship with the Facebook page you’re creating. All though that might be a good thing in a couple of years, if you’re successful, as it can serve as a good card to pull when negotiating salaries. I would however not recommend it as it might be so that the legal process will determine that you have to leave your private account to the company rather than the company leaving its page to you. It all depends on jurisdiction though. So you check the laws and decide – ok?

In this tutorial I expect that you work with the best interest of your company in your mind, and thus make sure you are logged out of Facebook before continuing.

First thing you should do now is to click the green option button “Create Page”. You’ll reach a page where you will be asked to choose what type of business you are.

The drop downs are pretty long. But start out by selecting what best describes your Pages purpose on Facebook. They provide you with three options:

• Local
• Brand/Product/Organization
• Artist/Band/Public Figure

If you are just starting out you should probably just register your brand. Select the brand option and then select the vertical that suits you the best.

Later on you might create a page for your CEO, for a certain local store or for some other purpose that fits the other categories. For now however, settle with one page as this will be the hub for your communication on Facebook and I am guessing you don’t have the organization to support anything more extensive. (wow that was a long sentence)

Below this option there is a field where you select the page name. This is actually the only thing you have to think carefully of as it is quite difficult to edit once it has been choosen.

REMEMBER to check the option “Do not make Page publicly visible at this time”. It is no biggie, but you should be aware of this option as your page will go public if you don’t check it and you might want to test some things out first.

2. Create your Facebook Page – Then your Page profile

This is where many people go wrong. Pay attention to this part. You will eventually have to create a normal Facebook account that is connected to your Facebook Page. This profile should be a real person, it doesn’t have to be you, but according to Facebook’s rules, this person has to exist.

Now you’re thinking… but who should I be then? Everyone on my working place already has a Facebook account? Well, the way to do this is to create your work persona. It is still you, but it is you at work. You use your own name, your own picture, your own birth date and other information, but it is NOT your private account. The account is owned by your job. You could give the person your first name and then the brand as a second name. However… the important thing here is that you make it a person.

Just lie at the first option saying that you don’t yet have a Facebook account. And DO not let your Agency do this for you. They will make themselves stick by connecting one profile to your page.

Check the option for having read the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy and then Click Sign up now. As you will notice you will have to confirm your e-mail address. This means that an e-mail has been sent to your inbox and you will have to click a link in that e-mail to continue. If you do not receive an e-mail within one hour. Check your spam e-mail inbox or your junk e-mail inbox. These types of messages might end up there if you have a strict IT-department. Once it arrives it should look something like this:

3. Your Facebook Page is created, Now you have to give it some flare

Now you’ve set up the basic account information for your Facebook Page and you are on the verge of taking your first step into social media mania. YEY!! But we still have a lot to do before we are done with the setup.

4. Setting up your Facebook Profile for your Page

Your Facebook Page pretty much looks like this once you’ve clicked the link in your e-mail and reached the page of your choice. First thing to do now is to click the option in the top left hand corner to create a Facebook Profile. That is a normal signup procedure. Nothing fancy with that. The only thing is that I would recommend you use a picture of yourself with the icon of your company in the bottom right hand, or in the bottom third of your image. That way people will understand that this is your work account if let’s say two accounts that are both you would show up in a search, when your lost friend from kindergarden is searching for you. (you know the one who had a crush on you and still haven’t got over you… sick person… reject… )

Oh yeah.. they will ask you to add your first friend during the profile registration. Just skip that section for now. This profile will not be visible to anyone if you don’t gain any friends or if you aren’t active with it. Don’t add anyone just yet. You will in the future where I describe the use of a Facebook Profile. But for now keep this as is. On the bottom right hand side of the squares with forms, you’ll find the option “Skip this step”. Use that option!!

5. Returning to your Facebook Page to Edit it

Once you’ve created your profile you will be redirected to your Profile Page. THIS IS NOT your company Facebook Page. Many people don’t get this and start editing the profile as though it was the corporate page. NO NO…

What you should do now is to either use the option to see all your pages in the bottom left of your screen window.

Or you can use the top right search field and start typing the name of your page. What ever you prefer will do the trick. Just remember not to press enter when you see your page appear as below. Use your pointer to click the page that appears. Otherwise you will come to a search result where your page will not be visible as it is not visible yet. (Remember the visibility setting)

6. Editing your Facebook Page – Main settings

Once you return to your Facebook Page it will look like the one displayed above. Now you’ll have to start editing it or people will highly dislike it simply because it’s UUUGLY. The Edit Page option can be found on your left hand side just under your Page logo or Page image.

Once you reach the Edit Page mode you’ll see many panes in front of you. Just click the option “Edit” on each one of them to make them unfold what they have inside .

7. Selecting where your Brand Facebook Page is from

Now you will reach a page with a lot of settings. For now however you’ll just have to take care of a couple of them.

You can choose to publish your page at this time. But I just wouldn’t. You’re not done. For now, I would just enter the country where you want your page to be most visible and then select the age a person has to be to view your page. If you’re doing anything that might be considered illegal for kids in some country, then I suggest you make the allowed age for your Facebook Page older than PG13. Once you’re done, then click “Save changes”.

8. Selecting your Facebook Page Wall settings

Now it is time to set your Facebook Page Wall settings. Important to note here is that some companies only let themselves post material on their wall. Others let the users post material. One thing to keep in mind is that it is only the things YOU post on the wall that is shared on the walls of your Page’s Fans. This means that if a user posts something, it is only seen on the wall. Since most interaction happens on the News flow of a users home page, and NOT on your wall, you will have plenty of time to take away bad posts or spammy posts put up there by users.

I like transparency and thus I select the option “Posts by Page and Fans”. Remember to teach your fans what kind of comments you remove and what kind of comments you let be. A good thing is to remove curse words, but keep bad stuff about you. Your protectors will protect you. Trust in your fans baby… trust in your fans… If someone posts something nasty, then your fans will make sure that user is taught a lesson. That is ofcourse if you don’t beat them to it and you school that person back to prehistoric ages. Unless you’ve actually done something bad, in which case you apologize and do better next time. If not, all hell will rain on you.

Second option is easier. Always choose wall here. People want to see activity and interaction. If they didn’t they would go to your boring website instead. I mean.. DUUDE this is Facebook… the ultimate heaven of interaction. Thus you should stay with the pre set Wall option here.

Next options are more difficult to say. I would probably allow them all to start with. If there is a lot of abuse, then I would remove the option where the abuse takes place.

I generally tend not to edit my page any more than this. It is enough to have these settings to start with. Later I will write a post on How to Extend your page. Come to think of it that should be my next post. I will list what applications you should add to the page in order to customize it and make the most of your business on Facebook. One thing to have a look at in the bottom of the Edit page view are the suggested applications. I would add them all to the page.

The instructions on how to do this are pretty clear. I will describe it in the next post if it would be any problem for you. So just keep in touch and we’ll get that sorted.

Browse through the other options available but you can leave them as they are by default.

9. Moving on to the visual stuff

Now it is time to change the logo of your Facebook Page. Go back to your Page’s main page by clicking the link in the top of your Edit page view. Click the View Page option and you’re set to go.

Now it is time to add your page’s logo. This is done by hovering the empty image displayed as default.

Click the option Change Picture and select if you want to upload, take a picture or select one from the image gallery. The upload might not display your logo at once. Give it approximately 5 minutes in it will have put the logo you wanted in there.

10. Editing the Info Tab of the Facebook Page

You will see that the Info Tab of the Facebook Page is selected by default right now. Not the Wall setting as you had put it in the edit page view. This is Facebook’s way of telling you that you need to edit this informaion. Just click the Edit option available on the left hand side and write what your page is all about. Remember to write any rules you have for your page such as; “Be kind or be dead” or perhaps “We expect you to be 18+, if your not, please leave”. Anything that set the terms of your page as well as writes the goals of your engagement in social media.

Remember!! Transparency doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to tell everyone what everything. Just tell them what your intentions are and you’ll be fine with that.

If you find any of the options as difficult to fill in. Just don’t. You’ll be able to edit this a thousand times in the future and you will find a purpose for each field. Campaigns, cupons, offers, yada yada… anything goes as long as you tell people why you’re doing it. The options presented to you are there as a result of what vertical you said you were in. As I said I was a TV Show I get quite funny options to select from. As you can see below you don’t have to “follow the rules”.

11. Making your first Facebook Page update

Once this is done. You press “Save Changes” and you are DONE!! Now click the Wall tab of your page’s top navigation and go back to the wall page to write your first update. Remember to try out and post a link, a photo and all the other things before you go ahead and publish the page. You don’t want to end up looking like a fool because you did it the wrong way later on.

To post other things than a status update you simply click one of the icons below the status update field. If you want to know what the different options mean, just hover one of them with your screen pointer.

Publishing your Facebook Page
Once this is done you go ahead and publish the Page by clicking the link visible in the top of the page. You’ll probably also have to go back to the option in the Edit Page view and change that to a published state. (Remember the image from above.)

SOO.. Congratulations to you!! You’ve just created your first Facebook Page. You can now play around with all the options and have some fun. In the next blog post on this topic I’ll dig into how you can extend your Facebook Page.

//Jesper

I wrote my final university paper on fish, eco labels and international trade. I found that fish are fish and thus belong to no one before they’re in the net, eco labels do create some wickeid kind of price premium and it is actually better to invest in industry than fishery in Tanzania.

So what the heck does this have to do with Social Media? Well it has everything to do with Social Media and the understanding of the medium you need to have in order to get increasing returns to scale on your communication efforts.

The User as a Fish
Just as the net captures the fish, the big corporations owned the web media. The users weren’t satisfied with this and thus they took control of the net seeking every hole they could find in it. And just as with fishery, the industry didn’t particularly care when the fish started to get fewer and fewer and skinnier and skinnier, they just got bigger nets and faster and faster boats with cooler and cooler radars. Fish, just like users move regardless of the traditional dimensions. Fish live in the sea and can easily escape into the sea of another country. Users live on the web and can easily escape as well. Especially since the web has become so big.

And eco labels only work with trust
And just as eco labels allows for companies to charge us more for the same, you see the same pattern with social media. If the company show they care, then users will follow. But as we all know many of the eco labels are BS and in the offline world we have the Sverker Olofsson’s to help us. On the web we don’t need no Sverker as we are all the Sverkers we need. Now, just as eco labels went through a rough time when they were exposed to be fraud, so has corporations like Wallmart become symbols of BS in the online world. It has taken a couple of Dell Ideastorms and Skittles to get back on track. Price premiums can only be extracted where trust is present.

And it is better to Enable, than it is to Harvest
So to the third part of my essay which was about binding this together. Fish move and it is thus the normal way for us people to try and define property rights. But if we are on the web where the users own the net, it is impossible for us to catch anything unless it wants to get caught. Even though we double our efforts and triple our net size, we will see diminishing returns to scale on each dollar we push into it. In order to increase our return to scale we need to invest in our infrastructure and our technology. As in the case with Tanzania, they had already an abundance of fish, just as unexploited areas of the web have an abundance of passioned users. If we invest in the fishing industry there, then we will see an increasing returns to scale on our first few spendings but in the long run experience diminishing returns to scale just as we have in our own industry.

And thus Infrastructure is the answer
So, my point being, it is better to invest in the infrastructure of the Tanzanian industry helping the inhabitants in that country to develop into a modern economy as this will enable us to get a price premium out of our efforts plus give ourselves the chance to sell our own products to people with better finance. Just as it is better to invest in infrastructure of communication as it gives us the opportunity to gain invaluable trust in our target groups that will indeed induce them to talk about us in their own words, but in a positive way. By putting the money in helping the Tanzanians of the web get better at what they do whilst adapting to what you do, is the optimal way for you to make money on the modern web.

Now if you didn’t understand a word of this post. Please don’t feel sad. I just needed to put some of my more philosophical thoughts out there due to the two “x advice on”-something prostitution posts I wrote as my last posts.

//Jesper

I have tried to teach these methods so many times it almost hurts my head to think about it. However, from what I’ve learned, the advices below are completely useless if you’re not the right kind of person. This blog post will discuss some advice on link building through social media.

What is link building
“Link building” is a term used by search engine professionals to describe the practice of actively working to receive inbound links to your website. Inbound links are important due to Google’s evaluation of links as a mean to rank different websites in relation to each other on a search engine result page (SERP) for a specific keyword. Long sentence, but in short; Links are what make you or brake you in the battle for visibility in the search engine.

If you have a lot of links pointing to your website’s index page, and a lot of links pointing towards sub-pages and (if applicable) posts, then your value in the search engine is better than for a website that doesn’t have the same amount of links.

Thus “link building” is the process you undergo to actively promote your content in a way so that people who haven’t thought about linking to your website, now do.

Traditional link building/Social media link building
The main difference between traditional link building and social media link building is the focus. When you are working with traditional link building you are focusing on anchor texts in your back links from specific web pages. When you are concerned with social media link building, you focus on the person behind the web page you want to get links from.

On my behalf. Focusing on the person behind the page is much more important and efficient then trying to get one link from one page. By focusing on the person behind a page, you can relatively easy find a way in which you can get more then one link from the same source without that much effort.

Preparing the content
On any given work day a traditional link builder would write an article or a blog post, or produce some kind of content. Then he/she would use the main keywords found in the title and header of that post to search for other posts with this keyword. Let’s say I would want to rank for the keyword “Love handles” as I am running a “get skinny – fatty!!” spam blog it would look something like this.

H1: “Love handles are cute But Dangerous”
Title: “Diet : Love handles are cute But Dangerous – getskinnyfatty.com” (Category : H1 – domain.com)

In the description and in the first paragraph I would use some related keywords (see below) that I am going to link bait in order to catch such readers attention for relevance. Then I would write a short and to the point article ending with a couple of ads for diet pills.

Sourcing the potential linkers
Then I would continue by looking at websites ranking for words related to fat people with love handles. An excellent way to get related keywords is to go to Google’s own service “Google KeywordTool“.

As a keyword I would enter “fat people with love handles”.

I hit the button “Get keyword ideas” and below there is a list of keyword suggestions on variations and of related to this specific keyword. Next to that is also an estimate of the search volume for this keyword as well as an indication to how many others that are currently buying adwords for the specific related keyword.

Still as a traditional link builder I would probably choose the word “best workout for love handles” (or some other keyword found further down the list) above as it is not that exposed to marketing and it is strongly related to the diet pills that I am marketing on my “get skinny – fatty!!!” web site.

Then you would search for it in Google to find websites that rank for this specific keyword.

The traditional link builder would then harvest websites that mention these words and e-mail the contact addresses of these websites, their webmasters or any other person, asking to make a link exchange, or asking to pay for a link from a specific page with a specific keyword.

The difference of the two link building tactics
It is at this last step where the two different tactics actually start differing. It is important to note here that what I am about to tell you might come off as evil. But it is merely an example and I would never (cough) do this in reality.

What I would do when focusing on social media link building would be to go to the blog search and search for the same keyword. Then I would sort by date.

I sort by date in order to find people talking about this topic right now. Relevance or ranking is not very relevant at this point. Now I am not looking for a good page, but I am looking for a good person. A good person is someone I think I could make an impression on, that would also find my content relevant. The later of the two criteria is best found when sorting for date.

What kind of people to look for
Now the diet vertical is one of the spamiest in the industry and it will thus take me a lot of time to find who I’m looking for. I am looking for a blog that holds a couple of criteria. I want the person to be self loving, have some kind of vanity, be interested in diet and if possible also give a lazy impression. What I am also looking for is some kind of social online engagement.

This could be seen from the following elements present in a blog:

• A big picture of the author or on the about x page (vanity)
• Titles asking questions or one word head lines (insecurity)
• A looooong blogroll list (crying for attention)
• Big social media buttons, and loads of them (activity in social media)
• Best case scenario would be to find a blog with a close up on a love handle (knowlege about overweight)

Big no no’s are blogs that contain boxes looking like the two below:

These people either sell links or want to earn money from their blogs. You will not get anywhere with these people at this time. They will be approached by one of your “victims” later.

As I am writing and getting examples for this blog post on the fly, I feel I need to change my searched for keyword. I need to find a suitable blog for this purpose. These things happen all the time. You’ll source for websites with all the wrong keywords. At this time I’ll switch keyword to something like “Why am I so fat” or “I need to loose weight” or possibly even “How can I loose my love handles”.

And WOOPS here we found it. I won’t link to this blog, nor will I tell you where to find it or which keyword I used to find it out of respect for the person. I guess the one’s of you who really want to know who this blog belongs to can find it, but please don’t as this has nothing to do with this person, but a sourcing technique for link building in social media. Again: I am not doing this to be evil, but I am doing this as merely an example. But with a title like this it is difficult to resist:

Almost too perfect to be true. The problem however is that the person doesn’t seem to have a single picture nor does the person have any social sharing buttons available on the blog. I could continue working to find such a blog, but I guess you see the point.

How to turn the process social
First thing you should do is to find another post on the same blog that is not related to your topic, but that you know enough about to talk about for 15 minutes or so. (15 minutes of talk are a hell of a lot of comments and tweets) Getting to know someone online doesn’t have to require that much in common, but saying the right things are important.

If you would contact this person on directly in the post about weight loss, then you’re busto. That is not the way to do it as the person don’t have a relationship with you and really don’t want to talk about the big belly first thing. So you find the other blog post, and you start out by writing a comment on that post. The comment has to be direct and relate to some specific phrase in the blog post. That way the person knows or thinks you have actually read and thought about what they have written.

The connecting angle
The only exception when you actually can make direct contact on the content related to your topic is if you would have two blogs with authors that you would like to connect to. Then you should try to connect their two blog posts with a comment such as “I read in this blog [link]….” in both blogs. That way you start building a relationship between the two people.

That way you become the start off glue in their relation. That can be highly beneficial in the long run. However, let’s continue.

Reaching out in another forum
The most common situation is that you now find some other place where the blogger is active. If this is Twitter it is perfect as you can follow anyone. Facebook is more private and hence something I wouldn’t recommend as a first touch off base. LinkedIn works miracles if your aiming for a professional exchange angle. However, the main point here is that you find and connect with the person on another platform. When making contact with the person you write them a message relating back to the comment you made, in the post you “liked”.

If there are social media buttons this is very simple as you can click a button, connect and then start chatting away. Otherwise you’ll have to do some searching on the various platforms. It is worth it, so do it.

How to get the links
This is the best part of it. You DON’T ask for the links. I promise you they will come any way. Just do the “get to know” thing. Be positive, tell the person about your project, give them a link to your “Top 10 diet tips” if they ask for an example. But also give them a link to the post you want to build links to.

1. One post with a resource
2. One post with a purpose

The longer you talk to the person, the higher the probability that they will link to you. If they have a lot of followers on Twitter, try to keep this talk as public as possible. If you’re doing it on Facebook, then keep the dialogue on the wall. That way you let the friends of the person you’re talking to know what you’re about at the same time.

Getting them onto your IM
Now is the time when you work on getting them onto your Instant Messaging tool. This is the fastest and easiest way to keep the long term relationship going. Sort the contacts you make under the topic that you know they are interested in. On most IM tools you can create groups.

Build this group of people for a while. Now once you publish content that you think they might be interested in, then you ask for their opinion on that specific piece of content. “Hey, I just wrote a post about…. what do you think?”. If it is relevant to them, they are likely to pick it up and link to it. Or give you feedback, in which case you credit them with name in the bottom of the content which makes it even more difficult for them to not link to you.

The more vain they are, and the better you thank them in your credit, the higher is the likelihood that they link to you. Again… and again…. and again… and again…

Why make this effort
Well, you know the person is devoted and engaged in loosing weight (in this case), you know they are so engaged about it that they write about it in a blog. By spending your time wisely and connecting this person to yourself, or even better, to other people with the same interest, you become the hero for the day.

At the same time, you know that you have something to give to this person and thus you just wait for him/her to ask for it. You keep the goodie in your back pocket for the right time. Cause you know that if you’ve helped this passionate and engaged individual get better at what they talk about –> then they will recommend you to others that ask about that specific thing. Thus you’ve created a little ambassador for yourself.

LINKS WILL COME YOUR WAY as a result of this effort.

Person instead of Page
This practice can be employed on many different verticals. As I said before, a traditional link builder focus on the page, but a social media link builder focus on person. You shouldn’t aim for direct closure, but for multi closure in the long run.

I know some of you out there reading this have crazy management demanding results by the minute. Perhaps you pay for your links today. Please ask them to get at least one day per week for this. It won’t give you immediate results, and if you’re a bad social networker, it probably never will, but for those of you who know you can network –> This method will bring you loads of links in 6 months to a year.

Natural, free, Google friendly links.

Rounding up the whole deal
I know the genuine people out there feel like I am an asshole for writing this post in such a cynical way. However, I am not really writing it for you. I am writing this post for those of you who struggle every day to build links that aren’t happy about your situation and want to try something new. Focus on person and not on page. In some verticals this might even be a good strategy even though you buy your links. Some people have many websites and why not try to hit a load of link acquisitions at once instead of just buying them one at a time.

Focus on person not on page. That is ONE way of building links through social media. There are loads of other links that take their origin in Facebook or from Digg or other social websites. For some ideas on how to do that, please have a look at my post about social media CRM or just wait until I get an urge to write a monster like this one again.

For those of you who had the stomach to stay this far into the text. Please make comments so that I can fill the holes in this one.

//Jesper

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You have all seen it. One of the never ending examples of how to handle criticism from a company’s perspective. I’ve sometimes thought to myself that I would kill if I ever heard about that again. The “Jesus Shot” by Tiger Woods is one of the more viral and funny videos from a company in YouTube’s history.

Now, EA wanted to “prove” that there was no glitch in their game, and that Tiger Woods is “Just that good”.

Think again EA Sports. The glitch is not in the game. It is in Tiger Woods, and one of my golf playing friends had the decency to bring this to my attention.

I made this video clip to show what I mean.

Thanks Stefan Deak for the update on Golf Rules!

The Game, the husstle, the folding of the sleves, the pick it up from the ground and brush it off. There is nothing with social media that changes the basics of YOUR daily work. It is what’s around you that has changed. I made an analysis of social media the other day and I sort of stumbled over a way to describe this change that everyone is talking about.

I decided to split it into three areas of interest or historical context. The production of media, the consumption of media and what influences us as human beings.

The evolution of media production
By now you know the story. When speaking of the change social media has brought upon the world, most people speak of media production capabilities. Production was first controlled by who ever had a pike and some power to hack a message into a stone wall. The posibilities of media production was then adopted and controlled by church and state. Then the area of “mass media” came about with the introduction of the printing press, later radio, later tv, later internet 1.0.

Mass media has however never been MASS media as the production has been primarily controlled by institutions such as news paper, religious institiutions, churches, corporations etc. Production has been expensive and has thus been in the hands of those who have had the money to produce. Reach reach reach reach. If someone starts talking bach you reach a little bit more and you simply crowd them out. In some instances, you enforce rules to control the production.

When the internet bubble crashed in the beginning of the second millenium since the death of Jesus loads of technology was released as the money was gone, but the dream remained. This technology was adopted by the users/consumers of mass media in what has later been labled web 2.0. The means of producing the “new media” format online was booming. Production was free, simple and fast. But access was scarce, however evolving from 2001 until today in a pace surpassing economic growth with a kawabungazillion.

The evolution of media consumption
We all lived in a cave (I don’t know if this is what we really did, but it doesn’t matter to this story if we really did), later went to church and were penalised by the king. Stories were passed on by those who could tell and were taught to those and by those who could read, write and speak in a way that others understood.

In the age of mass media, consumption increased in variety as well as in volume as people were taught to understand the new formats available. Technological advances such as teachers, transistors, affordable TVs and computers were produced in order for us to keep on “bowling alone“. We were taught to understand what was taught to us rather than teach to learn to teach.

Even so, the consuption of media exploded even further as the technoloies of web 2.0 were released and we all of a sudden were only “one click away” from actually producing what we were also consuming. The shift became apparent as we, through the social web were allowed to group ourselves around our smallest common denominator rather than what had been taught too us as being the normal and good way of understanding the surrounding world.

Social media gave each and everyone of us the forum to consume exactly what we wanted. All required to open up a door for people of my understanding is that one of us understands the new and can tell the rest of us in a way that we understand. In basic terms, if I understand English I have the power to translate an English article to Swedish so that my grandmother can read it. If I like to starv myself, I can find a crew of people out there who also enjoys my belief. I no longer live in my suburb with my choices, but I can consume ideas, theories and general media produced by anyone with access to the online community (30% of all of us).

New technologies such as automatic translators, text to sound readers, online-tv productions and four dimensional (real time) syndication services allow us to consume everything out there.

Why this don’t matter and matter as hell
Production and consumption behaviors have never really mattered. It is good that everyone with an internet access can produce and consume almost everything thats out there today. It is apparent that the institutions are feeling the sweat as their visibility has decreased from universal to the next door neighbor.

But does this really matter? Well, no. Cause what is influential has not changed the least bit. First and foremost I am influenced by myself, secondly by my friends, later by the “cool people” in my surroundings. I am influenced by general discussions in the blogosphere yet they are almost solely built upon what’s hot in institutional media. I watch TV, and I feel queezy after watching a show about children dying in the south east of Africa whilst I eat another bucket of Sombreros and drink beer.

What I am trying to say here is that the most important parameter for change has not changed. Influence is what we all strive to excert when marketing anywhere. Cause marketing is really all about putting yourself out there on the market and saying – HEY I*M AVAILABLE, COME N GET ME!!. But for anyone to notice you, you need a crew and understand how to speak in a way that will build you as a part of that crew rather than spoil your chances of influencing your surroundings. You want you crew to grow and thus you need to be loyal with your homies first. The rumor of your gangs ability to “keep it real” will then spread in the other gangs and your posse will grow.

Let’s boil it down. People still go to church to hear an interpretation of god, people still go to parties where the cool people hang out, people still dream about being a millionaire, people still read newspapers and watch tv. People are still influenced by exactly the same thing as the cave dude was. If something is hot enough, it will rub of on those standing next to it.

The fact that the source of influence hasn’t changed is what makes Social media powerful
So, what I am trying to say is basically that there has been no change in what effects our decision making process. The production and consumption of media has become more accessible by larger groups of society. This doesn’t mean that everyone can be influential. Hoever, anyone can.

This doesn’t mean that everyone can be influential. Hoever, anyone can.

The game hasn’t changed, but the arena on which to play it has. If you are cool, if you are good, if you are god, then you will influence your surrounding. Seth Godin talks about being remarkable, Clay Shirky talks about how we have to care about the long tail as that’s where the remarkable might take place, LOADS of people talk about viral, word-of-mouth marketing as a means from the remarkable to spread from the long tail to the main stream.

These are all great thoughts, but they do not change that a person who understands the game will be more successful than someone who doesn’t. You can absolutely learn the game, but it doesn’t happen over a day. No matter how much technoloy available for you to talk to your tribe, your kick-ass customers or your homies through, it doesn’t change the fact that you have to talk to them as a leader and not as a follower if you want to influence them.

[Gary... it's not the game that has changed... it's the arena at which the game is played...]

No matter how much you monitor, listen and smile. You will allways be someones bi**h if you can’t play the game when you decide to play. So, when you step up, step correct… For the rest of you… hire a consultant…

//Jesper – who is letting go of some Sunday steam whilst listening to gangster rap

There has been a debate with regards to whether or not social media is the death of email or if the two live in a symbiotic relationship with one another. As an interesting piece to the puzzle, Nielsen Online published an article about one of their studies on how social media effects the usage of e-mail.

What they found was not quite what you might expect as they could see a clear positive relationship between the use of social media and the consumption of email. If you have time to critically examine this statement, then visit the article through the link above. All others – eat this table taken from that article.

Source: The Nielsen Company – Is Social Media Impacting How Much We Email?

This relationship speaks in quite the contrary direction of what many hard core talkers in this field are suggesting. But how can they be so wrong? They are journalists, consultants and everyday users of these tools. Why is it that their analysis of what seems to be, or logically might become, in dire contrast with what the data tells us? I think the problem is that they are neglecting the shift in purpose for email.

Email is no longer an inbox, but an identifier
Ever since the web based ESPs such as Hotmail and Gmail made their way into our lives, our email has shifted from a static computer location to a mobile identity that we can access from anywhere. Since then, our email has also become the prime object for identifying ourselves whilst online.

We use it to create accounts, we use it to confirm ownership, we use it to connect etc, and thus the send and receive purpose of a static address has shifted towards a more dynamic usage. Thus, our email is no longer an inbox, but an identifier.

So how is email effected by social media
In the article from Nielsen they argue that it is because of the updates from various social media websites that make us use email more. I think in part this is a correct analysis of the how. But it doesn’t dig deep into the why.

What I am trying to say is that there is no platform yet to challenge emails efficiency as an identifier, syndicating all the accounts and identity problems we have out there. Even Facebook Connect, which might be the most successful in the online id-projects out there, still use email as the prime identifier for an account.

Email is the heart of the modern web
So, if communication between people is the blood of the modern web, I would even go so far to say that  email is the heart of it. A person without an email, cannot become social as all the technologies out there require email as a way of saying that “hey, I exist”.

It might not be the best way, but it is the way we are used to do it. We might have several hearts, but we still use them to make the blood flow through our vains.

Email and social media combined
At the eMetrics conference in Stockholm (12-13th of October) I will hold a session with the title – How to Combine Social Media and E-Marketing to Increase Revenue?. I will post the Prezi here in my blog after the session.

I will talk about a case where social networking, email and IM-clients were used to generate profit increase.

Please comment below and give me some pointers before the event so I can prepare some needed data.

//Jesper

I thought I would write something about automation as I get many inquiries about this topic. What can be automated and what can not be automated online. My simplest answer is that everything can be automated. But most stuff shouldn’t be.

That’s why I LOVE spammers
Spammers usually look at vulnerabilities on the web and try to exploit them in any way possible. They automate as much as possible as they shoot from the hip and try to make a hit. I tend to look at spammers to see what smart solutions they have made that I can use to make my work more efficient. I use them and their creativity to become better at what I do. If something can be automated, it should be. If something can be created easier, then it should be. There is no natural law that says all dialogue has to be between two people. The only law in any social interaction is that everyone should get something out of the dialogue. Think win-win and the rest will follow.

What is a good Social media Automation?
If I for example can generate an automated response that solves a problem for another person, then that is a GOOD solution. If I however do not solve the users problem, then I get a problem. Thus it is in both peoples interest to make sure that any automation you do in social media (in particular) helps to solve problems rather than create them.

This usually takes some initial hard, manual labor in the beginning, but saves LOADS of time once it is done.

If you are looking to automate parts of your social media work you really need to get a hold of some of the following:

• You need some kind of blog or dated publishing system
• You need an account at Yahoo Pipes
• You need a really sound analytics tool such as Google Analytics
• You need an account on Friendfeed, Tumblr or some other service that can repost messages on many different forums at once

Automating your online data gathering
No, you do not need to buy your monitoring from an expensive consultant. You can behave like a spammer and have it created for you right away. Many companies use SERIOUSLY expensive services to collect “press cut outs” that is basically stories about the company cut out from news papers and put in a folder. YACK!!

It is retarded to pay for this service on the modern web. Just set up a spam-blog to do this for you. There are several autoblogging tools out there. My favorite is feedwordpress. It gives you ALL you need to collect everything that is said about you in the newspapers, in blogs etc.

Source, google news, twingly blogs, twitter search, youtube search, technorati search etc etc. Run it through pipes as I wrote in another post about “How to build a communicative Social Media newsroom“.

You will get everything written about you on the web listed with author, date-time stamped, with all the content available right there in your own blog. Then it is all about design, how you want your news to look in order for you to view them the best way.

This enables you to easily see who writes about you the most, what do they write about and then you can focus on how to approach them.

Automating Twitter activities
We all know that there is a load of twitter spam out there. I am currently constructing a post about 5 best way to spam Twitter. I think twitter spam is excellent. Especially since it works. There is no need to hate me for this. Twitter is an opt-in service and if people want to read my shit, then they are able too. How they find me is another question most easily solved by spamming the whole community.

With twitter spam I offcourse do not mean the @xxx spam that has become so popular of late. Ie you search for keywords and then use “@usrname – your ad + link” so that they see it no matter if they have opted in or not. With twitter spam I generally mean that you search for twitter users that tweet about some particular topic and then add all their followers.

Better yet, you make spammers that use this method add you. Basically what you do is that you set up a twitter account, then use friendfeed. In your friendfeed you add a couple of blogs that are related to the content you want to push out on twitter. Then you connect your friendfeed with your twitter account and voila… you are now writing keyword dense tweets like never before. You will eventually see all the keyword spammers out there add you like mad.

What you do now is you construct a script that adds everyone that has added them. Your hitrate will grow exponentially as these people have allready shown interest in this topic. Once your follower base is up to a certain level, they you switch and start posting manually in your feed, removing the friendfeed:er and you will be up and running in no time with an audience that like feeds with relevant links within this topic.

There are several other ways to automate your twitter activities but this is the best one I’ve come across so far as it really generates a relevant crowd in no time.

Continuing Automation
As I think the above written will hail down some comments from the “real person” activists out there, I will continue this topic in another post. (read, my ADD really doesn’t want me to write more).

What are your thoughts on the topic?