Articles Tagged with Twitter

Should You Remove Bad Links? A Twitter & Google+ Debate

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So this morning I woke up, opened Tweetbot on my mobile and found out that I’d received 29 @mentions from 3 people…

Earlier in the day yesterday, I left this reply to a tweet by @barriemoran about lifting penalties:

I’ve done a bit of manual action work myself (as Morgan Freeman can tell you!) and I always try to remove as many links as possible as part of the process. However I admire Leeds-based SEO agency Branded3 and @Tim_Grice‘s bold claim that “Branded3 [have] had over 60 manual penalty recoveries without removing a single link” (source). I threw @Branded_3 into the tweet as I was curious if they’d chip in with a response on the topic, which they did (in the form of Tim). Dozens of @mentions later…? Well…

Boxer image
* DING DING! * Ladies and gentlemen, in the red corner, we have Barrie and @ChrisLDyson, arguing that you should definitely try and remove links as part of the process. And in the blue corner (very apt, given their branding!), we have Tim on behalf of Branded3, suggesting that simply disavowing is enough and link removal isn’t necessary (and that they have 60+ success stories to prove it)…

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Why Sharing The Source Is So Important…

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Please Donate sign imageA couple of weeks ago I published a rant, talking about how it bugged me when people on social media (usually Twitter) shared something without quoting/sharing the source, so it looked as though they were passing it off as their own creation or that they were the one to first find and share it (whether intentionally or unintentionally).

At the end of the day, a rant is a rant – it’s just a moan about a niggle. It’s just annoying.

However yesterday I saw an instance of it where a massive opportunity was lost, where a charity could have benefitted greatly. This is more than just annoying – it’s upsetting…

Last night my friend Ian Daniels (@surfpunkian) – who I had the pleasure of finally meeting IRL at last week’s BrightonSEO – retweeted a tweet by @AndrewGirdwood:

The link goes on to show a series of photos of a dog and elephant who are friends. Aww!

I was curious to learn more about the duo so I Googled “dog elephant friends” and ended up on YouTube. There’s actually a few different videos of different pairs dog and elephants who are friends (who knew!) but eventually I found this one:

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How Many Times Should You Tweet a Blog Post? Experts Weigh in…

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To tweet or not to tweet (three times)…

A few days ago, I tweeted these two tweets via my Twitter profile (try saying that when you’ve had a drink or two!):

Here’s a recent example:

I was curious to know if people thought tweeting about a new blog post three times (instead of just twice) would be considered overdoing it. On the one hand, it’s very easy to miss a tweet in a busy stream, but on the other hand, if someone does happen to see it three times, is it going to annoy them?

The responses I got back were pretty surprising, which you can see in the Storify Wakelet story below…

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#SMsceptic: How To Get More RTs (The Copycat Way)

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This post’s been drafted since February and I’ve been reluctant to publish it, but after reading Cracked.com’s The 5 Most Notorious Joke Thieves on the Internet and particularly #4, I thought “ahh what the heck….”

4 Steps to RT Success!

Step 1
Find a popular tweet of the moment, usually an image or joke that’s getting shared like nobody’s business.

Hipster birds imageStep 2
Put a spin on it. Make it slightly different. Or if you want to be a right git, don’t even bother changing it – copy and paste it as-is.

Step 3
Tweet it in your own right. Don’t RT the source (in the old RT/quote style or otherwise) – just pass it off as your own.

Step 4
Watch the RTs roll in.

Example

Did you see that “R.I.P. Journalism” tweet (about Katy Perry unfollowing Russell Brand on Twitter) that made the rounds a while back?

Here’s the earliest tweet I could find from January 2012:

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Dear Alan Weiss: You’re Wrong About Social Media!

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Vintage social media imageWhile holidaying in Spain I read two business books, recommended by @mackfogelson of Mack Web Solutions and @lstigerts of Marketing Gal during a recent #maximpact webinar: The Pumpkin Plan and Million Dollar Consulting, respectively.

(Please note: the above two Amazon links are affiliate links.)

I adored the former. The latter, Million Dollar Consulting, was interesting for a number of reasons. The author, Alan Weiss, makes some great points, and it’s clear that he is an expert when it comes to his profession and the world of consulting, but I had a few… bugbears about some of what he said. But this isn’t a book review. In fact, I’m only going to dig deeper into one area where I strongly disagreed: his thoughts on social media.

Before I continue, it’s important to point out that MDC was originally published in 1992, well before the world of social media (and even the Internet) became prominent as the behemoth that we know and love today. However, its 4th (and latest) edition was published in 2009 and has been updated to include “brand new material on blogging and social networking.” And while Mr Weiss praises the Internet (“The Internet and its accoutrements… have offered marvelous ways to improve our effectiveness and efficiency”) and recommends blogging (“Use a blog to regularly… promote your experience and ‘go to’ status”), it is clear that the man is not a fan of social networking.

While everyone is most certainly entitled to his or her opinion, just as Weiss is entitled to his own, the problem here is that his opinions are spoken in absolutes: it’s not “consider against using it” or “give it a try but be warned,” but more of a “don’t bother” and “don’t waste your time” attitude instead. Not only that, but when you’re dealing with an authority like Weiss, readers/fans will hang on every word and take every single suggestion on-board – I bet a fair few readers have said to themselves: “You’re right, Alan! Forget social media! Who needs it!”

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