Accepting guest posts is an effective way to freshen up your blog, share various perspectives and build a stronger community (especially if you manage such a multi-author, multi-topic resource as SEJ).

Naturally, if you want to get the maximum benefit from guest blogging, you will need to give back. This post is about the most popular (yet, NOT the most important) benefit of guest blogging: linking: best practices and ethics of linking back to your guest bloggers (as well as allowing them to).

Linking as Incentive: Introduction

Unless you are ready to give back, you won't be able to build a strong community of guest bloggers who will contribute top-quality content, support each other and promote your blog. Giving back is a must. You can't expect people to be sincere in their intent to drive quality to your blog unless you are sincere in your desire to pay back.

First of, let me disclaim here that I express my own attitude in this post. I fully agree that as a blogger and web marketer you may have an opposite view and I even can imagine why: with so much spam around here it is easy to get suspicious and overly cautious.

My own take on linking is very straightforward: if you see your guest author deserves it, give him as much linking benefit as you are allowed to.

It doesn't take time or effort to tell if your guest author is really serious about that guest blogging opportunity you are offering him: diligent guest authors are easy to notice and appreciate: they email you several times with post ideas and various questions. They look for (properly attributed) images to attach to the post and link back to the content you have published previously. They may suggest different variants of the post title to let you choose the best one. They don't stuff their content with self-serving links.

That being said, if I appreciate the work and like the result, I will be happy give back.

But being too generous means being scammed in our world. This lesson has been learned (not once, I guess that happened to me too many times actually).

Linking as Incentive: Policies

Like it or not, linking is still the strongest incentive for people to guest post for your blog. It is the most tangible advantage as well. Therefore if you plan to allow people to guest post, you won' be able to do without allowing them to link back to their sites and projects.

I am all for linking back and forth as I believe this is the essence of the Internet. But in our non-perfect world you still need to be cautious. You need to have a set list of rules to be able to always base your decisions on. Being consistent in your linking habits means you will avoid any bad neighborhoods or shaky grounds.

The huge advantage of having linking guidelines / rules is that you are able to treat all your guest bloggers equally (no matter what level of relationships you have with them: friends, partners or just random acquaintances).

Here's what I see many bloggers do (and try to implement as well) in terms of controling what their guest bloggers link to:

• Links to the author's projects should be in the by-line: Ask your guest bloggers to only link to their personal projects in the author's by-line. Remember that the post will be published on your blog and thus all in-content links may be related to you. Links in by-line clearly belong to the author, so you are totally honest with your readers and yourself.
• Linking from within the post content: As a rule, I ask my guest bloggers to refrain from linking to their properties in the post body unless:
  • The link is tightly relevant (or the author can't do without it): like links to the mentioned events, conferences, etc;
  • The link does NOT point to the home page but to the relevant post or article (which elaborates further on the mentioned phenomenon or tactic). Links from content to content (NOT to landing or home pages), I believe, add quality to the guest post and let readers learn more about what has mentioned.
• Number of links: the general rule of thumb (I myself try to follow) is to let guest authors limit external link to 3 in the by-line (including Twitter profile link).
• Anchor text: You may adopt Daniel's rule and accept non-anchor text links in by-lines. This way you will save the trouble explaining your guest author why his loan consolidation link is not appreciated on your blog. Or you may go less extreme and only remove keyword-based anchors from the non-relevant links (because those can really hurt your blog reputation.)

Keep in mind though that having too strict linking rules will scare away your guest authors. Even if you have a high-traffic blog and people will still choose to guest post, limitations will discourage them to be a return contributors and community members.

You need to be both generous and careful: to encourage your guest bloggers to contribute high-quality articles while still maintain the reputation of the high-quality resource (with high linking standards).

Linking as Incentive: Tools

I've seen plenty of blogs accepting guest posts with varied policies and rules. Some of them have succeeded in both keeping high standards while offering enhanced exposure to their authors. Here's what they do:

• The author's box is the great way to both drive attention to the post author (and also give them exposure) and keep the linking limited to fit your policies. Here's an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to code and customize the author box (with no plugin needed).
• The enhanced author page (including bio, photo and maybe social media profiles) is the great way to encourage the author to both contribute more (to maintain the impressive online portfolio) and link back to that page (and thus your site) to share that portfolio with his community. Here's a detailed tutorial on customizing and enhancing your blog author archive page template.
• Linking to (most active) authors from the sidebar is another strong incentive. This newly-developed guest blogging WordPress plugin may be a great option: it allows to set the minimum number of guest posts (contributed over the set period of time) after which the author will be featured on the home page. Besides, you can set to show the widget on home page only or sitewide.

What are your linking policies and experiences? Please share!

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

#1 Guest Blogging Incentive: Backlinks (Guidelines and Ethics)

Earn a Reputation of Customer Satisfaction

It's one of my strongest beliefs that being customer-centric is the key to market success and growth. And the best way to drive growth through customer relationships is to build an organization that is truly customer-driven.

It's something that takes continuous focus and commitment and leadership from the top! It's amazing how quickly organizations can turn inward and focus on their internal challenges rather than the customer.

Find ways to share examples of your customer-centric business in action. Make someone who goes above and beyond for a customer into a team hero. Send a company email, shout out in the office, go shake someone's hand and compliment him when everyone is around to overhear. It doesn't need to be formal or subtle. But it does need to come from the leader of the organization. You need to model the behavior you want relentlessly. The whole team will watch you for clues on how to talk about and treat customers.

You cannot create a customer-centric company without people who actually care about customers. Hiring right is probably the single most important thing you do. If you have a customer centric company, you need to hire on customer centric values, you need to be willing to fire on customer centric values, and you have to promote and compensate on those values as well.

The focus on customer success has another, more subtle, benefit. It makes your employees feel good about the company and their work. It focuses them on the customer value you deliver, not just on making more money for the company. I am sure most of you have heard about how more than other groups, Gen Y employees want to know the work they are doing matters. Well, your customers can help them understand their impact!

Building a customer-centric company is not hard, nor is it expensive. It takes commitment and focus relentless focus.

If you can build an organization that always does the right thing for your customers, your customers will do the right thing for you: They will remain loyal. They will tell their friends about you. They will be passionate advocates for your business and defenders of your brand. They will help you reach audiences you could never reach on your own by talking about you where they engage with friends, family, and colleagues (in person, on social media sites, etc.).

These unbiased reviews will encourage others to patronize your business, giving you a chance to wow new customers and turn them into advocates. It's an endless loop that will return dividends for a long time to come.

Gail Goodman, Guest Blogger
View more posts by SCORE's Guest Bloggers

Earlier this month I reported on bloggers leaving scienceblogs.org because the publisher sold a presence on the site to bloggers from PepsiCo.

One of the rationales for bundling all the science bloggers together in one place was the synergy that comes from aggregation. Of course, with RSS you can achieve the same effect, without putting them all on the same server. So I put it on my to-do list to set up an science blogs aggregator, and yesterday I had some time to do it, so here it is.

http://science.newsriver.org/

As always, the OPML for the site is public so if you want to feed it into your aggregator you're welcome to. You should reimport the OPML from time to time, or ask your aggregator developer to do it for you -- because that list will be updated dynamically as the site grows.

And if you know of science blogs that should be included in the list, please post a comment here.

The other day I received a pretty bad pitch from Warner Bros. In fact, it was so clueless I forwarded it to A-list technology blog Techdirt. Mike Masnick been doing a great job of covering the entertainment industry's (rather entertaining) ongoing misunderstanding of this whole social web thing, so I'm pleased to see him share the story with his community to continue that dialog (and maybe, just maybe help them although they haven't been listening so far).

The pitch was as follows:

Hello,

I am a part of the Warner Brothers word of mouth marketing team and recently came across your blog! Your blog uniquely stood out as dynamic, informative and highly creative. We are seeking bloggers that are passionate about entertainment to help us engage your readers with content that would be interesting to them.

We would like to have you join our WB Word marketing team to let fans know about our latest releases and relevant content/products. As a member of the team, you will be asked to display photos, clips, and stories on your Blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. The best part is you will get paid! Additionally, we may even debut event previews and new content so that fans like you get to enjoy it first.

As Mike noted in his reaction:

Here's a tip for Warner Bros.' word of mouth marketing team. If it's really word of mouth marketing, it probably doesn't require you to pay people to talk about you

But this pitch is worse than not being actual word of mouth marketing. To me, the pitch shows a deeper problem with the media brands of yesterday.

In essence: Warner Bros. could care less about anyone they pitched. To them, we're just numbers.

The reasons we know this?

• They say my blog uniquely stood out as dynamic, informative and highly creative yet they didn't even personalize the email. Obviously they said this to everyone.
• On the landing page they linked me to in the email, (I took that part out, they do not deserve link love) they mention it's to receive information for a TV show. Except, blog readers here know I don't even watch TV. So why would I possibly care about this?
• I am vocally opposed to paid blogging. Of course any time someone tries to pitch me on paid blogging I'm going to react negatively.
• I blogged about EMI for doing something very similar in a not-so-positive light. Clearly I'm going to share these pitches with the web.

They are taking the spray and pray, direct marketing approach to social media. Except, the social web is not merely a numbers game.

The story actually gets even more interesting and really gives insight into the mindset of some of the marketers working for traditional media brands. Someone from the Warner Bros. team left the following comment on the post at Techdirt:

The WB Word Team is fully accredited by WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association), which is in regular contact with the FTC regarding disclosure laws. As far as the incident you cite in you story, we were in the process of identifying key influencers on the web who we felt would be relevant to promoting our projects (television and not film as you represent in your story). This was clearly an invitation to join our team and was completely transparent in its intent. All of the work done by the WB Word Team is also fully disclosed and transparent and team members chose which projects they want to promote based on their individual likes and opinions of each specific project. We are dismayed that you wouldn't call first and check your facts before writing this inaccurate story.

And, a Techdirt commenter responded with a keen observation:

Is this seriously the reaction they would have to this article? All a response like this would do is confirm everything that was said about how they really don't get it. It's mind boggling in it's misunderstanding of the message presented.

I've gotta give WB the benefit of the doubt here and assume someone else went to a lot of effort to sound credibly like them. That, or the people in charge of the WB Word Team are astoundingly misguided in how to engage and interact on the social web.

Step 1) Try to bribe people
Step 2) Lash out at people who suggest bribery isn't as effective as engaging your audience

What's step 3? Sue and lash out at your customers that are trying to talk about your films/television and issue DMCA take-downs against them because they used a clip you provided oh yeah, I guess they do that too.

Indeed. Maybe it's time for the entertainment industry to stop fighting the future at every turn and work on understanding their audience and developing relationships instead of treating us like numbers.

When much smaller private companies truly understand how to pitch a blogger, it's amazing how public companies with billions in revenue get it so wrong.

Warner Bros. Spams Bloggers, Then Lashes Out Against Reactions is a post from The Future Buzz

What am I doing wrong? I whispered to the computer screen.

A part of me wanted nothing more than to go to bed and forget about blogging forever.

And yet, there I was, hunched over the computer, as I dug through my traffic stats for the millionth time. Somewhere inside was the answer to why I wasn't getting more traffic, and I was going to find it.

Some people would have said I was asking for too much.

The blog was already doing decently well, averaging about 100 visitors a day after only two months. I got at least a few glowing comments on every post I wrote. Several people had sent e-mails, complementing me on my writing.

But the problem was the blog wasn't growing.

I was putting out better content than anyone else in my niche. I tried every traffic strategy you can name. I was working on it so hard that my day job was suffering.

And yet the traffic stayed the same. It was like I'd run up against some invisible barrier, and nothing would push me past it. I was beginning to think I'd be doomed to 100 visitors per day forever, and that certainly wasn't enough to quit my job over.

I sighed and pushed back from the computer. I'll figure it out tomorrow, I said, heading off to bed.

And the next morning I woke up with a peculiar idea that explained everything.

The glass ceiling

What if I told you the blogosphere has a sort of glass ceiling?

The idea goes something like this:

Anyone can start a blog. If you work hard, you can even grow it to a few hundred visitors a day or so.

But at some point, the growth stalls out. You reach a plateau.

It'll be like you've run into a glass ceiling an invisible but bulletproof barrier. You'll see bloggers on the other side, and they don't seem to be doing anything different than you are. But for some reason, they were able to break through, and you weren't.

It took me two years and three failed blogs to figure this out. And the answer is nothing close to what I expected.

The inner circle

The good news about the glass ceiling is there is a door.

The bad news is it's guarded.

You see, every niche has an inner circle. A group of people who command a lot of attention.

Everyone reads their blogs (or books). Their opinions are widely respected. And they often coordinate their marketing to help each other grow.

In the blogging niche, it's people like Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, and Sonia Simone who, of course, all came together to form Third Tribe. In real estate investing, it's gurus like Bill Bronchick, Ron Legrand, and Robert Kiyosaki.

It doesn't matter what niche or topic you point to; you'll find an inner circle. And if you want serious traffic and by serious, I mean thousands of visitors per day the fastest way to do that is to convince members of the inner circle in your niche to promote you.

They're not going to come find you

The odds are you're not going to publish a post some day that makes all of the insiders in your niche want to know you. If you want their help, you have to proactively build relationships.

The bloggers who bypass the glass ceiling don't just do it by publishing more or better content than everyone else. They also do it by working behind the scenes to build friendly relationships with people who can help them.

The question is, how?

That's the last piece of the puzzle. And it's one that I stumbled across totally by accident.

The key to building a popular blog

Late one night, I was working on my blog and just so happened to get an IM from Brian Clark. I'd been hanging around in the Teaching Sells forums for a few months, not only soaking up the content, but answering questions from other members. Little did I know it, but I'd caught Brian's attention, and he reached out to me.

I really like what you've been posting in the TS forums. How would you like to do a guest post for Copyblogger?

I was stunned. Copyblogger was quickly becoming one of the most successful blogs in the world, and I didn't think I was anywhere close to being ready to write at that level. But I wasn't going to miss the opportunity, either, so I agreed.

A week later, my first post went up, and it was the highest traffic day in the history of my new blog.

It wasn't thousands of visitors, no. I still had a lot to learn about writing a really strong post.

But it was an eye-opener.

Brian's help didn't stop there. He gave me invaluable advice on how to grow my blog, and he started connecting me with power users who could help promote my posts on Digg and StumbleUpon.

Within a few weeks, I was up to an average of 2,000 visitors per day, and I had hit the front page of Digg, bringing me 20,000 visitors within a few hours. I was euphoric, and there was no question Brian's generosity with his connections and advice were the key ingredient to making it happen.

So I started to wonder. What if I did more of this?

I started to guest post wherever I could, and before long, I was getting so much traffic that my server started to crash, and I had to switch hosting companies. Performancing even nominated my blog for the Best Business/Money Blog in the world.

I felt like a genius, like I'd discovered the cure for cancer or something.

But then I started to look around. I wasn't the only one guest blogging. People like Leo Babauta, Chris Garrett, Sonia Simone, and Dave Navarro were doing it too.

And they were reaping incredible benefits.

That's when it occurred to me: the best way to build a relationship with anyone is to give them something of value. It's the whole principle of reciprocity. It goes back not just to the work of Robert Cialdini, but to the good old Golden Rule.

And what do popular bloggers need more than anything else?

Great content.

Why guest blogging is such a powerful strategy

It's hard to fathom when you're a beginner, but running a huge blog is a lot of work.

You have to come up with something brilliant to post every day, or you risk losing the attention of your audience. No vacations, no holidays, no calling in sick. You have a huge crowd of people waiting to hear what you are going to say next, and it had better be good.

Many popular bloggers publish guest posts just because it gives them a day off. Someone else can take over the show, and they can take a moment to relax and regroup. It's not laziness; it's a creative necessity.

And it's also a big opportunity for you.

Not only does guest posting give you a chance to connect with a huge audience, but it also makes you a sort of understudy. The blogger begins to care about you and how you're progressing, and they'll go out of their way to help you grow.

The result?

Lots and lots of traffic.

Look into the history of almost any popular blogger, and you'll find they guest posted for other popular blogs. In fact, go through the list of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010, and over half of them have written for Copyblogger alone.

It's not a coincidence. It's the way the blogosphere works.

Everyone talks about building a relationship with your audience and that's critical. But few talk about building those relationships behind the scenes. Not sucking up or trying to exploit anyone, but making yourself useful and valuable.

Becoming a contributor to their success is one of the best ways to build your own success. That makes guest blogging a smart strategy.

Stay tuned and I'll give you some quick tips for exactly how to do it.

About the Author: Jon Morrow is the Associate Editor of Copyblogger. Get more from him on twitter.

What do you do with your down time?

The average Canadian watches more than 25 hours of television every week (depending on which survey or research report you believe). On top of that, the average Canadian is also watching close to 12 hours of online video every month. Comparatively, the average American is watching close to 40 hours of television every week and about four to 12 hours of online video (the difference is probably related to both connectivity and culture). As busy as your life may seem, imagine what you could do with all of that free time? Let's agree that no one is ever going to ditch television (or watching YouTube videos) completely. What would happen if you suddenly had half of that time - which would be close to 60 hours every month? Would you watch more episodes of America's Got Talent or The Bachelorette?

We have to be able to recognize that television culture has done a lot more to us - as a civilization - than simply to entertain and (sometimes) educate the mass populous.

Television has changed who we are. We sit in front of this box as a way to kill time and as a way to relax (although we should be hard pressed to see how anyone could relax watching the news on Fox or Lock-Up). In its primal form, TV is probably a lot closer to what Paleolithic man did after eating and in between hunts -which is waiting to die (sorry for being so morbid, but it's true).

The act of actually creating something vs. sitting around and consuming content is one of the pivotal components that make the Internet and Web culture such a huge shift in the media landscape and who we are as a people.

That is the crux and main thrust behind the newly published business book, Cognitive Surplus - Creativity and generosity in a connected age, by Clay Shirky (Penguin Press, June 2010). In Cognitive Surplus, Shirky argues that now, instead of just sitting idly by and watching TV, this (fairly) new technology mixed in with Social Media can put our "untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last." Basically, television was (and still is) the main driver that is sucking this cognitive surplus out of humanity. The book isn't about turning off the boob tube to become an activist, but it is about the potential for human beings to see, do and create a whole lot more. Much like Shirky's first book, Here Comes Everybody - The power of organizing without organizations (Penguin Press, 2008), Cognitive Surplus is not only a pleasure to read because of Shirky's writing style, but it is a much needed, deeper look into what is happening now online.

Social Media and the advancement of things like the iPad, smartphones and more places us - as a civilization - in the middle of a new renaissance period.

And, it's hard to know that we're in the middle of a new renaissance period until after it is over and we have had the time to sit back, review the results and reflect on these many changes. No one will argue that business, technology and media have changed dramatically in the past two decades because of the Internet, but the question now becomes: what are we going to do with our free time now that we don't have to simply be a passive audience (or as NYU professor and media pundit Jay Rosen defines us, "the people formerly known as the audience")?

A glaringly obvious example of how to harness this cognitive surplus is Wikipedia (love it or hate it).

Suddenly, it is not incumbent on a group of PhDs and peer review to decide what constitutes the collection of knowledge and information that human beings have discovered. And suddenly, we can all contribute, edit, add, revise and yes, debate not only the content, but its accuracy. Shirky explains that Wikipedia took about 100 million hours of cumulative thought to build when compared to the reality that on average Americans watch about 200 billion hours of television every year. "That represents about 2,000 Wikipedia projects worth of free time annually," the book argues. "Even tiny subsets of this time are enormous: we spend roughly 100 million hours every weekend just watching commercials."

It turns out that even a massive project like Wikipedia takes up only a small amount of our cognitive surplus when broken down.

Now, we can do even more amazing things, projects and initiatives because of our connectivity and the publishing platforms that the Internet affords us. The question becomes this: are human beings naturally lazy or are we naturally hungry to replace our primal hunting instincts with a new hunt for information, content curation, creativity and publishing? As Shirky points out so eloquently in Cognitive Surplus, "Access to cheap, flexible tools removes many of the barriers to trying new things. You don't need fancy computers to harness cognitive surplus; simple phones are enough. But one of the most important lessons is this: once you've figured out how to tap the surplus in a way that people care about, others can replicate your technique, over and over, around the world."

This could well be the next phase of human evolution...

How we use our time to connect, share and build things (ideas, movements, social change, businesses, political change, helping those in need, etc.) in an era where everyone is connected and we push toward the last mile of connecting even those who are not in the developed world.

What are you going to do with all of this free time? What do you make of Clay Shirky and his concept of Cognitive Surplus?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation. This blog post is also a part of a Blogger outreach program by TLCBooktours. They sent me a review copy of Cognitive Surplus and invited to join this group of distinguished Bloggers participating in Shirky's blog tour. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

• Montreal Gazette - Tapping into people's free time can help create a powerful resource.
• Vancouver Sun - Connectivity could lead to next phase of evolution.

Tags: americas got talent audience blogger business business column civilization clay shirky cognitive surplus connectivity content education entertainment fox news free time here comes everybody human evolution information internet culture ipad jay rosen knowledge lockup mass media media landscape montreal gazette newspaper newspaper column nyu online video penguin press press think publishing renaissance period smartphone social change social media technology television television culture the bachelorette tlcbooktours tv commercials vancouver sun web culture wikipedia youtube

Going back a few years, the Internet was not considered a credible media source. That changed, but it's changing again.

In the early days of online publishing (even pre-Blogging) the simple fact that any one individual could publish their text, images, audio and video online created a major stir within the major mass media outlets. In fact, their only defense in trying to maintain control over what the public consumed was to scare the world with stories of online publishers not living up to the journalistic integrity that we have come to expect from our news and media outlets. To this day, there are still traces of this (look no further than the articles covering the accuracy of Wikipedia entries).

Can the Bloggers be trusted?

It's a powerful thing to say, but we've come to learn that the vast majority of Blogs (and the Bloggers who publish them) are overly transparent about who they are, what they're Blogging about and where their intention is (those who are transparent gain credibility, conversation and audience). On top of that, the Bloggers that do not disclose things like conflicts or when they are being compensated are becoming easier and easier to spot.

...But things are starting to get ugly again.

Yesterday, Paid Content, ran a news item titled, Cond Nast Enlists Web Edit Staff For Samsung Advertorial. Here's the gist of it: "Cond Nast is attempting to protect the traditional wall separating advertising from print editorial by having online-only staffers create an ad insert for Samsung... the use of web staffers was seen as a compromise and a way to avoid clashing with print editors who were considered averse to allowing their own staff work on an ad product."

Either you're believing in this digital content stuff or you're not. You can't be half-pregnant.

There are a couple of factors at play here:

1. Making a differentiation between print and online journalism (in terms of quality and value) is downright silly.
2. By allowing the online-only staff to do the advertorial content, this activity diminishes their ability to be considered credible (today and tomorrow).
3. The overall action creates a bad moral compass for the company's ethics of journalism at a macro level (it's sounds like they're looking for some kind of ethical loophole).

The Web is not an inferior media.

The sooner that brands, advertisers and publishers stop treating the Internet like the red-headed step child of the media and marketing mix, the sooner they're going to be able to better understand how they can connect and build their brand in this new world where consumers are connected, looking for real interactions between real human beings and are, ultimately, not just a passive audience, but active participants, voices and community members. Publishers aren't the only publishers anymore. People are now also publishers and brands (and Marketers) are publishers too. So, we need to change our code of ethics around editorial content and advertising, and not just look for loopholes and ways to capitulate.

What do you think?

Tags: advertising advertorial blog blogger blogging conde nast credible media digital content editorial content internet journalism journalistic integrity marketing mix mass media media media source moral compass online community online publishing paid content publisher publishing samsung wikipedia

You must be living in a vacuum if aren't aware of the buzz surrounding the latest Old Spice videos that have gone viral. Earlier this week on Facebook, I responded to a question posed by Social Fresh about whether or not the viral ads will sell more Old Spice.

Will the Old Spice viral video campaign sell more Old Spice? Yes or No?

Here was my response:

Of course it will. As consumers we may not realize it consciously.

But, when standing in the aisle in front of all the brands even if you are loyal to another brand you will see Old Spice. Don't think for a second that this is not a coordinated retail effort.

Pay close attention to product placement in the next few weeks Is there more end cap placements for Old Spice, more Signage, etc. What may seem like a social only event is certainly tied to a set of specific retailing strategies at the store level. The brand owner of OLD Spice is a former Proctor and Gamble exec. More will be sold. Lots more.

Correction: At the time, I posted the comment, I failed to remember that OLD Spice is a Proctor and Gamble brand. So better said:

Remember, the brand of owner of Old Spice IS a Proctor and Gamble executive. What does P&G do? BUILD BRANDS.

An effort that started with a commercials during in the Super Bowl,

Old Spice Super Bowl Ad

is much more thought through than the blogosphere is giving Old Spice credit for. This is a well planned, coordinated, measured effort to increase revenue.

Remember, this is P&G we are talking about!

What does P&G do?

BUILD BRANDS.

There are a lot of super smart, creative, innovative and intelligent marketers in this world. Nothing that is happening with Old Spice brand right now is happening by chance. Nothing. Market share, and more importantly, MIND share is be gained every day.

I'm thinking this was dreamed up in late 2008, early 2009. Read this Fast Company article about Old Spice's Brand Manager, Alex Keith, and you will see why.

BY: EVAN WEST May 1, 2009

In a few short months, we will see the same come true in B2B marketing. My bet is that SAP has some super things in the works. Have you seen SAP's Facebook Friend Optimizer? I bet they have much more on the way. Watch them. Here is an interesting interview with William Robb, Director, Social Media Marketing for SAP. SAP will be a B2B brand that continues making waves in the social web.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember, the recession slowed everything down. The creative juices are following everywhere. I am excited for the future of B2B marketing, are you?

Shared by Stephen
I don't agree with all the conclusions here.

Leadership comes in many forms. Some noble, some inspiring and others menacing. In the corporate world, market leadership makes you an obvious target and as they say, the inevitable next step is decline. If you doubt that, recall AT&T or IBM in their respective Ma Bell or Mainframe heydays. More recently, we can look to Microsoft's once insurmountable market dominance eroded by Apple or Blockbuster's by Netflix. The examples are everywhere.

Consequently, incumbency can be a difficult burden to endure, where corporate culture ultimately determines whether a market leader will gravitate towards nobility, inspiration, menace or deception. Recently, we have witnessed a sad example of the two latters.

Payola as a rite of passage

Social Media remains a young and evolving medium, with unprecedented two-way dialoguing characteristics not found on Radio, Movies or TV. As such, we are all learning as we go, compensating for the gaps left by frames of reference based on those older forms of media.

A prominent social media contributor himself, Stephen Foskett did some excellent investigative journalism today (also covered by SearchStorage) on two obviously related examples of Social Media Payola by EMC in support of a misguided anti-NetApp discount program disguised as a guarantee. And yes, the irony of inflated rankings in support of an artificial comparison is palpable!

1. A Lesson In Failed Social Media Marketing
2. Digging Deeper: AlterSeekers, myYearbook, Sharethrough, and Spam
   

Much like the story recounted in the excellent movie Quiz Show, EMC's failed attempt to deceive and manipulate the public perception of their latest NetApp imitation is a watershed moment. Social Media technology itself unintentionally yet clearly exposed the lengths EMC is willing to go to in order to disparage a rising competitor. Yet perhaps more profoundly, as a result of this deception and manipulation, we the storage community, have lost any semblance of innocence about the authenticity or genuineness of blog comments, twitter links, YouTube views, Facebook fans, or other emerging online community and collaboration tools.

Tarred by the Hopkinton Brush

Perhaps because we (NetApp) are comfortable in our corporate skin, gaining market share, recognized as a great place to work, or otherwise NetApp has never employed 3rd party agencies to artificially inflate our social media rankings. But I fear this type of online honesty no longer matters. As far as busy observers (customers, partners, analysts, etc) are concerned, EMC's failed tactics (as part of a much broader anti-NetApp strategy) have now dragged all vendors into their self-created social media gutter. Perhaps that was the plan all along?

Every instinct I've developed during my own 3 year social media journey tells me to just leave well enough alone here. But in this documented age of never forgetting, the stunning online hypocrisy and intimidation displayed by EMC's primary social media spokesperson proves too tempting to ignore.

Disclosure

I've personally met and enjoyed the company of both Barry Burke and Mark Twomey which are referred to below. I even suspect I might like Chuck Hollis if I ever get the chance to meet him in person. My following professional criticisms are solely of their online statements and comments, not their individual characters!

The Tactics

Prominent EMC bloggers have already earned the unenviable internet meme of the Anti-Social Media Gang. Additional undeserving victims include recognized storage experts such as Curtis Preson and most recently Jerome Wendt.

In addition to contradicting himself online within hours on the same day, Chuck is also infamous for censoring his blog to filter out contrarian opinions and for promising on the same blog to resign should EMC ever come out with a storage guarantee. He's also fond of using his blog as a platform for calling NetApp out for numerous alleged marketing stunts, when none of our programs where ever labeled as egregiously as this. However those all pale in perspective to his recent Transparency Rant blog, just prior to the undisclosed EMC Payola exposed today!

The Goal

Yet despite this mountain of evidence, you have to admire Chuck's cunning & ruthless online ability to hijack the discussion while effectively deflecting attention away from this overwhelmingly positive independent endorsement of NetApp's Cloud Strategy.

Perspective

One of the most grounded and credible independent observers of our industry is Justin Warren. His recent blogs are an eloquent attempt to add some proper perspective and decorum to the discussion. Let me quote two particular passages:

http://www.eigenmagic.com/2010/07/05/how-to-be-critical/

Get Over Yourself

It's IT. Most of what we're doing isn't discovering penicillin, or curing cancer, or creating cold fusion. Our customers might be, but we're not.

We're all just trying to find some meaning in our short lives while we keep our families fed and try not to mess up our kids too badly.

We're on a very small ball of dirt in a big, cold universe.

Take a deep breath, count to ten, and be nice to your fellow humans.

http://www.eigenmagic.com/2010/07/03/customers-arent-idiots/ (comments)

Ah, Val. Val and Chuck seem to be engaged in some kind of long form performance art using hyperbolic satire. I'm not entirely sure it's not all some elaborate practical joke. The article you linked to is full of the stuff I'm talking about.

I find it hard to take either of them seriously. Certainly I don't believe the claims either of them make unless I've verified it for myself. They both do it all the time, and I've long given up hope of that ever changing.

One thing they both do provide is entertainment value. Sometimes what they write is funny, but comedy is hard, and they're no Stephen Colbert. But if you want to be taken seriously, and to educate customers about your product's value, yeah, don't do what they do.

Trolling in Character

The 4th Wall is the tangible barrier in the entertainment industry between reality and fiction, literally required for an audience to enjoy the show. Most bloggers (especially corporate bloggers) regularly employ entertaining hyperbole and rhetoric to capture reader attention while driving our respective points across.

In a futile attempt, Justin attempts in his blog comments above to point out this distinction to some seemingly misguided HP competitive bloggers who can't quite grasp the concept.

Vendor blogging requires a very thick skin, but only for the sparring partners in question. I firmly believe all posts and commentary are fair (within the first 3 walls) between vendor bloggers on their own respective blogs. However, when the 4th Wall is breached (by attacking non-vendor commentators or trolling on other blogs to beat your proverbial dead horse) you lose credibility and diminish your original corporate blogging goals.

Protocol

I have a theory that the rate at which vendors attack independent observers on their own corp blogs or troll foreign blogs to defend their stance, is directly proportional to the desperation they feel due to losing share at the hands of their target. This is especially true of incumbents attempting to defend their installed base turf against threatening challengers.

According to competitor size (i.e. by legacy, installed base or market capitalization), the acceptable protocol of competitive blogging focus is to aim above. That's why you often see NetApp comparing ourselves against EMC, Dell or HP, but rarely against smaller competitors. Nor do we over-react when smaller competitors attack us. That, after all, is the burden of success.

The crop reports are excellent again this fall

Growing up a Romanian Jew, I have direct experience with the insidious and devastating effectiveness of well-executed propaganda campaigns by both fascists and communists alike. Much like an IED in Iraq or Afghanistan, propaganda is a chillingly effective weapon used in a competitive guerilla marketing campaign.

Because of my childhood, I have a weakness is the form of visceral reactions to blatant lies against NetApp camouflaged in the form of propaganda campaigns. Lately those reactions often result in #Twitpisses which quickly descend into tiresome banter that loses the plot at best, or annoys my Twitter followers at worst.

Therefore I commit to finding a more constructive vehicle for combating insidious propaganda against NetApp, that comes with the territory when you're gaining share against desperate incumbents. Perhaps it's more frequent blogging, perhaps it's innovations like adding familiar Digg / Bury ratings on tweets, or something altogether unimagined.

In the meantime, by popular demand, you can expect me to cut budding #Twitpisses off at the knees with a courteous #TwitpissVitationDeclined! hashtag :-)

Teddy Wayne / New York Times:
Where the Bloggers Are Concentrated As might be expected, 21- to 35-year-olds now constitute a majority of all bloggers, making up 53.3 percent of that population, according to analysis by the social media consulting firm Sysomos. Bloggers under 21 come in a distant second at 20.2 percent

WordPress is inherently fast, and that's why so many professional bloggers call it their choice platform.

Like many new bloggers, I used to think that until I had enough traffic to make a difference, I'd worry about the bandwidth and site speed later. But that's not thinking ahead considering that today social media can drive an overwhelming amount of traffic in a very short period of time; you don't want to get caught with a crashed site.

When you're not prepared for lots of traffic, it's common for a web host to suspend your account temporarily, and that's something you don't want. If your writing is decent and you've been doing some minimal promotion, then it could happen to you. Think positively and prepare your blog as though it's going to be a huge success. To do that, here is a tutorial on how to speed up your WordPress site.

Note: As always, with everything, you should backup your WordPress installation before making any code changes.

1. Caching

Utilize WordPress Object Cache

By inserting this simple code into your wp-config.php file, you can set WordPress to begin caching database queries rather than initiating new server requests on each load. You don't have to understand why this works, it just will.

1. // Enable the WordPress Object Cache:
2. define(ENABLE_CACHE, true);
Read more on this topic:


By reducing the number of queries, you'll both increase the speed of your site, and reduce the server resources that are consumed each time you receive a visitor. As a result, you'll find that it will make your web host much happier in the event of a huge traffic spike.

Utilize a caching plugin

The main plugin that meets this need is the WP Super Cache, which does exactly what it says. It caches posts and stores them as files on the server so that repeated requests are dealt with faster and with fewer resources. The plugin will automatically update as comments are added so the dynamic nature of the blog isn't lost.

Another option, which is used right here on Mashable, is W3 Total Cache. It's a plugin that promises 10 times the speed of your site without it.

2. Choose the Right Host

There are several web hosts that are optimized to run WordPress. And while WordPress is not that picky, it does have a set of ideal server settings. Most web hosts meet the basic requirements, but you can find more information about what's necessary here.

Choosing the right host means more that just buying storage space. Many discount hosts will try to fool you with promises of massive server space at a cheap price because they know you will likely never use the promised enormous allotment. You should really be aware of:

• Bandwidth
• Processor speed/type
• Databases allowed
• Domains allowed
• Which versions of PHP, MySQL, etc. are installed

Look for hosts that have more of a commitment to WordPress as a CMS and blogging platform and not just a mention at the bottom of their features list. Another solid resource is the WordPress hosting page.

Also, though most shared hosts will likely be running Apache, keep in mind that WordPress can also run on NGINX, which can increase your server's speed by changing the structure of the server requests. NGINX powers massive websites like Hulu, SourceForge and WordPress itself.

If these big boys choose NGINX, you know it delivers.

3. Prune Your Plugins

Take a look at your plugin list and remove the inactive ones. Then remove the any actives ones that you don't actually use; they are likely to place a strain on your serve resources because WordPress loads all plugins when a page loads.

Make sure you're always running the latest stable release of both WordPress and your plugins. Many older WordPress plugins are not efficient and will weigh your blog down.

WordPress 3.0 comes with a revamped plugin update feature, allowing you to update plugins faster, smoother and easier. It also offers a bulk update feature that is completely new to WordPress, so there's no excuse for letting your plugin versions expire.

4. Choose the Right Theme

Themes can make or break a WordPress installation. Go for something stylish but simple. It's important to understand that fewer images will equals less loading time, which means a speedier site. Choose themes with the fewest possible images and a CSS-based design. Themes with tables, frames and static HTML will be slower than those based on the latest technologies. You might want to choose a minimalist theme and modify it to suit your needs.

There are many resources for minimalist themes, including this one Six Revisions and this one at Tripwire Magazine. Don't just take the theme's simplicity as a sign of load speed, though; check the actual speed using something like YSlow or Pingdom's Page Test.

5. Compress Images

While a clean page means speed, you have to balance that with the fact that strong supporting images are key to a successful blog. But there is no reason to sacrifice speed for quality. By ensuring your images are appropriately formatted and compressed, you can help increase your blog's speed.

The easiest way to remember formatting is like this:

Images that use only a few colors should be saved as .GIF or .PNG files, and images that use a full spectrum of colors (like true photographs) should be saved as .JPG files. If you use photo editing software, like Photoshop, you can save for the web, which will find the best format to save, while still maintaining quality.

Next you should resize images to the smallest possible size to get the job done. When doing so, the color format should be RGB, as indexed images don't scale well.

When saving, set the total color amount to the smallest value possible without sacrificing quality. A combination of these steps will greatly decrease your image size and therefore your server response time. You should play around a bit to find the right format and experiment when uploading to determine which settings produce the smallest, high-quality image.

6. Compress Your Code

Stylesheets

Stylesheets are easy to compress, just use your favorite text editor to delete comments and unnecessary spaces and line breaks. Although you won't see a drastic difference unless your style sheets involve tens of thousands of lines.

JavaScript

Compressing JavaScript isn't as simple, but it is still relatively easy. There are a number of tools available, such as this one, which is free, that will compress your JavaScript code for you. Better yet, don't rely on much JavaScript at all if you can help it. If your site has lots of interactivity, moving parts and fancy features, there is a good chance it is running a lot of JavaScript and that could slow things down.

Additionally, you may use the Yahoo! YUI compressor tool or the Google equivalent compression tool. Either one will tighten up your code to make it run more efficiently. Coder Journal has a nice comparison of the various tools for JavaScript compression.

Use CSS Sprites

CSS Sprites allow designers to create interactive images, or multiple images using CSS instead of bulky and slow loading JavaScript. Sprites are an advanced technique, but here is a great tutorial at A List Apart. There is even a plugin developed specifically for WordPress that helps with the use of CSS Sprites.

7. Keep It Local

Don't rely on other people's servers to be fast, so minimize any widgets, badges or applications that run off other locations. If possible, try to self-host all images and code, such as your analytics. That said, if you're posting videos use a service that is built for such a load, like YouTube or Vimeo.

But if you are expecting (or receiving) lots of traffic, you may want to look at paying for a dedicated server and not trying to host all your projects in that one place alone. A lot of people don't realize that the geographical distance from a server actually matters. If the vast majority of your traffic comes from a specific country or region, consider locating your hosting close by.

8. Reduce PHP and HTTP Calls

Websites were once built statically, meaning that each page was hand-coded and built from the bottom up. Now, most websites are generated dynamically each time a visitor loads the page, which allows for each experience to be custom designed for each person, making for a richer browsing experience.

In order to accomplish this, many websites use PHP, a scripting language that allows you to reference remote content based on criteria set by the developer. For example, a site might use PHP to determine that this is a first-time visit, and the site may then use this information to generate a welcome message.

Each time one of these PHP calls is made, a request is made to the server hosting the website, which takes time (usually milliseconds). This time is called latency, and some websites have thousands of calls each time the site is loaded, which can translate to millions per day depending on traffic.

Wherever possible, scan your site for PHP requests and replace with static HTML. By doing this, the browser will simply read the HTML as opposed to asking the server what it should display. Here is an example of a slow and fast way to produce the same result:

Slow:
<?php bloginfo(name); ?><?php bloginfo(description); ?>
Fast:
<title>Mashable - The Social Media Guide</title>

There's more you can do to minimize PHP calls. This tutorial will help you cut down the PHP calls that occur in the typical WordPress header. You can also reduce PHP calls by eliminating any logging that might be happening; some advanced plugins offer an option to track plugin activity with a log, which can significantly slow down your WordPress site.

9. Keep Your Code Clean

You can validate your code using the W3C Validator. It might seem snobby to have standards on the web, but the truth is, there are standards for a reason. If everyone met the standards, browsers would always know how to display the information they're given. Use the tool at W3C to validate your code and fix any errors. This can be a painstakingly long process but it's well worth the end result.

Coding errors will slow your load time, especially if images that are referenced but don't exist. Use a bug tool like Firebug to identify coding errors and fix them.

10. Database optimization

Using a database administration interface like phpMyAdmin, you can select all tables and click Repair and Optimize, and scan for outdated tables that weren't deleted when you removed old plugins.

This plugin will take care of the database optimization while letting you stay out of the database itself. While this other plugin offers automatic optimization which may be better for the hands-off blog author.

11. Adjust Your WordPress Settings

Go easy on the front page

There's no reason to show 100 posts on the front page, and really, you don't even need to display the full post content on the front page. You can adjust this setting in the WordPress Dashboard under the Settings > Reading panel.

Turn off inter-blog communication

By default, WordPress interacts with other blogs that are equipped with pingbacks and trackbacks. Every time another blog mentions you, it notifies your site, which in turn updates data on the post. Turning this off will not destroy links to your site, just the setting that generates a lot of work for your site. For more detail, read this explanation of WordPress Pingbacks, Trackbacks and Linkbacks.

More development and design resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Create a Pixel Fireworks Animation Using JavaScript
- Top 10 Resources for Design Inspiration
- HOW TO: Get Up-to-Date on WordPress 3.0
- 7 Hackathons Around the World and the Web
- 10 Web Design Bloggers You Should Follow

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Yesterday I challenged readers to write a post that took a 7 link challenge linking to 7 posts that fit into 7 themes. I thought I'd take it for myself here on ProBlogger.

1. Your first post the first post I ever wrote on ProBlogger (I'd been posting on other blogs for a couple of years before this) was in September 2004. It was titled Get to the Point. It was actually a post that I'd written on another blog which I imported onto this one. On the day I published it I imported 40 or so previously written posts into ProBlogger.
2. A post you enjoyed writing the most 5 Things You Don't Know about My Dad the ProBlogger. This post was a departure from my normal writing style and as a result I had a lot of fun both writing it and reading the feedback on it.
3. A post which had a great discussion Does a Bloggers Age Matter? This was a tough one to choose because there have been a lot of great discussions on ProBlogger in the last 5-6 years. I've chosen this one because the discussion is not only rich but it is fresh and has only just slowed.
4. A post on someone else's blog that you wish you'd written I'm going to share a link here that is one that I refer to constantly in my blogging. It's Copyblogger's Magnetic Headlines series of posts. Most specifically I always head to the headline template posts they're useful and I wish I had the smarts to come up with them as I'm sure many people keep coming back to them like I do.
5. A post with a title that you are proud of 9 things to do to Make Sure Your Next Blog Post is Read by More than Your Mom. It's a mouthful but it certainly grabbed people's attention and was something that people retweeted a lot (I find good titles often get that happening).
6. A post that you wish more people had read How to Craft a Blog Post 10 Crucial Points to Pause. This was actually an 11 part series and while it did get a reasonable amount of traffic it was something that I was a surprised by in terms of lack of reaction as it was something that I put a lot of work into and something that I think is actually very important. Perhaps it was that it was spread out over too long a period for people to take in but it's something I'm still proud of and hope people take the time to engage with (I'm even toying with the idea of expanding it and making it into a downloadable resource).
7. Your most visited post ever How to Blog: Blog Tips for Beginners. This post just continues to gather traffic and is a series that I wrote a few years back for beginner bloggers that just seemed to hit the spot with readers.

I hope you've found this useful and am looking forward to seeing your 7 links.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

7 Links for Bloggers

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I can't agree more with this article. Jason gets it.

Foreclosures are a part of the United States housing landscape right now, and a new report from RealtyTrac shows that the problem is not going away anytime soon. 1.65 million homes were in some stage of foreclosure in the United States during the 1^st quarter.

In Nevada it was even more dramatic with one out of every 17 homes in foreclosure. To give this some perspective, Nevada foreclosures back in February of 2009 were historically high at 1 in 70 homes. The next closest state was California at 1 in 165 homes.

Now the top 9 worst foreclosure states are under the 1 in 70 homes mark.

Foreclosures and short sales are now the dominant part of the real estate market.

Yikes.

Top 10 Highest Foreclosure States For First Half of 2010

Rank    State           Total      1/every X HU
_______________________________________________

--      U.S.            1,654,634       78
1       Nevada          64,429          17
2       Arizona         91,484          30
3       Florida         277,073         32
4       California      340,740         39
5       Utah            18,058          52
6       Georgia         71,949          56
7       Michigan        78,509          58
8       Idaho           10,799          59
9       Illinois        85,223          62
10      Colorado        30,177          71

Thanks for reading this post. If you would like to see more articles like this, please come visit The Real Estate Bloggers. where it was originally published.

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Rupert Murdoch has been on a crusade to protect content and journalism from the parasitical ways of blogs and Google since last year.

We asked Huffington Post co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington who often mingles with Rupe in social circles if she has ever had to defend her publication against his vendetta.

Watch Arianna talk about how Murdoch went from a champion of free-for-all news to the Internet Grinch.

See Arianna Huffington's Full Interview HERE >

Production by Bright Red Pixels.

Don's Miss:

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Arianna Huffington: Sorry, FTC, But Newspapers Are Not The Only Form Of Journalism Anymore >

Huffington: We Can Finally Explain What Bloggers Are >

Lessons For Entrepreneurs From Entrepreneurs With Arianna Huffington Here >

Join the conversation about this story

Can building a network of local bloggers help turn online journalism into a money-making proposition? Two new media ventures are hoping that it can, and have partnered with a startup called GrowthSpur to try and make that hope become a reality. One of the ventures is another startup, a Washington-based outlet called TBD that is being run by Jim Brady, the former online editor at the Washington Post. The other is a traditional media entity that is trying to remake itself online: the Journal Register Co., which publishes a number of daily and weekly newspapers in Philadelphia, Michigan, Connecticut and New Jersey. Journal Register's new CEO, John Paton, has been aggressively launching new-media related ventures at the company, including a community journalism lab aimed at training local bloggers.

GrowthSpur will be working with the bloggers who are part of both networks to help them sell advertising on their blogs, both by training them in ad sales and by aggregating them into an ad network that can carry advertising across all of the blogs in the group. The company, which was founded last year, is run by media-industry veteran Mark Potts and has another industry guru journalism professor and consultant Jeff Jarvis on its advisory board.

TBD.com, which has been in development for the past year or so and is expected to launch this summer, is being financed by Allbritton Communications, which also owns the online political site Politico. TBD editor Jim Brady has said that the new venture is designed to be hyper-local and community-oriented, and the blog network is at the core of that idea (the Washington Post also partners with a network of local blogs). The company says it has built up a core of almost 100 local bloggers who cover the Washington area from a number of different perspectives, and content from these blogs will appear alongside news and opinion writing from TBD staff:

When you come to TBD's home page or one of our topical pages, you will see content from across the region from a variety of sources. We will present the biggest stories that we think will be important and interesting to people throughout the metro area. And we will sort news by location, offering you news that's important to you because it's close to where you live, work, play or shop. When you click the links, some headlines will take you into the TBD site to content produced by our staff. Other links will take you away to content from our network members or other news sources in the community.

Local journalism-based blog networks have been tried in the past, but not always with great success. One of those efforts, Backfence.com (which closed down in 2007) was founded and run by Potts, who is now running GrowthSpur. (Potts talked to Mark Glaser of PBS MediaShift about the lessons he learned from Backfence.) Some hyper-local blog networks and blog aggregators have prospered, however, including BaristaNet which recently took over a local news venture that was originally started by the New York Times. Two of the newer entrants in this race are AOL's Patch.com, which the company is aggressively expanding into a number of U.S. markets with $50 million in funding, and a venture-backed startup called MainStreetConnect.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain also recently introduced a plugin for WordPress blogs that allows them to republish content from the newspaper (provided they include advertising from the company along with the news stories), and there has been some speculation that the paper is planning to use this feature as a way of assembling a blog network of its own, which would syndicate blog content into the Guardian and also redistribute Guardian content (and advertising) through the blog network.

Despite the entrance of heavyweights such as Patch.com into the market, however, it's still not clear whether hyper-local blogging and journalism in general can generate enough revenue to make them viable as businesses in their own right. Anyone with a stake in that market will undoubtedly be watching TBD and Journal Register's attempts closely.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req'd): What We Can Learn From the Guardian's Open Platform

Post and thumbnails courtesy of Flickr user MrTopf