That Instafamous Guy

Your friendly neighborhood IG Supehero

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Ain’t no Party Like an #usguys Party cuz the #usguys Party Don’t Stop

Four Score and Two Years ago our social fathers brought forth on this Twitterverse, a new nation, conceived in intelligent conversation, and dedicated to the proposition that all tweeters are created equal. The brave men, and women, who tweeted here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The blogosphere will little note, nor long remember what I say here, but Social Media will never forget what do did here. Yes, #usguys community is so cool that they get their own Twittersburg address, and moreover, we’re proud to bestow our first group So Genius award to them.

PROBLEM SOLVED

The whole #usguys community was born during a Twitter conversation between Thomas Moradpour @tommoradpour, Patrick Prothe @pprothe, Cristian Gonzales @galactic, Jason Mikula @mikulaja, and Chase Adams @realchaseadams. If you’ve ever discussed something with 3 or more people on Twitter, you quickly realized that your handles turn 140 into like 40 or 60. To combat this and promote character conservation, they had the bright idea of adding a tag so everyone could follow along even if they weren’t mentioned. Thus, the #usguys movement was born.

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NON STOP ACTION

Who would have known that a hashtag started by Five Guys (no burgers and fries) would evolve into a 24/7 twitter party? Seriously, if you’ve never heard of this community, test me on that statement. Because of its global appeal, the #usguys stream doesn’t go more than 5 minutes (a way conservative estimate) without a tweet. There’s no specific topic, just daily fun and comradery. If that, for some reason isn’t enough and you need some structure, there are often impromptu and planned #usguyschat sessions.

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THE CREAM OF THE CROP

While there are quite a few Social Media Superstars, like Josepf Haslam, (sorry, had to do it, you’re my favorite to banter with) who grace the #usguys stream, it’s the everyday contributors that really make this the best community on twitter. I’m not an “official member” of the tribe, the bell has not yet been rung for me, but I am on Stephen Caggiano’s #usguys pinboard so that has to count for something!! But that’s the incredible thing, you don’t have to be a member to be recognized and responded to. Whether you have a question that needs answers or a blog post that needs feedback, someone will be happy to help. Another endearing quality of this twitterhood is their unwillingness to accept a superficial response, it’s SO refreshing. It’s the collective intelligence they possess that makes you think about what you tweet. I was going to do a list and give some shout-outs because I’ve made so many virtual friends from this group, but I’m bound to leave a few out, and it would make it far too easy for our readers.

Congrats to all of you, you’ve earned this award. While #usguys is the best twitter community in my eyes, I’m not yet a twitter veteran and may have missed some other groups. What other communities do you participate in on Twitter? Any worth checking out?

P.S. #usguys are doing a meet up tonight in NYC. That’s how you know this is one tight-knit crew! May all of you have a good ol’ time and be safe in your travels. Lastly, don’t do anything stupid because you’ll regret the drunken pictures on FB & Twitter tomorrow :D

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What #SEO really means to bloggers – So Effing Overrated

This is an open invitation for all of the SEO evangelists to come and purge the anti-SEO sentiment from deep within my soul. What’s the worst that could happen? It may turn out that I’m wrong, which happens up to twice a week, so I can live with that. What I have trouble living with is all the articles, tweets, and posts that claim Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is the holy grail of blogging. I don’t know about you, but I’ve already accepted the fact that I’m not going to bump Mashable, Social Media Today, or Alltop from the top results when someone searches for Social Media on Google. While SEO isn’t completely useless, it’s SO OVERRATED for most bloggers

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PEOPLE TRUMP KEYWORDS

I’ll admit that if your website sells products or services, SEO would play a more important role in getting noticed. But what about blogs? Are people really starting their Social Media or Marketing blogs with the expectation that SEO will magically deliver millions of hits and put them on the first page on Google? Get Real, it’s a pipe dream, unless you have tens of thousands of dollars to invest. Even then, there’s no guarantee that you’ll reach the promised land. Maybe it’s worth considering when you’ve already become established with hundreds of thousands of visitors, but don’t buy into the hype before then.  Instead, find a better(and less costly) way to grow your community.

Here are a few suggestions:

Spend time creating meaningful relationships with other bloggers

Focus on adding value to other successful blogs by becoming a part of their community

Find a niche market and build credibility through your content

Get to know your audience – go beyond saying “thank you for commenting”

DARTH SEO vs LUKE SKYGOOGLE?

Last time I checked, the purpose of SEO is to optimize your website in order to rank higher on search engines. Sounds innocent enough on the surface, but when you dig deeper into the technicalities of SEO, it gets creepy. Who wants to deal with the likes of robots, spiders, and crawlers…be tempted to engage in cloaking or spamdexing… and be able to differentiate between white hats and black hats? No, stop, I know what you’re thinking – this is not the description of a Star Wars Movie. There is no Darth SEO that fights Luke Skygoogle in an epic battle of good vs evil. If that were the case, SEO would be easier because at least you could tell good from bad. In the SEO saga, the line between is fuzzy, at best.

There I said it – I’m more concerned about building the so G community from the ground up with quality people, rather than rely on search traffic, backlinks, and 5 second page visits for cool stats. Let the outcry begin, am I completely off base here? Am I missing the boat or do you agree? Lastly, do me a favor and include a link to your twitter profile if I don’t follow you already.

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20,000 views our first 2 Months – The 3 Keys to Success

This will be a short post with a very simple strategy to execute… just bribe people to come read your blog. It’s easy, pay everyone between $1000 – $2000 to read and comment on every post you write and BOOM – you’ll get 20,000 visitors in no time. That’s all, thanks for coming. Problem Solved, right? Well, if you’re like me and DON’T have hundreds of thousands of dollars to budget on your blog, don’t worry, there’s still hope.

Before I reveal my 3 secrets and go all infomercial on you, I want to extend a HUGE Thank You to the So Genius readership. If it weren’t for you, I probably would have already joined the blogging graveyard with an epitaph that read “another boring blog that no one cared about.” Fortunately, the personal stories that you’ve shared and thoughts you’ve conveyed over the last two months have allowed me to further develop my craft. It’s a two way street and hopefully these 3 strategies will inspire someone who is considering a blog to get out there and DO IT. It’s a very rewarding (and therapeutic) experience)

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AVOID THE POPPYCOCK

My first mildly successful post was “No One Wants to Read Your Mindless Poppycock – It’s time to {grow} up.” It was both a tribute to Mark Schaefer’s world famous {grow} blog community mixed with the key ingredients necessary for creating an entertaining blog that will keep readers coming back. Ultimately, if you’re still writing poppycock that any old Joe Blogschmoe can write, the rest of the keys won’t help you. After you finish writing every post, ask yourself this crucial question. “Is this something only I could write?” Oh, and be honest with the answer because guess what? You’re not Mashable or Spin Sucks, the world will continue to spin if you don’t publish that post. It’s better to post once or twice a week and wow your readers than throw-up on them every day until they just don’t come back anymore.

TRIBERR

If you’re wondering what the heck Triberr is, you’re not alone. I am surprised at the number of bloggers who still either haven’t heard of It or just plain don’t utilize it. Big Mistake for a couple of reasons. Triberr is a loose-knit community on the surface but has hundreds (if not thousands) of micro-communities that are composed of like-minded bloggers called tribes. It’s based on reciprocation like I scratch your back and you share my blog post. Roughly a quarter of all the traffic I’ve generated on this site has been a direct result of Triberr shares and that’s only counts what is measured. Also, you’re going to be exposed to oodles of other blogs to read and comment on – which is key to building foundations for relationships with other bloggers.

WALK THE AVENUE

I’m such a Houdini. At the beginning of this post I talked about bribing people to read your blog and you thought I was just kidding…. But I’m not! I don’t care if your name is Blog God, you can benefit from Empire Avenue’s mission system and gathering of the most passionate engagers on the social web. Where else can you offer virtual currency as a reward for engagement on your site? No where else that I know of! Even more important is the relationships that you’ll build. I estimate the liklihood of establishing a MEANINGFUL connection on EAV to be 500% greater than any other Social Media site. For more info regarding the in’s and out’s of how to “play” Empire Avenue, I recommend checking out Michael Q Todd’s blog as he has written dozens of articles that highlight what I’m attempting to explain in one paragraph.

Your Turn

What do you brings you back to certain blogs? Is this the design, format, or schedule? Share your thoughts with the audience on what you like to see or let me know whether you found these three tips useful.

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May I Have Your Attention Please? Will the Real Blog Readers Please Stand Up?

May I have your attention please?

May I have your attention please?

Will the real blog readers please stand up?

I repeat, will the real blog readers please stand up?

Seth Godin don’t gotta comment on his posts to sell his blog; well I do, so…. oops, I almost dropped the F Bomb.  Sometimes I forget that I’m not Slim Shady, or even slim for that matter, but I love the raw power and passion that Eminem puts into his music. My goal is to bring that same level enthusiasm in every post I publish, although it’s doubtful that I’ll be controversial enough to be the Marshall Mathers of the blogging world (never say never).  In the meantime, here’s what I do know – I can’t do it alone.  So, will my real blog readers please stand up? And put one of those comments on each post up? And be proud to be outta your mind and outta control and one more time, loud as you can, how does it go (Forgot Again, sorry)

                                                            

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