Hound Dog Blog

Flag draped coffins

I'm sitting here watching 60 Minutes. They opened with a clip of flag-draped coffins of our courageous soldiers.

Am I crazy or wasn't there a time when this wasn't allowed?

The media is now showing our country's heroes come back... in remains... and I have to ask, "For what?"

Thesis for Wordpress is amazing

Ok, so after blogging for what feel like a long time, I have to say that the Thesis Theme is amazing and absolutely amazing. 

Blogging is fun, enriching, exciting, you've heard it all before... but to have the power that the Thesis Theme gives you is unmatched. I know this may be a conflict of interest since you can't run the Thesis Theme on this site, but it's worth noting that typepad.com also rocks.

In this post, Typepad vs Wordpress I expressed my reasoning for using typepad, which is that it forces me to understand the SEO and how things appear via search—this, in fact is what led me to enrich the business I am in and to repeatedly explain how valuable of a tool blogging can be.

So, if you are thinking about blogging professionally, get on a wordpress.org account and download Thesis. It really is worth it. But there is no reason to do so if you are just experimenting. If you are, wordpress.com will suffice.

Spam kills permission

Social media made permission marketing obvious

All who read this blog are aware of my adulation for the wisdom Seth Godin writes and speaks—sometimes I wonder if he knows how out in front he was with permission marketing. 

Facebook— sometimes it seems like everybody is in advertiser. Or, at least, some people always think they have to be ... and this is so far from the truth. 

Social media has a way of making us feel as if we are doing something right, even though we might not be. 

For me, facebook and twitter were (and still are) places I went while I was alone and slightly confused as to the direction my life was going. 

I believed (and still do) that these media channels transcend human relations in a magical way. 

That's why any time someone flagrantly misuses my 'news stream' or 'twitter stream' it ticks me off. {sorry for the rant} ... and that is why ...

I HATE SPAM

... a LOT... what's so bad about junk mail is not that it's a useless, time waster, but how many 'defenses,' 'excuses,' and 'validations' that spammer's have. FYI: shameless self promotion is not spam, but it can be. It can be when you lose the human element of the message. Spam (at it's core) is a message. It's a self serving purpose—who likes that? Who wants to buy something from someone that only wants to help themselves? Not me.

ADVERTISING IS NOT BAD

What one person believes is spam is (I presume) important to someone else but this does not make it ok. In fact, this is precisely what makes it so bad. And... 

SEO for jerseys

A blog is a website, but a website is not necessarily a blog, unless of course it is--in which case it is both.

Got it? Good. See, I don't even much know the difference except one breathes and acts more like a living organism than another. To this I ask, which would you rather visit? Hmm... TMZ.com made it into a TV show.

More importantly though is this ridiculous SEO silliness. SEO is sort of 'reverse backwards compatible upside down' thinking. For example:

if I'm looking for a new Florida Gator Tim Tebow #15 football jersey, I'm not going to type in "Tim Tebow." Nor would the jersey marketers heavily utilize his namesake. Of course the words "Tim Tebow" would be incorporated in the keywords, but more importantly -- the jersey, the gator quarterback shirt... I could think of them all day long. In fact, I can't imagine someone (even someone new to search) would simply type in Tim Tebow's name to find a souvenir jersey!

Ok - everybody's Googled their name... if you haven't go ahead. The results fluctuate anyway. SEO is only as valuable to the words that get people to your site. Just because Tim Tebow wears a Florida Gator #15 jersey does not mean you'll find it when you type in his name.

Tables and forms

I just read another blog post about how 'social media' is changing businesses and consumers. And all I can think is that it isn't changing anything. It has changed everything. Period to end. 

People resisting the forces of social media (or even more dangerous—businesses) are merely attempting to protect a system using yesterday's business tactics that aren't working (or, at least not as well anymore).

It's ok to not participate. That's the beauty of social media. If you ain't social, you don't have to socialize. But attempting to manipulate and malign the tools is just a plain bad idea. In fact, the forces of social media will effectively nudge you out the door. Sorry, don't mean to be so frank. But it's true.

It's the same thing with the person who was telling me about a fortuitous career ahead of him a a travel agent. Sorry to say, but the internet has changed that business... drastically. 

I don't know what my reaction is going to be the next time I hear:

facebook (or twitter) haven't proven themselves yet

I do know one thing though, I'm not going to run to a computer and do a competitive search analysis and line it up on an excel spreadsheet. I may, in fact continue to blog about it, tweet about, and post it to my facebook wall. 

Just embrace social media. Not because it's fun. Not because it's viral, but because it's good for business. Maybe not right now. But in a little while it will be... and a table and form-laden static website will be comparable to the pony express.

Sorry, but the need for proof that facebook, twitter, etc are powerful is called denial.

Tradeshow tripit and tweeting

If I were going to a trade show today—or a few days from now—I would do exactly what Wags talked to me about doing... especially for this reason: because nobody else is doing it.

Start a blog or a twitter account. Blog or tweet about the event, the details. Maybe even start a tripit.com account and send out to all your contacts your agenda as to when you are going to arrive. (Linkedin has an application you can integrate and merge with your contact list).

The blog wouldn't be about the 'hottest new thing.' It might even only be integrated with your twitter account. At the very least it will be an icebreaker for conversation.

The only safe bet at a show like as this is that you'll be lightyears ahead of the sponsors and the attendees. The sure bet is that your clients or prospects you engage will be all ears when it comes to how these social media tools have changed their industry—and you have embraced them, as opposed to trying to keep them out.

The other safe bet is that if you go out there without them it will be business as usual. And that is not what clients, prospects or (most) vendors are looking for. They are looking to improve business and build relationships. 

For the umpeenth time, why wouldn't you start a blog? No, not tomorrow. Your competition started one yesterday, and they've doubled their readership. And two days from now another kid with a 200 dollar netbook will already have cornered the other market, too. 

Again, Google was founded in 1998. A lot has changed since then. 1998!!! Just think about that for a minute. What were you doing in 1998? Imagine if you started a blog in 1998.  

Nineteen ninety eight

1998. Cool year, huh? Remember Michael Jordan's fade away jumper? John Glenn's trip on the Space Shuttle?

Seems so long ago. Not to mention the political scandal of 1998. {you'll have to Google that one} ... which is the point: Google. Yes, the verb, the company, our knowledge source... was FOUNDED on September 7, 1998!!!

I'm just glad there is a Google. I can't imagine being without Google.

Cyberspace junk

There are a lot of blogs. About 130 million. That's a ballpark. (and according to Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation)

It is amazing how many blogs are floating in the blogosphere as cyber space junk. 

While I was involved with an internship with Squidoo.com, I was challenged to find as many relevant blogs about a certain topic. The challenge was not in finding them, but in finding blogs that were not just sitting there dormant in cyber-space. 

You'd be astonished about how many of these things there are. 

So... if you're looking for the value in a blog, it's that it's dynamic. Not dynamic in the robotic sense, but dynamic in the human sense. 

Go ahead and try it yourself. Go to google blogsearch and search for all the blogs related to your favorite topic. Look for the date. See if the date is current. You're likely to be surprised to find many blogs haven't been updated since last year or a few years ago... let alone daily.

It's not easy to write about something everyday. It's also not easy to organize your thoughts everyday (or every other day) - but it is rewarding, and it is an amazing marketing tool -- whether you use it for your sanity, your message, your business, your kids or your creative outlet.

Personally, I think we have yet to harness the full power of dynamic, relevant, human and targeted content via bloggers. The trailblazers are still largely considered loons. (not to me, of course. I think they're mavericks -- and to be admired).

Also, I think there are some bloggers that spent a year in theIr apartment every single day attempting to harness the power that the trailblazers utilize so well. Blogging ain't easy. If you think it is, you ought to start one. Then you'll see why I'm crazy about it and why doors that you never knew existed start to open...

Five types of status updates

Sometimes I think facebook brings out the worst in us—myself included. And sometimes the status update field makes me really just ... well type what's really on my mind—that's why I have a blog, though. 

Don't get me wrong, I love facebook. I am an avid facebooker. But, I think all too often we feign our 'status updates.' We either do it so as to not be Debby Downer or Mr. Happy Happy Guy. Or maybe we don't have either on on our mind, so we refuse to update our status at all and watch our friends update in one of the following ways:

There are (at least) 5 varieties of status updates:

• The Relieved update - which goes something like this: "so happy this day is over! I can't believe it! Morning started with a dead car battery, 3 clients cancelled their contracts with me, and I ran out of gas on the way home! So glad to have this snifter full of Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac and to be HOME watching Welcome Back Kotter!" 
• The Promotional update - this can be several varieties, ranging from promoting one's services, promoting one's health, or promoting one's goods, website, etc., They read like this: "check out the latest {insert whatever here—i.e, blog post, listing, concert, event}
• The Innocuous update: These usually come from friends that you didn't even know were on your facebook stream, and you have NO clue what they are referring to. They can look like this: "Wow, I cant believe @tatertot made it to the field trip today! The last time I saw @tatertot and @spudsmackenzie was at the 30 year reunion in Saskatoon!"
• The Distress update: This is exactly what it seems like. And it can look like this, amongst other things: "today sucks!!!" 
• The Always Happy update: this one is the inspiration behind this post. I don't get these people. But this update usually looks like this: "Wow! I can't believe I got a raise today, found out I picked the right lottery numbers, clean bill of health, have my mortgage paid off, no car payment, no credit card debt AND... EVERYONE is healthy!" - you know who you are... 

I think I've been guilty of all of them, though I don't drink cognac and I've never been to Saskatoon. But... for what it's worth, my status updates have been in category 4 for quite some time. 

Hopefully, sooner rather than later, my status update will approach the ranks of number 5. Until then, I'll just have to keep reading yours.

Content creation

Content is a good feeling. Content is also what makes your blog, website, magazine ore news channel valuable. 

As far as content creation goes, there seems to be a school of thought that one can buy it. In fact, it's more than a school of thought. There are sites that harvest content in order to boost their ranking in search engines. 

I don't get this at all. If you have the ability to buy content, you have the ability to create it. And creating it is what makes it valuable. Merging content artificially doesn't make it valuable, it makes it robotic, redundant and spammish. 

Whatever floats your boat. If buying content is ideal for your website and business, go for it. Just know that there are people (humans) out there that are creating passionate, relevant and brilliant content. And once you've bought up all the content at your disposal and merged every marginal piece of content that relates to your site, you're going to have to pay for content creation. 

This is the part of the social media conundrum I don't get. Businesses don't believe in it, but will throw money at it just hoping it will work.

There are some things money can't buy. Yes, you can't buy me love. But also, you can't buy passionate content. Content creation is a lot like Vincent Willem Van Gogh's Sunflowers. While it may look like a simple painting, when you get really close, you can see the toil, the genius, and insane passion that he put into it... and when you buy the poster on the way out of the museum, you realize that you left the real thing inside... and the poster remains in a tube until you have a garage sale in 10 years... same with a U2 concert.