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Many marketers just don’t get it. Either they are plain ignorant, silly or worse. Usually I’m not bashing anybody but this time a post called “Silly Marketer… Mixx Is For Kids” [sic!] makes me think that we are still in 2003. As if social media were something completely new and nobody knew how to deal with them.
Now that link baits exist since 2004 and prevail or rather are already outdated in some cases as many people by now sense the too obvious ones here comes a guy to complain about traffic from Mixx. First off we know that traffic is not the only measurement to look at in SEO. Aside that it’s direct traffic we talk about. So if you get 200 visitors directly via Mixx the number is very similar to Sphinn for instance.
Is Sphinn for kids too?
I’ve been on the front page of both “more than once” so the numbers are not just accidentally more or less the same.
The main problem is not only the focus on the visitors but it’s SEO on social media itself.
In conventional SEO selfishness rules: It’s Selfish Ego Onanism in many cases like saying “Hey, I’m on Digg and got 50.000 visitors”. I’m guilty of that myself sometimes even as a SEO 2.0 but what’s the difference between obsolete SEO and SEO of the 2nd generation? It’s the mindset and thus the approach to the community.
In SEO you are plainly selfish, “you against the rest of the world”, in SEO 2.0 you are social, “you with others to reach common goals”.
So a SEO of the 1.0 kind won’t contribute anything much of value to a community. He will only reap fruits he hasn’t sown on social media. Basically conventional SEO is still largely parasitical. Black hat SEOs are the locusts eating up everything and destroying the plantation. White hat SEOs just take a small part of the crop, but they still come and take away something that’s not theirs.
In SEO 2.0 the mindset changed. We plant the seeds we harvest.
Many conventional SEOs practicing SMO will in most cases come as outsiders and not integrate well with a community.
The transition to SEO 2.0 is everywhere though. On the most basic level it’s providing value to the communities you participate in. Participation is the key term here. SEOs of the 2.0 kind do not only respect the communities and contribute, they build them up.
Now while you take StumbleUpon for instance you’ll see many SEO stumblers contributing really a lot. Still most power users are non-marketers. With Sphinn and Mixx this changed even more: Marketers themselves are either the majority or a big part of power users creating value and building the community from the start. This is no wonder with Sphinn but Mixx is a general interests news community. Still here you will notice that many marketers and well known SEOs among them are power users here.
Also the makers of Mixx actively embraced SMO and SEO specialists, being interviewed at Collective Thoughts for instance.
It’s not the first community I build up with, I did in Germany before so I know how it works.
Once you’re an accepted power user you are part of the community and you’re immune against the “SEO is spam” attacks by notorious SEO haters who in most cases do not contribute anything of value either.
I know that many of the SEO people reading this will think something like “so much work for nothing” and “I don’t buy this SEO 2.0 crap” but you feel it already that you’re wrong.
Still I will address you on your terms. I mentioned “direct traffic” and Sphinn. I did it to make you understand how Mixx already works for me. It’s similar to Sphinn. Right now we have mostly early adopters on Mixx, among them you get a high percentage of SEO ans SMO specialists. Yes, many of my social media friends are there. The same people are on Mixx, Sphinn, StumbleUpon and other platforms. So guess what happens?
Yes, the same people vote for me on different platforms, wherever they encounter my submissions, or they submit my stuff.
That’s in a nutshell the way of SEO 2.0
I just need to submit something to Sphin or mixx to get stumbled for instance. Or to get links. Basically it goes even a step further: I sumbmit someone elses post to Mixx, then s/he will post my stuff on Sphinn and thus I get stumbled, but that’s advanced SEO 2.0 ;-)
In 6 months or a year from now when Mixx will yield 2.000 or 20.000 instead of 200 visitors I’ll be there and I will vote you down if you come to reap my fruits and misuse my community. People at Mixx will trust my judgement on SEO as I will be the SEO guy who was there from almost day one who is a fundamental part of the community, while you will just an outsider trying “to leverage traffic”.
On a side note: I enjoy Mixx very much, it’s the best community until know I participated in. So it’s not work at all. With the wrong mindset you won’t grasp it though.
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I think abandoning mixx now could be short sighted as you pointed out in the post. Since you are building relationships and authority, it would put you on good grounds when mixx attracts more people.
People like to follow the herd, and as mixx grows, others would like to follow with ever increasing momentum. The smart people are those who get in early rather than just follow.
“I sumbmit someone elses post to Mixx, then s/he will post my stuff on Sphinn and thus I get stumbled, but that’s advanced SEO 2.0″
I was just thinking about posting on this so-to-say “indirect” value of SMM - you beat me on that :) Nicely put, thank you for the great post as always!
You’re assuming Mixx will grow. How is it any bigger/better than the other communities? Demographics? Topics? How it’s used? Features? Looks like a me2 offering, imho.
Exactly david.
Smarty: I would love to read it at your blog in your words. I often have the impression that you can express what I think better than me. Is this love? Probably only SEO 2.0? :-)
Gab, I forgot to link this here, which probably is the best answer:
http://seo2.0.onreact.com/12-reasons-to-join-mixx-and-abandon-digg
Would like to make two points.
1. As i clearly indicated in the post, traffic is never really a metric for calculating success or ROI from a social media campaign. It doesn’t stick and it normally doesn’t convert. However, it is one of the only metrics you can actually measure. You may not be able to measure if all your links come from a social campaign or if all your conversions and RSS subs come from the campaign you launched, but you can tell by referral who came from what site.
I see the value of social media in getting visibility to content and gaining links first, and then branding, traffic, and conversion as a nice bonus if it comes.
But if the best you can hope for is about 100 visits at max, then it is hardly an avenue to spend time and energy on.
2. Sphinn and Mixx are entirely different sites and communities. One is niche and one is not. As a marketer you should always target niche communities that relate to your content or product even if it only brings a small amount of traffic since it converts so much better.
Mixx is an open ended news site that anyone can submit anything to. Sphinn is a niche community about Search Marketing. So if someone wanted to do a linkbait on Cars and Insurance I would probably send them away from a site like Sphinn.
Nice rant none the less.
Cheers
Also can you please let me know where you saw the Silly Marketers post at.
Sphinn or Mixx?
@Tad: Thanks for the compliments! I like reading your blog as you make alot of sense. I have contemplating in writing a SEO/online marketing blog myself,and I am still contemplating :-)
@Gab: The only guarantee we have in life is paying tax and death I am feeling really smart and wise right now!.
Brent, thank you for rephrasing the main points of your article. Still, you complain about a freshly sown plantation that you can’t reap it yet. It’s like complaining that SEO for Mahalo does not make sense due to not enough traffic or do make the point clearer, complaining in 2004 that writing for Wikipedia does not make sense.
Also you seem to be an SEM expert not an SEO or social media specialist. Thinking in short term campaigns might suit the avergae PPC client, but SEO 2.0 and indeed SEO and SMO already is not only long term, you got live it. You can’t start SEO in a a campaign and then expect results. Also companies approaching social media in short term campaigns will fail. Social media is about strategy. It’s about being there, being part of it and taking part in a not for marketing sense.
Sphinn and Mixx are very similar. Not only you will meet the same people here and there, Mixx is also a niche community by now. It’s not a topical niche, it’s a demographic niche. Every marketer lerans this as a basic during his education that the most important demographic group is the early adopter. Now here at Mixx you get 80% early adopters. I hope I do not have to explain to you why it is important to reach early adopters.
I found your article probably at Sphinn first as I start my day with Sphinn, while I read Mixx inbetween when my head is too dizzy to work and I need a break, but basically I found it on both on the same day. If it would make some sense I would have stumbled it, but it doesn’t. It’s the boring selfish marketing nagging “they cheated me, I didn’t get enough traffic” I read at least a dozen times.
You got to sow to reap.
david: Although you can express what I need a post for in one or two sentences, please stick to what you do. Seduction is a topic most people struggle with in these both rigid and oversexualized times. The alienation of the sexes is horrendous. I know people, even perfectly “normal” women, who stay single until their thirties without ever having a real partner. People must be taught how to deal with each other. This is truly important. On the other hand you got way too many SEO blogs nobody reads besides the SEOs themselves.
Hi Tad,
I believe so. There are tons of SEO blogs out there. I don’t have a blog at the moment but I have an idea of the kind of blog(s) I will be launching
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