The Reciprocal Consulting Blog

The Internet is by no means a young entity anymore. Over the years sites have come and gone and sites have risen to fame only to drop off again in popularity. Human nature is often such that we follow the crowd. A site becomes popular, we check it out, perhaps even register our details, then never return again. The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not those tracks will come back to hurt your reputation.

Reputation management strategies often focus on what others can do to hurt our business. Have you ever stopped to think about your own past activities? I well remember the stories that abounded many years ago when Hotmail was popular. People thought it clever to use fancy addresses such as ‘sexylegs99′ or ‘hotstud01′. What is worse, they didn’t blink an eye when adding these as contact details on job applications – then wondered why they never received a call to an interview. The problem is, when your young and carefree, these activities are fun and few think of the long term consequences.

Those email addresses don’t exactly identify you so you may wonder how they can effect your reputation. They probably wont, however, they could be indicative of other online activities. For example, did you also have a Myspace presence? Can you remember the login or the password? Can you go back and remove any offending material? Can you even remember the sites you were active on? Those are questions that only you can answer.

We have already seen situations where employers have undertaken simple Google searches on job applicants to see whether or not they have any unsavory footprints on the net. Have you taken the time to check your own past. Do a Google search, and go beyond page one and two – you never know what sort of gems you may unearth!

It’s common knowledge that Facebook has supplanted MySpace as the premier social network online. But does that mean that MySpace is no longer useful?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. There are still millions of users on MySpace. But MySpace has been relegated to a niche website, unlike Facebook.

So what is MySpace’s niche?

As it has always been, MySpace is a hangout for musicians and other creative artists. If you visit the site you’ll notice that it’s top navigation bar has the following options:

• People
• Music
• Video
• Games
• Topics
• Events
• More

While MySpace has done a lot to upgrade its look and to provide new offerings for its users, unless you are in the entertainment industry, or you cater services to the entertainment industry, then I don’t see a whole lot of value in there for you. It may be there, but I don’t see it.

MySpace does have a snazzier look than it used to have, there’s no doubt. But don’t go on the look alone.

I would suggest that non-entertainment industry professionals seek social media opportunities at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and niche social sites that cater to your industry. Leave MySpace for the kids, the musicians, and the entertainers.

There was a time when Search Engine Optimization was all about three main practices: meta tag stuffing, title tag stuffing and keyword stuffing. Sensing a theme, are we? During the early development of SEO, these tactics coupled with a bit of hard coding were pretty much all that was necessary to pull decent rank and all fell into the general category of “Search Engine Optimization” as they composed the majority of the knowledge needed to do such. Build a search-friendly site and show up on searches; it was as easy as that.

However, more and more over the past few years, these once primary strategies for optimization have been thrown into the “onsite SEO” category for a new era of SEO. There has been much discussion of a new brand of SEO Specialists, cooler, slicker and more capable — having better “Networking” and “Social Media” skillz.

Yes, “Skillz” with a “Z” for the newer, cooler SEO specialists.

Unarguably, things are very different now. Sure, the number of tools and variety of skills required to launch and maintain a successful SEO Campaign have grown at an alarming rate in just the past year, let alone the previous decade, but too many are quick to dismiss the old practices for flashy theatrics — as if having years of experience was a bad thing?

Consider the following bit of “geek-related” history:
In the early 90′s there began a war. This was not a normal war however, and many were unaware of its existence. This was a video game console war between Nintendo and Sega. Essentially, these companies were in competition to be the leading Home Video Game Console System and each company had a distinctive advertising campaign. Nintendo took the straight forward approach, simply marketing their products for what they were, while Sega marketed their systems as being the cooler, optimal alternative to Nintendo — perhaps their strategy can be best summed up with a quote from one of their commercials: “Sega does what NintenDONT”.

So what’s my point? It’s simple. Sega, with all it’s glamor, flash and big words, died in 2006 with it’s final system, the Dreamcast, and prior to that, the company released some of the worst systems of all time. Meanwhile, Nintendo is still alive and strong, and its products are among the top searched items on Ebay today. Even in competition with such beasts as Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo maintains comparable results and an even higher demand.

Okay, so what’s my real point? Think of it like this: In this parable I’ve presented to you, Nintendo represents the traditional SEO Specialist — simple, solid, effective and of high quality, yet able to adapt and leave a lasting impression on the internet. Sega, on the other hand, represents this new brand of SEO Specialists — presented as more socially capable and better equipped to utilize the new era of Social Media oriented SEO Campaign Management.

I predict a very similar outcome for this bout.

The fact is, SEO has evolved over the years and, while many aspects have changed, it is important to remember to utilize traditional means as well as newer tools. A successful SEO campaign is all about managing a balance of incoming links and sources, networking with other sites sharing similar interests and building a search-friendly page tailored to the campaign’s keywords and targeting goals. One can perform Social Media Oriented SEO for a website all day long but without an appropriate architecture on-site, all this will be in vain.

Be careful when entrusting your online advertising efforts to a firm and before you sign on, ask yourself these questions: Are they a reputable firm? Do they have solid experience as the foundation for their strategy or are they built on outrageous claims and ineffective, over the top practices in less than the complete range of strategies? Can they work with me one on one to ensure than we build a custom tailored campaign? Will they charge outrageous fees or will I be paying them based on the Campaign Performance?

Believe it or not, many Internet Marketing Firms want to answer these question and concerns.