Aaron Wall of SEO Book wrote recently about how the ROI of influencing people (social media, viral efforts, etc.) is becoming more effective than influencing machines (traditional SEO). His point is simply that as search engines become increasingly intelligent and effective at avoiding traditional SEO techniques you will get much lower return on your investment of time/energy/money in that area.
Instead, he proposes, one should participate in what he calls the "active web" of blogs, forums, tagging, social bookmarking, social networking, creating link bait and viral marketing. I think that Aaron might be on to something and so do others.
One of the leading thinkers around marketing with social capital or community marketing is Tara Hunt of Citizen Agency. You might enjoy checking out her "Pinko Marketing" manifesto or the related Pinko Marketing wiki.
Chugging right along, eh? ;)
Good to hear it's picking up. How are you?
Posted by: Tara Hunt | November 24, 2006 4:40 PM | Permalink to Comment