Viral Marketin' Guru

If you visit her site, she'll toss around those phrases that quickly let you know she's all about affiliate marketing and work from home stuff, which tends to drift into MLM and other get-rich-quick ideas, all the while repeating the words, "Twitter, Facebook, Social Media and Web 2.0."

But who am I to make fun of someone's dream? Cynthia here is taking the bullshit by the horns and turning it into CA$H! Besides, she's Certified!

Thanks to Every Sandwich for the tip.

Blame The Recession

Cold Call Carl, like most good salespeople, believes that behind every "Don't Ever Call Here Again," there is a potential customer just waiting to be swayed.

Click to share his optimism

More Cold Call Comics.

If You Buy This Book, You Are, How Shall We Say, "Not So Smart"

What a waste of effort on the "authors" parts. What a waste of money if you buy it.

Everything you need to know about blogging I already wrote here.

Nailin' It

Nail Communications of Providence, Rhode Island (state motto: "The Tiniest State") has a rare handle on Social Media and the Web 2.0 craze. Clicking that link will take you to an irreverent PDF/white paper of sorts, outlining Nail's approach to Web 2.0. It's long and involved, but what it amounts to is a little common sense in this wild frontier. Maybe you're already doing what Nail recommends, but I know for a fact that many of you aren't. Nail is offering this PDF for free, giving away all of their secrets to all the other shops and new media start-ups doing it wrong. (And hopefully putting a few of the scheming, scamming charlatans out of business in the process.)

Check out their 8 Internet Marketing Experts to Avoid. I've worked with a few of these clowns. If you see yourself in any of those profiles, I'm sorry. I didn't write it. It's never too late to get your girlfriend to cut your faux hawk.

Nail also has a nice site, utilizing the whimsical Flash animation so prevalent with agency sites, but keeping navigation simple, a rare thing with hipster shops. You don't have to guess where anything is, which is refreshing. I'm not sure why agencies (usually the big ones) think it's creative to create a site so unnavigable that it requires guesswork and insider cool to figure out.

Go Nail.

Save The Money and Get a Kid to Do it

Oh Yeah. And Why I'm Not Skyping Either

Skype. Another victim of the get-rich-quick, look-at-me-naked SPAM crowd, as proven here by "Gnishilda."

Another Reason I'm Not "Tweeting"

Guess what, gang? PLCTLDPX1J is following me on Twitter!!!

As if PLCTLDPX1J's user name wasn't clue enough that he/she is full of shit and just a scam artist looking to scam someone, here's PLCTLDPX1J's latest tweet:


With apologies to my friends in the "social media space" who truly believe that Twitter is the wave of the future, it's not. It's the new haven of spammers and scammers.

I'll keep using it to alert you to new blog posts, but I'm not tweeting.

And I hate that term..."tweeting."

I Don't Usually Jump Onboard With New Apps

But Kwooky looks pretty promising. It's got everything a Web 2.0 app needs. Nonsensical, made-up name, silly, quirky font, dumb tagline and the all-important "beta" designation. What Kwooky does no one is certain, since I just made it up after searching to make sure the URL Kwooky.com was available. But that's all it takes. Now I just need some developers and some venture capital and I can sell this idea to Google in about a year.

Stupid ideas keep getting funding, and I won't single out the ones I find stupid, but here's a clue: if the "About Us" page contains super-hip, irreverent bios of a bunch of guys with titles like "ninja" who all reside in diverse locations, then I would keep my venture capital away from those dudes.

Then ask yourself, "Would I use this app? Does it do something that another app doesn't? Is it maybe just some reverse-engineered ripoff? Can I live without it? Will it change the way I do business?"

Also, do a little research into the principals of the start-up. If they can't seem to hold down a job for more than a year, it's a good bet they're probably just ne'er-do-well punks looking for a fast buck.

You're Doing it Wrong!

The other day I compared the two presidential candidate’s logos. The post got a bit of traction from Copyranter and Discourse.net. In my analysis of McCain's logo was this passage: Then, he adorns the star with what could be considered wings, reminding us that he was a pilot, a pilot who graduated fifth to last in his class at Annapolis, not usually a place from which the Navy selects its flight school candidates.

That's all the geniuses at AviationSchools needed.

"Ah-ha! Someone is talking about flight school! Time to paste a random, stupid comment on that blog and send them to my random, stupid link farm for aviation schools!"

The comment, if you can even call it that, left TWICE, reads: "Online Aviation Training Directory has one of the largest selections of flight schools and aviation training schools online. New flight schools and aviation resources added weekly."

The commenter, posting under the name "Flying Lessons," is also the proud owner of PlanetMace, your one stop shop for pepper-spray and stun-guns.

This is social media, friends. Or this is what it's becoming. This guy finds "flight school" in a post about John McCain's logo and assumes my readers want to visit his stupid link farm for aviation schools. Even if no one ever goes to that site through the comments of the original post, at the least his stupid link farm now has an inbound link from my site and countless others, surely, where he has pasted his URL in a very irrelevant way.

This is not a "conversation." This is SPAM. It's maddening and it's doomed to fail.

If you are going to use blogs as a place to get the word out about your business, it will require real thought— actual words from your head typed relevantly to the post— in relevant places.

Quit being carnival barkers and midway hawkers. You're ruining it for everyone else. You're also not helping your business.

Tropical Canadian Bucket o' Heaven

A Mock Pay-Per-Post Ridiculously Laden with Keywords for a Product I've Fallen For

Wow! I just tried some raw, Organic, natural, unfiltered, wild honey on a slice of whole wheat toast this morning, and I have to say, this is the most delicious thing since I don't know what!

It comes from Tropical Traditions, a company with headquarters in Wisconsin. Now, I know it's sort of funny to name yourself "Tropical" when you live in Wisconsin, but that's not the point. The point is: this premium raw, natural, unfiltered, wild honey is really, really good. What's more, it makes you feel all special and better because it's Organic, with a capital "O," and that means you are on the cutting edge of coolness if you eat it.

I was interested to learn the story of where and how Tropical Traditions gets their raw, natural, unfiltered, wild honey. Tropical Traditions Organic Raw Honey comes from the frontier areas of Canada, of all places, and is only harvested during a 6-week period in the summer. Tropical Traditions is the exclusive source of this premium raw, natural, unfiltered, wild honey in the U.S. Did you know that most commercial honeys available on the market today come from bee farms, where the bees are controlled within a certain area and get their pollen from usually only one kind of flower? That can't be good, can it? That's not how they do it at Tropical Traditions. They place their hives in unpopulated areas, free from traffic and cigarette smoke, so as not to taint the premium raw, natural, Organic, unfiltered, wild honey.

Try some, and I think you’ll agree that there is no finer premium raw, natural, unfiltered, wild honey in North America! Raw, Organic, Canadian honey, available exclusively in the US through Tropical Traditions.

You can buy it by the jar, the 15-lb pail or the 60-lb pail! That's a lot of premium raw, natural, unfiltered, wild honey! Yum!

(I am serious. It's damned good stuff.)

This post mocks the shameless and hopefully-soon-dead business model of Pay Per Post, a Web 2.0 scam of the first order, previously slammed here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

What Happens in Vegas Will Be Pointless

The promoters of this and the believers in it will say, "Mark Cuban is the keynote speaker! Mark Cuban will be there so you know it's legit! Mark Cuban is a zillionaire and he owns the Dallas Mavericks and he's a maverick and he's the keynote speaker."

I don't give a rat's ass who's there. Let me save you the trip to Vegas for this Festival of Nonsense.

Blog. Do it daily. Link to other blogs. Make comments on other blogs that link back to your blog. Ask other bloggers for link exchanges. Write interesting posts that have a unique voice. Don't just be a link farm to a bunch of bullshit that you didn't have anything to do with. Be original. Use technorati or any of the other tag services you prefer. Create interesting titles for your posts. Use pictures - they're fun. Use relevant labels. Don't be a corporate voice. Allow comments. Moderate them when they start to get offensive. (This is the "conversation" part you will hear so much about at your conference.) Try a podcast. Give up on it. Try a webcast. Give up on it. Give up on creating a viral video before you even try it. Viral happens naturally - you don't unleash it with a marketing plan. MySpace is NoPlace for your business and you will gain nothing from it other than people hating you. Same goes for Second Life and Livejournal. We'll see about Facebook. Tweet if you want, but the Twitter backlash is coming. For now, it's a good monitoring tool. Oh, one other thing: Customer Service is not a phrase to be tossed about in your Mission Statement. It's a practice. When you suck at it, expect your business to suck.

You can call yourself a Social Media Guru, New Media Maverick or Thought Leader. You can even print it on your business cards. But I don't need to pay a bunch of money to hear you say in two days what I just said in one minute. It's common sense. It doesn't really need to be an industry.

God Uses This Sauce

Again, here's an unpaid, unsolicited endorsement of a product from this highly cynical blogger. Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce from Thailand. Tonight at Casa de Jetpacks, as evidenced by this picture, we dined on barbecued shrimp (charcoal is the only way to go, gas is just a stove outdoors) doused in Mae Ploy, available by typing "Mae Ploy Sauce" in your favorite search engine. I recommend it to anyone and would bet that it is served in Heaven, regardless of your religious persuasion.

Read my fake Pay Per Post about Mae Ploy Sauce

The Podcast is Dead

Just don't tell Ken Fox, Strategist.

Click for a more strategic view










Previously in Ken Fox - Strategist:
Buy The Book - Attend the Seminar
Take it To The Next Level

Cold Call Carl - He Keeps on Dialing

It was going to be a one-off, but the man can't be stopped. He's selling social media and Web 2.0.

Click for a better read

Buy The Book - Attend The Seminar

Nevermind that the book was self-published and the seminar is on YouTube. He will be called "Ken Fox - Strategist" in case he becomes a recurring comic.
Click it for maximization

Not What We Had In Mind

Officially Overdone:

The use of the silhouetted crowd, whose reflections are all cast upon a freshly waxed floor. The use of this graphic is supposed to convey “We’re down with the young demo. See skeptical dude far left? And had-enough-of-your-BS hottie next to him? Everyone in this group is hard to reach. They’re your audience, and we know how to reach them.”

I will refrain from launching into my invective-filled anti-new media rant.

Also way beyond overdone: the half-reflection thing. It was cool for a little while – and then everyone put it under everything.

Rockin' Rockstars Rockin' a Startup

I could lose my lunch over this if I'd eaten lunch yet. Everyone's favorite Social Media House of Bullshit, Pay Per Post, is showing Episode 10 of their little in-house series called "Rockstartup." It's probably old, as stupid ideas like this almost always end up in the "tried it for a time and gave up on it" pile. Go watch now.

Thrill to the trials of the site going down as the "Code Ninjas" work feverishly to fix it. Listen with awe as Ted, the founder, shows you what a cool guy he is because he doesn't have an office and "wants to get the pulse" of the operation by being "out on the floor with the team." I've never seen a company try so hard to be so cool. Rockstartup? Pardon me while I projectile vomit.

Read some of the hip, irreverent language on the website. Stuff like, "Do you eat, sleep, and breathe the Internet and social media? If so you may be the right person for a rewarding career with the most creative group of disrupters out there." Disrupters? Wrong. You've got a business model that rewards fake blog postings for companies that in all likelihood just plain suck. How do I know they suck? They went to you to get people to write fake blog postings about them!

Orlando-based Pay Per Post says "Get Paid to Blog About the Things You Love." That's a lie. You get paid to blog about things you've never heard of, to the tune of about $5. You are paid to create tags and "awareness" for something you've likely never used.

In that sense, yes, I guess Pay Per Post is a group of disrupters. They are making blogging a whore's domain. And they are the pimps.

Real, trustworthy blogging about products and services is unpaid. It happens when a consumer actually uses a thing and likes it or hates it. Then they write about it on their blog. For instance, Fred Leo recently got screwed by Panasonic and writes about it.

Here's another example. I use the Senseo coffee maker. Senseo is awesome. It makes a great cup of coffee. It is fast, efficient and unlike any coffee maker I have ever used. I bought one for my parents. I encourage everyone who enjoys coffee to get one. They are available everywhere. They are affordable and you will actually like your home made coffee again. Here is a picture of a cup of coffee brewed this morning with the Senseo. Look at that frothy goodness. It is wonderful. Get a Senseo now.
Nobody needs to hand me $5 to write that. It is a real testimonial (written in a fake Pay Per Post way) about something I use and enjoy. And Senseo will never have to use a service like Pay Per Post's because Senseo has a decent product that people like and talk about.

"Social Media" can't be "monetized" in this way. When you are paying people to create fake testimonials, you instantly lose any credibility for your company.

I really want to see all these social media parasites, gurus, hucksters, evangelists, snakes, sharks, weasels, rats, dogs and rockstars crushed in the coming crash.

Previously in "I Hate This Business Model."

Your Time is Gonna Come

I got an invitation to join YET ANOTHER network thingy today. This one was for “Spock.”

Cute.

Don’t need it. Won’t use it. (I know it's been around a few months, but this was the first time I was invited to "join.")

Spock is “a search application that allows you to see what people are saying about your friends and colleagues.”

Whatever.

At some point, this has to stop. How many different ways do we need to be “linked-in?” And which one is the best? How many different ways can I twitter your myspace or digg your facebook? What does it matter if I “know” someone you “know?” Are we going to transact business? I sincerely doubt it. Maybe we’ll talk about what an idiot you are behind your back.

A former colleague has apparently been viewing questionable content on myspace and now I get two comments a day from him about ringtones. Thanks, dude. I’m deleting you as my “friend.”

I say everyone just get a website. I’ll link to you if I like you and I will check on you once in a while. I may even comment on your blog if I have a moment. If you are in business, title and tag your pages with something semi-related to what you do, and I might find you in my search engine of choice

This giant overloaded blimp called Web 2.0 is about to go down in flames. There are a bunch of "thought leaders" in the "interactive space" on board, and they're wearing gasoline-soaked suits, walking around lighting matches. Show me one client who turned a blog post into actual revenue and I will show you 50 who tried it and found it to be a colossal waste of time. Show me how Facebook helped your clients. Give me a case study on how being Linked-In was beneficial in DOLLARS (not Linden dollars). Show me how having 10,000 “friends” is worth two shits. And if you say, “It’s about branding. It’s about name recognition,” then we’re done talking because you are selling snake oil.

Session: Leveraging and Monetizing Blog Traffic

Angela over at AdRants had her fill of BS after attending ad:tech and posted a great lexicon of New Media Speak. That was inspiration for this week's comic strip, which is called "Where's My Jetpack?"

This is number 20 in the series, which is made using royalty free clipart since I'm a pretty sucky artist.








The others are here.