Mr. Robert Scoble, known to many in the online community as the Scobleizer, is one of the trailblazers in a new field I like to call Virtual Omniscience. He's bascially monitoring the pulse of the world via the internet, or at least a sizeable slice of human experience. By applying twitter and friend feed with his personal dynamic quality filters he keeps pace with what's happening and is connecting with an interested audience of thousands of individuals. I can only imagine the tools we'll have at our finger tips 10 years from now thanks to he and his colleagues' trendsetting.
Some power players send direct messages to Mr. Scoble to alert him of significant change (new products, companies, venture capitalists, etc.). He's among a select few elite information/marketing gurus (maven) which include but aren't limited to Chris Brogan, Scott Hanselman, Guy Kawasaki, Leo Laporte (nice chaps), and Prague Bob. Heck even MC Hammer is trying to follow ~26k users,and Stephen Fry 55k in their "wide band" twitter streams. These guys are different from the tech leader geniuses like Tim O'Reilly in that they sift through more real time data (Tim probably uses other information channels more heavily for his input and probably has a team of sharp information experts).
Here are some links to some of the gentlemen I've mentioned:
- Robert Scoble
- Chris Brogan
- Guy Kawasaki
- Scott Hanselman
- Leo Laporte
- Tim O'Reilly
- Robert Morrison (Prague Bob)
- MCHammer
- Stephen Fry
Of course this is all the result of a sidetrack from an article I was going to write on social media's changing influence on web marketing. Thanks again evil twitter stream (I'm compelled to follow all the interesting sounding links, oh no I'm falling behind!).
Here's an overview of the major tools of any web marketing campaign:
- Social Media
- Web Article Authoring
- Directories
- Back Links from Influential Sites
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is an encompassing tool that is reinforced by some or all of the methods of web marketing, but it's results are measured by rank for relevant searches for your business or information topic.
Traffic Cafe with Jonathan Gunson is an excellent way to move your business forward with web marketing when you're ready to pay for expert advice. I enjoyed his video tips while reviewing twitter this morning so a link back is a simple way for me to say thanks Mr. Gunson.
I'll save social media for last (the best usually is privy to that position outside of boring presentations, and firefights) which brings us to web article authoring. They're a wonderful way to begin planting the seeds for your "message" whatever that may be. I personally chose Ezine Articles and have even gotten a few posts approved. I have plenty more to do, sometime soon I should think. So don't follow my lead and procrastinate, submit, submit, submit!
You could submit your posts, articles, and web pages to web directories for a link. I can't imagine this is very helpful these days but it's better than doing nothing at all. If you have any wild skill or luck in connections it's possible to get a back link from a power player site in a particular market. One link vote from a big site can do wonderful things to your page rank and visibility.
The design of a page can be preconceived in such as way as to have beneficial key words, titles and structure. You don't want to create web content that appears like junk to search engines and people alike. There are a variety of tools for measuring the most effective keyword combinations, but unfortunately I grow bored whenever I begin using them. What fun is it if I can't even create my own keyword combinations while writing?
Then there's the Giant Gorilla: social media marketing. Getting in front of thousands of pairs of eyes and allowing them to judge the utility and quality of your writing is the aspiring author's dream. Well actually getting incredible feedback to help hone one's writing skills and pursue a life long passion of significant social value is my personal dream. Some of the big players include Reddit, Digg, Stumble Upon, YC Hacker news, and now the super hot twitter. All twitter needs now is a Facebook looking front end to suck in the mainstream audience