Do you follow 10? 50? 100? 300? 1,000? 5,000? The sky’s the limit and you’re a social whore?!

This week, I reached my limit, which is just shy of following 100 twits. Of course, my limit is a delicate balance of hyper-active and inactive posters. Over the course of several months, I whittled off the Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scobles of the the world with great appreciation for their work, but extreme frustration with their tweets.

(Why do we call them tweets instead of twits anyway?)

I’ve also done some serious soul searching with regards to following SEO rockstars versus SEO noobs. At one time (and perhaps still), I was an SEO noob. Somehow, I ended up dining with SEO rockstars and friendships were formed. Does that make me an SEO rockstar? No, it makes me a part of their entourage (read: really lame).

So why does it matter? Because I feel guilty when I don’t follow a SEO noob since I was a noob just one year ago. Why do I do it then? Because I simply don’t have the time or patience to follow that many unknown individuals. When I know you (or have even had a handful of substantial exchanges via the web) it’s much easier to care about your opinion of Cloverfield, the story you just Sphunn and whether you think Heath Ledger overdosed or was killed by Elvis.

At this moment, I have 69 follower requests (entirely because of Andy Beal’s “75 Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter“) and no time to slowly sort through each weighing whether I know the individual or their post rate will be a burden. In time perhaps my threshold will expand, but for now I can’t hold anymore and feel like a failed marketer for cutting off potential networking opportunities. Forgive me great SEO Whore God of Marketing!

*Please note - I use follower almost interchangeably with someone I follow because I have a private account and if I let someone follow me, I’m instantly following them. I know I could simply go public and not have this problem, but I don’t want that many people I don’t know reading my stream of consciousness, which is primarily how I use Twitter.

Thank you Rae for pointing out the reference error.

________

On a personal note:

I’d like to post more frequently over the coming months as I dropped off the planet after Pubcon. For those that weren’t aware, I took a two week honeymoon to Barcelona, Andorra and Paris over the holiday break. Upon our return we moved to a new home in Neptune Beach, FL and then work and First Coast Surfrider hit me like a ton of bricks. Growing up is overwhelming.

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For anyone that missed it, check out the October 4th podcast of “Talk of the Nation” on NPR: “Online Social Networks No Longer Just for Teens.”

Andy Carvin, NPR’s senior strategist for online communities, talks about the various networks, how popular they are and what you can do with them.

My favorite point in the conversation:

Twitter as collective intelligence
My recent series of social media presentations focused on explaining the benefits of social media when used with transparency. For most, Twitter is used to talk about what they ate for lunch, what song they’re currently listening to and how annoying it is to have endless days of rain in Jacksonville, FL (not that I’m speaking from experience!). However, there are golden moments each day that make the tool invaluable. I can almost instantly gauge the reactions of my SEO industry peers to various articles, technology and important news. The best example I have is when the new version of Digg was released, in a matter of hours Twitter messages and notification of new articles started popping up. Tamar took those comments from Twitter, IM, Pownce and Sphinn and created a post: 23 Community Reactions to the New Digg. The reaction was fast and furious, but provided a telling look at top users, the Digg community and general trends in social media. From that post and hearing everyone’s reactions, we flocked like a spooked herd of water buffalo to other networks! Sure, we still use Digg, but I guarantee Reddit saw some nice increases after Digg’s fumble and I, as a marketer, found another network worth targeting.

Hopefully, we as social media marketers and search engine optimizers use these networks to our advantage rather than just reducing our daily productivity. I know I spend a fair amount of time on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Digg… (insert more), but if you look past the daily banter, I’m learning what makes various industries tick, how to generate honest business and networking like a champ. So, when the CEO of a local company asked me, “Why?” I can say with certainty, because it’s my job and I love it. I’m making it easier for companies and non-profits to connect with their target audience and build lasting relationships. I don’t get paid to play on Facebook, I get paid to know why people play on Facebook and how we (as marketers) get a to play WITH them.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

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Thanks to everyone that came out Thursday night to my Refresh Jacksonville social media presentation. It’s a topic I still continue to learn from and about, so if nothing else, I hope the presentation provoked ideas and questions. If you had questions that weren’t answered in the presentation or during Q&A, please feel free to post them here. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll consult with an expert on the subject like Tamar, Muhammad, Bill, Cameron or Michael who I milked for guidance and understanding over the past couple of weeks and snagged resources from for the presentation. Thank you again to everyone that attended and those that inspire my work and insights.

You can view photos of the presentation on Flickr or grab the powerpoint in the presentations section of Refresh.

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Everyone is piping up about Sphinn and some articles made me think about what it takes to get to the top and how it can be used.

Sphinn in 60 Seconds

• What it is: Danny Sullivan’s brand new (launched July 12, 2007) SEM social network setup like digg, but exclusively for search engine marketers. The site lets you submit articles, vote “sphinn it” and comment on them. You can also “stalk” users to see what they’ve posted, befriend them, message users, view the most robust profile I’ve ever seen, add events to a community calendar (great way to find out what’s happening locally/nationally!), sort users (nice for the SMOs searching for top users) and subscribe to various feeds (comments, inbox and more coming soon).
• Sphinn is not the first site of its kind, but is by far the most user-friendly and widely adopted network though still in its infancy.
• This is a great way to sort through RSS feed noise and comment without losing track of everything.
• This is also a great way to make a name for yourself in the industry and network. As Neil Patel has mentioned on countless occasions, personal branding is huge and worth your time. I was putting much of his advice into action without knowing it, because a lot of it is common sense! Use the same avatar across multiple sites and have a unique voice. The Sphinn profile is massive and an amazing networking and self-promotion tool, not to mention the ease with which you can track comments on other’s posts and submit your own quality articles.

[back to my rant]

Contrary to the masses, I could care less about who is on Hot Today (currently the Sphinn homepage), instead I focus on what. Many have argued that Sphinn is a popularity contest, but maybe I’m too unpopular to notice? When I visit the site I scroll through the homepage to see if there’s anything that peaks my interest either for educational, informative or entertaining purposes. Sometimes I see ridiculous stories from “big names” and great stories from “no names” and vice versa, the point is, I’m looking at the article names not the avatars!

I don’t even see why this is an issue, the big names are such because they’ve obviously done something right whether it was befriending well-connected SEOs, providing great reviews, being the first to break news stories or simply knowing how to sell something. Either way, they only remain a big name because they continue to do the “right” thing and for that they DO deserve a little more attention. They’re making it easier for me to learn from their hard work. Either way, everyday someone new is getting a little bigger themselves, but it probably won’t happen overnight with a single post on Sphinn… so quit whining and write something worth reading!

[rant over]

Note - I wouldn’t have posted this at all, but it was too large for a comment and would have been submitted to several places. Here’s hoping I caught their attention!

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