Grandpa has an iPad

It is amazing how we evolved over the past 20 years. I remember when some folks that were older than me were cursing at cell phones and vowed that they will "NEVER" use them. I remember when email first came out and I would not touch it. I used to dictate emails to my secretary, and she would type them out and send them. Easy enough for me!

I stopped by the iPad social hour at Charlotte Street Computers in Asheville tonight and saw a great group of people hanging out, eating pizza, drinking beer, and talking about iPads. I talked with local photographer Micah Mackenzie and we both took some video clips and photos. I ended up looking at this photo again and again because it stuck in my head as "Generations past get a hold of technology." Here are 3 elderly gentlemen with iPads and they are discussing apps and functionality. This is part of the pie and everyone wants a piece. I am very excited about how social media and networking is crossing generational lines and cultures. Come get some!

Twitter - the follow back theory

I, for one, am a supporter of following people back on Twitter. I tell people all of the time that "unless you are famous like Shaq or Britney Spears, you will probably want to follow back and reciprocate with your followers unless they are ridiculous porn or spam." When you follow back, you may have an idea of where you want this relationship to go... or maybe you do not... but there is that percentage of possibility!

If you do not consistently check your followers and follow the applicable (meaning people in your community, niche, or anyone that is a potential) back, you are limiting your networking capability. Of course you have people that ask "how can I keep up with everything that goes across my home feed?" The answer is that once you are following 300, 500, 1000 people or more; you do not monitor your home page. You evolve to your mentions (@replies) and the niche that you and/or your business is focusing on. You can also follow by Twitter lists where you can group a bunch of people and watch them a little closer, interact, etc. For example: I set my clients up on Hootsuite where they can monitor what is going out of their account, when they are being mentioned, their direct messages, and also streams of tweets about their local community and their business niche. This allows them to be on top of their game when it comes to getting in on the tweet action.

It is funny sometimes when I hear of people complaining about followers following them, and then they complain when they get unfollowed too... and it many times because they did not complete the relationship connection by following back. Maybe they think they are better than the folks following them? Maybe they think that their product or voice is superior? Some people just don't know? It doesn't matter. The same result is still there.

Oh, you may also be hindering other people and businesses from growing their account by not following them back. A person can only follow so many on Twitter (around 2000) before you are subject to the 10% rule where you can only follow 10% more people than you have following you.

Part of your weekly Twitter maintenance is checking the people and businesses that are following you and follow them back to make the bond. It take two!

Why is SEO losing ground?

Search Engine Optimization has been an ongoing battle for years. Companies vying for who can get you on the first page of Google. Who can shoot me from page 4 of the results, to page 1 by next week? Who can knock my competitors to page 2 so I dominate the 1st page?

I believe the battle is slowly coming to an end. SEO is losing ground because search engine results are becoming secondary to social media influence. I, for example, no longer "trust" the first page results on any search engine because of the way it excludes, provides stale content, and how it was most likely an SEO money battle of who can pay more than the other to get superior search engine positioning.

I am not saying that search engine optimization is obsolete. I am saying that we, and many others to follow, are slowly but surely trading our trust in an algorithm.. for a trust in our "friends" and social network circle. 

Here are some points that I have been talking about in my recent presentations: 

1. People shy away from ads
2. I do not want a billboard, or the 1st page results on Google telling me what to do... I rather ask YOU!
3. As people become hip to the SEO competition, they see it as manipulated, sorta paid results with a seniority based model
4. We, the people, do not necessarily have a voice in SEO. We do in social media