Reg Saddler is the co-host of The Drill Down, a popular social media podcast, along with Andrew Sorcini (Mr. BabyMan), Muhammad Saleem and Lidija Davis. He is well-known for being the #4 Digg user of all time- until he was abruptly and arbitrarily banned last September, along with several other power users. That hardly set him back, as he’s currently rising to the heights of popularity on other hot social sites. These days you can find him on Twitter, Mixx and Facebook …

What do you do for work? And for fun?

“My background is in IT consulting. More recently, I’ve been exploring doing some social media consulting with companies. Now… that doesn’t mean I’m promoting or submitting stuff for people. I’ve seen many people try that and it doesn’t work – for long. Instead, we’re showing them how to make content that will get popular on social media sites: how to make stuff people will want to share.

I’ve got a wife and kids I like to spend time with. So these days, I mostly hang out at home and play with my computers and watch movies and stuff.”

Serious video & sound: Reg’s 73″ home theater system.

Are you an information junkie?

“Yeah, I’m definitely an information addict. But I’ve noticed there’s different kinds of information addiction. For instance, my wife subscribes to thousands of RSS feeds and she is really patient. She goes through all these stories and reads every single one of them from beginning to end. I subscribe to thousands of RSS feeds, too. But me, on the other hand, I just go crazy. Scan through stories and try and find something good enough to submit. Something that might make the home page. I have a much, much faster pace.”

Too much information for one brain to handle! image: Martino!

Do you think social media is evolving our thinking or shifting human consciousness in a new direction?

“Actually, I think it’s dumbing us down. I think people are no longer reading stuff like The Great Gatsby, they’re just searching for quick answers on Google. You don’t have to know how to add, multiply or do any research – it’s all just there floating around on the internet at the push of a button. It makes things too easy.

Reg in his home office.

Here’s an example: I used to be really organized and collect all kinds of media – but now that information is floating around out there everywhere – I just kind of pull it out of a cloud and will download whatever I need to. So in some ways, this isn’t really evolution.”

Do you think social media could be a mainstream influence in the 2012 election?

“Yeah, I could totally see social media being a huge part of the next election. Even now, it has a lot of power. During the election, I submitted a Digg story: “Sarah Palin Wants Harry Potter Banned.” I kind of figured that the story might not be true, but I loved the headline and I submitted it anyways. It hit the front page, and the next day the McCain campaign responded to the story. I got a kick out of that. I’m fairly sure it was because of the Digg story – cause it wasn’t really reported anywhere else, nationally.”

You were a very hardcore Digg user… you dugg over 130,000 stories and had 1,566 submissions hit the home page. What drives someone like you?

image: Computer Choppers

“A lot of people play video games. Xbox. PS3. World of Warcraft. Social media is an outlet like that for me. Not so much as a toy “game” – I take it seriously – but I do take a (video) gaming-like approach. I get a sense of joy. Just like when you’re finishing a level of a game… I love to get on the home page. Not for an ego sense, but I do enjoy getting to share some stories that I think are amazing and have a lot of people see the same content.”

Any metaphors that you use when you think of Digg?

“One thing I think that most people don’t consider that Digg is a business. Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson had a really cool idea, but they set up as a company and it has to make money. It has advertisers and legal policies and stuff like that… ”

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on Digg?

“First, look for the sites that top Diggers are submitting content from, and also submit content from there. Then spend some time getting to know the site and understanding how it works socially.

Second. I’d say there, maybe, a pool of 1,000 or maybe 2,000 people who submit content on an active basis. We know them all – we know who is active and who is on vacation. If you get to know maybe just 20 or 30% of these active people by just befriending them and digging their content – only the content you like – they reciprocate. They will notice you. They’ll say: ‘This is a new person, and they like my stuff, let’s see if I like theirs!’

Also, you should have to have a very visual icon. Pick one and stick with it – don’t change.”

Who is one Digger who really impressed you?

MakiMaki hasn’t been on for that long, but he’s really passionate about Digg, he has a popular blog, and he is really incredible at finding good news stories. He’s the best, actually. That guy must not leave his computer. I watch what he’s up to… and I learn a lot from him.

I’ve never seen a picture of Maki or spoken with him. Have you talked with him?

Andy (MrBabyMan) has spoken with him. So has Oboy (JD Rucker). We’ve analyzed him – cause we’re hardcore, die-hard users – and he’s for real. There’s no way that a team of people could be submitting his stuff. It’s not just about finding the content… a lot of it is re-crafting the title to make it hot. He’s a master at that.

You’ve recently had a meteoric rise in popularity on Twitter. What’s your philosophy?

For me Twitter is a lot like Digg – without an algorithm. I can post great content to Twitter, but instead of getting thumbs up or dugg up… I get retweets. I’m not hyper-aggressive, not using some kind of script: I’m manually finding new people. If they like my stuff, they stick. .and if they don’t.. they de-friend me. If you look at some of the top guys like Chris Pirillo, Guy Kawasaki, Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose or Scoble… they’re posting top content. It’s content – mostly – and you build a great following from your content.

What people like — just like in a newspaper – is diversity of content. I post stuff about space, politics, science – you name it! An easy way to do that would be to go to the front page of Digg, find the best story and tweet it. Right when Obama got inaugurated, I found some really great photos of the event and it was hot on Twitter.

Conversations are also a huge part of Twitter… I try and reach out to people, ya know, join the conversation. I don’t want to be a Twitterati that doesn’t say anything. If you ask Kevin Rose a question, chances are he won’t get back with you. Ask Scobleizer, and he might – and that’s how he builds his following. I’ve got 23,000 followers, so I try to engage with as many people as possible.

When you have so many followers, how do you possibly keep track of it all?

I use Tweetdeck. I can’t read every single message from the raw flow of my followers, but I do read the @ replies and the direct messages. I also set up groups in Tweetdeck to watch followers whose tweets I want to see… or those I have to, because they’re business partners and colleagues. I also watch certain hash tags.

Tweetdeck rocks!

There’s other good tools like My Tweeple – where you can go in and see who hasn’t been active in a while. SocialToo is amazing. It gives you an automated response when people follow me on Twitter – saying “Thanks! Check out my Facebook profile (or blog)“… and if someone follows you or unfollows you – it can do the same thing back. It makes ‘people management’ soooooo much easier. It can be a real pain to do it all manually.

What’s happening at Mixx?

Mixx is cool because you can make your own customized homepage – where you only see the content you care about. Also, Mixx aggressively listens to their user base. If they hear about a problem, or if people suggest a new feature that might be cool… Mixx is a lot more nimble. There’s only a small number of people who are highly active in social media…. maybe like 2,000 who are on Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Twitter and stay active on every major social domain. Mixx understand this, and rather than ostracizing the power users… they’ve embraced them.

Digg has 28.7 million dollars in funding, but they’re laying off people and they don’t have a direction. But Mixx is Chris McGill and his team – and if you ask them for a feature, they’ll try it out for you. (Mixx) doesn’t send 100k visitors to your story. But CNN understands the value of Mixx, it’s the main social voting icon on their site. And so do their investors. I think they have some groundbreaking ideas that I might not be able to wrap my head around yet.

You do really well at building an audience. What do you want to use your influence in social media for?

During the presidential election, I used my social media capital to push Barack Obama. I’m going to use my position in the future to push worthy causes. I also want to have a successful social media company and be a strong player in the industry. I do want to make a lot of money, but if I can push eyeballs to a story about starving kids, or to help after a disaster like New Orleans – I’ll always do that.

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Wayne Sutton is a social media professional with a huge passion for both people and technology. He is also a top 100 Twitter user, a podcaster, technology trainer, blogger and a speaker on the national conference circuit (including SXSW).

Tell us a little bit about your current work?

“I’m a social media strategy and technology evangelist. I help companies bring their business online, grow their brand and use social media as a customer support application — finding the right tools they can use to grow their business.

 

I’ve launched a new blog called SocialWayne. A lot of blogs talk about social media, but I want to talk about how to actually use the tools. I’ve got WayneSutton.TV where I have a worldwide internet television show.. interviewing people and exploring the industry. Also, TweetShops, or Twitter workshops for everyday people. Everyone is talking about Twitter… I say, if they don’t ruin it with their business model, give it 3 months and there’s gonna be a mainstream Twitter explosion.”

Social media gives us literally thousands of new ways to connect. How is this interconnectedness gonna change the game?

‘Social media is about two things: relationships and conversations. New media just gives us the tools to build these relationships and have these conversations at a whole new level… a world-wide level. For businesspeople, this is an important way to communicate with associates. And it’s a way to get people to talk about your business over the internet!

Especially in the media and news industry – which are really hurting for sales right now – (some) are using social media to re-strategize their business model. And to find new ways to communicate with their community that they never had before. A lot of people in the news industry think ‘Broadcast! Broadcast! Broadcast!‘ Well, now, it’s about the conversation and the community. So you build this community, you have this conversation online and then you broadcast that… and this builds your relationship, with trust, and you bring back your audience when you have your next show or broadcast.

 

(Social media) can have a good return on investment. Dell has made over $1,000,000 in revenue using Twitter. They reached out and listened to what people were saying on Twitter about their brand and their product, and they pitched sales on Twitter, as well. You don’t have to be Dell… you could be a local computer shop in Raleigh, North Carolina. I can post updates about my life, business and sales.. listen to what people are saying about certain keywords and trends… and then easily reach out to those people because they are potential clients and customers of mine. That’s just one example of how social media tools can help businesses…”

You have over 11,000 followers on Twitter. What’s your secret to winning friends and influencing people?

“I was an early adopter: #847 to sign up for Twitter. That was a big advantage. I used to be featured on the Twitter homepage when it first got started.

At first, I used to tweet a whole lot. I asked, ‘What would happen if I were to post 100 Tweets a day?‘ A couple people wrote back and said they’d unfollow me – but the exact opposite happened. The community was so techy, so early and so new… I got a good start. Other people signed up and they’d see my profile and follow me. Soon, I started listening to other people, listening to the conversation… sharing information and building relationships. Twitter is the site for building relationships. I shared information about my life, my marriage, about my favorite team (UNC), about clients and my favorite shows…

“I looooove NASCAR, go-karts and going fast!” says (Lil) Wayne.

But because Twitter was an early tech community, I posted a lot of information about technology. I was always a heavy technology person, ya know… I was blogging before it was called “social media”.. podcasting before YouTube got big. So I became a resource to some people. Some people would tweet ‘Wayne’s a great person to follow if you wanna learn about X or Y…’ And as the technology community grew, then my following grew

Now that I have 11,000 (followers), I have to change my structure. I did a poll recently… and most people want to learn about blogging, Wordpress and getting Twitter followers. So, I listen and try to provide the type of information that they want.”

What’s the most challenging part of having so many connections?

“The first word that comes to my mind is: expectations. Professionally, I help people establish a personal branding line, and I’ve done that for myself, also. But, by building my personal brand… I’ve been put into categories with famous people like Chris Brogan or Problogger – and I just don’t think I’m in the same category with those guys. I have a long way to go. But there’s still expectations.

image: Flickr

I get between 50 to 100 direct messages a day. Some are from people that everybody knows, others are people I’ve never heard of in my life. A lot of conversation happens behind the scenes. I try my best to respond back…

People are like, ‘Oh, you’re an internet celebrity!’ and I’m like, ‘Nah… I’m just a guy who tweets a lot.’ A friend recently made a really good point: if Twitter goes down, how am I gonna stay in contact with all my followers? I just launched a new blog (without all my followers there yet) – so that’s a big challenge! I want the people who follow me on Twitter to read my blog and have the same type of relationship with them. And that’s a challenge.”

What part of the social media lifestyle do you hate the most?

“One of the hardest things is the time. There are moments where I just want to step away. I think about ‘Why am I doing this?,’ and ‘What is this all for?’

Maintaining a social media presence takes lots of time. image: Håkan Dahlström

Not from a business standpoint – I do this because it’s my job… but there are times, on a personal level… where you wonder ‘Is all this really worth it?’ and ‘Where is the retirement in social media?‘

When you think of it in terms of ‘time investment‘ vs. ‘What am I getting out of it?‘ – it can be challenging. Because it takes time. Unless you’re Shaquille O’Neal… who just comes on Twitter and gets 27,000 instant followers. If he wrote a blog post right now, he could easily get 10,000 to 15,000 people to read it.”

What are the biggest etiquette mistakes you see people making on social media?

“On Twitter, I think people try to follow too much and post too much content.. without actually listening to what other people are saying… and without thinking about what their target audience wants. Basically, not engaging in the conversation.

Also people don’t spend enough time setting up their profile, not making it easy for people to know who you are and what you do. It goes back to relationships. There’s so much content online right now… you have to make it easy for people to remember you.

Social media takes real work. A half-baked effort is likely to fail.

Look at what Barack Obama did using social media: he raised a half billion dollars. But the thing is, unless you’re a strong, worldwide brand with lots and lots of money… or a famous celebrity… it’s gonna take work. So just putting something up, posting a few tweets… putting up a Facebook fan page and join MySpace… if you think you can do 1, 2 or 3 things and it’ll all work – you’re setting yourself up to fail. It’s gonna take time to build an effective social media campaign, there’s no simple strategy – it’s gonna take trial and error. And lots of research and listening.”

Which social media producers / publishers / thought leaders do you admire the most? Who is worth paying attention to?

“I could almost break it down into categories. In social media, you’ve got Jason Keath, Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang. In blogging, I’ve got passion for what Pete Cashmore and the Mashable guys are doing. Also Kip Bodnar (on twitter) he’s a really smart guy who I think doesn’t get enough credit for his contribution to the social media world.

I look up to Gary Vaynerchuck of WineLibrary.tv. Also 1938 Media: I’m a fan of his work and his passion to continue with success. I’ve done some video with Robert Scoble and I’m a fan of his work as well. Also Loic from Seesmic.

There’s some up and coming local folks like Jason Keath (jakrose on Twitter), who I mentioned before. I met him at a Wordcamp in Charlotte and we had a great social media conversation last Friday… I think he has potential to become the next Chris Brogan. And Justin Ruckman – I think he’s gonna be the next rockstar designer that the world is gonna know about. I think he recently did some business cards for Guy Kawasaki.

MC Hammer rapping at the San Francisco Digg meetup.

I just spoke with MC Hammer on a podcast with TalkSocialNews.com — and I literally was blown away. Not saying that I didn’t expect him to be techy, ‘cuz I knew he was a smart guy. Look at what he’s accomplished in his life – and despite his bankruptcy, he’s still standing. But I didn’t know he was a super geek. His passion for technology and the music industry blew me away!

And there’s just no way I could leave out Louis Gray. I think Louis is the next Jerimah Owyang or the next Jason Calacanis.”

What point of success will you think “I’ve really made it big time!”

“Wow!… When I’m on the stage, on a panel.. with GaryVee, Michael Arrington and Jeremiah Owyang… talking about online technology… and I’m either pitching my company or talking about something I’ve done online… or I’m up there because of my experience… at that point, I know I’ll have made it.

 

Either that, or… when I can stay home but I have a business that is employing 10+ people and they’re all taken care of financially.. and I know that we’re gonna be in business for a long, long time.”

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Glen Allsopp is a young, highly-driven internet marketing pro with a background in social media marketing and online reputation management. He has done some substantial social media research as well as consulting work for international brands. His articles have been featured on front page of top sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, SEOmoz, and Copyblogger.

Tell us a little about yourself…?

“I’ve recently turned 19 and I’m currently living in South Africa. I’m actually from the UK but I got offered a job here just over a year ago. I got into internet marketing and SEO when I was 16 and I’ve branched out from there. I have an account on the Webworkshop SEO forums where you can see my naive posts from over 3 years ago ”

Glen hiking near Cape Town, South Africa

Why do you find social media fascinating?

“Search (SEO) is becoming so social these days, especially in terms of getting backlinks… so that’s what first got me interested in social media. I also love that a new site can grow rather quickly via networking and traffic from the top social media sites.”

What aspect of social media has been most difficult for your corporate clients to understand?

“The most difficult thing for them to understand, without a doubt, it is that something has to be interesting to go anywhere. Clients will come to us with a boring and static website and expect us to get them thousands of visitors because they’ve read about the potentials of social media somewhere online.” Another one is that networking is key. There’s nothing like networking for traffic and links. When you work in a niche in which you have no experience then it can be difficult to build any relationships or connections. Personally I like to advise clients how they can interact with others in their niche and if they don’t want to do it, how we will do it for them and see if they approve.”

Glen says that “Networking is key.” – image by Brian Solis

A few months ago, you said you were leaning towards quitting client work and focusing on your own ventures. Why?

“My contract with Shake Interactive in South Africa ends in a few months, I haven’t made a firm decision about exactly what I’ll be doing next. I have vowed not to take on any more (client) services in this stage in my life. The main reason is that I believe you can only get so far doing consulting / working for others. I think I could of had a lot more success working on my own. Success in both the income potential and the joy you get for working on sites you are truly passionate about.”

What projects are you working on now?

We’ve been working on some big projects in and around South Africa, and some exciting ones for a famous alcoholic brand. Personally, I’m writing for ViperChill & PluginID – a blog about personal growth – and have some other projects I would like to start putting more time into.

What habits and characteristics do you notice that the most successful professional bloggers seem to have?

“There’s a quote I like that seems to answer this well:

Success seems largely to be a matter of hanging on after others have let go

If you look at all the big bloggers now they’ve been consistent in what they are doing. Darren Rowse at Problogger has been writing almost daily for years and Brian at Copyblogger always makes sure there are updates from guest bloggers if he isn’t writing much. Success doesn’t happen overnight so it’s definitely about hard work and consistency. As a society we are constantly looking for the magic pill and the ‘quick fix’, I see bloggers getting discouraged because they aren’t getting many visitors or making much money and they simply give up.”

As far as content that you’ve written, what has been your “greatest hit” so far?

“My greatest hits have often been for clients and I’ve taken down quite a few servers in my time. One of the personal posts I’m proud of is my ‘Analysis of the Top 100 Digg Users‘. For an internet marketing blog it can be hard to do well in the social media space so when this made the Digg homepage I was particularly proud, although I had obviously biased the content to be attractive to that audience.”

Tell us about some viral campaigns that impressed you?

“I loved the Elf Yourself campaign about a year ago and you can’t forget Lyndon Antcliff’s credit card story that took a lot of the world’s media by storm. I’m a huge fan of the film Superbad and I think that Shoemoney & Neil Patel’s ‘McLovin ID Generator‘ was a very clever idea based on such a simple concept. Not everything has to be over the top and amazing, the simple things that people can connect to can work just as well.”

How do you manage your own time effectively?

“Every morning before I do anything ‘productive’ I check my email, check out Digg and spend some time there. See what my friends are stumbling and vote for their discoveries if I like them. I don’t have set time limits for my tasks, I just try and spend it wisely and when I’m free or have some minutes spare I’ll either network with others in a particular niche, some of the top social media users or even just my friends on niche networks. I’m usually a morning and night task worker which actually works well when I connect to people in the likes of America due to time differences, and then I get my real ‘work’ done during the day.”

Which social website is your current favorite for generating buzz?

“Definitely StumbleUpon, mostly through the quality of traffic it sends and the relationships you can build with members of the site. I also like the fact that you can promote content in pretty much any niche and it has a chance of generating some nice buzz.”

Can you recommend any specific tools, scripts or shortcuts that you use in your daily workflow?

“I use TadaList.com to handle my to-do list. I put down even the most basic of tasks like ‘Email XXX’ or ‘Create a MyBlogLog account’ and then go through my list one by one, doing the most important first. I also check out the social networks and see what people are up too before I open my email in the morning and then I start to focus on that. I have StumbleUpon set-up so that I can use keyboard shortcuts to use it quickly and I also have my Firefox VERY organized with folders for things like forums I read, Google services I use and tools I like. This is all simple stuff but when you are active online, every little thing helps with overall efficiency. I’ve had custom scripts and tools built or sent from contacts in the industry that, unfortunately, I couldn’t share as they would no longer work or be useful… ”

Do you think social media sites will still be an important part of popular culture in 20 years?

“I’ve been asked 5 and 10 years, but never 20. I don’t think anybody knows what the internet will look like then, for-all we know it could be full of censorship or we could all be interacting socially on our touch-screen monitors and voting for stories with our palms . There has to be some social aspects online and they are all going to link from the devices we use like phones & mp3 players, maybe even our cars as a few are coming out with internet access so something might happen in that space. People use sites like Facebook because they are useful, you can keep in touch with others. I don’t see that going away but it’s not going to be ANYTHING like we have it today.”

How ‘aggressive’ is your internet marketing strategy?

“I’m not a spammer but I’ve definitely tried my share of gaming the systems, mostly to push the limits. I’m not one of those people that just follow the rules and hope it works, I like discovering new loopholes or sites that drive traffic.”

Anything else you’d like to add?

“Don’t be an internet marketer for the ego. I think at times we all love to share how good we are but it is not about how many visitors you can send but the results you can get from those visitors in terms of subscribers, buying products and clicking on ads. If you want to get in this space because you want to appear like you know it all and get some e-fame then you are wasting your time, but if you really want to help people get traffic to their sites then I fully respect that.”

You can connect with Glen on Twitter or StumbleUpon.

Marty Weintraub is not your typical agency type: he’s a passionate, sometimes outspoken, social marketing maverick. Whether or not you agree with everything he says… it’s hard to deny that he’s got some brilliant insights, or that he’s more innovator than follower. Marty pushes limits and explores dimensions of social media marketing that most professionals don’t talk… or even dream… about.

Tell us about your marketing background?

“In the 90’s I was part of the team that helped create kiosks in retail stores like Target, where as customers walked by, motion detectors chirped.. and wolves and dolphins ‘yelled’ at passerbys – engaging them to buy CDs of recorded nature sounds and new age music.”

Are the rumors true that you were an actual (musical) rockstar?

“I’m a piano player. I’ve played in every kind of nightspot or stadium you could possibly imagine. Everything from VFW bands to internationally known acts.

In the 80’s I looked like a nasty version of my mother.

In the 90’s I worked for Polygram International Publishing as an A/R person to sign people to publishing careers. Also, I became semi-known for blending CDs of dolphins with acoustic music. I had a wonderful 25 year career as a musician, but social media is better. If you drive 200,000 people to a blog today because you wrote 200 words… that’s cool like a hit record. You’re moving whole populations. You’re touching people. You’re using technology and touching people with things you have in common with them, or triggering their emotions – moving them psychologically. So, I don’t miss music. Social media music is just as cool – I like it more than music. And that’s saying a LOT.”

What do you do now? What kind of projects does your company excel at?

“aimClear is a search engine marketing-focused advertising agency in Duluth and Minneapolis Minnesota. Our clients range from really small and intriguing entrepreneurs with a better mousetrap, to some of America’s larger brands. Among other endeavors, we specialize in best practices for ethical use of avatars in social media – to both holistically uplift communities and to serve our clients’ needs.”

You’re pioneering a SMM technique called ‘persona blogging’.. can you tell us what that is?

“Persona blogging is when you carefully craft an avatar to participate in social communities – based on a derivative of who your client is and who the actually blogger really is. We currently work with a number of companies where we have brand ambassadors participating on their behalf in social communities. Those avatars range from absolute transparency (‘My name is Marty Weintraub and I represent XYZ Corporation’ ) to the polar absolute opposite – where we don’t say anything at all and we report back to the company about what’s happening.

This is a hypothetical example of a “persona” profile.

“The real question is: ‘Who am I? Am I only Marty Weintraub?… Or can I also be a guy named ‘Bruce’ the community manager?’ Our perspective is that you can do whatever you want so long as your goal is holistic, authentic and real participation in the online community you traffic your avatar in.

Our persona blogging avatars participate more fully, and in a more nurturing and supportive way ,than almost any users we ever see. We’re not talking about creating 70 StumbleUpon profiles, we’re talking about sculpting a personality that is driven, in large part, by the blogger who is managing that persona.”

You think that online personas are no more deceptive than the wholesome facade a CEO presents on a company ‘About Us’ page?

“The big question in social media marketing is ‘Who are you when you represent yourself or a company?‘ Back in the 90’s, did you embellish your Yahoo! Personals? Did you say that you weighed 164 pounds instead of 165 pounds? The anonymity of the internet allows people to be slightly more than they really are – OR create imprints for who they truly want to be. This happens both on a microscopic level and on a gross level – I mean, If I go on the internet and say I’m a 9′2″ gorilla named Charlie… that’s one thing… but if I subtly embellish an emotional character or a personal proclivity, then that’s a really different thing.

So when we create someone named ‘Suzie Lipstick’ who posts a lot of great comments, articles, pictures and content – that’s NOT unethical because we don’t outright say ‘My name’s not really Suzie – it’s a team of three people who are dedicated to the longevity and success of this Suzie, or Billy, or Fernando or Malinda in the StumbleUpon and any other appropriate community.’”

So, social media is just an illusion? Like Hollywood or Milli Vanilli?

Candy-coated social media ‘astroturfing’? Or smart guerrilla marketing? image: fortune cookie

“Well, if I met you on the street and you looked hungry, and I just do a random act of kindness and give you a hamburger or 50 bucks… is that hamburger any less filling or appreciated because I didn’t tell you my full life story and history? The line is drawn for us when it comes to overt selling. We NEVER overtly sell. We just report and participate. We never breadcrumb our own content to be discoverable by the people we network with more than once in like every 25 times. So for every time we put a piece of content we hope someone will discover – 24 times, we don’t. We’re thinking about the community. We’re thinking about sharing.

The big question is: are you manipulating people? Yes, of course you are. What marketing isn’t? Last night I watched TV and I counted 64 political commercials for Minnesota-based and national candidates – and at least 40 of them were nearly TOTALLY full of shit.”

Some professional marketers freak out at even hearing about anything grey area or aggressive. Why?

“Not everyone does these sorts of tactics with the level of expertise and sensitivity that aimClear does. At the end of the day, a lot of social media marketing is pulled off by a bunch of hacks and spammers. They ‘pee in the pool.’ We learned how do do this by making mistakes.

It’s really easy to write about ‘ethical’ so long as you receive no checks that you buy food for your children with from real companies that are concerned about their social media presence. The irony of all this is that aimClear is, like, squeaky clean. 90%+ of the avatars we deploy disclose everything. But there are times you need to embellish to ‘move things along’ a little.”

What are the common mistakes you see people making in social marketing?

1. Overt selling.This is the first big no-no. Social media is not about selling. Social media is about serving your friends. At the most, you want to use profiles as a conduit to your products and services by people who are truly interested and discover it because of who your avatar is…
2. Being insensitive to the vernacular and public expression of behavior in a social community. You have to know about the communities you’re in and behave in a way that lifts them up. My friend Tamar Weinberg, who is social media blogger whose ethics I really respect, writes about this. A savvy attorney once told me an incredible piece of advice once: If you every disagree with your wife, tell her that she ‘might be right.’ If you make a non-binding statement like that, it doesn’t give anything away except respect. RESPECT community members and prove it with your behavior.
3. Not respecting users as people.Your social media effort
   will never work if you don’t approach users with the respect they deserve. These users are real people, who fall in love, who become angry. We had a client with a serious product recall. There were tens of millions of searches we and our partner agencies needed to handle, in a matter of days, with paid search and organic tactics. The first and foremost thing was how to get people the right safety information.

What mistakes have you made personally?

“Stirring up the hornet’s nest can get you stung.” image: Marcopolus

“The biggest mistake ever personally make is when I bash the hornet’s nest. My friend Lyndon has used that expression when describing me. I’ve learned you can’t feed the trolls. You can’t argue with these phreaks too hard because everyone gets hurt in the end. You don’t have to go to every fight you’re invited to. Social media marketers are people artists, by our very nature. We tend to react emotionally.”

How is social media different than other media?

“I see social media as a place where people do what they’ve always done. When there were cave people, we were trying to communicate something that mattered to other cave people who walked by. Social media is the modern way ‘cave people’ communicate.

Social media offers a slightly-distorted, digital reflection of our lives. image: iceman9294

Social media mirrors physical life.  It doesn’t matter if someone is being a dick to you in Times Square, of if someone else is planning an evil way to ruin your domain’s reputation – the bottom line is that humans are humans. They’re either creeps or not…”

How do you leverage volatile stuff emotions and politics without things backfiring on you?

“It’s really important to fight fire with water – not fire. If some social media idiot slams you or your client unfairly, it’s SO tempting to nuke em’. Because we’re search marketers and we have a good understanding of what it might take to trash someone. HOWEVER – it’s really important to take a minute to think out the degree of response required. If there’s a disaster or your client accidentally kills (God forbid) somebody – it might well require quick response, but usually you can afford 5 minutes or even two hours to think things through. It’s normal to feel hurt or really pissed off – so count till 350 or eat some mashed potatoes (with sour cream and chives) and wait till tomorrow. Just chill.”

Sometimes you can be so respectful that others see the folly of their ways. You know you’ve done something right in social media when the provocateur comes up to you in a thread and says ‘Well, you’re really making it seem like I’m being stupid about this.’ And all you’ve done is thank them for their involvement and said ‘We understand that you feel this way.’”

Sounds like social media marketing can be pretty edgy. How do you handle the ups and downs of it all?

If you can’t handle living on the edge, stay the #$@% back from social media marketing! image:Wza_HK

Edgy is an understatement. Social media is good like sex. And it’s bad like sex, too. It’s really important not to take things too seriously when it’s all going to crap. And it’s just as important not to get too worked up when things are really going great. Yeah I celebrate going hot on the home page of Digg, and I cry if someone says something really wicked mean. Don’t deny your emotions but try to keep things in perspective. Understand that in your professional life, and especially things like music or marketing, are cyclical. For every disaster there is a high point, and the universe basically evens out.

Success is ultimately defined by the panache with which you handle the highs and lows. When I was playing music in stadiums, there was a lot tempting things that happened. I didn’t handle some of it perfect as I… umm…might have liked to, in retrospect. That had more to do with my grounding as a person and as a spiritual and soulful being – than my ability to say ‘No!’ to crack or groupies.”

What are your professional goals for the future? At what point in your career will you say “yes, I’ve finally made it!”

“Because I’m a cancer survivor, I understand that this is all we get. I’ve had doctors look at me and ’say there’s a reasonable chance you’re gonna die soon.’ I tend to live in the moment and take what I can from life in this moment. It was my 2008 goal to speak at a mainstream conference and write for national trade publications. It was a total joy to speak at SES New York, Toronto, SMX Mobile, Advanced, SMX East, SEMpdx in Portland.. and also to write for Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch and meet amazing people!

“Social media music is just as cool – I like it more than music!” image: Sean Dreilinger

I look around search engine conferences and I go ‘these people are SO beautiful!’ Such amazing people like Matt McGee, Chris Winfield, or Lisa Barone, Li Evans, Rand Fishkin, Danny Sullivan, Kevin Heisler, Rebbecca Kelley,  or Lee Oden… such an amazing community I’m privileged to be part of.

At the end of the day, I feel really grateful for the ability to be a publisher and have a voice in this world.  It’s an incredible privilege.

When I go to work in the morning, I feel like I’ve reached my professional goal. There doesn’t have to be more than this. It would be great to sell AimClear to an advertising agency that needs our capabilities in house. It’s a blast to work with big brands and to make a little money and all that.. but I get my satisfaction and find my peace in this world, today.”

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Matthew Inman is a 26-year-old independent marketer and designer based in Seattle. He worked for 4 years as the CTO and lead developer at SEOmoz – where he designed the complex web applications involved in their SEO tool suite.

Some of his notable social media accomplishments include writing classic viral linkbait articles, and drawing hit cartoons that rake in thousands and thousands of diggs. He also built and promoted his own free online dating site, Mingle2, single-handedly taking on huge corporate sites backed by multi-million dollar budgets (like Match.com and eHarmony.com). Matt took a break from his busy freelance project schedule to share his thoughts with Social Media Rockstar readers.

Many people think you are unusually multi-talented: skilled at programming, writing, marketing, illustration and design. What is your educational background?

“I’m 100% self-taught. I started doing web design and development in when I was 13 years old (around 1995), so by the time I graduated high school I already had quite a bit of experience: I could design web pages, knew my way around a UNIX shell, and could code in a couple different languages. This enabled me to basically skip college and go straight to work at the height of the dot-com boom.”

Matt having some (juvenile) fun in downtown Tokyo

How did you develop your skills?

“Turning my skills into hobbies really made a huge difference in my life. I enjoy design and illustration so much that it’s sometimes difficult for me to classify it as work. The same goes for programming, linkbait, or whatever else. (This applies to most things, however there are definitely some tasks out there that I would be quite happy never, ever doing again). Basically enjoying what I do makes it a lot easier for me to get better at it, because I’m eager to learn and kind of obsessive. Also, I’m constantly reading and tinkering.”

What are your thoughts on the theory of the right brain and left brain?

“I enjoy what I’m doing more if I work on right brain and left brain tasks interchangeably. It mixes things up and keeps work interesting. If I devoted an entire day to just coding I’d probably get burned out. Instead I try to alternate between the creative stuff and the detailed stuff.”

Tell us about how the creative process works for you?

“I have a giant 17″x14″ illustration pad that I scribble everything down in with a mechanical pencil. This includes design concepts, linkbait ideas, illustrations, web page mockups, and an endless horde of bizarre illustrations and notes. I tend to jot down everything I think of with no real regard for structure, and then later on I filter it down to only the good stuff. For me, the best test of whether linkbait is effective is if it genuinely entertains or intrigues me. If I’m not laughing at my own joke I bag it. Humor and weirdness has always worked best for me, so I tend to stick to those channels.

For inspiration I read the usual sources: Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and so forth. I also read a lot of online comic strips, “best of” Craigslist posts, and I spend a lot of time using StumbleUpon.

Also, If you want inspiration for linkbait that is beyond just editorial bait (blog posts & articles), the facebook app directory is actually a fantastic resource. Look at what’s popular in there and adapt some of those ideas to the blogosphere. ”

At what point did you first completely “get” the concept of online viral marketing?

“The first quiz I ever created for Mingle2 was called the Geek Quiz. It was 20 questions or so and it issued a percentage score of how geek you were. When I launched it traffic instantly shot up with the majority of the referrals coming from stumbleupon. Prior to this, all the linkbait I published would typically follow the same pattern: I’d publish an article, see massive amounts of traffic from digg or wherever, and then it’d die off after a few days. The Geek Quiz was different because the “I am x% geek!” HTML badges encouraged bloggers to keep reposting the quiz. Because of this, traffic didn’t die down after the social media sites stopped sending referrers – instead it flourished. It was almost like the blogosphere itself had become a social media site and my linkbait had “gone hot.”

I don’t know if this was the first time I ever “got” viral marketing, but it definitely was a turning point for me. ”

What social media projects or linkbaits have impressed you the most?

“The writing style and subject matter of many of the authors at Cracked.com have hit the linkbait nail on the head. The material is easily digestible, funny, and their site is very sticky (every time I read a Cracked article I end up going on to read several more).

I also think Free Rice is absolutely brilliant. It’s not exactly linkbait, but it’s great viral marketing. I’m all about linkbait that either entertains the user or rewards them. If your linkbait isn’t funny or engaging, instead give them a short task to do, such as a quiz or a game, and then provide a way for them to share their achievement with others.

Also, I love how this guy tells his story. He mixes creative writing with illustrations and this format could easily be adapted to a variety of different subjects.”

You single-handedly built an ENORMOUS number of links with viral widgets, but then then Google banned your sites… So do you think viral widgetbait is out? What types of content do you think holds the most long-term promise for viral marketing in the future?

“Google’s policy on widgetbait is a bit hazy right now, but I don’t think it’s completely out – it just has to be on-topic and the anchor text in the badge has to be relevant to the quiz. You can’t put ‘How many hungry kittens could your dead body feed?’ on a website that sells kitty litter. Instead, I suppose you’d have to make a quiz called ‘If ground down and processed, how much kitty litter could your body produce?’ or some other such nonsense. Keep it relevant and make sure the user knows what they are linking to.

I’m always an advocate of providing utility or reward to a user in the form of HTML. This includes widgets, badges, blog templates, and any other functionality which can be massively distributed in the form of HTML code. In the future we’re going to see more and more of this from myself and other marketers.”

What are you working on these days?

All the new stuff I’ve been working on has to be kept under wraps for now, but here’s a few linkbait pieces I recently made for Mingle2:

• The 8 Phases of Dating
• Zombieharmony
• 9 Reasons Not to Date a Tyrannosaurus Rex
• Ten reasons it would rule to date a unicorn

What do you like to do for fun?

“Running, snowboarding, movies, swimming, drawing, vector illustration, and traveling.”

(Note: according to his most recent Twitter updates, Matt has also been surfing and training for a marathon!)

What is the greatest buzz or most amazing experience you’ve ever had in front of a computer?

“Probably the first time I played Quake against a friend of mine who lived down the street. We did it over dial-up and I thought it was the most fun I’d ever had in my entire life. Unfortunately this caused me to get really addicted to online games and I spent way too many of my teenage years playing them when I could have been learning things about computers that are actually useful ”

Tell us about your computer system? What software tools do you consider to be essential to your social media game?

“For my workstation I have a MacBook Pro. I love OS X mostly because it has a unix back-end (without all the upkeep & hassle of having a Linux box), so when I need to I can drop down to the command line and work there instead. It also lets me run a local web and database server locally so I can develop on my laptop and then deploy to a live server later. For my servers I typically use FreeBSD, which is a unix variant.

The Social Media toolbar from 97th floor is invaluable for me, as well as the SEOmoz Rank Checker. I also use the SearchStatus SEO plugin for Firefox.”

You’ve accomplished quite a lot by your mid-20’s.. but what about your future goals? At what point in your career will you be able to stop and say, “Wow, I’ve REALLY made it!” ?

“I was gonna give you a wishy washy answer about personal success, but I decided against it. Instead, I’m gonna be honest: I want a 7 figure income before I’m 30

Seriously though, my ideal future would be to create a successful online property that doesn’t rely on search rankings to survive. I’ve seen how delicate that basket can be.”

Connect with Matt on Twitter or LinkedIn or check out his marketing & design portfolio.