KennedyPittman

The future of Facebook

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:05:25 -0400

The future of Facebook

Myspace 2006 - 2007 Facebook 2008 - 2012 Noticing a...

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:06:00 -0400

Myspace 2006

Myspace 2007

Facebook 2008

Facebook 2012

Myspace 2006 - 2007

Facebook 2008 - 2012

Noticing a trend???

Image sources:

1. http://artproduct.net/moving-france-myspace

2. http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/author/josh/

3. http://josh.st/2008/06/20/facebook-new-interface/

4. my fb page

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Sun, 26 Feb 2012 18:41:43 -0500

"I am incredibly successful at underachieving."

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 01:27:22 -0500

“I am incredibly successful at underachieving.”

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Sun, 26 Feb 2012 01:21:51 -0500

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Sun, 26 Feb 2012 01:16:00 -0500

Sharing your content has never been easier!

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:57:59 -0500

Sharing your content has never been easier!

One concept for a new www.truelook.com

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:15:00 -0500

One concept for a new www.truelook.com

TrueLookCams.com is finally launched. Next step - add a social /...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:15:00 -0500

TrueLookCams.com is finally launched. Next step - add a social / gamification layer to keep it fun!

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Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:29:00 -0500

I just joined Tumblr

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Goodbye Posterous. I’ve moved over a few of my old posts from kennedypittman.posterous.com

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Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

18 Free SEO Tools

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Here are the free tools I’ve been using lately to keep track of various aspects of site SEO. If you really want to track dozens of keywords and track changes/trends, you’ll need to spend $100 on Link Tracker or something similar.

If you’re really serious about SEO, there are also monthly services like SEOMoz and Raven Software that start at $99/month.

Rank Tracking

Don’t just Google yourself, it won’t be accurate.

Google SERPS - Google results only.

SEO Centro - Checks Google, Yahoo, Bing but you have to enter captcha each time.

Inbound Links

Get your link juice.

Yahoo - Go to Yahoo and do a search for Link:www.yourdomain.com . Voila.

Open Site Explorer - A free piece of SEOMoz, can only be used 3x per day.

OnPage

Have your house in order.

Various Site Graders - Free tools from HubSpot.

Website Grader - HubSpot grader specific to your site, take with grain of salt.

SEO Browser - See your site how search engines do (use “simple”).

Schema - Add html5 to help search engines know what they’re reading.

Site speed test - Only use to benchmark vs other sites. Ignore the upsell.

W3C Markup Validation - Find errors in your dirty html code.

W3C CSS Validation - Find errors in your dirty css code. May give errors for css3 (ignore).

W3C Link Checker - Don’t have broken links on your site.

Keywords

Subset of OnPage; build content for humans but be aware of word choice.

SEO Centro Keyword suggestion tool - Google/Yahoo suggestions. Or just use Adwords.

SEO Centro Page Keyword Analyzer - Pretty good analyzing tool

SEO Centro Keyword density tool - Don’t overdo it, people.

Spying

Know what your competition has going for it.

Google Ad Planner - used by advertisers to see any site’s traffic and pick where to place ads. Hmm… :)

Alexa - Lots of info. Traffic, ranking, ad budgets, keywords, etc. estimates for any site.

Compete - See unique visitor counts.

Please let me know if I’ve missed any of your favorite SEO tools!

Special thanks to Phil Buckley, Erik Fadiman, countless others.

I ran into an article this morning that detailed the...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

I ran into an article this morning that detailed the following lies, regarding social media marketing.

MYTHS (quoting article)

Size matters
Social media gurus do exist
Social media is a “new” media
Social media can be effectively outsourced

I disagree, somewhat. I hear these “busted myths” all the time, and this is just the final straw that convinced me to respond:

TRUTH

Size does matter
Social media experts exist, to the same degree as in many other professions
Social media is new, but so is the internet
Social media can be effectively outsourced sometimes

Now, I mean no disrespect to the author and so I decided not to call him out by name. But here are my explanations.

Size Does Matter

First came the myth that size mattered. Then came the myth that size doesn’t matter.

Size matters, but you cannot count anyone in the audience who is a spammer, bot, inactive profile, or is highly disinterested. In other words, if you have 10,000 followers who all fit into these categories - you actually have 0 followers. So yes, a large fan/follower count doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But size does matter. Why? Lets say you have 200 dedicated and loyal fans to your Facebook page. After they “like” your page, maybe 20 of them will ever come back to it. But that’s ok, because you can still post into their newsfeed. Oh, but they have to be online at the right time in order to see your post. And if your post doesn’t get enough interaction, Facebook’s algorithm will hide it. Especially if they have a lot of friends. Oh, they might like a bunch of other pages, too. But that’s ok because they are loyal to you, so surely they will wade through all the noise to find your posts in their newstream right? And the average lifespan of a tweet is what…5 seconds?

My point is - you’re always playing the percentages. What percent of your fans will see X? What percent will share it? What percent will eventually buy or evangelize? You need some mass in order to be continually reaching and growing. If your numbers are small, I am not suggesting that you quit. Just recognize that you are going to spend a lot of time reaching a very small number, for now. You have to grow. Size does matter.

Social Media Experts Exist

Social Media experts do not call themselves social media experts, gurus, or ninjas. If you see one of these, you are almost certainly looking at someone who is new to the arena. However, there are a lot of people that I would consider experts. If an expert is someone who has all the answers, then no - there are no social media experts. Nor financial experts. Nor art experts. Nor any marketing experts. But most elements of social media marketing are not new. The creative art, the science of human behavior, the data analysis, etc. are not new concepts. The tools are new.

We are still learning more and more about social media every day. There are new studies and new charts and figures flying left and right. But this will not stop until the internet stops evolving. In other words, never. There are professionals who can diagnose your business needs and create working solutions. Why can’t we call them experts?

Social Media Is New, Just Like The Internet

Some would argue that social media has been around for decades. I myself consider the true birth of social media to be when Myspace entered the scene, but if you want to consider earlier networks like Friendster, I certainly won’t argue with you. So let’s go with the latest case - Myspace - in 2004. That was 7 years ago. The internet started truly gaining in popularity around the time of Windows 95. But guess what? It wasn’t until 2000 that half of the U.S. had internet access. So if the popular internet is 11-16 years old, and social media is at least 7 years old…why are we so stuck on the fresh car smell of social media? It is all new.

The article claims that social media is just another step from traditional media, and to an extent I agree. But there are huge differences in the interactivity of the web, verses TV, print, radio, etc. To say it is just another step is really missing the point. I dare not cover all of that in this post, as many others have already been harping on this for a few years.

Social Media Can Be Outsourced

Sometimes.

This is another old debate. Can social media really be outsourced? There are two elements that most social media managers need: access to information and decision making capability. The real myth here is that internal community managers have any better access to these than someone who is outsourced.

The company must be dedicated to giving proper information to whomever is running the social channels, but the community managers must also have the ability to respond and act. If you can trust an agency to do this, and can make the flow of information efficient, then perhaps you can outsource. Of course, if you don’t believe in social media experts or the value of experience, then by all means go ahead and do it all yourself.

That’s the end of my rant. I do not claim to be an expert myself - I surely have a long way to go. But please don’t be fooled by these simple ear-pleasing statements. The truth is almost always, “it depends.”

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Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

I see this webpage everywhere I go

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

I see this webpage everywhere I go

Are film & game reviews a bad thing?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

I am glad we have sites like Rotten Tomatoes. Before I spend my money, I want to know that I’m picking a good movie. The same applies to video games. I love reading someone’s opinion so I know what to expect.

Not only that, but the more we spend our money based upon the reviews, the more consumers are demanding quality. If less people go to films with bad reviews, then there is more incentive for Hollywood to make great films. Right? I hope?

Unfortunately…I also think I ENJOY films/games less if I have any expectation. If I know something is supposed to be great, then I have high expectations. It’s easy to let me down if my expectations are high. On the flip side, it is also easy to spot the problems with a film/game if I have already read about them.

I prefer NOT to have expectations. I prefer NOT to know whether something is good or bad. I prefer NOT to know anything about the plot. But reviews are almost unavoidable and the movie trailers usually give half the movie away.

I’m still a sucker and the temptation is too great. I visit review sites constantly. And they aren’t going away, I know.

But when something truly exciting comes along, I try to avoid all trailers and reviews. I am usually glad I did.

You are dead wrong. I am dead wrong. Everyone is dead wrong. At...

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

You are dead wrong. I am dead wrong. Everyone is dead wrong.

At least…about SOMETHING. And you don’t know what it is.

If every person could write a list of every belief they hold (impossible), you probably wouldn’t find two lists alike on the planet. So either 1 out of 6+ billion people has everything figured out…or no one does. I tend to think the latter.

So try extra hard not to dismiss people so quickly. You could be dead wrong. On the flip side, we tend to treat certain trusted sources as if they are always right. Guess what? At any moment they may be dead wrong.

Image via http://xkcd.com/386/

A helpful guide: “Should you become a social media...

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

A helpful guide: “Should you become a social media consultant?”

Why do I believe art is important? Because it shapes people. And...

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Why do I believe art is important? Because it shapes people. And people shape culture. And culture shapes countries. And countries shape the world.

So ultimately, I have to believe that art can change the world.

So, while some artists try to affect change directly (see video) most artists just create what moves their soul, and hope it will stir something in others.

Yet this is incredibly powerful. Art often inspires and moves people. Think of how widely music and film are distributed in today’s world. There are people across the world who know Britney Spears and Michael Jordan, but have no clue who is president of the USA. Just yesterday I saw a video of a 4 year old Michael Jackson impersonator from China. This is just one example of American culture taking hold on the other side of the world.

Film is influencing future generations by saying, “See how [famous actor/actress] acts? Aspire to this!” Music is a global language and can potentially stir within anyone, making it cross borders with great ease. And I wonder how the architecture and value of classical art in countries like Italy impact their self-image and world-view?

All the artistic elements add up. For example, there seems to be (correct me if I’m wrong) a huge generational gap in values between the seniority and the youth in Japan. The world has opened up, and outside cultures are creeping into once closed-off countries.

Now let me be clear about a couple of things. First of all, I don’t mean to imply that culture is one-directional and that the U.S. is the great influencer. Most countries are both culture exporters and importers. Second of all, I don’t mean to over-value popular commercial artists. These have the greatest reach, but that doesn’t mean they always have the greatest impact on an individual. Any artist can have an effect on someone else, and every artist has a profound effect on their own life. Some of the most powerful artists, like JR and his video above, are not commercial or mainstream in any way.

Of course there are other factors at work affecting culture. Religion and business development come to mind. How would China change under religious freedom? How has China changed thanks to companies like Walmart?

So I propose a follow-up question: Do we have any responsibility in what art we create? For example, if pop artists write songs about drugs, drunkenness, and casual sex, then that’s what gets shipped out across the globe. I personally don’t believe censorship is the answer (at all!), but how do you ensure that you are having a positive influence on the world?

It’s late and I’m probably incoherent, so I’ll likely expand on this some future day. Let me know if I’m making sense.