Having thought long and hard about it, the deeper levels of link building involve … wait or it… engagement. Blog commentary, joining discussion forums, and basically having a constant presence ‘out there’ is a better link building exercise than mere directory submissions. This means being fully tuned-in to the psyche of the brand. Of course, the downside is that it is time consuming and the benefits are intangible and almost impossible to track.

The one other critical aspect in my humble opinion is that unless you are linking at valuable content, then please don’t waste your time and money trying to build links. You may risk driving your customers way out of the pool.

The point of this post is: will my clients listen? Will they allow me to repurpose their copy? Will they dig into some of that marketing budget and throw some of it at genuine I-give-a-real-damn customer participation?

I’ll keep you posted.

Each Module is Like a Different Chocolate

I wondered:

• Is it going to be soft-centred and smooth on the tongue?
• Is it going to be a praline, hard and gritty?
• Is it going to be my favourite kind, chocolate-covered hazelnut?
• Is it going to be toffee-like or chewy?
• Is it going to make me a little tipsy?
• Most of all, am I going to “groove” on it?

What the SA Writer’s Course Was It wasn’t any one of the above, but more like a little bit of all of the above. The introduction led me in smoothly, like rich milk chocolate melting slowly, I thought, this was going to be a picnic in the park. But soon enough by module 3, I had to start sharpening my teeth because keywords got somewhat hard and gritty, and I knew I had to crack it to move any further.

When I finally managed to crunch through Google Adwords, I could really start sinking my teeth into some nice chewy blogging and social networking. WordPress and Facebook were old friends, which the web writing course forced me to me revisit and fine tune.

Content writing and newsletters was my hazelnut engulfed in a thick creamy milk chocolate casing. But…oh wait… what’s this? This unexpected little titbit… web fiction, flash fiction, fan fiction? Oh no.

Bittersweet, a little out of place… whiskey and rum, let’s give it go what the hell…. Oh hey, not so bad, have a little more… hmmm. Ok, I got pleasantly tipsy on fiction.

There are a fair amount of boxes of chocolates out there. But you may not get as much variety in each box as you would with the SA Writer’s web writing course. And as they say in the classics, variety is the spice of life, and if writing for the web is your life, then get this box of chocolates.

Now, I am a writer, and writer’s love to write, especially to dear friends and family who appreciate my witty repartee. So it goes to reason that receiving friendly emails in between the business ones are some of life’s daily pleasures. What I find astonishing is that after all the time I have been engaging with friends in the way I always do, somewhat cranky, somewhat ascerbic, that they sometimes still get the wrong impression. And I don’t blame them.

To illustrate, the reply I sent went like this: “I hope my running will never get to the point of being this technical. Perhaps you’d like a job in online monitoring, tracking and analytics reporting. I think you’d find it a blast. Though, like everything web-based, it’s not enough knowing one aspect, and pretty soon you’ll be caught in an intricate web of PR, SEO, SEM, SM, ORM, CGM, RSS and a host of crazy shit leaving you very little time to breathe, never mind answer emails, go for a long walk, kick the theraband, or ice an injury.”

If I didn’t know me any better, I would probably percieve this as blunt and unsympathetic. It wasn’t at all meant to be, but more a bad attempt at killing two birds with one stone by venting what was on my mind whilst acknowledging his messages . This could then be construed as selfish, because all he wanted was some simple words of encouragement, not a blatant rant at his expense.

However, if I had taken the time to reread it and insert the appropriate punctuation and emoticons:

“I hope my running will never get to the point of being this technical! Perhaps you’d like a job in online monitoring, tracking and analytics reporting? I think you’d find it a blast Though, like everything web-based, it’s not enough knowing one aspect, and pretty soon you’ll be caught in an intricate web of PR, SEO, SEM, SM, ORM, CGM, RSS and a host of crazy shit leaving you very little time to breathe, never mind answer emails, go for a long walk, kick the theraband, or ice an injury:(

It wouldv’e turned the whole thing around, and we probably would still be talking.

(Just for the record, we still talk and train together.)

Who Needs Normal

When the final whistle blows on Sunday 11th July 2010, life will return to normal. But normal has never had allure. What transpires from the ending of the World Cup,  will be masses of abnormal people, all walking around like zombies, unable to function, unable to love. Empty and confused. Suicidal.

Love Hurts

The World Cup has, in many ways, and for many people, been a newly found lover. Wooing and flirting until it won over our hearts. Because of it, we laughed and cried for joy, patiently stood in queues to spend our hard earned money, we bunked and left work early, we drove, we flew, we ran. All because we wanted to spend time with it. And now, in a few days time, it will leave us.

There have been accounts of soccer fans already starting to feel it. With the decline in matches, a melancholy cloud hangs over them, and on the night of the final, they weep themselves to sleep, knowing that they have to return to fully functional, responsible, grown ups once again. This is the one and only night that these men ever cry, every four years.

Attempt to Keep the Euphoria

Noble attempts by organisations and corporations to sustain the high hope to dampen the depression of the morose masses.  Will the 30 day campaign to keep the tattered old flag flying be enough? Course not. Julius Malema will come back, Eskom will continue to leech us, and someone will inevitable go on strike. Still, I’m all for keeping the flag flying, as long as they aren’t made in China, or Korea, or Bangladesh…

So in this final countdown, I’ll leave you with these words from a heartbroken soccer fan: “I wish this World Cup could just go on forever, in some twilight zone-esque, eternal, pleasurable purgatory.”

I got me a vuvuzela and I'm-a gonna blow it

In a recent news24 poll that asked the question:”What’s your feeling as the World Cup draws to an end?” 23% (5469) voters said: “At least the vuvuzela craze is finally coming to an end.”

Meanwhile, on Google trends, “Should the World Cup ban the Vuvuzela?” the news entry peaked at over 150 on the search volume index over the June 2010 Soccer World Cup period.

The Sound of a Baby Elephant in Pain

Now my personal experience is this: having been subjected to hooting vuvuzelas on arrival at Cape Town Airport and even furthermore at the Waterfront, plus having the gardener’s 6 year old blasting away endlessly, I started hating it more and more.

I mean, c’mon. It doesn’t even sound good. It’s just loud and obnoxious. Either that or it’s an angry prehistoric creature arising from the depths of the earth, awakening to the call of other equally dreadful monsters. No way was I ever going to love these frightening things. Nevertheless, I was still in the ‘gees’ of the World Cup Soccer craze, and had tickets to go and watch match 24 at Ellis Park, Italy vs Slovakia.

Oh, I didn’t I didn’t much care who won here. The excitement of using the Rea Vaya and the Metro Bus system, enjoying the presence of tourists and friendly South African faces, and being in awe of the fantastic stadium was motivation enough. Armed with my precious earplugs, I braved my way into the throng.

Unused Earplugs up for Grabs

I’m not sure what happened exactly, perhaps it was the excitement of it all, or the happy snappy moments. I laughed, I yelped, I acted like a tourist. When Italy scored I cheered. When Slovakia scored, I cheered. And the earplugs? What earplugs.

How Much for the Yellow Vuvuzela?

The following week I was online and buying tickets for the match between Ghana and USA. Not because I wanted (or didn’t want) to use my earplugs, you understand, but because I had a real need to support Ghana. Making my way to the Royal Bafokeng Stadium took an hour longer than anticipated. By the time I parked my car, I still had about a kilometer to walk. I could see the lit-up stadium against the darkened sky. It was 10 minutes to kick-off so I began to run. The sound of vuvuzelas grew closer, beckoning… My heart raced, my head spun, I ran faster.

When Ghana scored the first goal I couldn’t contain myself. Yes, I blew my vuvuzela like I never imagined I ever would in this lifetime. What can I say? I’m an African. In Africa, baby elephants are born every day.

With over 400 million active users and more than  550 000 active applications, we all love or hate it for different reasons. And it stands to reason that the more you interface with it, the more things you’ll find to love, and hate, about it.

I belong to the other half of the world who do not log in to Facebook every day , who really only bothers to do so when prompted to accept a friend, confirm a photo request tag, answer a message, and occasionally upload pics I want to brag about.  You could say I have a casual love/hate relationship with Facebook, so in no particular order, reasons to love/hate Facebook:

Eight Reasons Why I Hate Facebook

1. The interface sucks. Finding your way around is like stumbling around in a dark street at twilight. You know there are things lurking in the alleyways but you don’t know what, or if you do, you don’t know where, and they’re not worth trying to find.
2. I don’t like Becoming a Fan and I’m not a fan of Like. Just because I’m interested in something doesn’t mean I Like. And once you Like you are branded.
3. Facebook is using Like to push. Everything is about what you click on. Okay, but I haven’t seen any useful pushes at me so far. Is it because I Like so little?
4. I get to befriend people from 80 years ago and find out just how great they’re doing while I’m not.
5. I get to befriend people from 80 years ago to find out how hot they are while I’m not.
6. Messages should be monetized after 14 free messages a week. It would stop those who post a zillion messages in a day. I still don’t know if I’ve offended my friends by hiding them because I don’t know if they know I’ve hidden them.
7. There are a gazillion groups in Facebook, most of which seem to sit there like big white elephants that members have forgotten to feed.
8. I am just another unpaid employee in Facebook’s quest for world domination.
9. Facebook is everywhere. Facebook is invading your space in a way you just don’t know.

The One Reason to Love Facebook

• Facebook lives up to its (new) mission: To give the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

And that’s one reason enough to make us stick around. I guess a casual love/hate relationship ain’t that bad anyway.

Top Ten Twitter Trends Today

On a global level, 92% of the top trends that featured didn’t ring a bell with me. But okay, nevermind what it says about me, let’s concentrate on what it says about net users.

1. First up is Bonamana, the name of a single by a 13-member South Korean boy band Super Junior. Young, kpoppy, and mainstream.
2. #sujucomeback – SuJu is an abbreviation of Super Junior, just in case you didn’t notice.
3. #anydaynow – general topics
4. #myquestionis – general topics
5. SuKiRa, believe it or not, stands for Super Junior’s Kiss the Radio. More than that I cannot say and need I even say it?
6. Comeback Stage – whatever this is, its having the youth peeing in their pants from excitement.
7. Chong Wei – Malaysian badminton star Lee Chong Wei won his first All England title.
8. Eenie Meenie – Eenie meenie miney mo, Catch a bad chick by her toe, If she holla let her go. It’s a chart-topping song by Justin Bieber (who?) who began his career as a YouTube star. Some people really make the web work for them.
9. Greyson – 12-year old Greyson Chance has become a viral overnight sensation. Yes, through YouTube. It doesn’t get faster than this. Run for your lives!
10. Garzon – High profile Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon was unanimously suspended from his post by the general council of the judiciary.

Top Twitter Trend Analysis

• Seven out of the top ten most talked about topics are music-related.
• Five are Asian-fan based.
• Two internet pop stars.
• Sandwiched in the middle is a sport topic, which just happens to be Asian.
• Country politics squeaks through in last position.
• At least 60% of tweeters are under 20 years of age.