Social Marketing Revolution

Why Klout Matters
Interesting development. Klout is the great undervalued asset of the social marketing revolution. Problem with Klout is no one trusts it. When I tried to explain why trust is MOOT to my previous employers they didn't get it. 

Trust is moot because in the absence of anything else some metrics always beat no metrics. My previous employer was arguing the "Where's the ROI" argument when the content marketing we created raised their Klout score 292%.

As an Internet marketer debate over whether 2 + 2 = 4 is moot because so what (lol). If something tells me WHY 2 + 2 = 4 or how I can get the social shares and viral lift I need from it then we can make money.

The other point I made is when something goes up 292% ASSUME there was ROI benefit. THAT is the correct debate to have - the attribution debate. I could argue 50% of new business was influenced by our content marketing and they would argue something less.

But at least we would be having the right argument in the right way (lol). M  

Just got a great tweet from Jack Varnell:

Jack Varnell ‏@jackvarnell 2m

@ScentTrail - Agreed but it is all taxonomy. Could also say there will ALWAYS be new #SEO http://sco.lt/6jc0iP  via @scoopit #SEO

AGREE with Jack. The way he says it the emphasis is where it belongs - on the constant sea of change as Google and everyone else iterates code daily and hourly some day soon.

Radical SEO Idea
In 2003 I climbed up on a soapbox and tried to sell my Direct Marketing bosses on content marketing. They knew content because they paid BIG BUCKS to copywriters.

DM writers seemed to have a magic wand. They could tell a story that motivated people open their mail and call the call center. Today we need so much less WORK from our customers and yet achieving that "less work" is so much harder.

My radical idea is THERE IS NO "NEW SEO".

I'm not saying that half of this infographic (the new half) isn't helpful. It is helpful, but the idea of comparison is a) moot and b) not as dramatic as this comparison makes it feel and seem.

Understanding the WHY and WHAT is moot. The new SEO simply IS and they have a solid presentation of the "new SEO" here. The problem is boiling the new SEO down to an infographic chart with little boxes denies the interconnection between each of these pieces of sinew and the highly dynamic nature of this new mobile social web.

Mobile and social are dancing on a fire. One hand of the dancer, the hand holding the phone, pours gas on the fire even as the other hand, the social hand, tries to share the very HOT experience.

SO, focus on one side of this infographic and don't get caught up in why, how, who. Focus on how the new SEO is a tapestry and your marketing may need a massive RETHINK to play well with the new constantly and quickly changing Google.

Social Dominance & New SEO
I wrote Storytelling is the New SEO (http://www.slideshare.net/martinmartysmith/storytelling-new-seo ) because we play for shares. If we play for shares some content, the content capable of generating shares, is more important than other content.

This is especially true in the case of "social search" or Facebook's new "graph search" that moves technical SEO to the backseat as social search drives the car. Because when you are in a car looking for pizza you don't care about technical SEO. You care about what tastes good :). 

If that is the case, then the WAY we generate content needs to change. We need to CURATE more since our curation sends the "we are listening and care about someone's take other than our own" signal and because we can test with curation and then confirm with creation.

Storytelling is the new SEO has almost 7,000 views so it struck a nerve. The nerve it struck is our attempts at understanding the new SEO, the more social SEO the SEO dominated by social signals.