I’m in a bit of a quandary.

When Klout hit the market, I admit the idea of measuring influence piqued my interest. Building one’s influence for the sake of free perks seemed like a great idea, and if Klout could become (as they claimed) the “Standard for online influence”, then finally we’d all have something to work toward. A way to counteract the million-a-day marketing messages we’re exposed to and place more power in the hands of the consumer.

Of course, I assumed that they were using a complicated algorithm to measure true reach. That they had subtle methods of measuring the relevance and value of conversations.

When you assume though, well, you know.

I just read this post on gaming klout, and this follow up that includes more examples of gaming klout. And my heart sank.

I’ll show you the most nefarious examples. Mi has a Klout score of 72. The Borg Collective has a Klout Score of 57.

In the first case, user Mi has 2 tweets, no fans and no followers. The Borg Collective, conversely, has thousands of tweets – but all of them are the same, they read @someusername: YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED (apparently they can’t even be bothered to add “resistance is futile” every now and then).

So, for everything I’ve added, my tweets and my Facebook pages and my blogs and my Google+ profile, it seems I’ve been wasting my time. I should really have just set up a bot to tweet the same thing over and over again.

This is my quandary, I really do think Klout is a good idea. I think measuring online influence is a big part of the future of social media and social signals in SEO. But not when the scores come from a system that’s so obviously broken.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on October 3, 2011 at 9:44 am, filed under Social Media and tagged Facebook, Google, klout, Twitter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on September 30, 2011 at 3:37 pm, filed under Social Media. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Klout is a platform for measuring online influence. You hook your social profiles into it and in turn, Klout gives you a score based on factors like reach and influence of fans and followers (what the likelihood of your stuff getting shared is).

Influence is cool, but what I really like about Klout is relevance. More than a score, Klout will tell me what I’m talking about most and on what subjects I’m considered an authority.

For an SEO strategy, this is invaluable.  Relevance, always relevance, is the thing at the core of every SEO strategy. It’s the holy grail, the undefinable “it”, except it’s defined here – and measurable.

For many companies, this is a great way to move from a position of just talking to talking about something.  Not saying it has to be all business, but as a business, you should have a goal for being on social media.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on September 29, 2011 at 8:35 am, filed under Search Engine Optimization, Social Media and tagged klout, SEO. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Facebook recently announced some massive changes in their user interface. It’s making some big waves in social circles, every journalist worth their salt is taking the time to comment on the new sharing tools and overhaul to Facebook’s infrastructure.

Not such a freak for the technical discussions, which are occurring elsewhere, I’m interested in the philosophical discussion. What does Facebook want from us? What do they think we want? Can Facebook and Google+ share the same mindspace?

My initial thought is, yes, and no – there’s currently room for both – but eventually people will leave one for the other, depending on how much they want to share and how they want to share it.

Facebook wants your whole life. They want your recipes, your running routes, your work information and your personal and professional history. They want your hobbies, your musical and movie interests, all for the sake of helping categorize you and helping others similar to you discover new things. (They also want to sell you more relevant ads, but that’s another topic)

It’s a good plan, and it fits with Facebook’s mission which is to “Make the world a more open and candid place.”  I’m just not sure I’m comfortable sharing that much (or using a system where I have to opt-out of sharing).

Google+, on the other hand, has a different approach to sharing and discovery. I believe that Google, like Facebook, wants all the world’s information. But while Facebook wants to use that information to provide answers to questions we haven’t asked yet and open the books of our lives for all to read, I think Google will stay on path to “organize all the world’s information” and ultimately, wait until we ask the question.

I like Facebook, but I’m concerned that the new changes are based almost entirely in sharing and discovery and not enough in conversation, which Google+ has a definite advantage with. Facebook’s take on personal privacy is equally off-putting, and it seems as though if you have something to hide, then Facebook doesn’t want you in their sandbox.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on September 28, 2011 at 12:00 pm, filed under Social Media and tagged Facebook, Google. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Apparently, it’s August already.  I’m not entirely sure how that happened, but I suppose that’s the way of summer.

A lot has happened though, much that warrants commenting.  Most to do with Google, some to do with me.  I know you’ve probably got plans to go beaching, or do some yardwork, so I’ll keep it brief.

• Many of my thoughts about the direction Google+ will take are echoed here in a post by Tom Anderson.  Highlights include, no (or little) advertising and a focus on people over brands.  Basically, my thought is that Google+ will continue to focus on people, and if they allow brands to get involved in a meaningful way it will be as things that belong to the person, not the other way around – as it is with Facebook and Twitter.  If it’s not clear what I mean,  it has to do with ownership, which I’ll talk about later.
• Google places is now linking out to third-party reviews instead of displaying them on places pages and there’s a big, red, shiny button encouraging people to use Google reviews in addition to Yelp and other local sites.  I think this is a push towards putting everything in the cloud and allowing websites to focus on being informative.
• I have learned how to properly hyphenate; I still struggle with the semi-colon.
• I’m building a new website.  It’s lighter, faster, centered around text and type. I’m also looking for a new WordPress theme.
• My bio is here now, on an about.me page.  I’m also test-driving a flavors.me page. about.me is free, flavors.me seems to have more features – which I would have to pay for.
• I’m working a lot with QR codes, mobile websites and other location-based services, like near-field communications.

More (or less) blogging in the fall. Stay tuned for a new site, a new blog format and more goodies for all fans, followers and visitors to Harbour City SEO.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on August 8, 2011 at 11:29 am, filed under Content Marketing, Marketing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Just the other day, I was asked by a client if it was a good idea to have a blog.

“I dunno.” Was my response to them. “What would you say if you had one?”

I think the question they were really asking me was “Is it true that blogs are good for business?”. I like this question, and I like  the answer even better.  It’s unequivocally, unarguably and resoundingly “yes!”.

So is a blog a thing for writers?  Sure it is, if you like to write.  It’s also a thing for photographers, videographers, social media lovers, artists, newshounds, researchers,  It’s for anybody with something to say.

There’s no shortage of advice out there on how to blog, and no shortage of great blogs to draw inspiration from. To answer the question of whether you should have a blog or not, well, I don’t think it makes good business sense for people to wander too far outside their comfort zone or to do a thing “just because”. If you love to write, write. If you love to draw, draw, and share your art with the world.  So long as you love what you’re doing and you do it often, I think you can’t really go wrong.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on July 6, 2011 at 3:50 pm, filed under Content Marketing, Copywriting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

This post is written entirely in the Museo Slab 100 font.

Since it made its way to the scene a couple of years ago I’ve been hopelessly in love with Museo, a typeface from the exljbris font foundry that includes serif, sans-serif and slab serif varieties of different weights.  I love it so much, I’m using it in an upcoming site development project alongside Press Gothic.

Additionally, I’m in love with this stuff from Riley Cran (of Xelent Design and the Lost Type Co-op). Beautiful color palettes, killer retro-robots and sci-fi wickedness, three of my favourite things – Some nice typefaces too.

In other news, I had some minor surgery yesterday. The post-op instructions were written in Comic Sans – something you should  never do, as Comic Sans is to be used only for kids’ birthday parties (Times, or Arial would have been suitable).  I’m half tempted to report them to Comic Sans Criminal for their naughty behaviour, but I’m still a bit out of it.

I feel like maybe this blog is a bit sub par, but I figure it’s better to write something than nothing, and I’ve written nothing for long enough.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on June 24, 2011 at 3:57 pm, filed under Fonts. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I’ve been on Linkedin for years. As an individual, as a company, I’ve maintained a presence. But I’ve never really put much effort into promoting myself or my content beyond the hooks into my Twitter and Facebook feeds and the occasional connection with an associate.  Mostly because Linkedin never seemed to do more than it had been doing for years. No growth, no modernization. Other platforms grew by leaps and bounds while Linkedin stayed stagnant.

Lately though, that seems to be changing.  I’ll point to the recent shift in how Linkedin deals with companies (via Sprout Social: Insights), and Klout just announced that they’re bringing Linkedin into the fold (as well as about.me and a +K widget, but that’s a story for later).  Back in December of ’10, Linkedin announced a recommend widget. Old news, I know, but I’ve only recently seen people using the button.

So, what does it mean? Even if this stuff is old, it’s being talked about more which means that people are going to take it more seriously.  That means you should take it more seriously, so go and sign up, and don’t forget to connect with me while you’re there.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on June 14, 2011 at 4:03 pm, filed under Social Media. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Marketing, for the most part, is based on guesswork. Educated guesswork, sure, but guesswork still.  For instance, I could say that most of the household purchasing decisions are made by women, and I would be right.  I could say that when you appeal to people’s fear (fear of loss, fear of missing out), you motivate them to make a purchase, and I would be right.

And so it goes. Marketers, many of them, know these things. They know how people think and how they’re going to react.

But that’s people, and people react differently than a single person. So while we can, with reasonable certainty, know how people (many persons) will react to a given situation, we can almost never know how a person will react.  People are complicated, emotional, unpredictable.

The challenge for marketers then, is to listen. Social media presents a unique opportunity to actually know what people are talking about. Ask them a question, they’ll give you an answer. The great, big BBDO style agencies are too busy being awesome to stop and listen. In my mind, that’s a clear advantage for the rest of us. We have the time, the inclination, and we are poised to react.  All we need to do is stop, and listen. The answers are out there.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on June 13, 2011 at 7:46 pm, filed under Marketing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

When I say local search, I mean the map listings that appear in the SERPs for local queries.  I know what you may be thinking, you’re thinking that results are results, right? That targeting regular SERPs involves the same strategies as local listings.

Well, it’s not true.  Local search is a very different animal than standard search. Different criteria are used to set relevance for map results over standard results.  The result is complications for small businesses, as you need a strategy that balances your main search queries alongside locally oriented queries to ensure that you come out on top for both.

The good news is that, like any of the search results, once you get to the top few listings it’s pretty easy to stay there and you can spend more time on conversion and external marketing projects and less time chasing the space above the fold.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on June 9, 2011 at 9:44 pm, filed under Search Engine Optimization. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.