Enjoying Japanese bistro at m cousins place "Shiki" in san Carlos http://twitpic.com/199l6x 6 hrs ago

Brian loathes the term ‘Social Media Optimization’

Categories: Social MediaPosted on November 29th, 2006

Respected Social Media practitioner Brian Oberkirch (who I just wrote about last night) doesn’t like people gaming the system, he says “There Is No Such Thing As Social Media Optimization“. He doesn’t like it because:

  • “You are link bait dressed as thought leadership”
  • You focus people on tools & rules instead of talk & understanding
  • You attempt to homogenize & productize what will really be a series of handmade, one-off engagements
  • You do ridiculous things like put yourself in Wikipedia to seem more legit
  • You attempt to ‘black box’ and complicate what should be made transparent, open, abundant
  • You drag that bullshit practice of SEO into the social media world”

As far as I see it, these are best practices based upon experience to use these tools to their maximum ability, I see nothing wrong with that. That of course, as long as they fall under the premise of being community and customer focused.

  • Ok, so we agree:

    Humans first.

    Efficient tools second.
  • Again, I love encouraging linkiness, mashups, etc. That's just smart thinking in a hyperconnected world. It's the idea that someone is going to be going around with a checklist, like: have we done the SMO? Yep, onward!
    That leaves them clueless about actually connecting to people & having real exchanges, and appeals only to the reptilian part of the brain that wants more Google juice.
    It's a distraction, is what I'm saying, I suppose.
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