MarkAttwood.com

Yahoo will soon be out of business with this kind of crap

No call to action.

No benefit.

No feature.

No web address.

No response mechanism.

No sense whatsoever.

Who are the biggest idiots here? The “creative” agency that dreamed this shit up, or the Yahoo! employee that commissioned it?

I was very interested to receive information about this new Twitter app called Tweetglide today.

Interested because it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out a way of harnessing twitter for marketing in a non obtrusive and non-spammy way.

I watched the video explaining how it works. Very smooth. But then could not get the idea out of my head that the model is very MLM (Multi-Level Marketing or “Pyramid selling”). As soon as I hear the word “downline” and “you can earn $$$$” and “if the five people you recommend sign up five people and then they all sign up five people, think of the $$$ you would make”, it gets me all twittery (excuse the pun . If you ever signed up for MLM stuff in your fledgling business career like me, you’ll know what I mean.

I did go for the download, because I’m just too damned curious, but my Mac didn’t like it and went to great pains to explain to me how this app wanted full access to my machine and that it represented a threat. So I chickened out.

I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts on this. I have linked to it above, but that’s a straight link not an affiliate link, so feel free to use it secure in the knowledge that I have no interest in profiting from you going there – I just want to know what you think to it?

I, like many others, know that the marketing potential of twitter is utterly monstrous, but is a pyramid model really the best way to do it? Except for the person at the top of the pyramid?

If I’m completely wrong, please let me know.

This is a trailer for a full 40 minute interview with one of Britain’s most well-known entrepreneurs, Rachel Elnaugh. You can get the full interview inside my Inner Circle

Rachel talks about her business highs and lows, the runaway success of Red Letter Days, her time on BBC2′s Dragons Den, her work as a mentor, author and speaker, plus her views on where the world is going, both in terms of business and spiritually.

At dinner with Ken McCarthy the other week, we got around to talking about our experiences with people we had met in business that had left us, shall we say, a little worse for wear.

We compared notes on certain characters that had charmed their way into our lives and subsequently attempted to rip the guts out of our businesses. It was refreshing to know that I was not the only one who had experienced this kind of thing a number of times, but even better to know that it is such a problem in business that there has been a book written on the subject! It’s called “Snakes in Suits”.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. If you’ve ever had a business relationship with someone that promises a lot, butters up your ego, manipulates you to such an extent you don’t realise it until it’s too late, brings in their own “people”, undermines you consistently behind your back, steals from you (ideas, money, shares and clients), lies to your friends – you will recognise the characters in this book.

If this has not happened to you, get this book now! It is far better to be forewarned.

The book itself describes itself as “A revealing look at psychopaths in the workplace – how to spot their destructive behaviour and stop them from creating choas”.

It is written by Paul Babiak, PH.D. and Robert D Hare, PH.D and gets right into the detail of how to become aware of the subtle warning signs of psycopathic behaviour – before it’s too late.

Okay, real time search is just that: searches organized chronologically. That’s what Twitter Search does.

But now Bing has tried to rank twitter searches in order of “relevancy”, with the relevancy factor being how many followers a twitter account has. It does this with a “Best Match” option.

Take a look at their Beta version of this here if you live in the US: Bing Twitter Search. It’s not available in the UK yet, but you can use a proxy server to give you a US IP address for free using Hotspot Shield – easy peasy. (Note: HotSpotShield does have an annoying advert at the top of every page you surf, but it serves the purpose).

This is because Microsoft, who own Bing, have done deals with both Facebook and Twitter, which points to the mainstreaming of Social Media, and will have profound effects on anyone wanting to rank in the SERPs. We know that Google is doing something with Twitter and is in talks with Facebook, the results of which will affect us all.

Bing say: “If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher. If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower.”

So what does this mean for someone who has just got on Twitter, has something very important to say, but has no weight because they’ve not got enough followers yet?

Very interesting for SEO.

My thoughts on this are simple: if you’re in business you need to be tweeting. Not any old crap, tweet with good quality content. It will build up your following, add more weight to your tweets, get you more SEO traction and exposure down the line. Like all SEO, it’s about quality content.

Click for a preview of my Twitter Success for Business: The Basics guide.

Click here to find out about our exclusive Blogging Seminar.

An exclusive seminar for all business owners that want to get more out of their online marketing…

The Art of Blogging For Business

Presented by Ken McCarthy and Mark Attwood
November 16th, Cheshire, England

Back in 1994, Ken McCarthy held the world’s first Internet Marketing Seminar in San Francisco. You can see it on YouTube here:

Ken was the first person to recognize that the internet is a direct response medium. His students have gone on to make billions online over the past decade and a half.

Since 2003 he has run the world’s most highly respected internet marketing seminar, The System, in Chicago every year.

I had the privilege of speaking at Ken’s System UK Intensive in London in September this year.

I also gave Ken, a New Yorker, his first taste of the North of England by showing him around my home town of Manchester.

If you have no idea who I am, this is a clip of me speaking at the British Library in London in the summer of ’09. It was a 90 minute talk at Rachel Elnaugh’s “Marketing Magicians” event, and this is me talking about the long tail opportunity:

There’s more info on me here, here and here. (If the pages change, don’t worry, that’s just me split testing them).

Anyway – Ken was so taken with it, and so intrigued by the way I use blogs to generate income, that he suggested we hold a one-off, one day seminar on the subject in Manchester on November 16th. BTW: this is NOT about affiliate marketing or “Flogs” (fake blogs) or any of that stuff.

It’s about how real business owners can use readily available software and, mixed with the right strategy, can harness that power to generate more online reputation, seo power, traffic, indirect income and much, much more. Take a look around the testimonials on this site to get an insight into the non-Guru, non-BS approach I take to marketing education.

Then take a look at where this blog ranks for the term “internet marketing expert” on the UK Google server (this pic taken at 12.05pm on Saturday 17th October, click to enlarge):

This was achieved in a matter of a few months, almost accidentally, with no on-page SEO initially, with a blog that I only started in February, with much lower PR than other pages in the same niche and with less links than much of the competition.

It’s just one of scores of quality blogs I operate pulling in serious traffic and long term business growth.

If you want to find out more, sign up to get on the list right away. We’re keeping the location secret and the numbers low, so sign up below NOW to find out more:

Please note: This is not a “get rich quick” thing – this is serious minded stuff from serious minded (although with a heavy dose of humour) people. When you sign up you’ll get direct access details to me and my team and you’ll be able to call me directly with any questions which we’ll happily answer.