Yes, it puts your butt on the line. Yes, some people will like you less because of who you are.

But the people who like you and follow you and your business will actually like YOU, not some funky-ass image you think portrays you as the world’s biggest social media mogul on steroids — who wants to hang with those cranky whiny dudes anyway???

And, if you’re tweeting about knee-socks and baked potatoes, at least you’re tweeting about things that interest you, and if you’re carrying on a twitter conversation, apparently someone else cares too…

And John M, I go to SXSW every year (what a kick!), so I’m going to follow you on twitter in hopes of getting invited to whatever kind of get together you’re planning :-) Heck, I think I’ll follow Lisa too, even though I’m totally not into knee socks, in case she has more insightful comments about authenticity in the cyber world:-)

Anny (@AnnySavvant)

Yes the Scoble moment at SXSW was kind of funny. I like the guy, but I could care less about 90% of what he tweets. So I don’t do Scoble.

You nailed it with this quote, “It’s like the Paris Hilton effect of SEO where people are famous for doing nothing.” But it’s not really SEO at this point it’s SMM or Social Media Marketing.

So at SXSW I propose we DO something next year. Rather than talk all the time, I want to launch and connect and do something for Good. What cha’ think?

Cheers,
@jmacofearth
uber.la

Now dont get me wrong, I do have an issue with the SEO experts who spend more time talking about themselves then doing work, however I dont have anything against them personally. As the saying going it is just business, nothing personal!

I love going to IAB meetings or events for mainstream media and have people ask what I do and see they have no clue about search. Most have not heard of Danny Sullivan or Rand Fishkin or Matt Cutts or any of us.

They do know who Larry and Sergey are… they have created something. Many know Facebook, MySpace and Twitter even, but they use it to communicate with their friends and take little notice of the rest of us trying to brand ourselves.

Robert Scoble is a journalist of sorts but is unknown outside our small space.

Jason Calacanis is another well known in our space – hey he made some serious money being at the front of some technology but like the guy who created TV not too many people know who he is.

I like writing – have an advanced journalism degree and actually worked for real newspapers – but also do actual client work. Analytics, PPC and SEO have helped me make money.

Doing stuff is important – writing about it from reading others is just regurgitation.

Great topic and good debate… we need to get over ourselves.

Ultimately we’re as culpable as he was for what went down. In many ways it was lazy of us to just try and buy some cachet and not focus harder on the quality of our product on our own. I think we figured that by bringing in one of the Big Guns some of his prestige and ‘buzz’ would just magically drape itself across our product–which was a big mistake. It’s truly quality that counts, and in some cases that really isn’t something you can just buy.

In no way do I think all ‘rockstars’ would behave as the one we dealt with did. There are lot of people out there (I’ll name @sugarrae as an example) who really DO know their shit and who I know have done solid work for people. I meant only to clarify how dangerous buying blindly into this whole celeb mindset can be.

To be really fair, almost every day I employ things I’ve learned from following our rockstar’s work and it has served me well. Clearly he knows what he was talking about but given that we’d already read all his books and paid for all the conferences we could have saved ourselves spending further 10’s of $1000’s and just done the work ourselves. I suppose the one positive outcome of the whole situation was that I came away feeling a lot more confident in my own ability and level of knowledge. No more blind guru worship for us.

“And to any ‘rockstar’ out there reading this who does take on client work: Please remember that if you added us on Facebook and we follow you on Twitter it tends to burn a little when you rant off about how you’re slaving so hard on our long overdue project all the while Tweeting about your drunktastic good times in SFO.”

Let’s vote that paragraph as Comment of the Thread.

Some of the many posts in this thread are right on as well. Nice comments in here. The funny thing is; I’ve been around almost as long as Terry has (above post), and Terry; some of us DO KNOW you, lol, and I have never read a single article by this Scoble guy and truly do not know what he does?? I’m sorry Robert as you may be the greatest and the nicest guy, but I’ve probably been around longer than even you, and I just don’t know what you do. Yep; I’ve heard of your name, but that is it. Please enlighten me about who you are as maybe it would help many of us in here. I’m being serious. I know you don’t know me as well as thousands of others, and that’s fine as being some kind of rockstar has never appealed to me. I LOVE what a comment stated above about how some “rockstar” didn’t do the job. I don’t like not getting the other side of things however, as helping clients for many years can be a pain in the butt. It’s best to hear both sides of the story.

Lisa; One thing I disagree with… just one. I’m with the poster above who wants to see “evidence”. I loved what you wrote, but people reading who are not tied to the industry do not understand things unless names are put to the posts out there. This is a major problem with the industry on many levels…. NO accountability NOR standards whatsoever. Not only is personal branding out of whack, but it ties into the mentality of the industry not wanting to be accountable to the general public. The industry wants “everyone” included no matter what they do or how they do it.

Cant wait for the “SEO experts” out there to start talking about how brands ARE important for SEO and should rank higher! Whatever – this is why I laugh at most of the big talkers and walk out of most SEO focused sessions at conferences. It is all big talk with no action…I was at SMX East last year and walked out of most “advanced” sessions due to being bored to tears. However, when I set up shop in the common area I sat with a few other people who felt the same way…in fact I learned more from these people who either worked in-house or for an agency then I would have from all of the SEO sessions put together!

Here is a show idea – SES and SMX are becoming pointless for anyone with a base-line knowledge of SEO. How about focusing on a roundtable setup where you sit with other people and even “experts” and have true discussions on things that matter!