Personally, I liked your article. It was informative and showed some of the interesting ways in which you use the medium to generate interest. Some of the methods are questionable, but you achieved your goal, and were kind enough to share it with us. A follow up post about the money generated from sales would be interesting.
Spam? Black hat? Do you even use Twitter? I'd advise you to go conduct a Twitter search for any given trend, and return with an assessment of the value those results carried. I'm wiling to bet that you'll find a good 99.9% of what you find to be 'spam.'
What I did was no different than what you see on television when you hear 'the cure to weight loss is here!' It's tapping into the human psyche and appealing to a very irrational part of the human mind. Just like how Apple markets their products as 'these will make you look hip instantly!' Sure, you could argue that because it was swine flu, I was dealing with a more sensitive and morally weighty issue, but I'm sure more people die every year of obesity, etc. And to be fair, the name of my account, flushirts, and the shirt linked, shirts that said 'oinkment' or 'theraswineflu,' did provide some context to those tweets.
You are more than justified in arguing that other things I did can be perceived as unethical. My use of Twitter, however, was not. I used it to directly communicate with those who were discussing a topic I happened to be catering to. And the 'Breaking:..' tweets were just a way to grab attention amidst a society in an irrational and unnecessary panic. That's how some marketing works. That's how Apple conducts its marketing, believe it or not, as subtle as it may be.
Like I mentioned, this was really nothing more than an experiment. I certainly would not have done that if I was trying to generate buzz for a legitimate company. These were the efforts of a broke college student who thought it interesting to see if he could ride the swine flu hysteria. And to a certain extent, I was able to ride it. It was a great learning experience.
I'm pretty sure having links with the same color as the background can get your site penalized. Just put your link in your signature. Or edit the post a day later.
I think this is the power of twitter - to be able to hear word of mouth, and influence it. Like any communication, it doesn't need to be done in a misleading way.
This might be partly why twitter gets so much mainstream press/TV: it is a good thing for their advertisers.
The fellas from Heyzap seem to have timed their SwineFighter similarly and were mentioned in that same Techcrunch post. I wonder how much their marketing experience parallels that of kyro.
The tactics employed in that post are pretty much the reason I hate "search engine optimizers", "search engine marketers", et al. They're also the reason I end up on Hacker News instead of Digg and Reddit; people who expend so much energy trying to game the system end up ruining it.
While the author may have made a quick buck, they did so at the cost of their customer's trust and their own credibility. Once lost, they're impossible to regain. I think the author should follow Seth Godin or Gary Vaynerchuck for a while and learn the value of honest, permissions based marketing.
Interesting article. Even more interesting are the reponses with regard to your 'black hat' tactics of generating the buzz. There's no such thing as 'bad publicity', right?
I myself have been wondering how to generate some buzz around my own fun side-project: http://www.tjetter.com - a site that allows you to chat with random strangers, as well as read (and replay) all conversations that take place at that very moment... Not sure whether applying your tactics should be the way to proceed. Suggestions?
Blog comments almost certainly don't help with SEO, since every major platform uses the rel=nofollow on them. Forums may not have that, but most of them are poorly indexed by search engines (if at all) so those likely weren't much help either.
I'm not sure entirely fabricating a 'leak' is what Arrington meant when he said 'create a story'. Such advice from journalists (and I've been one) usually means 'give me some angle, give me some reason to write about you' not 'make stuff up'. :|
Sure, and I'm not saying he was advocating that. I'm just trying to show that I took his advice, fabricated or not, in giving them an interesting story - something beyond your usual 'hey, we made this cool site, please write about us.'
I thought this was going to be a really interesting article leading to some amount of dollars. Unfortunately, it climaxed with a call from a (nameless) Forbes reporter.
I suggest you delete this post, and stop telling people about the secrets of SEO you learned from a t-shirt site.
Better yet, write a follow-up post saying how successful you were.
This is a tad off topic but I can’t help myself because this attitude drives me crazy. I will never understand people who think "I don’t like something so it should be taken down"
The web and blogs in particular provide a system for documenting different perspectives. So even if someone is wrong their post provides insight into why people believe something that is incorrect. Plus it might inspire someone else to write a thoughtful post explaining why the idea was wrong which makes it even more valuable.
Bottom Line is, imho, every piece of thoughtful information increases the value of the system as a whole.
Well, firstly, I didn't submit this. Secondly, I thought this might serve to benefit some people who have trouble with marketing by explaining my own story and how I utilized every day resources. And thirdly, I could have very well posted the name of the reporter, but wasn't sure if that was proper etiquette.
[+] [-] esonica|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alain94040|17 years ago|reply
This is spam, black hat, whatever you want to call it.
You got 90% of the buzz machine figured out. Now you need to learn how to play it ethically.
Compare with my version of "0 to AP under a week": http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/02/27/make-your-way-to-the...
Good Hackers have ethics.
[+] [-] kyro|17 years ago|reply
What I did was no different than what you see on television when you hear 'the cure to weight loss is here!' It's tapping into the human psyche and appealing to a very irrational part of the human mind. Just like how Apple markets their products as 'these will make you look hip instantly!' Sure, you could argue that because it was swine flu, I was dealing with a more sensitive and morally weighty issue, but I'm sure more people die every year of obesity, etc. And to be fair, the name of my account, flushirts, and the shirt linked, shirts that said 'oinkment' or 'theraswineflu,' did provide some context to those tweets.
You are more than justified in arguing that other things I did can be perceived as unethical. My use of Twitter, however, was not. I used it to directly communicate with those who were discussing a topic I happened to be catering to. And the 'Breaking:..' tweets were just a way to grab attention amidst a society in an irrational and unnecessary panic. That's how some marketing works. That's how Apple conducts its marketing, believe it or not, as subtle as it may be.
[+] [-] unknown|17 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Derferman|17 years ago|reply
Count me out.
[+] [-] kyro|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonb|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 10ren|17 years ago|reply
Note that this hackernews post - and your reply - increases the publicity. But on what basis could anyone possibly object to his tactics anyway?
http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com http://flushirts.spreadshirt.com (I'm not him, just making a point)
[+] [-] rms|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pclark|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 10ren|17 years ago|reply
This might be partly why twitter gets so much mainstream press/TV: it is a good thing for their advertisers.
[+] [-] aston|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ironkeith|17 years ago|reply
While the author may have made a quick buck, they did so at the cost of their customer's trust and their own credibility. Once lost, they're impossible to regain. I think the author should follow Seth Godin or Gary Vaynerchuck for a while and learn the value of honest, permissions based marketing.
[+] [-] tjit|17 years ago|reply
I myself have been wondering how to generate some buzz around my own fun side-project: http://www.tjetter.com - a site that allows you to chat with random strangers, as well as read (and replay) all conversations that take place at that very moment... Not sure whether applying your tactics should be the way to proceed. Suggestions?
[+] [-] heyadayo|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geeko|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmaroon|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlees|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyro|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quickpost|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|17 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|17 years ago|reply
I suggest you delete this post, and stop telling people about the secrets of SEO you learned from a t-shirt site.
Better yet, write a follow-up post saying how successful you were.
[+] [-] TomOfTTB|17 years ago|reply
The web and blogs in particular provide a system for documenting different perspectives. So even if someone is wrong their post provides insight into why people believe something that is incorrect. Plus it might inspire someone else to write a thoughtful post explaining why the idea was wrong which makes it even more valuable.
Bottom Line is, imho, every piece of thoughtful information increases the value of the system as a whole.
[+] [-] kyro|17 years ago|reply