Sphinn - Don't Be Popular. Be Useful.

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Sphinn It!

Don't Be Popular. Be Useful.

Went Hot: July 14, 2008 - 2:15 pm
Posted By: vbin 356 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.bruceclay.com)
Category: Blogging

Copyblogger says to be visible, don't worry about teaching people, just write what they want to hear. I'm not sure that's great advice. I think being like everyone else and telling people what they want to hear is exactly how you become invisible. And I think teaching and knowledge is the reason a lot of people read blogs.

11 Comments

Who Desphunn This (1)

Comments

from Skitzzo 355 days ago #

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Hmm sphinn needs a way to unvote for a story if you accidentally sphinn something.

This post says not to be popular but instead you should aim to be useful. However, the Copyblogger post says to be "valuable" which in my opinion is quite close in meaning.

I think really the balance is somewhere in the middle, provide value or usefullness while still being entertaining.

from vbin 355 days ago #

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I agree. I saw a post that said something like "Forget SEO, focus on Copy" (or something similar). I see the point from two perspectives, but overall think it should've read something more like "Focus on Copy, then SEO".

from 0thelisa 355 days ago #

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Skitzzo -- I'm pretty sure you can Unsphinn something by going to your profile page and looking at all your activity. Then you can come back and Desphinn. I think. I haven't done it, but in theory it should work. :)

from Skitzzo 355 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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0thelisa, it looks like you're right. Now I've both sphunn and desphunn the post lol. I didn't feel strongly about it either way so I guess that works.

Also, I wanted to point out that the post is titled, Don't be popular, be Useful and yet in the post itself says "Take a look at the popular bloggers in the SEO space." Seems to be a bit of a contradiction.

from DevinDavis 355 days ago #

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I think Vbin and Skitzzo are right on. There has to be a "flair" to the writing but not at the expense of being useful. Doing both is certainly possible.

Really, we're talking about two different kinds of value: entertainment value and real world-value. The two are not mutually exclusive.

from mwiegand77 355 days ago #

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I'm a little sick of seeing blog posts ad infinitum that build themselves up with a lot of fluff and theory and don't really a.) make a useful point for the readers to comment on, or b.) teach the reader something of value.

Blogs, especially in Internet Marketing, need to curb their content volume and start focusing on content quality. I don't need an RSS update every damn hour, just give me something good a couple times a week.

I know I sound far to indignant, but I'm glad to see somebody addressing the issue that we need to be useful content creators - high time it happened.

from g1smd 355 days ago #

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*** I don't need an RSS update every damn hour, just give me something good a couple times a week. ***

Well said. However, there are certain SMO people that recommend getting stuff out several times per day so that you always stay visible. However, when all that stuff is junk, people will cancel and move on.