Guest Post: Unlocking the Social Inner Circle Code

By Andrew Wee

I probably clear hundreds of blog comments and MyBlogLog comments on a daily basis. The reason? Falling foul of "schmoe" rules.

Schmoe, in case you're not familiar yet, refers to a "social media optimizer" gone wrong, a nice term for someone who tries to game the social networking system. A schmoe schmoes up when their comments is deleted. And even though it might take all of 20 seconds to block copy and paste your comments on a strangers profile, it's still time wasted.

Want to up your Social Networking skills? Here's a primer.

The Social Inner Circle Code

It helps to be familiar with humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (check out: Do what you love, love what you do. 

Maslow is one of the granddaddies of the theories now taught by motivational gurus like Anthony Robbins, T. Harv Eker and the like.

Breaking into the social circle requires that you provide value to:
1) The blogger
2) The blogger's community

Value is created when:
1) You provide a new piece of information
2) You provide a well-supported opinion to what the blogger said.
3) You provide an application of something the blogger wrote about.

Just to name a few.

You provide all this information freely and without any expectation of receiving anything in return.

Confused?

Some schmoe might be thinking, "Silly advice! I'd rather put 'Hey, nice blog! Come visit my blog at: www.Blog-I-Want-To-Pimp.com'"

Yeah, right. Those are the first comments I delete every morning.

Creating value means you give something freely, and something magical will appear.

Welcome to the concept of "social reciprocity". 9 times out of 10, the person or community I've contributed that information to, will send traffic to me without asking.

I'll get multiple backlinks to my blog entry. And I'll sometimes get included on multiple blogrolls too.

How's that for breaking into the "Social Inner Circle"?

The moment you start doing this, there's a "viral" effect to this too. A single piece of advice might lead to 10, or even a 100 blogs linking back to you.

You may think that building a huge network takes a village, but in reality, it only requires a single good intention. Be well.

Andrew Wee is a MyBlogLog Advisor and blogs about blogging, affiliate marketing and social traffic generation at WhoIsAndrewWee.com. His MyBlogLog profile is: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/andreww/

Comments

[Rostislav Siryk]

Some people's mind just refuse to take the simple concept into their mind: nothing happens under copy-paste, only spam, emptiness and growing entropy.

They even don't try to write attractive comments when: laziness and desire of easy wealth drives them in the wrong direction.

However, the good comments sometimes is as worthy as good post (or even more) when it comes to the gain attention.

It's time to promote Blogtiquette / Commentiquette as the part of Netiquette, right? Just to make everyone understand that true commenting is as effective as true feeling.

[Andy]

Good post.

'schmoe' - I like that term. :)

I'm also in agreement with Rostislav on the blog etiquette rules we should start enforcing.

I don't get so much traffic that the schmoe's are becoming a burden, but I can see that if it continues to escallate it'll be on my nerves and have to start treating them like spam.

[sauerkraut]

The problem with the "schmoe" concept is that some people have discovered a way to use it to blacklist people. I was recently directed to a blog (bckychr007) post about me (sauerkraut), which contained, in the comments section, a reference to doing the "schmoe" on my site. Not sure how they intend to do the "schmoe" but I am told they are working on it. My sin? Requesting the removal of my name from her blogroll and requesting she remove me from her list of MBL contacts. A bit junior highish, if you ask me, but does seem that for every new technique there's always someone who will try to use it in a way not originally intended.

- sauerkraut

[Robyn Tippins]

The good news is that she can't do more than blacklist your from her own site. Even if she gets two people to join her, that's still not much of a loss.

I wouldn't stress too much about it. I'd love to see the post though. Want to send it to me at robyn@mybloglog.com? Thanks!

[sauerkraut]

the blogs/comments can be found under "beckychr007"

Her efforts appear to have fizzled and only a couple people left my community. Part of the reason her hissy fizzled is because several people too offense to her blacklist efforts and because she spammed using the MBL feature. Several people commented in my blog that they found her use of the f and c words to be offensive.

If you go to MzMikie's MBL comment area, you'll find most of beckychr007's comments. MzMikie did not make any complaints to me; I use her area as an example because most of the spam is right there.

thanks for you attention to this matter.

[sauerkraut]

btw - pursuant to a suggestion she/he made on bckychr007's comment section, MBL member "cotojo" tagged me with the "Schmoe" label. I changed my settings to prevent a recurrence. Nevertheless, I suggest MBL disallow that word as a tag.

[andrew wee]

Hi,
I wouldn't be overly concerned about being tagged "schmoe".

Like any well-monitored social community, MyBlogLog has measures in place to ensure that the schmoe tag is not being abused.

For every 'schmoe' victim, I estimate there're at least 50-60 schmoes out there, so it's a good tag to retain IMO.

It works because reputable writers make links to things they consider reputable sources. So readers, when they find something distasteful or unreliable, don't just hit the back button once, they hit it twice. They remember not to follow links again through the page which took them there.

Thanks for your work! Now let's see how you'll interact with all the junk coming from social blogs, social networks, social software and the whole good load from web 2.0 ;) Tough luck on that!

[DDT-RUS-4]

Im looking forwards to web2.0 - i read somewhere (ages ago) that wiki's were the original concept for websites and that the content supposed to be edited online etc?? - lets hope google and MS dont spoil it for everyone...

[DDT-RUS-4]

Welcome to the world of blogging, it's truly revolutionized the industry of the Internet, in my opinion. I spend more time writing in blogs than I do actually reading them, but overall you'll find them useful I think.

[brus]

Nice resource, very interesting reading...v

[A Key]

I often feel like a weary vampire hunter, stopping for a rest at a Blog Inn, only to come face to face with a disgruntled and suspicious gathering of Inn regulars, leering at me from behind beady eyes, twisted noses, and strange skin diseases. Suspicious of my intentions, they likely carry curved daggers and bits of rope beneath their unwashed rags. Grinning with coal-eyed pleasure, they detect that I am a Spammer who must be dispatched. Truly, it is a world of strangeness and gloom, through which I travel hunting for hidden gems of knowledge. When the storm has abated, and I have refreshed, I will be off once again, while a host of eerie snorking sounds and greyish web-blog leering eyes peer after me.

[ashu]

I am so much scared and i am glad.I often feel like a weary vampire hunter, stopping for a rest at a Blog Inn.
Thanks.....

ashu

[mike5]

I am very interest to study Web 2.0. I am so much of scared about this. But nice to read.