How does a search engine rank a website? It’s kind of like playing a game of PacMan. When a search term is submitted by a user to a search engine, spiders and bots are sent out to maneuver through the web and find the most relevant websites related to the search. Like PacMan, the spiders and bots don’t have eyes and must be told where to go. They can’t see the cool graphics you used to build your site with flash and java and they can’t see the cool images you just posted of your most recent project. So, PacMan travels through the maze gobbling up dots, but once he hits a wall, he can’t go any further. Same concept with the search engines… think of the content on your site like the dots in PacMan. You need to entice the spiders and bots with the fruits and energizers or optimized content chocked full of key terms and emphasized attributes instead of blocking them with unnecessary design elements. Let them know you have what they are looking for so they can gobble it up, index it and move along to the next level or website. (more…)

We’ve all heard about the socially driven uses of social media but what about the socially conscious.

This past week Houston was hit by Tropical Storm Erin, and this week we might get hit by Hurricane Dean.

It is weird but here in Houston there are already alerts on the interstate reminding drivers here to keep our gas tanks full.

But the other interesting thing is where you can find information on Hurricane Dean. It is only Saturday, and if Hurricane Dean were to hit Houston, it would happen on about Thursday. But already you can find blogs, flickr images, and YouTube Videos documenting the storm and it’s approach. If you do a search on Google, you will also find that Wikipedia already has a Hurricane Dean entry that is in the second position.

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Today I heard the worst radio ad, ever! Besides the fact that it was a jingle that sounded straight out of the 50’s and totally dated in today’s radio market (at least for the radio station I was listening to), it was all over the place. I think the main message was to fill up your tank with gas when it is cool outside but I am not sure because there were a dozen other messages all packed into the 30 second spot. This commercial from the Texas Department of Transportation left me feeling totally confused and overwhelmed. Then I realized it was probably paid for by taxpayers and all I could think of was, “How did this happen?”
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“My Second Grade Teacher Tried to Kill Me.”

What does the above statement do for you? Does it make you laugh? Does it compel you to want to hear the rest of the story? Does it elicit skepticism, and have you labeling me a liar? In any case, the statement does one thing. It grabs your attention. (more…)

Whenever I work with a company on social media inevitably someone asks ”So, what makes all this work? Is it blogging? Wikis? podcasting?” My answer to this question is almost always…it’s all those things, but what really drives social media is people like you and me. As I have said before most “technology revolutions” aren’t about technology at all, but rather these revolutions are the result of changes in human behavior or changes in technology that allow natural human tendencies to flourish. Social media is flourishing because of the natural human desire for “connection” and “participation”. Here are the 4 human activities that are driving social media.

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