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8 Responses to “There Is No BlackHat Love In Louisville SMO”
[…] Wallace’s Wisdom & PowerPoint (Lots of folks asking for this after his presentation!) Jason Brown’s Reaction & Discussion Of Black Hat Principles (Very Interesting Perspective) « Brian Wallace Featured On […]
Perhaps for a future meeting you could do a presentation on what “BlackHat” means to you. How it works, why you think it’s good in general and why you think it’s good for the social media community. I don’t know much about “BlackHat” activities but the phrase and the behaviors I associate with it have a negative connotation to me. So I for one would be interested in hearing about it from another perspective.
Hey, Jason - I’m one of those guys that mentioned black hat approaches but I didn’t intend in any way to indicate they didn’t work. Of course they work! While most ‘viral’ successes are the exception rather than the rule, i’d leave it up to the discretion of the marketer on whether or not they want to break through the clutter by using tactics that are a shade less than innocent or interesting enough to make a splash on solely the merit of the content they want to spread organically.
As a handful of marketers have already discovered (typically on behalf of their agencies employing questionable tactics), there might be repercussions. Once someone or some company is outed for black hat tendencies, future forays into social media placement might be met with resistance by the communities they’re trying to target.
Again, I’d leave it up to the discretion of the individual or company on the tactics they choose to use propagate their messages with the understanding there may be unintended, irrevocable consequences.
Whoa… man I didn’t expect any replies at all to this, but I must say I am surprised!
Besides the comments, I actually got a ton of email and IM’s about this one post and people may think this was a “negative” style post.
I didn’t intend to make it sound negative in any way. Everyone that presented did an outstanding job and really explained the process of selling social media. My post was mainly about the reaction to the term “blackhat” each time it was said it was said to the audience.
It was always in a kind of “shady” or “don’t do blackhat” type of tone and as I looked around people seemed kind of “scared” of it. Ha.
Each time it was brought up, me and James ( along with Todd and Rob ) had a nice little chuckle about it actually.
I’m not defending blackhat and I am not saying that anyone did a bad job at their presentation because they put “blackhat” in a negative tone. I simply wanted to clarify and make a stand on it myself.
@ Ben - Yeah, I was one of the guys wearing a hat and it was black ;)
@ Michelle - I’m not great at presentation, which is also why I don’t do sales. Maybe I will one day, but best to just read this blog for updates.
@ Nick - Hey Nick… I guess this post came off with the wrong tone. For sure there are risk involved with everything and blackhat is something that if not done properly can destroy a campaign or company.
Funny enough, this post seemed to create a lot of buzz on my blog/in my email. I guess that can count as “link bait” to some degree. See, blackhat does work!
[…] and angles of selling social media to execs and clients, as well as some best practices and caveats. Honestly, I don’t really have anything to sell since my ‘vendor’ days are […]
Yeah, I wasn’t offended at all - great insights! I just wanted to clarify that I think blackhat is definitely a valuable weapon in the arsenal of [social media] marketers, though it may not be the right solution for everyone every time.
I think SMC folks would love to hear the good, the bad and the ugly of SEO and SMO too. I encounter so many people / companies that don’t understand the level of effort and investment it takes to achieve SEO/SMO success. Your expertise is both an art and a science. …And one that requires more than a single effort to drive results!
Would love to hear your perspective at a future mtg. Hope to run into you soon!
Jason,
I hate that I missed the meeting. I’m enjoying reading all the reviews though.
I agree with you on the automation aspect and freely admit that I use quite a bit of automation to achieve repetitive SEO type tasks. I’ve never viewed them as “blackhat” in the truest sense though.
To me, blackhat is doing something that you know is dishonest, under the table, or shows a blatant disregard for the rules that we’re all expected to play by. For example, using a site such as SocialMarker might be viewed as blackhat by some “traditionalists” because it automates tedious work, but I’d politely disagree. It simplifies things, but abusing it would make it a blackhat technique.
Anyway, I enjoyed the review and hope to join you guys at the next meeting if that’s feasible.
Roger
PS–If you want someone to present your blackhat “nuggets,” hit me up. We can work on it together.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:15 am
[…] Wallace’s Wisdom & PowerPoint (Lots of folks asking for this after his presentation!) Jason Brown’s Reaction & Discussion Of Black Hat Principles (Very Interesting Perspective) « Brian Wallace Featured On […]
February 21st, 2008 at 11:31 am
If I recall, there were only two people wearing hats in the room. I’ll leave it to the pictures to describe what color they were. ;)
February 21st, 2008 at 11:55 am
Perhaps for a future meeting you could do a presentation on what “BlackHat” means to you. How it works, why you think it’s good in general and why you think it’s good for the social media community. I don’t know much about “BlackHat” activities but the phrase and the behaviors I associate with it have a negative connotation to me. So I for one would be interested in hearing about it from another perspective.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hey, Jason - I’m one of those guys that mentioned black hat approaches but I didn’t intend in any way to indicate they didn’t work. Of course they work! While most ‘viral’ successes are the exception rather than the rule, i’d leave it up to the discretion of the marketer on whether or not they want to break through the clutter by using tactics that are a shade less than innocent or interesting enough to make a splash on solely the merit of the content they want to spread organically.
As a handful of marketers have already discovered (typically on behalf of their agencies employing questionable tactics), there might be repercussions. Once someone or some company is outed for black hat tendencies, future forays into social media placement might be met with resistance by the communities they’re trying to target.
Again, I’d leave it up to the discretion of the individual or company on the tactics they choose to use propagate their messages with the understanding there may be unintended, irrevocable consequences.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Whoa… man I didn’t expect any replies at all to this, but I must say I am surprised!
Besides the comments, I actually got a ton of email and IM’s about this one post and people may think this was a “negative” style post.
I didn’t intend to make it sound negative in any way. Everyone that presented did an outstanding job and really explained the process of selling social media. My post was mainly about the reaction to the term “blackhat” each time it was said it was said to the audience.
It was always in a kind of “shady” or “don’t do blackhat” type of tone and as I looked around people seemed kind of “scared” of it. Ha.
Each time it was brought up, me and James ( along with Todd and Rob ) had a nice little chuckle about it actually.
I’m not defending blackhat and I am not saying that anyone did a bad job at their presentation because they put “blackhat” in a negative tone. I simply wanted to clarify and make a stand on it myself.
@ Ben - Yeah, I was one of the guys wearing a hat and it was black ;)
@ Michelle - I’m not great at presentation, which is also why I don’t do sales. Maybe I will one day, but best to just read this blog for updates.
@ Nick - Hey Nick… I guess this post came off with the wrong tone. For sure there are risk involved with everything and blackhat is something that if not done properly can destroy a campaign or company.
Funny enough, this post seemed to create a lot of buzz on my blog/in my email. I guess that can count as “link bait” to some degree. See, blackhat does work!
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:02 am
[…] and angles of selling social media to execs and clients, as well as some best practices and caveats. Honestly, I don’t really have anything to sell since my ‘vendor’ days are […]
February 22nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Yeah, I wasn’t offended at all - great insights! I just wanted to clarify that I think blackhat is definitely a valuable weapon in the arsenal of [social media] marketers, though it may not be the right solution for everyone every time.
I think SMC folks would love to hear the good, the bad and the ugly of SEO and SMO too. I encounter so many people / companies that don’t understand the level of effort and investment it takes to achieve SEO/SMO success. Your expertise is both an art and a science. …And one that requires more than a single effort to drive results!
Would love to hear your perspective at a future mtg. Hope to run into you soon!
February 28th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Jason,
I hate that I missed the meeting. I’m enjoying reading all the reviews though.
I agree with you on the automation aspect and freely admit that I use quite a bit of automation to achieve repetitive SEO type tasks. I’ve never viewed them as “blackhat” in the truest sense though.
To me, blackhat is doing something that you know is dishonest, under the table, or shows a blatant disregard for the rules that we’re all expected to play by. For example, using a site such as SocialMarker might be viewed as blackhat by some “traditionalists” because it automates tedious work, but I’d politely disagree. It simplifies things, but abusing it would make it a blackhat technique.
Anyway, I enjoyed the review and hope to join you guys at the next meeting if that’s feasible.
Roger
PS–If you want someone to present your blackhat “nuggets,” hit me up. We can work on it together.