The Link Sickness: Clean Up In Room 227
Before you get all confused and think yourself to death on what that means, I’ll explain in a second. Over the last several years we’ve seen some MASSIVE changes to the Internet space. I mean MASSIVE. It’s crazy the things we can do and are doing right now with sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube (and Google Wave but that’s another day).
Right now, aside from all the awesomeness, we’re going through a bit of a problem depending on who you are: Information overload. Overflow. Diarrhea. And hopefully less visual words. Information is key. People want it and other people provide it. That’s why you always hear business owners and marketers talking about “Content is king” because it is! If you’re not creating content and are wanting to succeed online in whatever it is you do, forgive me if I’m not direct enough but WTF are you doing? With all this content floating around, there’s a lot of something else: Links. Ah yes, links…how we navigate to the furthest depths of the interwebs, from that killer business advice to a kitty saying “I can haz cheezburger?” We’re not only in an information age but a link age. We’re constantly sharing content with others. However, far too many are vomiting out links left and right but they’re missing a very important part of being online, what this post is really drilling down to: Interaction. You can plug Twitterfeed or some automated program into your Twitter account and have it then automatically post to your Facebook account, but what are you really accomplishing, if anything at all? You didn’t create the content. You didn’t put in the man hours to design the website. You didn’t hire the staff. And you didn’t get in contact with the advertisers either. You see, if all you do is vomit out links, how is anyone ever really going to build a genuine relationship with you? They’re not, plain and simple. This new frontier of the web is all about building relationships and if you look at some of the most successful people out there right now, they’ve got the interaction/engaging principle down big time. So go ahead, post links and share relevant, valuable content. But don’t forget….Those Who Communicate, Generate.
And no, I’m not talking about generate a ton of followers or supposed friends. That stuff hasn’t and will never matter. It’s the relationships with those people, even if it’s just 100, that matter and when you understand that, you generate a lot more than just highly valuable relationships but the income to sustain yourself, your family and then some.
How do you feel about this whole “link vomit” issue and what do you generally do when you spot someone who is found guilty?