It’s that time of year again. PUBCON BABY!

While we’re all excited to hit Vegas yet again as we check the events schedule to plan out which sessions we’ll be attending, I know for sure there’s only one event that is marked in stone on my calendar. The ever popular Pubcon Poker Tournament hosted by DK at Purpose Inc.

This year DK is doing something really cool and requiring all players to post an entry on their blog about a charity in order to qualify for the tournament. Two thumbs up DK! I am always an advocate for doing stuff that counts. While I would normally pimp The Blind Project, a charity that fights to abolish the sex slave trade in Asia, I thought I would bring up another non-profit that I am a member of that is a little more relevant to DK’s event.

The Poker Players Alliance is a non-profit membership organization that fights to give poker players a safe, secure & regulated place to play both online and offline. Lawmakers across the country are fighting to make it more and more difficult to play poker legally both online and offline, whether it be in your homes, bars, or even at charity events such as DK’s. The Poker Players Alliance is a committed group of players devoted to keeping the game of poker alive and legal. If you are a regular or even occasional poker player, the Poker Players Alliance can use your help!

That being said, here are 10 tips to help you win DK’s Poker Tourney!

1. Rest — Pubcon is out of control. For those of you who are regulars, you know what I mean. For those of you who are going for your first time, you’ll see. If the tournament starts at 8:00, I recommend catching a nap beforehand so you’re well rested. Being alert and well rested will seriously improve your game and give you an advantage over the players who are still fighting the hangover from the day before. (That being said, don’t oversleep and miss the tourney altogether like I did last year!)
2. Drinking - Now while not drinking may seem ridiculous at an event when there is an open bar, you can’t play serious poker when your judgements are seriously impaired. If your goal is to win, consider not drinking, or seriously limiting yourself to one or two drinks an hour. Otherwise if you are just there to have a good time and enjoy the open bar… Come sit at my table
3. Don’t Overvalue Hands - If you have top pair top kicker on a board with possible straight and flush draws, be careful about getting all of your money into the pot. Just because you think your opponent isn’t that strong, how do you they’re not trapping? Even if they’re not, do you know the odds that they will draw out to make the best hand? Best advice is to proceed with caution.
4. Don’t Be Predictable - If you find that opponents that you were beating, you are now loosing to hand after hand, maybe you have predictable patterns that players can easily read. Try to change up your play to avoid being too predictable.
5. Remember the Action — One of the things that novice poker players always forget is to keep track of what has already happened in the hand. If your opponent limped in preflop, then checked the flop and turn, and then suddenly fires out a big bet on the river when an Ace hit — does it make sense that he/she has an ace? Why wouldn’t they bet preflop, or when an uncoordinated board came out on the flop?
6. Play A Style Opposite of the Table You Are Seated At - As a general rule of thumb, you will do better in poker when you play a style opposite of the rest of the table. If the table is playing generally aggressive, take a conservative style; if the table is playing conservative, play aggressive.
7. “Poker Tells” — While it is unlikely that you will pick up someone that has a “tell” as obvious as not looking at you when they have a hand, and staring you down when they don’t, be alert of small physical tells like someone who might get nervous and put a chip on their cards when they normally don’t. If you spot on a tell, sit on it. Oh, and, share it with me
8. Respect the Power of Position — While you may have heard that “position is power”, you need to understand why. In blackjack, the house always has position, they get to see what you do before they have to make any decisions. Sometimes you bust before the house has to do anything. The same applies to poker, if you are out of position, your opponent has a lot of information about you based on the decisions you are forced to make before he/she has to do anything.
9. Don’t Get Bored — If this is the first live tournament you’ve played, don’t be surprised when every hand isn’t an all-in showdown of AA vs. KK. Poker tournaments are a lot of sitting around, and a lot of bad cards that you should fold. Don’t get bored and find yourself playing hands that you shouldn’t just because you want something to do.
10. Defense - Tournament poker is much different from cash poker in that you can’t buy back in if you bust out. Because of this you want to play defensively, making sure to defend your chip stack. Tournament play is not the place for outrageous all-in bluffs or chasing down expensive hands to the river if you want to build your stack. Consider not only your strategy on each hand, but your strategy for the tournament as a whole to make it to the final table.

Good luck to everyone that will be playing, hope to see you there!

I’ve been noticing a trend lately that has people running mad for any and every piece of software they can get their hands on that is “SEO Friendly.” I’m glad that the general population is becoming more educated about SEO and it’s importance in online marketing, but people need to wake up and realize that just because some schmuck that is trying to sell you something SAYS that his/her software or plugin is “SEO Friendly” doesn’t mean that it is.

Sadly, it seems that once again a descriptive phrase that we all have used so kindly is starting to become an annoying, overused buzzword by people who don’t know it’s true meaning. What I don’t understand is, why does everyone blindly believe those whom have no business sticking their noses in the world of SEO, that something is or isn’t SEO friendly? Would you believe me if I handed you a plate full of potato chips and told you they were fat free? What if I started marketing my own brand of potato chip and slapped a “Fat Free” logo on there and sold them on my website? Would you buy them?

How is it that everyone is fooled by a few lines of SEO-speak that can be pulled off of any SEO blog or wikipedia? Is that all I have to do to sell my fat free potato chip? Copy and paste some healthy jargon from a hippy food blog and you’ll all believe me? Just because there aren’t laws about substantiating claims in SEO doesn’t mean you should believe everything you hear. There are things that work, and things that just don’t. The people like me that you pay to listen to at the big SEO conferences have had years of experience doing and learning this stuff, we didn’t just dream up a product to sell overnight and read some articles to help us sound official. Think about that the next time you go to drop $100 on a piece of software that claims to be “SEO Friendly” — is it really? Who’s behind it? Has someone like me given it a look over? If not and you still want to buy it, let me know so I can also sell you some chips.

Probably like you, I own a small business. Who doesn’t these days right? Also like you, and everyone else that owns a computer, I’m on Facebook. And just like everyone else on Facebook, I get inundated with “Become a Fan” requests at least 6–8 times a week. These requests are generally for fan pages of small businesses, either that friends of mine own, or friends of a friend of mine own.

Now, let me be honest, I think my small business is AWESOME. But I also realize, that unless I’m giving you money, or you’re a client of mine, you really have no reason to “become my fan” on Facebook. It’s great that we’re friends and all, but I don’t expect anyone outside of my industry, or who I do work with, to find anything that I do professionally, exciting or worthy of fandom.

It reminds me of Eddie Murphy: “What have you done for me lately?” — I especially don’t want to become a fan of business pages who’s business I don’t even use, read, or know about! I can’t endorse something that I don’t use. That doesn’t mean we’re not friends, or that I don’t like you, it just makes sense.

I know that everyone out there by now has heard that this social media thing is all the hype, but signing up for a Twitter account and creating a fan page for your business on Facebook doesn’t mean that you’re “doing it”.

If you’re a small business and trying to kill it with social media, you need to think about what you’re providing your users. Most people aren’t going to like you just because you’re you, even though you’re wonderful. Try a few of these things:

• Create some face-melting content
• Give away stuff, people love that
• Run a contest that users might actually have a chance at winning
• Respond to your users
• Don’t go missing, if you’re not if front of your audience, someone else will be

Rather than just putting up a fan page with links to your site, put your back into it and do something valuable for your users. Then you might actually have something worthy of becoming a fan of. Don’t expect to sign up for a couple of accounts on the most popular social networks and thing that everything is going to work out for you. People now more than ever are looking for reasons to not pay attention to you. Between all of the media channels, Facebook games, Twitter, YouTube surfing and the like, there is more than enough distraction in our lives — we don’t need another vanilla install fan page to be a part of that will spam our inbox with notifications that we really don’t care about.

What does work are the brands and businesses that go out and do all of these bullet points to the max, and then some. Think about the websites that you repeatedly visit, even when they don’t notify you that there’s something new to see. What are they doing that you’re not?

YouTube is not a simple video hosting site anymore. YouTube has more than 100,000 viewers and 2.5 billion searches, and that is a whopping 25% of the total search traffic on the internet! (Source: comScore Media Metrix) What this means for your business is that YouTube is a virtual gold mine waiting to be exploited by anyone who wants to build, monitor, and enhance the brand image through reputation management. Experts say that YouTube has to be treated as a separate search engine now, and that means using Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or more precisely Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) to garner more viewership for your videos, which in turn will bring in more revenues for your business. Using videos effectively to convey information that lasts in the memories of the viewers longer is a SEO strategy that has been harped on from time to time by leading SEO players in the industry as well as most experts in seminars, webinars, and conferences on the changing faces of SEO. VSEO is the faster and more effective way to help your business gain more visibility on the internet, and what better place to use videos to promote your business than on YouTube.

Like good SEO strategies, VSEO strategies have to be deployed using certain parameters to gain maximum results. You cannot have your video clips placed on YouTube to develop your business or to manage reputation without knowing the best ways to make your videos work for you. Your VSEO for YouTube should also include basics of good SEO, and that is to create quality content in this case, it’s the videos to make your viewer or searcher get the relevant info he or she is seeking, and make them want to visit your site to seek further info, or to see what you offer. There are a few simple tips that will help you use YouTube to your maximum advantage.

• Create quality video content. Use good equipment to create videos of good visual and audio quality. Bad quality will turn off viewers, and thereby, your potential customers.
• Make sure that you make videos that have information that is useful. Do not host irrelevant videos to waste your time as well as that of your prospects.
• Use the search algorithms of YouTube to your advantage. Manipulate parameters such as title, description, tags, number of views, and ratings to derive maximum traffic.
• Include the URL of your site in the watermark and metadata of the video. Don’t forget to include logos or anything that you feel will boost your company’s image. Building brand consciousness is easier this way.
• Make your videos catchy and short. Most viewers don’t care to sit through long, uninteresting videos. Retain their attention by sending the message across in a way that will make them sit through the video without flinching.
• Place the video including the site map on your own site, as well. This will help searchers and search engine spiders find the content easily.
• Using Hi-Def videos are great for picture quality. But, for better streaming purposes, it is better to stick with YouTube’s size of 320*240 (QVGA), and maintain an aspect ratio of 4:3. It’s no crime to use Hi-Def resolutions of 1280*720 pixels and an aspect ratio of 16:9, but lower resolution pictures can load faster, and we want customers with all types of internet connections both fast and slowóto view our videos, don’t we?
• Practice makes perfect. Allow feedbacks and ratings from viewers, as this will allow you to learn from mistakes, and help you make better video content in the future.
• If you think all this is way over your head, and you think you donít have the time to do all this; hire a good SEO company to help your VSEO on YouTube.

Repair or enhance reputations, build brand image, and lure more traffic to your website making effective use of VSEO on YouTube. Don’t forget the fact that the higher your videos are placed in the rankings of YouTube, the higher they’ll be in search rankings of the formidable Google. So, good VSEO on YouTube is a win-win situation for you!

If you’re like me, you have no shortage of ideas for creative things that you could do to make money. We have all had and heard plenty of ideas on how we can “make money online” and run our own businesses, or even just generate additional income. I have heard dozens and dozens of great ideas for websites, business models, or collaborative projects from friends, family and people that I know from online, but why do so few of them ever see the light of day? One word: FOCUS.

I have technically been through the startup process with 5 different brands, 3 of which have actually gone somewhere and made some money. As I devote my spare time to what is now my 5th startup project, I have noticed that it is now, more than ever, harder to focus my attention to make things happen. In a world saturated with Twitter, Facebook, instant messenger and beer, it is all too easy to let valuable work hours dwindle away into wasted time “networking.” Back when I was working on my 1st startup, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist and my IM list was much shorter. Fortunately I have developed the discipline to buckle down and GTD when I need to, but it seems that so many people that I know haven’t mastered this art. Why? Because, for many of you, there is no real motivation. Why are you motivated to make your startup succeed? Is it your sole revenue stream? If you are like most, it isn’t. Many people today are starting businesses on the side, in hopes to launch something spectacular in the few hours per week they spend half-heartedly devoting to it. NEWS FLASH: Your business isn’t going to “take off” if you don’t light a fire underneath it!

Really want to succeed with your startup? You need to find motivation. What is the reason you are dedicating time to your startup? Here are a few common reasons if you don’t have any:

• You hate your day job & want to quit
• You want to be a millionaire
• You want to do something that you really enjoy
• You need to make additional income so you can get out of debt

Motivated yet? Here’s what you do:

• Write out a minimum weekly schedule that you will commit to devoting to your startup
• Make a list of every task that you can think of that needs to be accomplished
• When you sit down to work, turn off twitter & log out of facebook (beer still ok)
• Every time you sit down, work until you can cross off 1 or more things from the list; if your list items are too large for one sitting, break them into smaller, actionable items
• Repeat.

You’ll find that once you have drive and focus, the action of completing tasks, even small ones, is rewarding enough to keep you motivated to keep going. Even when the list is long, accomplishing goals and rewarding yourself with crossing them off the list is an age old tactic that still works. Don’t let the fact that there’s a lot to do, and even more to distract you, bog you down! Keep going and good luck!

I just recently switched my blog design from a custom theme that I designed over to the thesis architecture. After thesis was up and running, I wanted to disable and stop using the All in One SEO pack, since this functionality is built into the thesis theme.

I was pointed to this post by @godhammer which in theory should work. However, after running the sql query several times, I had no luck.

I discovered that on my blog, the title, description and keywords fields were labeled as “aioseop_title” etc. Rather than the simple “title” structure suggested in the origional code.

What ended up working for me was 3 separate sql queries to port over the title, description and keywords fields individually.

Here are the queries:

INSERT INTO wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value)
SELECT post_id, ‘thesis_title’,meta_value
FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = ‘_aioseop_title’;

INSERT INTO wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value)
SELECT post_id, ‘thesis_description’,meta_value
FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = ‘_aioseop_description’;

INSERT INTO wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value)
SELECT post_id, ‘thesis_keywords’,meta_value
FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = ‘_aioseop_keywords’;

If these don’t work for you, you may need to check to see what specific name your database is assigning to the individual fields, and replace the “_aioseop_title” type names respectively. Hopefully, if the other code mentioned in the link above doesn’t work for you, this will!

For my 5000th tweet I thought I’d do a quick post about why I follow the people I do on my personal twitter account. The people I link to are the ones I’ve actually met

Starting from the top:

@mattcutts — Gotta follow him, cause I do SEO and well.. He’s Matt.

@chriswinfield — Chris is the man for social media promotion, had the pleasure of working with him multiple times, great guy, great work.

@garyvee — I actually was following his blog before he was a super star, cause I love wine, Gary’s awesome, but you probably knew that.

@dannysullivan — Kinda like Matt, a must follow, except his tweets get pretty interesting the later into the night it gets..

@acquireworth — Personal friend and health nut, also knows a crap ton about mixx.

@austincurtis — Personal friend, Actual Ninja, and sick ass designer, also does wedding photography on the weekends.

@stuntdubl — Much respect to Todd since I started out in this game, been following his blog since Day 1. Glad to get to know him on a personal level now too.

@oilman — He got hired on as my boss, so a mandatory follow.. He mostly just makes fun of me.

@robertpalmer — Personal friend, known him since high school, now he’s a kick ass desinger and blogger. Also owns the most spots on my favorite tweets list.

@zefrank — Who doesn’t love Ze?

@gregboser — SEO vet, infamous for viral conference interview videos that ask people if they know the definitions of obscure words.

@factive — Another go to guy for social media and just all around marketing. Lives in my home town (San Diego)

@sspencer — Infamous for confusing conference attendees with high level technical presentations, definately knows what he’s talking about.. Or at least sound like it..

@bcerwickd — Personal friend and coworker

@timhalberg — Personal friend and kick ass wedding photographer, seriously, if you need wedding photos hit him up!

@sugarrae — Much respect to Rae for knowledge on SEO and Affiliate Marketing.. But I’m not afraid of her like everyone else on twitter, she’s a shrimp.

@aussiewebmaster — Frank knows his stuff, fun to listen to cause of the accent and I always enjoy a blunt view.

@martinbowling — Super funny guy, loves beer (still waiting on that story

@brentcsutoras — Yet another go to guy for social media, tons of respect to Brent. Always enjoy catching up at meetups, and occasional IM’s because of the LOADs knowledge he has.

@redreinard — Personal friend and business partner for years. Genius programmer. Don’t talk to him, he’s busy.

@wldaily — What can I say? I love wine, I want all the deals I can get!

@TheMadHat — Can you say Bacon Explosion? Had one at IM Spring Break, it was fantastical, made one this past weekend, it was awesome-sauce, can’t wait for the next one.

@JordanKasteler — Good guy and party animal! Co-Founder of Search & Social.. It’s a fitting name.

@Oatmeal — Have you seen his comics?! Follow him. Find them.

@davesnyder — The other co-founder of search & social, really really nice guy. Super smart business mind.

@neoblog — Nice guy, did some really cool studies of twitter a long time ago.

@monicawright — She’s a MAINEiac! Like, from Maine. Super nice, SEO chick.

@MandaOtto — Good conversation when you engage her, seems to know what shes talking about

@lisabarone — Kneesockz!!! With a “z”, pretty funny, emo, oh, and she writes stuff.

@problogger — Mad respect from Day 1. If you’re reading my blog and you don’t know problogger, you’re doing it wrong. (or im doing it right, and its because of problogger)

@aaronwall — runs seobook, duh.

@webuildpages — Have they tweeted on this account? Used to be the home of some of my favs..

@neilpatel — Super smart marketing tips, pretty goofy though, just take him serious when he’s on the podium.

@barrybowman — I have a personal friend named barrie bowman that has red hair, i just thought it was way too much of a coincidence, i followed cause of that, this barry actually tweets out some cool stuff from time to time

@brentdpayne — does the seo for chicago times, always cool to see what he’s working on, plus we’ve had some really interesting dialogue over twitter

@leeodden — ranks #3 for “online marketing” — nuff said

@davenaylor — smart guy, good ideas, good accent, gotta mix in some foriegners

@andybeal — another authority in the space for sure

@vanessafox — Tons of respect, love the collaboration between seos and developers that she brings to the table

@jillwhalen — Had some interesting conversations for sure with Jill, as I’m sure most have

@davidkeffen — Funny guy, some corny jokes and good conversation

@copyblogger — Mad respect for this guy, I make sure to catch everything he puts out. DO IT

@katemorris — Smart Chick, Super nice, makes friends with everyone

@griffingranberg — Good guy, super happy all the time, dunno about you, but I need somma that in my work day!

@MichelleRobbins — Very witty and knows her geek culture. Also super nice. Helps run SEL and SMX

@rustybrick — Always has some good content to contribute

@Rhea — One of my favorite new “internet friends”, knows a crapload about SEO, puts up with sugarrae, and she and her husband are basically the gender inverse of me and my wife.

@calebkimbrough — Awesome texture designer, if you’re looking for textures, follow him.

@Pamela_Lund — Another one of those nice girls that knows about internet marketing, sorry guys, shes taken.

@GabGoldenberg — A super nice guy this time! Lots to contribute about SEO

@purposeinc — Hosts think tank and the infamous poker tourney at pubcon every year, good guy.

@audette — Good conversation, knows SEO, likes good beer

@BarbaraBoser — The attractive side of gregboser, rockstar for social media promotion!

@VirginiaNussey More good convo, when you engage.

@JackLeblond — Really good guy, totally outgoing on twitter, totally not in person

@brianchappell — Hits it hard with social media, also same as above!

@dharmesh — built twitter.grader.com (remember when that was popular) had some good convo with him, also runs onstartups.com — info about startups, good stuff

@dreaminaction — good convo, blogger doing her thing!

@shellyfagin — Good convo yet again! She does SEO too

@pratt — Good guy, knows his stuff, fun to hang out with

@sallymander — she was originally my 100th follower, then I got unfollowed so she was #99, shes also really funny

@chiropractic — Chiropractor + Marketer = huh? I dunno but he rocks it! Way cool, rocks it on the local, and gave me some free adjustments!

@kristy — After sallymander, kristy became the 100th follower that stuck! She turned out to be a good one too! Also funny and witty, and nice!

@DanteMonteverde — A little of this, a little of that, knows what he’s doin, but its hard to find him!

jimboykin — been around for a long time, not super active on twitter though..

@joannalord — kinda like my little sister, cause shes so small. Super funny and really easy to tease!

@danzarrella — Social media rockstar, he’s with hubspot currently. Seriously knows his stuff.

@pageoneresults — Gets mad if you follow him for no reason, funny to talk to. Good for listening.

@cshel — Another serious female technical mind, also really funny.

@jawnuthin — personal friend, HILARIOUS, one of the funniest people I know, Also — the next Jeff Buckely, I wish he tweeted more

@cbui81 — personal friend, fellow food lover, runs a basketball blog

@anderhyder — MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE!!!!!!!!!

@juliemackenzie — really interesting conversation in times past

@stephenfry — one of the top twitterers, pretty interesting..

@streko — super smart, knows what hes puttin down, makes fun of other friends, fun to watch

@graywolf — tons of respect, reading since Day 1, great Google rants about once a week

@ChristinaGayle — Copywriter, conversationalist, interesting

@weirdnews — run by brentcsutoras, crazy stories from this account, fun stuff

@joshuaseo — Pretty interesting dude, fun conversations

@cjweb — puts out good content and resources especially for desingers

@tonyadam — yahoo who? metro friend #2, and super talented marketer, plus super funny and fellow mos def lover + scotch drinker /mancrush

@visualfuture — sallymanders husband, funny guy, good conversation

@melanienathan — link builder, another hilarious chick, super fun conversations

@sarasowrong — personal friend, talented writer/editor, musician

@Mark_S — My Cousin, He’s a riot, literally, he’ll cause a riot in your house.

@WarrenWhitlock — Met him at pubcon last year, followed cause of interactive twitter presentation, pretty interesting

@heatherlloyd — Client turned friend? Shes awesome, Rockstar copywriter, super hilarious, speaks her mind always!

@shimonsandler — good content, interesting stuff

@matterhornpat — we were on a panel together, good guy, good convo

@shashib — brings power strips to conferences to share! sweet.

@skitzzo — good guy, lots of opinions, I enjoy the bold stances, even though I don’t always agree.. Fellow poker player

@scottpolk — knows his stuff, always good for a laugh

@btabke — runs pubcon

@ravenjon — puts out some of the best seo tools on the market

@alisond — really good convo and puts out good content and studies

@chris_hart — funny guy, knows his stuff, tall

@remarkablogger — authority in the space, really good content and voice

@thesearchguru — super nice, copywriting chick

@alandowling — personal friend, super talented illustrator/film maker

@MrsOilman — wife to the infamous Oilman, it is rumored that she may/may not really exist, fun to watch her tweets when Oilman gets in trouble

@gregfinn — Awesome guy, works with ChrisWinfield, writes some really good stuff (OGC)

@yummyman — seems to know his stuff, had some good conversations back in the days..

@AnimalRza — Personal Friend, go go dancer, lives in San Fransisco now

@lorenbaker — good guy, has a funny hat on in his avatar, throws kick ass conferences with davesnyder and jordankasteler

@netmeg — super funny, great conversation

@patrickwinfield — good designer, works with the OGC crew at 10e20

@outspokenmedia — follow just to make sure I catch all the posts that come out 96 times a day

@chrisbennett — Good guy, good content, good conversation, fellow Audi R8 lover

@MarkKnowles — created pixelsilk, the best cms Ive seen yet.. Also a really nice guy

@NathanJohns — Super nice, super helpful googler

@hsatterwhite — hahahahahahahahaha

@imjustcreative — good design resources

@henshaw — personal account for ravenjon, good guy, funny guy

@airdisa — we have ties that go waaay back

@CJohanSmith — Personal Friend, Engineer, Just got funding to dev a product that you’ll probably buy soon

@chase_reeves — Personal Friend, Hilarious man, smart sob. Keeping him to myself

@godhammer — some of the funniest conversations Ive had

@zaibatsu — One of our last hopes for a non celebrity “power user” — also super helpful and generous

@Szetela — PPC ROCKSTAR! + Stories for days!

@toddmalicoat — stuntdubl’s attempt at a segregated personal account… I don’t think it worked.

@camsna — Personal Friend, Since high school, we lived together, travelled across the country together, climbed a mountain together, he’s the next Eric Clapton.

@pearsonified — Creator of the Thesis Theme. Sickness.

@diythemes — Account for the Thesis theme

@khyder — No, its not me, It’s my cousin Kelly! She plays volleyball for one of the best college teams in the nation.

@kid_disco — Don’t email him, he’ll add your email to a spam list. Smart guy, tall guy.

@timstaines — Another nice guy, good conversation

@joehall — smart dude, good content and good tools

@chelleface — Personal Friend, lives in Texas now.

@AshleyDorris — Personal Friend, Wedding Photographer, Another funny one

@BrascoAtWMR — my updates for content from webmasterradio.fm, good guy

@seosmarty — Good content, rare but good

@Matt_Siltala — Good conversations and engagement

@fairminder — Nice guy, interesting to talk to

@zerbetron — eye makeup Rockstar! also roller derby champ! Good conversation! Nice chick

@loriorr — MY MOM! Yeah, you all are freaking out about your parents on facebook, mine have been there for days, now they’re infiltrating twitter!

@daver — Really smart dude, funny, good conversation and jokes

@paulgallaher — Personal Friend, Known since Middle School! He’s a journalist, a real one, like for newspapers! *ducks from lisa*

@blafrance — really interesting tweets, pretty funny

@garretcurtis — Personal Friend, Actual Ninja, Kickass film maker

@jamesprola — Personal Friend, Another kickass film maker

@thomaskranzle — Personal Friend, Seriously one of the best photographers, videographers Ive seen, hit him up if you have a client that needs product work or work in the field

@lauralippay — yahoo what? Awesome chick, super smart

@susanesparza — badass writer chick thats published!

@KoryMaine — Another Cousin! Heard of the band Tool? <- better than their drummer

@cesarserna — kick ass tools and stuff, really nice guy, fun to hang

@rebeccakelley — pretty funny follow, we had fun making fun of panelists from the audience one time

There’s lots of great material out there on how to build up your twitter account(s) and get followers by doing all kinds of cool things that result in quality followers that will sustain. This post is not about that.

If you just want to get followers because you like to see your follower count go up (who doesn’t?) — it’s really simple. Just start posting keywords to your account that other people are likely to track and autofollow.

Yesterday evening I posted:

And got 15 followers as a result, all related to one or more of the keywords listed in this tweet.

If you like this, leave a comment with some keywords you have noticed you have gotten autofollowed from!

Back by popular demand, here is the sequel to the original 14 Tools of Highly Effective Twitter Users. A round up of some of the best tools available for your maximum twitter pleasure!

backtweets

To kick it off, backtweets is a great way to find, track and monitor links that spread on twitter. Check out advanced mode to search specific date ranges and users.

doesfollow

For all of the users that are obsessed over who’s following who: doesfollow will tell you exactly that. Just put in the two users and it plops out if they follow each other or not.

hootsuite

A tool that allows you to manage multiple accounts, schedule tweets, and track success all in one.

MicroPlaza

MicroPlaza is a service that takes all of the common tweets and links from the people you follow and groups them into “tiles” so that you can easily digest the important stories that come across your timeline without having to frantically scan your ever updating twitter feed.

MindMeTo

If you’re not into some of the more robust GTD applications, MindMeTo might be just for you! Just tweet or dm @mindmeto what you need to remember, and at the allotted time, it will send you a dm with the reminder. Simple.

polldaddy

From the popular polldaddy service comes polldaddy for twitter, just put in your question and possible answers and tweet it out!

twickie

Archive a twitter response thread! If you’re like me, conducting business on twitter is a no-brainer. So it’s probably a good idea to have a backup of your communication ey? (Also see tweetake from my last post)

Twitdom

Come one! Come All! A resource for finding twitter applications and tools. That is, er, besides my blog of course..

Twitoria

Shows you which of the people you follow hasn’t tweeted for the longest time so you can boot em!

twittercounter

Don’t lie, we all know we’re all obsessed with our follower counts. This tool shows us a nice little chart of our follower count progress along with projections.

Twitterfall

Twitterfall is a cool way to see popular topics or custom search queries on twitter search that allows you to control display metrics. It also takes the query load on it’s server so your browser doesn’t have to do all the work.

twitterhawk

A targeted marketing tool that helps you find, follow and even tweet people that are talking about things that you are interested. (paid service)

twollo

Find and follow users who are talking about your terms of interest. Much like twitterhawk, but you can’t tweet at people.

URL Shortener

Yeah I know, there are a ton of url shorteners out there, but how kick ass is it to have your own? That way, all your links say your domain in them no matter what. Sweet. Here it is the latest and greatest way to create your own URL Shortener:

If you enjoyed this post.. Please follow me @kennyhyder, also be sure to check out the original post if you haven’t already!

Unless you play poker, and poker online, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Let me explain. If you play poker online for real money, and you win, along with winning money, you accumulate what are called “Frequent Player Points” or FPP’s. The term Frequent Player Points is unique to the poker site PokerStars.com but the same concept applies to all poker sites wherever you play. -> The more you win the more FPP’s you earn. And when you lose, well you just don’t earn anything, and you usually get pissed off.

Not Easy to Come By

So how are they alike? First of all, FPP’s aren’t all that easy to come by. Just to give you an idea: winning a $10 buy in, 180 person sit-n-go tournament wins you a cash prize of $594, but you’re only awarded 5 FPP’s. While a $10 buy in isn’t exactly high limit, it still takes some skill to play in a tourney thats 180 people deep, and you certainly aren’t going to win on luck. Also, even with a sit-n-go, which tends to move pretty fast, it’s still going to take 2 or 3 hours to win the thing. Even just to break even you have to place in the top 18, which still requires a fair amount of skill and time. Fortunately at a $10 buy in, the $594 first prize makes it worth playing, but you certainly aren’t playing for the FPP’s.

Much like blogging and comments. Anyone who has a blog knows that getting lots of comments isn’t something that comes easily. And you certainly aren’t going to “win” comments on luck. Comments are something that come by building your skills, understanding how to write compelling and relevant content, and with lots of practice.

They Only Retain Value When You Have Lots

Well here’s the thing, FPP’s don’t really mean all that much. Well, not at first anyway.. They have some monetary value but its very small. In fact here is a breakdown of the monetary value that they assign to FPP’s. On the low end it works out to about $1 for every 100 FPP’s you accumulate, and the exchange rate gets better the more you have. Someone like me, who only has in the ballpark of 1,500 FPP’s can’t do much with them. I’ve used some to buy into other tournaments, but mostly they just sit there until I can start accumulating a significant amount. (Read: TURN PRO) However, if you’re a baller like my friend Bobby, you can actually start doing something with your FPP’s. Bobby has somewhere close to a million FPP’s, if not over a million at this point, which means not only could he trade them in for some serious cash, but it makes him one of the top ranked players online. As you can imagine, being one of the top ranked players online does great things for your reputation and your career as a poker player.

Again, similar to blogging and blog comments. Comments on a blog are a dime a dozen when when you have very few. Anyone can start a blog and get a few comments here and there.. No one thinks anything of it. But as you start to build out your content and readership, people start to leave more and more comments. And much like FPP’s, when you have a crapload of comments — it means something, and in a way they’re a form of currency. Lot’s of comments usually denotes good & authoritative content, which increases reputation — etc etc.

So How do You Get More?

Well, sticking to the analogy, when you play poker, you play to win. Cash. And the FPP’s just come naturally. The same with blogging, you don’t write a blog post to get comments. Bloggers blog for all sorts of reasons, getting comments isn’t one of them. It’s not why you do it, but how you do it that will bring more comments/readership/links/etc.

Now I just need to make sure this post gets a few comments right?