This iMedia Connection article about SEO on a shoestring has been sitting in my “drafts” folder for too long. Coupled with this Duct Tape Marketing post from last week entitled The Simple Math of SEO, though, you have a pretty solid SEO 101 for small business.

While everyone’s all a-Twitter about Ashton Kutcher beating CNN to the (coveted?) one million followers mark on Twitter, C|Net asks a very relevant question in the wake of a $3.6 million fine and year-long jail sentence having been levied against the four operators Pirate Bay: Has online piracy reached a tipping point?

CNet alerts us to DoInk, which is not just the name of one of the most ridiculous WWF wrestlers ever (if you lower-case the I, that is), it’s also the name of a browser-based drawing and animation tool with (of course) a strong social media component.

“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”
—Babe Ruth

I’m a little late in posting this, but about two months ago Mashable posted a pretty good piece about why brands struggle with social media. In the comments area, Brad Szollose made this important observation:

Social Media creates a 1:1 peer-to-peer network of like minded people. This scares the hell out of big brands for 2 reasons: They want to control what is said about their products, and it costs very little to maintain a good conversation – just make great products!

Marketing at peer-to-peer networks, with it’s raw language is seen as intrusive and fake. Like selling Amway at your HS reunion.

Given that social media has been shown to be a key driver of brand awareness and reputation, one can’t help but wonder why there’s as much reticence as there is on the part of brands. I hope it stems not from ignorance but from the recognition that doing social media wrong is worse than not doing it at all.