As you may have heard, we here at ProspectMX are sending Matt Cutts to space.

Well, ok, not the REAL Matt Cutts… and not really into space, but…well watch the video if you haven’t heard.

ProspectMX is Sending Matt Cutts to Space! from Dave Conklin on Vimeo.

That’s right, we had a doll of Matt Cutts made and we’re going to send it on various adventures in the coming months. Hopefully, other prominent members of the SEM community will be on their own adventures, too.

Joe Latrell, a fellow employee, also happens to be a Rocket Scientist (isn’t everyone?). He volunteered to build us a 10 foot rocket to help Matt on his journey.

But there was one critical piece left that we didn’t have for the launch next week.

A name.

So, we polled the community and got a couple great suggestions as to what to call this magnificent beast of a rocket. After much deliberation, crying, voting, and tallying – we have reached a consensus. The rocket will be called…

Drumroll please…

SPAM BLASTER!

Yes, the rocket will be called Spam Blaster. And what better name for the rocket-fueled-speed-machine that will hold Matt Cutts on that fateful day? A phrase that not only encompasses a giant rocket but also Matt Cutt’s day to day responsibilities at Google?

We’re quite pleased with the name and would like to thank everyone that suggested names and voted.

So it’s the final countdown. We have a rocket. We have Matt Cutts. And we have a name.

There’s less than a week left until the launch, so we hope to see you all back here next Monday at 2pm to see how it all goes down.

When it comes to my Twittering, I like to kick it old school.

While the rest of you tweet using your fancy iPhones, your massive TweetDecks, or your mini Twhirl’s and TwitterFox’s, I use the original method – “from web.” I realize this totally makes me a dinosaur, but I don’t care.

Anyway, for marketers, bloggers, and PR folks, one of the biggest benefits of using the actual Twitter website is the ability to be able to watch and respond to trending topics. Twitter always provides the 10 hottest topics people are tweeting about on the site in real time, in the right sidebar. The same topics are also listed right underneath the search box on the homepage of the site.

Over the last few months, many of the world’s biggest news stories and popular entertainment topics have come and gone from the rankings of Twitter Trends – District 9, Snow Leopard, and the Iran election to name a few. But over the last month, one particular trending topic has outlasted them all, and the subject may surprise you.

Jay-Z.

Jay-Z’s Tremendous Twitter Trending

During the month of September, Jay-Z seemed to be a trending topic on Twitter literally EVERYDAY. His reign as a trending topic began on June 5 when his single “Death Of Autotune” was released. An admitted Jay-Z fan, I was quite surprised to see my favorite rapper trending on my favorite microblog in June.

Jigga (never thought I would use the word “Jigga” in something I wrote at work) then showed up maybe once or twice during most of July and August as the single “Run This Town” and its video were released. Then his album leaked on August 31…

and then Rhapsody announced a Jay-Z twitter contest on September 2…
and then Roc Nation started a Jay-Z themed hashtag game on Sept. 9…
and then the Blueprint 3 was finally released on Sept. 11…

and people STILL continued to tweet about him through Sept. 24, when Jay-Z was on Oprah.

And through all of that time, Jay-Z remained one of the hottest topics on Twitter. Not the no. 1 topic, mind you, although he did wear the crown at some point on September 11. He did, however, remain enough of a topic to stay trending in the top 10. By the time his album hit stores, I had grown tired of seeing Jay in the list of Twitter trends… and I wasn’t alone.

In total, Jay-Z was a trending topic on Twitter 23 days between June 5 and the end of September, according to TweetStats.com (see photo above). Since September 24 of last year, that amount of time as a trending topic on Twitter puts Jay in the same company as Sarah Palin and Xmas, and only 3-days behind Michael Jackson.

Analysis Of Jay-Z’s Social Media Marketing Campaign

So, after all that attention on Twitter, did social media marketing mean big business for Jay-Z and the Blueprint 3? Sales figures seem to point to a resounding yes.

Despite the web leak 10 days in advance, the Blueprint 3 debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 and sold around 820,000 copies in its first two weeks of release. Only one album in 2009 has sold more copies through its first two weeks of release than the Blueprint 3 – Eminem’s Relapse.

On top of those totals, multiple Jay-Z tracks ranked in the top 10 digital downloads following the release of the Blueprint, and the song “Run This Town” peaked as high as no. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Did Jay-Z over saturate the Twitterverse as part of marketing for the Blueprint 3? Yes. Did the social media blitz pay off?

Yes.

To date, the Blueprint 3 has likely exceeded 1 million units sold in less than one month of release. In today’s music industry where traditional sales are far exceeded by downloads of the legal and illegal type, that total seems remarkable. The album should be considered a certified smash.

The amount of money Atlantic Records and Roc Nation were able to put behind the Blueprint 3 typically far exceeds the budgets many companies have to devote to strategic internet marketing.

However, the amount of buzz Twitter generated for Jay-Z and the Blueprint 3 is just the latest example of how social media can pay big dividends on the bottom line.

So, for those of you who still think social media marketing doesn’t apply to your business, I have to ask – why?

And also… can you really afford not to give it a try?

You might want to tweet yourself. Or at least send a direct message. To another juror. But don’t communicate with anyone on the “outside.” Otherwise, you might cause a mistrial.

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, a circuit court juror’s postings to Twitter are the subject of a possible mistrial of a $12.6 million judgment.

“Juror Johnathan” (aka Johnathan Powell) is the juror who commented on the trial via his smartphone. He sent 8 messages that said things like

Thanks to Powell’s use of Twitter during the trial, the motion for mistrial alleges that he was able to research the case and communicate with others outside the jury. It would seem that justice was served for the two investors in the company – Mark Deihl and William Nystrom – before Powell’s use of Twitter went public. Russell Wright, the principal owner of Stoam Holdings, didn’t even show up in court to dispute the claims.

I’m all about incorporating social media into your daily life, but I think taking your smartphone into a trial probably isn’t a good idea. Especially when doing so can compromise an entire trial and a huge settlement for investors done wrong.

What’s the public opinion out there on this issue? Was Powell in the wrong? Did the court drop the ball in not confiscating his phone?

Would love to hear other’s thoughts on this.

I’m not trying to make light of anyone who got caught in the scam, but it seems that Twitter caught the wave of some “phishy” business over the weekend.

A lot of people were affected, including Fox News, Britney Spears and CNN’s Rick Sanchez.

If you got a random direct message from someone and clicked a link that redirected you to twitter.access-logins.com/login/, DO NOT FILL OUT YOUR INFORMATION.

I haven’t been personally affected by phishing on the social sites, but my wife has received some strange Facebook messages from friends on her wall with alleged “pics” of her on sites like “barkjump.com” and “fittry.com.”

If you didn’t know, this is also a phishing scam, just on Facebook.

AriWriter has a list of the all the different .com’s that are part of Facebook phishing. The culprit behind these recent phishing scams is access-logins.com, which is based in China.

Twitter made a change yesterday that removed deleted and suspended accounts from your list of followers. Twitter Status had the real scoop.

And don’t worry, it wasn’t just you who lost a few followers. Check out the numbers of followers for the Top 100 Tweeps – even @barackobama lost 789.

I’m not as cool as everyone else – I only lost 10.

How many did you lose?

It’s been a while since my last post and I’ve started gathering a ton of information about Twitter. Call this a case study if you will.

I love trying to figure out how people are going to react / respond to certain ideas.So far 1,350+ tweeps have watched the video I made last month to say “Hi, and thanks for following me.” I knew it would work beautifully because the idea was just so simple… I think the results speak for themselves – here’s the video (if you haven’t seen it yet).

Here’s what some of my Tweeps had to say about the video…

Unexpected Effects Of Being A Twitter Rockstar

Another interesting thing happened when I took 15 minutes to create & upload the video to YouTube.  YouTube (owned by Google) is a social video network, you’ve probably already heard of it. Did you know that people can subscribe to your channel? It’s kind of like adding a tweep… except on YouTube!

While my plan was to welcome and engage new followers on Twitter… I ended up with this AWESOME FREE BONUS! I’ve had 30+ new people subscribe to my YouTube channel.

That’s pretty cool, but I’ve also had well over 100+ new friends added to my Facebook / LinkedIn / MySpace / Digg / Pownce & other social networking sites thanks to FriendFeed. If you haven’t done it, go and grab yourself a FriendFeed account and add your other social networking accounts TODAY! Put it on your blog… or maybe right next to your Twitter welcome video?! This is just a suggestion, but after all, social networking sites and social media is there for us to be social, right? It only makes sense to let your twitter friends know where to find you on the other sites.

Why Should You Follow Me?

Twitter is emerging more into the main stream day by day. People online are now wondering who they should follow. Since Twitter is the answer to “What are you doing right now?” I’ve created a little site called Tw33t.me to answer the question “Why should you follow me?”

The idea for Tw33t.me is simple. Much like FriendFeed, Tw33t.me users will be able to add all of their other social networking sites & a Twitter welcome video to their profile page by using their Twitter username and password. The idea is to create a sort of “Online Social Resume.” The site is in Alpha – almost in Beta – and I’ll be updating everyone via Twitter when we “officially” launch.

Pre-Tweet. Auto Tweet. Tweet Later.

I get this question all the time as a result of my Twitter exploits – “How do you auto-reply to new followers?”

Glad you asked. The answer is a handy little site called TweetLater that allows you to pre-post, auto respond, and even auto-follow new tweeps. TweetLater is a little techy, so I decided I’d drop in this short “How To” video so you can set it up to work for your Tweeps! I did this with Gmail because I figure that most readers have a Gmail account. Take a look. Re-watch it if you need to! *If you use Outlook @Wordpresswizard already made a How To video over here 

Tweet Responsibly

Now, I would be delinquent in my duties as a social media evangelist if I didn’t mention being Socially Responsible. It’s great to have thousands of followers and friends on Twitter and other social sites… but we have to remember it’s not just about numbers! These are real people your talking to, they want to be engaged in your conversation… otherwise they wouldn’t have followed you. I know that some people are just going to use the scripts to gain as many followers as they can – so that they can push whatever affiliate program or junk they’re selling on ebay… We can’t stop that. But we can make a difference by using social media for good!

When you see an injustice or something that others should be made aware of… broadcast it! I’m infatuated with “Green Living.” If I see or hear anything that I think would help… you’d better believe it’s going out on my twitter stream! Some folks are going to use my tutorials for spamming purposes. It sucks, I know! I still believe that there’s more genuinely good people out there than there are shysters.

For any of you that have ever read anything like “How to Become a Digg Power User,” etc., you probably already know that in order to get followers or have people Digg / Sphinn / Buzz Up! your topics, they have to be great topics.Guy Kawasaki had written a few weeks back about an AllTop page built to do just that – it’s called GoodTweet. If you’re looking for something to post to your tweeps and you can’t seem to find anything you consider overly exciting, dig through GoodTweet and post it up. This will make your followers think that you have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on. And hence… want to follow you and more importantly retweet ya too!

We will come back and update this post when we find something that will allow the tweeps to use something similar to the GreaseMonkey script from the first article… until then – one at a time and happy tweeting!

Best,

David Brown

We e-mail. We search. We blog, txt, & tweet.

For the first time, a person running for the most powerful position on earth did, too. Now that the race to the White House is complete, what happens to Barack Obama’s immense social media presence?

Most of those who follow @barackobama know that the information provided by his Twitter account was never earth shattering. There was never a tweet about how bad he needed some Starbucks or rants about how frustrating it is that his internet connection is slow.

That said, will the new President-elect continue to use the power of social media in his new role? His Twitter account continues to grow today at about 3 followers per minute.

I’m not the only person wondering this. Here’s a random sample of tweets from Twitter Search this AM.

DavidStewart: Do you think Obama will stay on Twitter as President?
erika_strange: @czdebel I think obama will be too busy when he’s president to update his twitter account.
Thracks: @czdebel I think that it would betray Obama’s message to let the twitter stream die.
bakapetro: Will Obama use twitter after inauguration? It would be cool, but, personally, I doubt it
topslakr: Since Obama was elected he has not posted to twitter. Does that mean he is done using it? I think a lot of people are hoping he stays active
minda31180: So now that he’s been elected president, is Barack Obama going to continue updating his twitter?

Here’s the deal. Most of his social profiles will only require a job status update and address change come January. His Twitter account really only receives one or two updates per day, telling you where he is and what’s he talking about. Does that sound like such a difficult project to maintain?

Most Twitter users already space their tweets with other daily tasks. Millions of the people who voted for him developed their trust and support because of his use of social media. Much like Thracks and topslakr above, I think something should be done to keep his use of social media presence alive. His campaign was never 100% transparent with the use of social media to begin with, although the way his campaign used the internet was extraordinary.

So… I ask…

117,000+ Twitterers want to know… and will be following.

For some more reading on Obama and social media, Jon Burg posted a thought-provoking post on the same topic – “Where Vision Meets Reality.”

I am pleased to be here writing my first ‘official’ ProspectMX blog post on a subject that I truly love – Twitter!

If you’re not quite sure what I’m talking about, maybe we should start with a brief explanation. Twitter is a ‘Micro-Blogging’ / Social Media, kinda thing. You can follow people that interest you… and “Tweeple” can follow you. I know that’s a pretty basic explanation… but I have lots to cover so moving along. 

I’ve been using Twitter since March of ‘07. Now that the company is on the radar, and even CNN & Fox News have been quoting their twitter streams on live newscasts, I think it’s time for the average everyday SEO Joe to make sure that your clients / customers are efficently using this FREE service.  So where to start?

• Pick a memorable username (maybe the name of your company?)
• Spend 10 minutes making a custom background
• Check out Twellow – align yourself w/ ppl that interest you
• Speak your mind (be transparent!)
• Do get a TwitPic account (Uber Cool)
• Don’t become a Tweethead! – it’s okay to go offline from time to time.

(more…)

Hi! Thanks for the follow! Here’s a short introduction video so you have something to make fun of me about if we ever meet at a conference or something.