Reminder: Don’t start fights in a bar full of MMA Fighters

I finally saw the episode of Tapout where they were in SLO for Scott Lighty and Glover Teixeira fights. I crossed paths with their film crew back in January at Bull's Tavern... here's my Myspace blog from that night when I got home

So there I was right... me, Larry and Brian are sitting in Bulls, one of SLO's finest drinking establishment (you can tell by the smell of urine when you walk by it during the day), and they're shall we say slightly inebriated. This is exacerbated by the fact that the show Tapout is filming in the bar (it's an ok weird show about the MMA clothing company) and there's some fighters working the bar instead of bartenders. Larry is shooting his mouth off at a camera man to pay attention to us even though we're not chicks and we don't have anything interesting to say. The camera guy seems bored of chasing the 3 girls in the bar around and points the camera at us. Larry and B start flashing west side gang sides like any good hick from the valley and talking about eggs and bacon because you know why not? And then 3 loud bangs against the wall in the bathroom... invariably we lose our camera man. So there's 3 guys beating the crap out of each other in the can, naturally the best way to solve this is with professional fighters. They leave the bar and drag out each guy. The first one out had the distinction of being choked out which I thought was pretty fun for everybody except him. Eyes closed legs shaking, he lost his first semi-pro bout by rear naked choke... oops. The other guys were dragged out and tossed onto the sidewalk. Disaster averted, SLOPD showed up 15 minutes later and stayed for like 45 minutes to just kick it because, you know, something happened a while ago.

Anyways as a reminder to yourself, if there's a bunch of dudes with cauliflower ear in the bar and cameras, do yourself a favor and don't get in a fight because it is never cool to be put to sleep and crap you pants infront of a studio audience.

Mountain Man Probably Scares Chuck Norris, Luckily He Wants to be My Friend

This week I got a friend request from a guy nicknamed “Mountain Man,” who also happens to be my Myspace Friend Request of the Week. Sounds pretty illustrious, hey? He stood out for two obvious reasons 1) he’s a dude 2) He looks like a ripped homeless person that is either an unemployed shoe-bomber or a roadie for Matisyahu.

Normally when I get a friend request and I can’t figure out a good reason as to why we should be connected I deny, but with this I was far too curious to miss out on what Myspace greatness might be waiting for me… Oh and my best guess as to how I got friended – the Adword Monster is 8’11” with a bodybuilder body type.

Once I got to the page and started fishing around, the guy is actually really interesting. He works out alone in his garage and does crazy person stuff like eat whole eggs. Whole as in white, yolk, and shell. He gained internet fame on a bodybuilder forum as a breakout personality. It looks like he’s trying to spin some of that notoriety into marketing momentum for himself, his band, and his ideas. He’s done a good job of harnessing accidental internet niche fame and making it work for him.

If you get a chance, check out a full interview with Mountain Man on BodyBuilding.com and his Myspace page.

Oh and I added him btw. Partially because he’s interesting, but mainly because he scares the hell out of me! Would you tell that guy no?

And finally for your viewing pleasure… the right(?) way to eat an egg.

Some Recent LinkedIn Answers

Question: Seeking your opinions on MySpace and Facebook

I am writing a paper for a conference, in which I compare MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn with respect to professionals who may be using those services. And as I have a profile with each service, I have some observations and opinions I can work with, but I know I'm not smart enough to see everything.

So I want to hear from you. I know you use LinkedIn, or you wouldn't be reading this question. LOL If you HAVE a MySpace profile, and/or if you HAVE a Facebook profile, I would like to know (a) whether you think they are advancing your business or career in any way, and (b) what you particularly like (or dislike) about those services.

For purposes of my own research, I'm not particularly interested in opinions not directly related to the questions above, and I'm not particularly interested in the opinions of those not having profiles. But I recognize if you're one of those people you may need to talk anyway, so have at thee. LOL

Non-trivial, on-topic answers will get an "acknowledgement" credit on the paper -- which I'm sure will TOTALLY make your day. Woo-hoo! LOL

My Answer

I have a Myspace account (well a couple of them... one personal and one professional) and a Facebook account and they've both been helpful to me professionally. It's not easy to make it happen though. You have to develop good content, build links to your accounts, actually be involved and social on the site, and it helps if you do some other promotion whether it's online or in more traditional media (print, radio, TV).

I have a Myspace page focused on my business that has done very well with organic rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN and has driven traffic and sales leads to my web site. A while back I wrote a blog post on my Myspace page about going to Milwaukee for a few days and ended up getting a request for a meeting while I was in town from a younger entrepreneur.

My Facebook profile hasn't been quite as strong professionally, but it is useful for keeping connected with younger professionals that aren't into LinkedIn. If you use the Groups feature, I think you can extract some good business value as well assuming you can promote your group enough to gain some traction. The other tool Facebook gives you that I think is too often overlooked is the super targeted PPC available. You can cut down Facebook's US network of 20+ million people to just people at a particular school with a particular major, or just people between certain ages in a certain town. It's not free but it is very cool.

Question: Can business pages on facebook join groups? Can they invite people to become fans?

My Answer

Unfortunately business fan pages can't join groups, probably because they're pretty close to a group to begin with. You can invite people though.

On the right hand side of the page there is a text link to "Share with Friends" and there is also a "share" button on the very bottom of the page in the right hand corner you can use to promote/invite people.

The other thing I've done to promote things like this is to add the URL to e-mail newsletters and relevant web sites. You can also use Facebook's PPC platform to promote a fan page if you are ok with spending some money.

Question: What do you think about the newly announced Google "Automatic Matching" feature?

It's been widely reported even though technically it is in beta. http://www.google.com/search?q=google+Automatic+Matching It's a way to expand your reach and spend the rest of your budget by allowing Google to find matches that go beyond broad or extended. I won't share my opinion, but I'm writing about it in an upcoming column and would love to hear what the LinkedIn community has to say.

My Answer

That is one of those "helpful" features that I turn off immediately. I really don't like spending my client's money just to spend money. I'm not anti-broad matching, the public is incredibly creative when it comes to creating a search query, but deliberate guessing by a computer in order to make sure all of my budget gets spent does not sit well with me. Adwords is most profitable to users when tightly controlled.
Links: http://www.smsrd.com/2008/02/google-budget-optimizer-house-always.html