It’s an ancient tactic and one which works online as much as anywhere else, even more so.
When someone links to this blog with content above a certain quality threshold I will Stumble, Sphinn, Delicious that content. I may even Twitter if the content is appropriate.
The reason being is to boost the power and authority of that page and the link. Also, some traffic will travel down that link to its destination.
This technique is why a lot of generous and naturally nice people succeed in blogging, they constantly feed their friends and starve their enemies.
You can apply the same principle to Twitter. You recommend people to follow the friends who recommend to their friends to follow you. You help build their account, because if they are saying nice things about you, you want they to have a bigger audience.
Can this be used for evil? Possibly, but the people I see working this technique seem to genuinely enjoy sharing it around. I know I do, it simply is a natural thing to build up your friends whilst ignoring your enemies.
When I say enemies I am really saying people who would never do anything for you, whilst you do everything for them. In the strict definition of the word they are not your enemies as in they may not even know you exist. They are an enemy to your progress online if you spend resources on them.
Spend your resources on your friends, not the big cheese, online super hero blogger. Too many people clamoring for attention. They simply don’t have the time to help you.
But if you’re friends with the “up and comers”, these are the people who can give you the leg up, these people have time for you. Hunt them down and do nice things for them often. They will notice you and do nice things back.
It’s all very karmic in the end. If you want to get ahead in music, don’t try to get advice on Bono, go find the best Pub band in your area and buy them a Kitkat. Or a pint. These are the guys who have the potential to help you.
Now go out and do some good.
Sournce:
Vikings, The History Channel
17 replies on “Feed your Friends, Starve your Enemies”
When reading your post I couldn’t help but think of the Godfather quote ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’. And I guess for this particular post it wouldn’t hold true but perhaps it would be fair to say that we can keep our enemies closer particularly if you have a good enough point or information you’d like to share with the rest of the bloggers reading the enemy’s post that hasn’t been noted or mentioned by the enemy himself/herself.
Other bloggers reading your comments will probably more then likely visit your blog if they found it valuable and informative. Wouldn’t you agree?
Guy
Great advice, simply put. Thanks.
What you say is very true. Avoid the big cheese, help the little cheeses. It works, plus, it’s kind.
I live by the motto, “What comes around, goes around.” 🙂
That’s exactly how I see it as well. I’ll be the first one to submit and promote other people’s stuff when they link to me. Why wouldn’t I?
And in turn, they appreciate that you’re bringing attention and people to the page. Win Win.
Cast your bread upon the waters, …
and it is still so true.
Oh OK, then. I’ll help you out by giving your post a Stumble. I know newbies like you need all the help you can get 😉
Thanks for the great advice. Seems like a great way to build friends and links. You get a stumble!
Remember, with great power. comes great responsibility.
Something tells me folks like who make it to the very top like Bono have helped a significant number of up-and-comers along the way too.
Now I’m scared. If I don’t cooperate with Lyndon then I may end up on some sort of doo-doo list. Then again, if I cooperate then we may all reap the rewards. Splendid.
I have also seen people not live by the saying “be nice to people on the way up because you might need them on the way back down”. Over and over I have seen people only want to deal with the big hitters, until they turn around and the big hitters won’t talk to them and neither will the rest of us 😉
Even replying to this is a bit of proof of concept for what Lyndon is talking about here. He stumbled a few of my articles about a year ago (I assume he’s been putting this into practice a while now) which introduced me to his site. Got me subscribing to his content etc. Now I drop by every once in a while and stumble more of my favorites, like this one. I see his redish logo (unchanged for the past year or 2) and its branded in my head as a generous and authoritative figure. Isn’t that we’re all going for? Good job!
This is a strategy I recommend as well because I’ve found it to work. Not only do I Stumble/Digg/etc posts but I also usually add them to a Bookmarking Demon run to lesser known social sites. That way they can get 30 or so extra links to a page which can help them rank well for long tail terms in that post. If the link back to my site is dofollow this also helps me as well.
Very true, Lyndon. This is what building a relationship is all about. It’s not just kissing ass of those who are most powerful. If they don’t care about you, they will not share any of their power with you.
@Rob You’ve got a good point. Knowing instantly who your friends are is important. The red Lyndoman avatar is an excellent example of good personal branding.
That’s true the people that tend to help out are the up and comers because they need the most exposure! How many people have clicked on there “enemies” blog just to see what there site is like?
Great tip. When I guest post somewhere, I tend to promote that article much more than I’d promote my own blog. I get exposure, they get free content and more eyes on site.
Great post, and I agree 100%. If you have problem with internet, spending to much time on it, them, if you keep feeding your “enemy”, them, it will keep growing until overcome you.
That’s a principle that we can be applied for everything in life: “make your enemy starve and eventually he will die”.