yeo: A Community Powered Reading List - My Facebook Neighbors Speak - 06/18/09 05:02 AM
The following doesn't surprise me anymore. I've come to expect it. The reading list contained in the conversation below was generated in less than 30 minutes on Facebook. What's more, I expect that it might grow a bit from here. I think it illustrates the beauty of YEO. Because these relationships are real, I've come to trust these people that some of my "real life" friends affectionately call "faux friends." I'd strongly disagree.
I asked a simple question and the community was quick to respond. They spoke and I listened. I now have four of their recommendations in my iPhone Kindle … (35 comments)

yeo: YEO on Twittertalk Radio - 06/05/09 05:03 AM
I was honored to be interviewed by Angie Swartz on Twittertalk Radio a couple of weeks ago. 
Angie and I spent a good portion of the first segment talking about YEO and it's origins here on ActiveRain. Her take on the segment: "Jeff Turner coined one of his taglines by accident in a blogpost he wrote for Active Rain…SEO vs. YEO. Although Jeff admits that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is important, he purports that YEO (You Engaging Others) is by far the most essential factor in developing good content and relationships. If you focus on interesting conversations with others, you’ll likely … (20 comments)

yeo: You Engaging Others - Concentrate On The Verb, Not The Adjective - 05/08/09 12:27 AM
When I talk about the concept of YEO, You Engaging Others, the word "engaging" is used as a verb. This is not an accident.
Reading through the comment stream of my post last week, I occured to me that some were responding to the word "engaging" as an adjective. In it's adjective form, engaging means, "Interesting; charming; attractive, especially of a manner or behaviour." And while I think that's all well and good, that's not what I mean when I use the word "engaging."
I mean the verb:
To gain over; to win and attach; to attract and hold; to … (73 comments)

yeo: YEO - Maintaining Contact With Thousands. Why Do You Care? - 05/01/09 04:18 AM
The following conversation on Twitter inspired this post today. HomesByThomas  yesterday @respres Jeff, with over 6000 followers, how hard is it to maintain any sort of contact with people? Did you notice that I sent you a Thank You?
respres  yesterday @HomesByThomas yes, I did, but hadn't responded yet. And a lot easier than you might think. You may have given me my YEO post for the week.
HomesByThomas  21 hours ago @respres Jeff, I'm glad to hear your response. I thinks it's awesome that you can respond like this and I'm excited I could inspire a Blog!
respres  12 hours ago @HomesByThomas well, let's … (75 comments)

yeo: YEO - Numbers That Mean Something - 04/23/09 09:42 AM
Last Thursday I wrote about Why Twitter Follower Counts Mean Nothing. The post touched off some interesting public and private discussions. The number huggers are everywhere and their logic, in a very comfortable, that-sounds-like-something-i've-done-before, kind of way, can certainly appear sound. They ask questions like, "Why broadcast to 10 people when you can broadcast to 10,000?" Who could argue with that, right? <raises hand> The clue to the answer lies in the question itself.
Broadcasting?
Is that really what we're doing in the social media space? Some think so.  I don't. I received a direct message from Matt Rathbun this morning … (71 comments)

yeo: YEO - Don't Get Sucked Into The Twitter Numbers Game - 04/18/09 10:15 AM
Ashton Kutcher is about to pass 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. I'm happy for Ashton. And I mean that. He plans to do some great things with the account and I hope he does. But you're not Ashton Kutcher and neither am I. Unfortunately there are a whole slew of Twitter geniuses out there encouraging you to focus almost exclusively on getting as many followers as possible. It's fools gold. And I'm about to illustrate why.
Getting followers is easy. Building a community is hard.
A phone call with Jim Marks about creating some fake accounts (an entirely different post) prompted me … (123 comments)

yeo: YEO - Take Control Of The Machine - 04/09/09 05:51 PM
"The computer is a moron." - Peter Drucker A few days ago I received an email from someone who was comparing Real Estate Shows to another company. They wanted to know if we automatically distributed our Shows to the 10 or more social networking sites that another tour company distributed them to.
My response was a simple. No. 
And we have no plan to do so either. Why? Because doing so would simply encourage our clients to let the machine control their behavior instead of having their behavior control the machine. There are no technical barriers to making this happen. … (66 comments)

yeo: 10 Things You Need To Know About Search Engines And Findability (Thank you, Dave Taylor) - 09/21/08 06:28 AM
I'm sitting in the airport in Las Vegas, reflecting on reBlogWorld and BlogWorld Expo and thought I'd share one of the thoughts that occurred to me during a session yesterday.
Dave Taylor gave a presentation entitled "10 Things You Need To Know About Search Engines And Findability." I didn't learn anything during the presentation that I didn't already know, but I still enjoyed it immensely. And it reminded me how lazy I can sometimes be with the basics. Dave presented the 10 tips in a way that is easy to understand and implement. I used Qik.com to stream the entire … (67 comments)

yeo: For The Love Of Creative Commons - 06/19/08 06:54 PM
I love taking photos and I love Flickr. What I love almost as much as taking photos is finding that someone has used one of my photos in their blog posts. All of my public photos on Flickr give you permission for use, so long as you give attribution. I do this via the Creative Commons license. If you take lots of local photos, it's a great way to get exposure beyond your blog.
Some of what I consider my favorite photos, like the one to the right, have never been used via the Creative Commons. And, I think you'll see from … (111 comments)

yeo: 200,000 Points And Nothing But Great Relationships To Show For It - 08/07/07 06:30 PM
I stopped caring about the points a long time ago.It didn't take long to realize the the real value of this network went far beyond having my face move up the rankings. It's too simple to rack up meaningless points for that to even be a challenge, and lots have written about how to do that, so the points soon lost their appeal.
That's not to say the points don't matter. That's is clearly not true. The only folks who say points don't matter on ActiveRain are those who already have a lot of points. I'm not going to join that … (83 comments)

yeo: The Power Of A Plainfield Mom: YEO In Action - 05/15/07 02:49 AM
"When Julie Ferenzi of Plainfield read an online journal about a baby boy who was given six to eights weeks to live and needed a bone marrow donor, she went into action." Catherine Ann Velasco, The Herald News
Several weeks ago, you may remember a post by Julie Ferenzi entitled, This Has Nothing To Do With Real Estate But Everything To Do With Humanity. She wrote about a little boy named Trevor Kott who urgently needed a bone marrow transplant. She wrote from her heart. "I don't know why I feel it is my duty to help this family find this very … (28 comments)

yeo: Are You Dense Or Something? - 05/03/07 05:42 AM
I thought it was time to get back to my Project Blogger "Tool Boy" duties. 
I just dig this little tool at iWebTool.com. It's called Keyword Density Checker. Keyword Density Checker runs a search on your URL and then displays which keywords are the most prevalent on your pages. The cloud view it returns is a simple way to visually see which words are being used most often. It also presents a list of the words with how many times each has been used. If the keywords you're targeting aren't showing up LARGE, you may need to think about making some … (39 comments)

yeo: Google Is A Woman - 05/01/07 01:14 PM
"The only thing worse than a woman scorned is a woman ignored." - Lenn Harley
I had "Call Lenn Harley" on my to do list for almost four weeks. It seemed like something was always getting in the way. An emergency here... a crisis there. A few days ago, while stuck in LA traffic, I finally made time to dial Lenn Harley and introduce myself. I had no reason for calling. But so many people had her on their short list of most respected real estate agents that I just had to speak to her. Wow.
It was a truly delightful … (67 comments)

yeo: What Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla Can Teach Us About SEO and YEO - 04/18/07 04:11 PM
I can  find "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla", but I can't find "he, him, or his."
It hit me as I was actively singing along to my kid's Schoolhouse Rock CD, that I unconsciously use pronouns for exactly the reasons that my favorite Schoolhouse Rock song describes. My favorite is called "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla." I loved it when I was a kid and I love it now. My kids get a kick out of me belting it out at the top of my lungs.
Here's the best part of the song:
Now I could tell you Rafaella Gabriela and Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla and Albert Andreas Armadillo … (71 comments)

yeo: A Garage Sale And The Long Tail - 04/15/07 05:58 AM
Where Is The Short Tail And Where Is The Long Tail In This Photo?
The following is based on a true story.
Every Saturday morning, I walk with my kids to the donut shop that is almost exactly 1 mile from my home. It's our local donut shop. They know us. We know them. The owners live in our neighborhood.
Saturday, as we were walking along our normal route, we saw a group of kids up ahead trying to attract attention to a garage sale. Some of them had signs. Some of them were just screaming at the passing cars. One … (62 comments)

yeo: It's Not About SEO. It's About YEO. - 04/09/07 12:23 PM
The focus on search engine optimization in blogging is a distraction.
For the Project Blogger competition, I've actually told Julie Ferenzi to stop thinking about it. She was becoming a little fixated on the search engines finding her and was spending a lot of time reading about how to get good search engine placement. It didn't surprise me.
SEO tends to dominate discussions about the benefits of blogging and it shouldn't. Don't get me wrong, I'm a geek. (Did I say that out loud?) I like the "science" of SEO. I read as much as I can on the topic. … (145 comments)