I rarely do this.

But after my last blog post on the idea that Twit­ter is pop­u­lated by drones and fakes, Tiffany Dow posted a spir­ited rebut­tal to my blog post.

A gaunt­let has been thrown down.

I felt com­pelled to respond.

In fact, I posted sev­eral com­ments. But that’s not what I meant when I said “I rarely do this.” (I always love a healthy debate.) What I rarely do is repost my com­ments on its own blog post, which is what I’m doing now.

Why? Because I believe they’re rel­e­vant and impor­tant to this discussion.

So here are some of them, with a few addi­tional edi­to­r­ial com­ments here and there. (Yes, I know this blog post is long, and I apol­o­gize in advance. But I think you’ll find this dis­cus­sion insight­ful, if not some­what interesting.)

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As with sta­tic web­sites, the suc­cess of a blog depends on attract­ing a steady stream of new and return traf­fic. The dif­fer­ence is, blog pro­mo­tion tools are slightly dif­fer­ent, a bit more diverse, and largely much more effective.

Why? Because blogs are designed with inter­ac­tiv­ity and social net­work­ing abil­ity built in. They are ideal both for devel­op­ing rela­tion­ships and for mar­ket­ing your brand.

How­ever, don’t neglect stan­dard pro­mo­tional activ­i­ties in favor of blog-​​only traf­fic gen­er­a­tion meth­ods. You can and should use both.

In fact, tra­di­tional mar­ket­ing can become even more potent with a blog due to its nature.

For exam­ple, and most impor­tant, you will still want to uti­lize your email list, and use your blog to grow it, too. Ask read­ers to sub­scribe, and let them know when you post a new arti­cle just as you would with a new fea­ture or prod­uct on a sta­tic website.

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Want to upload and share your video on sites like YouTube, Revver, Meta­Cafe, Google Video, and more, but it’s too cum­ber­some since you have to log into each one and upload mul­ti­ple times?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do it all in just one step?

Recently, I stum­bled upon a free — yes, free! — video sub­mis­sion ser­vice, which allows for auto­mated sub­mis­sion of your video to not one, not two or three, but to all the 12 big video sites all at once — includ­ing YouTube, MySpace, Meta­Cafe, Revver, Google Video, AOL, Yahoo!, and more.

Plus, there’s no setup, and it’s free to boot! It’s…

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My recent arti­cle about Face­book not being a viable mar­ket­ing tool has cre­ated quite a stir.

Many peo­ple agreed with me. But some peo­ple didn’t, and I respect that. How­ever, while a few were scathing and harsh in their remarks, oth­ers posted some excel­lent rebut­tals on their own blogs.

This topic seems to be as con­tro­ver­sial as the long-​​versus-​​short-​​copy debate in copy­writ­ing cir­cles. Deja-​​vu? Well, it’s no won­der because, just like the copy length debate, both sides are right.

It all depends on how you use them and with whom.

That’s why I agree with most of Facebook’s pro­po­nents. That might sound like a con­tra­dic­tion, but I believe it’s because many mis­un­der­stood my post. So I wanted to take a moment before hop­ping on the plane to clar­ify a few things.

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We’ve made it! You’ve now reached the last com­mand­ment. And what bet­ter way is there to end this book that’s chock-​​full o’ mar­ket­ing secrets other than by telling you about some­thing I truly hate. I hate net­work­ing. Really, I do!

I hate it because, in my expe­ri­ence, it hasn’t brought me any­thing sub­stan­tial in return. You’re prob­a­bly say­ing right now, “What? Is he crazy? Has he lost his mind?”

But wait a minute, hear me out. Net­work­ing isn’t a bad con­cept. Far from it. If the pre­vi­ous com­mand­ments have been prop­erly fol­lowed, net­work­ing can be a fan­tas­tic mar­ket­ing tool to lever­age them. If you can be at the top of your prospects’ minds, you can also be at the top of your network’s mind, right?

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Face­book is grow­ing by leaps and bounds. If you don’t know what Face­book is, it’s a social net­work­ing site much like MySpace, but with a lot more con­trol, flex­i­bil­ity, and ver­stil­ity. (Check out my pro­file.)

But after test­ing it for a while, I’ve con­cluded that it’s not a viable mar­ket­ing tool. At least, not for me. There are two rea­sons why using Web 2.0 social-​​driven sites to make money (or to drive tar­geted traf­fic) is not viable.

First, and more impor­tantly, it’s labor-​​intensive. It’s a full-​​time affair.

I don’t pre­tend to be a social mar­ket­ing expert by any stretch. And I’m sure that, if you are a social site junkie, you can find some pretty cre­ative ways for using them to gen­er­ate mas­sive amounts of traf­fic. Some already have.

But for me, my busi­ness, and my spe­cific tar­get mar­ket, and like many social net­work­ing sites out there, it’s a waste of time. So if you’re not pre­pared on work­ing it exten­sively and reli­giously, then I dis­c­om­mend it.

How­ever, noth­ing stops you from out­sourc­ing the leg­work, if you’re so inclined. But there’s another good rea­son why I don’t rec­om­mend it…

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What is it with peo­ple lately?

Brow­beat­ing, bash­ing, and bul­lyrag­ging. Flames, stains, and blames. Put downs, let downs and show­downs. On forums, blogs, and social net­work­ing sites.

Sure, I under­stand peo­ple are fed up with scam artists and snake oil sales­men. And sure, I also believe we need fire­brands and rebels. Each one helps to keep the other side in line.

I love good debates. They’re not only intel­lec­tu­ally stim­u­lat­ing, but also they help insti­gate change, or give oth­ers the impe­tus on how to deal with it. I always love a good argu­ment, when that argu­ment is based on fact and substance.

But lately, some of them are really get­ting out of hand.

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