Patrick Altoft directs search for Branded3, a Leeds-based full service digital agency. He also runs the popular Blogstorm SEO blog and is a pretty interesting guy to chat to overall! Hit him up if you’re looking for search services in the UK! 
We’re continuing a series of interviews I conducted in 2008 with active Sphinners. You might also like to read the interviews with David ‘theGypsy’ Harry and ‘Sebastian‘.
1) What benefits have you seen from your activity at Sphinn?
I use my real name and people now associate my Sphinn profile with my blog. Any bit of publicity helps on the web.
2) Share 3 – 5 key elements of your success with Sphinn.
1. Use your face as your avatar
2. Use your real name
3. Only submit great stuff
3) What other social networks do you participate in? (E.g. Digg/clones, Facebook/LinkedIn/Myspace, Ning-type sites, forums, specific blogs you comment on a lot) Can you share your usernames there, and what type of content you’d consider sharing with the other members of those sites as well what you wouldn’t pass on?
I use Digg and StumbleUpon and used to be active on Digital Point until it was overrun by to much noise.
4) What features (besides those announced, like “Mark as spam/Bury”) would you like to see on Sphinn?
I would like to be able to subscribe to a feed that tells me when my blog posts get sphunn so I can go vote for them too.
5) Are you a socialist or a medium? [A weak attempt at humour playing on ‘social media’….]
Neither.
6) Define the term: “Sphinn doctor.” [Ditto]
Somebody who can get to the front page of sphinn.
7) Besides only submitting their own stuff or only sphinning their own stuff, what are some common mistakes people make with social media?
Submitting content that is blatantly linkbait or content that is full of adverts.
8) Tell us a minimum 3 non-Sphinn items about yourself that people could use to catch your eye on Sphinn (i.e. to Sphinnbait you).
a. Mention my name or blog
b. Write something I’ve never read before
c. Give a real life example of making money from the web
9) Which of Cialdini’s 6 principles do you feel most important to gaining influence and why? Can you share some anecdotes?
I have never heard of Cialdini I’m afraid.
10) What is the future of social media?
Sites will try harder and harder to become spam free and probably ruin themselves while doing it. One persons spam is another persons clever marketing and it is a very tight balance.
Like I said, you might also like to read the interviews with David ‘theGypsy’ Harry and ‘Sebastian‘.
If you want to keep up with future interviews from this series, add my rss feed to your reader. You may also like my advanced SEO book.
Tags: Interviews, People, social
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