Social networks should be about learning from each other.

Bad press is better than no press.

My Personal Brand crusade is far too massive and broad to squeeze into your insufficient comment box. ;)

Bacak’s response now is that one of his underlings wrote the release and sent it without his knowledge, and that he really doesn’t know enough about the Social Media community or technology to have expected such a backlash.

And to think that for three weeks, all of my satire and schtick about outsourcing my “Personal Brand” on Twitter was really just precognition.

Aaron, on the other hand, gets a 100 and ranks “#190 Overall rank, out of 548,737.”

Ike Pigott has a very funny and helpful post on his blog, Occam’s RazR, describing how he became the #1 Twitter Elite on Planet Earth, http://zi.ma/ike. He ridicules those like Bacak who game the system for self-promotion. I think you will enjoy it.

I’m most upset by his flagrant use of “telemarketer” kinds of marketing techniques that is an insult to a fairly tight-knit community.

But the TwitterGrader thing? Let’s try to look at that as more of a “score on a pop quiz” than a “you’ve got an MBA in Twitterology and you graduated Magna Cum Laude!” could we? I mean seriously… People want to know if they’re ‘on the right track’ so they go put their score in.

Apparently, some think this is more important than others… this guy being one of those cases.

Feeling somewhat like I missed a great opportunity to make tons of money off of clueless people tho, I mean, I’ve been either #1 or #2 on Twittergrader for Denver since day 1… ;)

I don’t feel sorry for this guy so much as I feel sorry for us tho. I think maybe Erin has it right in that our old Twitterville is rapidly becoming all about the noise and the quick buck.

The point Matt Bacak (and anyone who buys his BS) seems to be missing is a fundamental of marketing — the size of your prospect pool doesn’t mean squat on its own. Conversion is the key. I know of internet marketers who have lists of 100,000+ people, but have like 0.1% conversion rates when they do an offer. I know others who have lists of 2,000, but have 50% conversion rate. Which do you want to be?

It doesn’t matter how many people you can attract as followers if they’re not willing to take action on your behalf, whether it’s clicking a link, referring a friend or buying a product. And to get people willing to take action on your behalf, you have to take action for other people — not every single person in your network, but enough to show you’re a giver, not just a taker.

I should also point out that this seems to be a missing piece for a lot of people in social media – how to move people from “follower” to “customer” in a non-spammy, non-tacky, non-irritating way.