In parts one and two we discussed the meaning of “avatar” and outlined a monitor & report approach savvy PR firms undertake: The “Walled Garden Forum Rat.” This post focuses on another common participatory profile: The “DoFollow Link Builder.”

This avatar profile is much more common than one might think. It’s also a fuzzy role, in terms of intent and ethics. Anonymous DoFollow link building avatars line the underbelly of social media link-juice mining, spooging points ostensibly awarded for participation.

Do a gut check. Have you ever sought out threads that pass link juice for comments and participated only to link build? Did you always participate using your own name and email, etc…? Are these really blog communities you care about?

Straight Up Disclaimer
Don’t Kill the messenger! We’re not passing judgment (pro/con) and not specifically revealing aimClear avatar products. There are varying degrees of risk and redemption to decisions surrounding corporate participation in social communities. Do this stuff–you might die and go to hell, or worse yet…make Google mad. On the other hand many SEOs partake in this methodology and think it’s just fine.

No Persona, Leaves “Name” as Mid-tail Keyword Anchor Text
Most blog comment threads, by default, allow commenters to leave a link on the anchor text of their avatar’s name. It’s not even necessary to leave html & anchor text in the actual comment box, which often triggers moderation. It’s so simple.

The only reason this avatar model even has a name of any sort, is for required contact information anchor text in comment threads. For instance, I might leave the name “Snow Plow Marty” and link back to snow-plow.php on the site I’m link building for, as I leave my comment on the WinterWonderland Blog.

A while back, most blogs quit passing Google juice, in threads, to keep SEOs from spamming the hell out them. That’s the same approach Wikipedia uses to discourage SEO-motivated participation. Still, many blogs leave the Google juice on, even .edus and other juicy fruit, to incent “participation. Andy Beard is the father of DoFollow to my mind and makes a great case for leaving things wide open.  His work is well worth the read as he contends that all blogs should be DoFollow.

At the end of the day, some blog owners leave their comment threads open to reward users for participation. Others are either not not sophisticated, use an older CMS or their companies’ built out content on custom platforms run by administrators who are just plain oblivious to the implications.

Footprints in The Cyber Sand
There are well known “foot prints” to help locate DoFollow thread opportunities. The DoFollow Link Builder avatar is a shrewd little beach mouse, sniffing them out and swiping the cheese.

It’s plenty impossible for a blog moderator (or automated spam catchers) to tell the difference between an authentic comment and this little guy’s on-topic and-crafted emulated topical relevance. Watch for Google to devalue DoFollow blog comments (and other social media links that reward participation), as here lies a direct threat to Google’s ranking methods.

Here’s a breakout of The DoFollow Link Builder avatar’s M.O:

• Drives Traffic & Link Juice: There’s promotional benefit to being one of the first comments on a blog. DoFollow threads also pass link juice. Traffic and Google juice are two primal drivers for social SEOs. It’s an irresistible combo.
• Uses footprints to Locate Linking Opportunities: Footprints identify content management systems with common idiosyncrasies. DoFollow threads are pretty easy to spot if you know what to look for. We’d love to delve deeper into the “footprint”mentality, as it’s a fascinating intersection at the corners of SEO and SMO. Perhaps we’ll do so in a later post.
• Couldn’t Care Less About Brand, Past SEO. The DoFollow Link Builder Avatar is only interested in anchor text that counts. Save the pretty pictures for the graphic arts department.
• Concerned With Topical Relevance of Participation: That’s the main rub. In order to get over with the anchor text/link and make links stick, the avatar needs to create a comment that is actually real, useful and on topic.
• Low Profile, Makes No Friends, No Emotional Involvement: It’s great to engage in a dialog. It’s better to get 25 PR3 .edu links from different blogs in 4 hours. No time for chit chat.
• Bears No Resemblance to Blogger Team: It only takes a minimum of creativity to leave a topically relevant comment on anchor text that helps. No tears are shed or friends made. The blogger’s personal interests need not align with target blogs. This is all about links and SEO.
• Focused on PageRank: PR3 is better than PR4 and PR5 better than both. Toolbar PR is not the only factor that affects link value. However, it certainly does not suck. Links from high PR pages are good.
• Does Not Sell: This avatar would not cheapen valuable links with gratuitous sales tactics, which might cause a comment to be deleted by the blog owner.
• No Question of Ownership: When the link builder leaves, he or she does not take the thousands of killer DoFollow links. They remain in place.

About This Series: We began quietly polling our peers starting 10 months ago, to map patterns and common approaches to commercial social media participation.

This series stems from that research. SEOs we’ve spoken with (some names you probably know) are not willing to check a little survey box to a) reveal methodologies b) risk the judgment of peers c) put their name to a tactic. This is all because there is a remarkable lack of consensus when it comes to avatars.

Opinions vary regarding ethics as concern personal/political agendas and marketing tactics. The reality is that social media engagement models range from completely fact-based and transparent representations of real humans expressing their true identities, to malfeasant provocateurs.

Stay tuned– we’ll soon be covering Trolls, Lovely Celebrity Spokesmodels and Press Secretaries, both using pseudonyms and real names.

This post continues our lead up to the What Is Ethical Social Media Marketing SMX East session at 1:45PM, October 2 in New York. Moderated by: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, Vice President, Marketing, ExactTarget-speakers includeLiana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, Key Relevance, Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital and me. My presentation will expound on this series of blog posts regarding modern avatar theory.

There’s a remarkable lack of agreement as to what’s cool and what’s not. We’ll be sharing commonalities in what we discover, leading up to my SMX East NYC presentation on the “What Is Ethical in Social Media Marketing” panel. It is not our intent to endorse or dismiss anyone’s practices, merely to present information which supports forming your own opinions as to best practices and ethics.

The Walled Garden Forum Rat Avatar is a social media persona designed to monitor the chatter stream of community corners not indexed by search engines. Usually flying below the radar by not revealing a corporate affiliation, this avatar model is only a reporter and does no selling whatsoever.  The hallmark is intelligence gathering.

Because some content is not discoverable by public engines or services like Trackur,  membership and/or participation is required in order to monitor buzz specific to any topic. As with most avatar models we hear that participation of truly interested people, qualified to engage and contribute to the community’s dialog, is more often successful.

Forum rats are “eyes and ears,” reporting to  marketers, including brand names and people. However we note that other avatar types, with varying degrees of subtly or brute force, work to influence opinions. In future installments we’ll examine more aggressive and even malicious avatars.

Critical Piece of Reputation Management
For reputation managers, in one sense, the Internet can be categorized as the great divide: content which search engines index and content which they are not allowed to index. Locked off behind non-searchable walls stand entire sites, corners of communities, pockets of user engagement and other content. The forum rat’s job is to fly under the radar and report threats or opportunities to marketing firms as regard their clients.

“Walled garden” simply means that some content requires a login and there are tiered levels of access. Some content is visible to the general public without being a member. Other content might be visible to all logged in users. Sometimes access to a user’s personal profile or group content is limited to those accepted as “friends” or members …friends with benefits if you will. Walled garden content can’t be Googled.

For instance, search Google for my friend Shana Albert’s Facebook profile. Facebook does not wall off limited versions of user profiles and allows search engines to spider them. It was a big hairy deal in the search world when Facebook announced that they would allow search engines to index public profiles of users.

In the SERPs you’ll find the public version of her profile, visible to anyone even if they’re not members of Facebook.

Try sending Shana a message or view more than a few of her friends from her public profile and you’ll be prompted to join Facebook. Her information and access is “walled off” and data regarding her meanderings is truly limited. You can’t interact with her. You can’t find out what she’s telling her friends about your client.

However, there’s much more detail available about Shana if a) you join Facebook b) She she accepts you as a friend. I’ve blurred out her personal feed in order to protect her privacy.

A lot more data is available including access to her full friends list, the ability to send messages, engage her with Facebook applications and other fun ways to network.

Most social communities are tiered hybrids of publicly visible content and stuff only available to users. Often there is a level of access only granted to friends.

Facebook is a more complicated community than many forums which do not require friendship to view community chatter. In many, especially “old school” forums, just signing up is enough. That said, The Walled Garden Forum Rat is willing to make friends to engage in reconnaissance.

In some cases in forums and other social communities, internal search requires CAPTCHA which prevents search automation, even when login is feigned technically. The Walled Garden Forum Rat visits his list of assigned communities each day, logs in and mines buzz pockets by searching a list of keywords associated with the client he or she is serving.

The Walled Garden Forum Rat Avatar

• Not transparent and doesn’t reveal association with clients
• Lurk and report, fly below the radar, participate selectively, to gain street cred’
• Loner, limited engagement
• Never sells anything
• Does not attempt to influence, accept in extraordinary circumstances
• Makes few friends in forums which do not require friendship to search and view chatter streams
• Makes many friends if required to search and view chatter streams
• Limited or no influence on behalf of clients, selectively engages to counter threats only by gathering information

Our next installment of “Avatar Theory,” Common Social Media Participation Models” will speak to link builder avatars who use DoFollow comment threads. Stay tuned.