What if Seth Godin is NOT Seth Godin?

Seth Godin is one of my marketing heroes. He’s a thoughtful marketer and frequently on the vanguard of various new media applications. I read all of his books, and never fail to learn something from them. I subscribe to his blog, and have read many of them several times.

But in one of his more recent blogs, "Drip-Drip-Drip", I saw an inconsistency so glaring it deserved investigation.

In "Drip Drip Drip goes the Twit", Seth makes the terrific point that trust is built over a period of time - it happens over a long period as you get to know someone and come to understand who they are and what they stand for - and he drives the point home that the time to begin developing that trust is before you need it. So true. Publish NOW, he says, either in blogs or in little “twits on twitter”.

Odd, I thought. Seth has a twitter account, and I’ve never seen him there. I looked him up.

And there it was. The numbers jumped out at me.

He has updated 448 times
He has 3285 followers
He follows no one. Zero.

Huh? I was surprised and more than a little disappointed. Seth’s using Twitter only to pimp his blog. How is this leveraging the power of new media? Isn’t this exactly what he says NOT to do in Meatball Sundae? To use New Media as a one way conversation that's all about me me me? No way!



Incredulous, I asked the question on Twitter, and one of my better informed colleagues pointed me to this article by Darren Rowse, better known as ProBlogger. And look at what Darren found out about Seth as his Twitter Account:

When Seth isn't Seth

Ironic, huh? Some anonymous person is on Twitter, posing as Seth Godin. He's posting Seth’s blogs under Seth’s name. Even though all this presumed fan does is post links to Seth’s blog, it still is damaging to Seth’s carefully nurtured brand:

• People think Seth is using Twitter solely to flog his blog, and have “unfollowed” him as a result. Web 2.0 is two way - not one way.

• People think Seth is using Twitter as a one-way marketing tool, which is in direct contradiction to his own advice.  This undermines his credibility as a teacher.

• People think Seth is ignoring them, which gives him a none too desirable aura of contemptuousness. This looks especially bad next to fellow A-lister Guy Kawasaki - who is following 9456 on Twitter, and being followed by 8713. Guy is active on Twitter, and has built a great core following through commentary and participation.

So instead of building trust a tweet at a time, trust is being eroded. But not by Seth. By someone who has hijacked his name. 

And I think we can all imagine the disastrous possibilities were this fan malicious, or possibly looking to profit from the exploitation of Seth’s name and enormous following.

Readers: PROTECT YOUR BRAND.

• Secure your domain names

• Secure your brand and/or name on social media sites

• Google yourself regularly; set up Google alerts for your name

• Defend your reputation and your name and your place

If this can happen to Seth Godin, it can happen to you as well. Don’t let it.

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Comments

[Heather @ Desperately Seeking Sanity]

Like you, Seth is a hero of mine as well. I was also disturbed by the twitter statistics and automatically assumed that he was the most self centered person on the planet and thus dissappointed.

Unlike you, I didn't take the time to investigate, but I'm glad you did. I'll be unfollowing @sethgodin... as someone else said, I have an RSS feed that will let me know when he posts.

Good investigative work!

[Katja of Skimbaco]

This is a great example, thanks for posting. I will spend rest of the evening buying domain names :)

[geekmommy]

there have been several situations lately that have emphasized the need for us all to 'protect our brand' - but while I didn't look into why @sethgodin on twitter was so contradictory of his policies as you did (great job btw!) I have to wonder why Seth hasn't established his own twitter account to combat this? But were he simply to have "reserved" his name on twitter and never posted, wouldn't that be just as contradictory?

[Seth Godin]

Thanks guys

I've written about this:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/02/not-seth-godin.html

it shows up pretty quickly if you google it.

the question is: what should I do about it? Should we register our names on every single social networking site in the world?

I've tried to be clear about it, and would love to 'reserve' the name and leave it as is, but there you go...

[Kim Dushinski]

WOW. Thanks for posting this. I was seriously upset and thinking that maybe I didn't know Set Godin as well as I thought I did.

Now I wish the other "gurus" who really are ignoring the conversation, purposely and publicly, would understand that they are being rude and egotistical. So glad to know Seth Godin is NOT this way.

[Karen Swim]

Frank, thank you so much for bringing this issue to the forefront. It saddens me that there are those who would use someone else's name. We work hard to build our brands and reputations and now have to spend as much time protecting it. As Seth pointed out, how far do we have to go? Do we register ourselves on every single social networking site to maintain control? I have taken Chris Brogan's advice to heart and added tools in addition to Google Alerts. I'm not an A-lister by any means but have also found plagiarized articles and unseemly uses of my company name. Thanks to you at least we all know that Seth on Twitter is not Seth.

[Frank Martin]

Heather, Katja, Geekmommy, Kim and Karen, thanks so much for responding. It seems to me that this problem is only going to get worse with the proliferation of social media. Seth's point is well taken that it is impracticable to find every social media site in the world and lock-in your name - but still it seems that in the case of someone blatantly hijacking your name and pretending to be you, it may be worthwhile to stop it. Why not contact the Twittergods and put an end to it?

Special thanks to Seth for weighing in. And for the record, I know you're busy, but you should join twitter. Really!

[Jennifer]

Excellent information on the security of securing your domain name especially if you are into the web for business purposes. I attended Pod Camp here in Washington, DC this weekend and the same advice was shared in the seminar dealing with Internet Privacy.

I have shared securing domain name with others years ago who had businesses but they felt it was unnecessary. That was their loss when they realized they missed out in securing their domain name! OOps!

This was the seminar I attended: Identity, Privacy, and Security: How are they different in social web environments?- Andrew Feinberg Here is the speaker's official website if interested in more in what he had to say: http://www.capitolvalley.net/