How egocentric are you?
I am a huge fan of interactive tools as a way to generate a World Wide Rave (when people are talking about you and your company). The best interactive tools tend to be free, are easy to use, and provide meaningful data. And when they do all those things, people talk about them and share them.
For example, HubSpot has two great tools, Website Grader and Press Release Grader. The simple and free tools have been used to grade hundreds of thousands of sites and press releases. And tons of bloggers have talked about the tools, generating thousands of inbound links.
Last week, Douglas Karr released on his Marketing Technology Blog a Tuned In Calculator. The idea is deceptively simple. It takes your RSS feed and analyzes it for how often you use egocentric words like "we" and "our" compared to how often you talk about your readers, your buyers and their problems. As Douglas says, "If you're always talking about yourself, you may not be Tuned In!"
Here is a link to the Tuned In Calculator.
When I first tested this blog, I got a 9 (awesome). But a few days later when I tested, I scored an 8 (caring). I'll need to figure out why the difference! Maybe Douglas tweaked his algorithm yesterday.
Thanks Douglas, for taking an idea in our book Tuned In and creating such a great tool.
I am continuing to adjust the algorithm (slightly). Thanks for writing about it! As well, as your feed changes, so will your score since it's new content evaluated!
Posted by: Douglas Karr | August 16, 2008 at 09:31 AM
I think he still has some work to do on it. It does not recognize my feedburner feed.
Posted by: Dave | August 16, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Dave, Try substituting "http" where you see "feed" at the begining of the URL and your feedburner feed should work.
Posted by: David Meerman Scott | August 16, 2008 at 03:49 PM
What a great acid test for whether a blogger is engaging in a real conversation or just using their blog as a one-way corporate mouthpiece. It's simple and nudges you in the right direction without having to actually understand the Cluetrain. Seems like it would make a great Wordpress plugin.
Posted by: PR4Pirates | August 17, 2008 at 03:49 PM
David - Congrats on your win as a top 5 blogger on Junta42s new list! - Mike
Posted by: Michael A. Stelzner | August 18, 2008 at 09:53 AM
I noticed Dave's note and added some additional tweaks to accept feed:// or even no http:// at all. Once again, thanks for the attention!
Posted by: Douglas Karr | August 19, 2008 at 08:34 AM
You should check out Dane Carlson's "How Much is Your Blog Worth?" widget on his business opportunities weblog.
I think that's the most successful link baiting free tool ever created on the web.
I can't imagine the amount of traffic he's generated with that simple tool that probably took him a few hours to build.
Posted by: peter caputa | August 22, 2008 at 07:52 AM