Fake Greg Swann at RE BlogWorld

OK, I lied. One more post. This blog was a glorious viral networking excersize. I took what I learned here, and in the rest of my three years of blogging to create my own Real Estate Blogging Conference. Join me, along with a great group of top flight real estate and mortgage bloggers in Las Vegas on September 19 to kick of the largest blogging and new media conference in the world.

Todd Carpenter is Fake Greg Swann – final post

Brian Brady nailed me from day one. I took it as a great compliment Brian. To have figured it out so fast can only mean you know me, flaws and all.

I wanted to do something like this for a while, and the blog war over the B&W video was the final motivator. My idea was to start an anonymous blog, like the original 4realz. The main problem with a blog like that it’s very hard to get traction, especially with the explosion of bloggers who are now offering their own advice.

I planned to get caught. Some of the title tags in the blogroll were clues, as was my post about Keywords, and I left the spell checker off. I knew someone would figure it out sooner or later. Jim Duncan was at the top of my list once I saw he was using REMBEX to to try to figure it out. That made me smile more than anything. But I also knew that it wouldn’t matter if a few people were pretty sure, so long as more than one blogger was posting. People who thought they knew who I was would also figure out that I wasn’t the only one. Anonymity for each post would be preserved Tony Clifton style. I also decided to wait until I saw how others responded before inviting anyone in.

The behind-the-scenes post reflects everyone who I invited in. I invited Brian because he was the first to figure it out. I invited Jay because he was the second. I invited Dustin because he was the first to discover FGS, and because, who wouldn’t want him on the team? He’s been an RE.net friend since long before Greg ever coined the term. Andy Kaufman was invited because he proved in his Agent Genius article to understand exactly who had inspired me. Daniel and Mariana were invited because I thought they, above everyone else, handled the B&W incident with the most class and humor. Only a few accepted. I’ll let them tell their own story if they wish.

I gave Greg a hint so obvious that he may have easily overlooked it. In a personal, merry X-mas email, on the night before launching FGS, I quoted from The Mouse That Roared. With respect to both sides of the B&W debate, that’s how I perceived some of the outrage. Just below the title of this blog, a second quote from the same book is staring you all right in the face.

fandi fictor Ulixes was a term cobbled from Wikipedia that roughly means, “The Deceitful Odysseus”. As Kris Berg once said, “the latin I know all comes from the back of a one dollar bill”.

Up until Friday, I was 100% positive that this would go on indefinitely. The events of the last few days changed my mind. Lots of people accused me of being the real Greg, and engaging in a publicity stunt. Some of the private mail, and deleted comments were rather offensive. I did not envision that it was going to cause problems for Greg’s reputation. Sorry Greg. Another problem was that it became obvious that virtually every reader was more concerned about “Who Is” than any of the posts that were actually about real estate. This might of changed in the future, but I only intended to create enough publicity to get the blog rolling, not consume it. The final straw was a mistake that I made that was realized by Brad Coy. My WP template did not display the authors name, but the RSS feed did. I exposed one of the contributors, which in my mind was a paramount sin. I have already apologized to that person.

This is all taking way to much effort, and the paranoia I have interacting with my online friends is getting rather unmanageable. Damn you Dan Green! 😉

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. 2000 Page views in one week is as much a credit to the real Greg Swann’s name as it is to my tomfoolery. I will mark this experiment as a failed blog, and a glorious viral marketing exercise.

I’ll continue to comment on RE.net, in public, on Blog Fiesta. It won’t be quite as much fun though, thanks for playing along.

Dan Green is…

One sneeky blogger. But there’s more to the puzzle my freind.

Now, can he keep a secret?

A slow week for RE.net, but a great start for Fake Greg Swann

I started working on this blog last Sunday. The idea was in my head for a few months, but the B&W incident finally motivated me to act. At the same time, I wondered how bloggers would be around to react to it in the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

This is a notoriously slow time for my real blog. Not a whole lot of content has come from RE.net in general over the last week. The Inman Blog has been dormant since the 21st. It’s understandable with the holidays.

FGS was discovered on the 24th, and has averaged about 300 hits a day. Traffic is better than I anticipated, but I assume it will level off as the curiosity wanes a bit. With little to talk about on the RE.net front, we’ve been playing games with many of our posts. As the holidays pass, the blog will shift more to commenting on RE.net. We’re still going to have some fun though.

Building this site has created a few unexpected consequences. A few have tried to use FGS as a platform to attack the real Greg Swann. That aint gonna happen folks. We won’t condone personal attacks toward anyone. It has encouraged others to employ some trickery of their own. We’re fine with that. But don’t expect us to play by traditional rules. Also note that our deceitful ways end at the border’s edge. You won’t see Fake Gregg Swann commenting as Fake Greg Swann on other people’s blogs. If you do, it’s not the real FGS.

More rules may be needed. Less rules would even be better. It’ll depend on how the discussion evolves.

To the vindictive idiot who stalks the real GS

I see your posts all over RE.net. It’s always under a different name, but it’s also the same STUPID argument. Nobody that knows anything at all about RE blogging gives a damn about their ALEXA rank. Your post today was deleted. Your posts will be deleted on every occasion. This is out of respect for each and every reader of this blog who’s time I will not allow you to waste.

How Social Networks REALLY work

My favorite being, “Your soul mates’s future spouse (the two will randomly run into each other at a real life party)

How to put your real estate blog on the first page of Google warrentied

The biggest problem with SEO advice is not that everyone is giving it, but that what works now may not work tomorrow. Anyway. Here’s my advice. It’s warrentied for today only.

Steal someone’s thunder while complimenting them at the same time.

Link to everyone you know, don’t even bother asking them to link back.

Use a free blog platform

Viral title tags > Keyword title tags

Forget Seth Godin, make Tony Clifton your mentor

1400 hits in the first four days, during the slowest week of the year, and page one results on Google. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Who is Fake Greg Swann’s top referrer?

 The WordPress Dashboard. Proving that linking to others, and leveraging their vanity and/or curiosity, is one of the fastest ways to get noticed. Blogrolls are not just for SEO.

The blogroll is growing

I added a few more blogs to the blogroll. Had to cover some tracks. I also changed the titles on some of the existing linked blogs.  I’ll be doing that from time to time.

On another note, I received some hate mail today. In the spirit of anonymity, I’m not going to post it. It was not from anyone obvious. Most people have reacted positively. That’s good because FGS is not here to attack anyone.

A couple nights ago, I watched Jimmy Kimmel interview Don Rickles. When asked how he gets away with all the slurs that constitute the bulk of his act, Don compared himself to a professional boxer. The fight itself is nothing personal. I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially he said,

” When I throw a punch, I know in my heart that it’s funny, and that’s why I get away with it.”

Please note that any malicious insult you infer here at FGS was never intended to be perceived that way.

1000+ hits in the first three days

It took well over a month to produce that on my first blog. Thanks for stopping by!