Are You Afraid of Shadows? Boo!

Jul.09, 2009 in Marketing

squishyninja Weird title I know… but in the world of Internet Marketing, we all have shadows lurking behind our RSS feed and following right along with the same steps we take. Over the past few years of running the Niche Store Builder site, I have had more than my own fair share of RSS Ninjas… and while its funny to read what they write and see what they do, sometimes you just wanna nuke them! Not today…

Identifying Your RSS Ninjas

In most cases, finding your Ninja shadows can pretty easy! You can just head over to Google and do a search for some of the content you have recently written about. Once you search G, just hit the more options link near the top and narrow it to blog searches in the past week.

In most cases, you will find related posts listed right around the same time as your own…

Common Characteristics of Your Shadow Ninja’s

I know personally of a few Ninjas that lurk in the shadow of the NSB site. The following traits have held true for both and may be true of your own RSS Ninjas.

They NEVER post comments on your Site or join into discussions!
They NEVER link to your work, often claiming it as their own!
They Spring into action when they Spot a Great Idea on your site!
They Contradict themselves on their own sites, sometimes within just days of each post!
They Tend to Feed People Bad Information when they Shoot from their Own Hip!
They are VERY Predictable and Easily Manipulated, without Ever Knowing it!

Dealing With Your Own RSS Ninjas

This is probably the hardest part of having an RSS Ninja or two in your shadows. I mean, you really don’t want to stir the pot and discredit them in public… but at the same time, you feel obligated to your own readers to let them know about things, just so they don’t fall into the Ninjas trap!

If you DO decide to call out one of your own RSS Ninjas – make sure you have your game in full court press mode! Once you make that call, its up to you to have the proof that they are full of shit, not the other way around!

You will be surprised (Maybe even shocked!) at what you can learn about people, just by having a list of the domains they own, and looking at the content or niche within each!