Well, it’s that time of year; when I get to kindly remind person after person that I don’t really care for basketball. Surprisingly, I still have to follow that statement up with “Yes, that also means I don’t want to participate in your bracket pool.” Besides, it’s Spring Training, and it should be of no surprise that baseball is a much higher priority to me.
Either way—like it or not—you’re going to hear about the tournament and how everyone’s brackets are doing whether you asked or not. Online, on TV and on the radio you will hear endless speculation about how so-and-so will knock number whatever seed out, then someone counter that opinion based on their own conjured-up formula.
At the end of the conversation, nothing has been accomplished. None of it mattered and none of it in any way affected the outcome. In all fairness, you’ll see this on 95% of sports TV, radio and articles about the NCAA tourney, NFL Draft and the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL Playoffs.
When you think about it, it all seems rather silly to waste so much time and energy arguing about things that haven’t happened yet and you have no control over. Yet, in the digital marketing world it’s no different.
Go ahead and browse some of the top headlines in SEO, social and PPC. How many of them relate to an supposed upcoming algorithm update, or how X will impact Y when it rolls out?
How will Facebook Graph Search change the game?
What will Google target in their next algorithm update?
How much time and energy do you waste reading those types of articles? How often do you get actionable advice from them?
By all means, stay on top of algorithm changes and plan accordingly if Google or Bing explicitly announce an upcoming change, but try to remember not to put too much stock in the endless speculation that occurs across the industry. Otherwise, it’s no different than spending half of your Saturday watching Kornheiser and Wilbon duke it out over…well, Duke.
