Chris Hooley’s -ThinkBait-

Web Marketing at NextStudent. For those who don’t already know, I am Chris Hooley, Corporate SEO, and the guy who runs the NextStudent Web Marketing Department. Just thought I’d get that part out of the way so this post didn’t seem so random…

It’s been a crazy year in Student Loan Land, with the big banks and federal government putting the shake down on student lenders (at the expense of students, and much to the chagrin of financial aid officers). Kids are going to have a tough time finding money to pay for school this upcoming semester because of the perfect storm of bad legislation, tough credit markets, and a virtually lifeless capital market. Big banks are looking at this as a boon, a perfect opportunity to swallow up market share. So they are spending MORE despite the fact that the loans are losing them lots of money right now. I’m even watching them trying to work their SEO, and (cough! choke) get social.

Imagine that, fighting off the big banks with deep pockets every day… Feels like Rocky vs. the steroid guy from Russia.

Well fortunately for NextStudent (and all borrowers who find out how great we are!) the Web Marketing Team is holding it down. We’re the big guys around here on the interwebs! We’ve been training like Sly Stallone and we’ll never give up! Get off my Google B of A. Keep up the Chase, Wells F. The web is My Citi!

Ok enough of the bad plays on words. It’s Saturday Night, I should save the bad jokes for my attempt at getting social (aka going to Santisi Bros. with some buddies).

The deal is, the webmarketing team at NextStudent is a powerhouse. We’re more than strong at all of our core competencies, we’re a collective ROCKY. You might be able to get some licks in, but we never give up and we are always on the top. The people I work with are some of the slickest, smartest, and most motivated people I’ve ever met. All aspects of our web marketing repertoire are handled by the best and the brightest. We’re corporate, we’re out there, and we’re helping define the edge that bigger guys can hardly even fathom. Good luck monetary monoliths. BRING IT ON!!!

Rocky - OUT!

Chris Hooley Talks Chris Hooley, SEO, and Awesomeness in General

That.  Just. Happened.

It’s election year… time for smoke and mirrors!

I was hoping to catch some ESPN before heading to work, and instead of seeing “The Plays of the Week” I am watching a congressional hearing.  About baseball.  Not Iraq.  Not the recession.  Not about the so called “Economic Stimulus Package”.  About BASEBALL.

And two weeks ago, we had senators snooping around NFL Football.

And a few years ago we had all the media talking about a blow job.

Wanna know why they are talking about this stuff?  So the masses don’t look closer at what’s really going on… like the “War of Terror”.  The fact that the Democrats screwed up student loans so bad that kids won’t be able to get into school this upcoming fall.   The fact that Republicans screwed up consumer finance so bad that people can’t buy houses.  The fact that our dollar is doing so bad that vacation spots won’t even accept it any longer.

We’re going to hell in a handbasket here folks.  Hold on tight, times is gonna get real rough!

Maybe we should be doing one of our world famous “pre-emptive strikes” on a few select morons who are running this country into the ground…

Yahoo! - “chasing Google and frustrating users since 1998″ (TM)

I bought a premier flickr account and I haven’t been able to log in for MONTHS. Why? Because they switched log in systems, and nobody inside flickr is responding to my desperate pleas for help. I paid good money for my premier account, and I can’t even manage MY OWN PHOTOS. Photos that rank well in search engines for MY OWN NAME. I am helpless to remove some personal pictures that I no longer really want up there… photos that I paid to manage on their site.

You might ask “Chris, why did you take so long to blog about this? The most recent pictures are like 6 months old!” - You’re right. I forgot all about how mad I was about flickr until I decided to log into MyBlogLog account, which again prompted me to use a new log in that I don’t even have. Now I can’t get in there either.

Now I’m frustrated as hell trying to create a new Yahoo! ID, but my name is already taken (likely by some spam bot since there are only a handful of Chris Hooleys in the world). And once I settle on a user name that I don’t even want, I have no idea how to get those linked to my flickr and MyBlogLog accounts. It’s just stupid. And typical.

Hopefully somebody from Yahoo! reads this post and can get me some kind of help… but I doubt it.

In the meantime, my iGoogle, GMail, Adwords, Adsense, Optimizer, and bazillion other Google gadgets I am using are still working flawlessly. An I have Googlers calling me pretty frequently (even got a Googler visit coming soon) to make sure everything is still working. Just thought I’d throw that out there…

I’ve never actually been to Affiliate Summit.  I’ve had a few people offer discounts to get into the event (I can’t for the life of me recall who was offering me passes, if you still exist HIT ME UP!)  I’m still teetering on the edge here.  Should I go?  Should I bring my affiliate peeps?

As for the Elite Retreat, people already know I am a HUGE advocate of this event.   If you are thinking of going and you need some info about it, feel free to contact me directly.  I’ll gladly explain why I am such a huge fan and what it has done for me personally.   If you are defintely going and you haven’t bought your tickets yet, hook a brother up and buy it through my affiliate link so I can make a few bucks!

I have so much to say about my experience but the pain is too strong to write it all right now. But like every dark cloud, even THE Biggest Disappointment in Sports History had a shining moment for me. I was on TV! Watch the clip and relish my huge fame and instant popularity!

Wow, that movie was terrific eh? Send all movie script roles to me via my contact page!

Anybody need some? I can get them to you at the last minute. I live in AZ. There are very few of these bad boys left on the planet!

(I just magically turned into a ticket broker!!)