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Kathryn,

I don't like it all. It's a fact of life however. I choose to hold myself to a higher standard.

thanks everyone. i appreciate the viewpoint and perspective on this.

I share your sentiments.

I can understand the challenge of getting noticed and therefore the need to seek out exposure.

But I'm not a big fan of people asking people to "x" their content. I guess my concern is that it somehow might distort the true value of the content.

I personally prefer the 5 star star model, like YouTube - you don't see people chasing eyeballs but great content elevates in spite of this.

yeah its gaming the system, but so is acquiring links for the benefit of ranking through artificial means (purests say you shouldn't go out and get links, you should earn them with quality content)...bah!!

the problem with gaming any system, is that you can eventually undermine the resource...and ultimately two things will happen:

1. the resource will be become redundant due to irrelevance
2. measures will be taken to prevent the gaming

We as marketers (especially SEO'ers) tend to push the envelope until the second option happens, and then we go out and search for the next loophole (umm...sorry - opportunity)...its a game of cat and mouse...

at the end of the day - getting yourself to the point where you can effectively game the system takes time and effort - and in reality, you're better off spending that effort on creating quality content....

here's an example of "measures being taken to prevent the gaming" as i mentioned above?

Kevin Rose has announced a change to DIGG's algo which will prevent groups voting up particular stories...the aim to get a more honest representation of the popular stories.

The only so called gaming I am really aware of (besides paying for "diggs" or "stumbles") is utilizing macros to obtain thousands of friends.

I have not tested it much myself.

I'm with Brian and the others on this, even those who think SEO is the world's dirty little secret because we invented all that is horrible in marketing (since, after all, playwrights and composers centuries ago didn't attempt to achieve "high rankings" with a nobleman to underwrite their own careers and the birth of US radio and television had a company's name in the title [tag] of each show).

Anyway, I think doing social well is important and no different than running  a good PR campaign.  Think about celebrity CEOs.  Now think about companies who reach out to influencers by allowing business reporters in for articles or actually shoot video for b-school case studies.   I think if most people would be stunned to realize how much of their traditional news is influenced by good PR and a strong network.  I remember that my family was on the front page of USA Today's Life section a decade or more ago.  It's a great photo and a fun memory.  We weren't necessarily any different or very special.   I knew reporters at the paper, and one of them knew the reporter working on a story where my family (local to the reporter and photographer) fit the piece.  

At the end of the day, "gaming social media sites" is no different that good networking was a generation ago. Doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs often made referrals to specialists or others in their field because they knew the person, perhaps not knowing the person's work.  The difference is the scale the Internet brings to this activity.

Sure, you can hire the Stumblers as Brian said, but that effect has to be short-term.  I can't believe that if a handful of stumblers hit a site and even blog it that it won't sink if others vote thumbs down.

I've seen this on Epinions for years.  Someone will build a trusted cadre of dozens, maybe even a hundred or two, friends.  Eventually, though, the wheat gets separated from the chaff and their reviews, which looked so promising and were poised to earn some dollars at first, fall below the quality reviews.

Unless you go black hat, even good SEO or search marketing is simply rising above the noise by optimizing quality content and people with a message.  Rest assured that if you have a high bounce rate that your carefully won Google ranking will go away, just as a poseur will quickly be dismissed in social.