October 10, 2009

Wake Up! - The FTC is screwing with bloggers

If you are a blogger in the US your life is about to change big-time.

You have just entered the Twilight Zone...

New FTC guidelines (read full version) described in the official press release state:

1 - "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service."

and

2 - the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement - or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media."

My reading of this is very disturbing.

Here is a possible scenario:

1. You - a "social media" "celebrity" "blogger" (this is anyone who has more than a few followers on Twitter or some number of subscribers to their blog RSS feed) reviews a book, product, or service - making it an "endorsement"
2. You got a copy of the book to review, or got a free trial of the product, or a free trial of the service
3. You did not mention the freebie in your blog post
4. If someone does not like your blog posting you can be sued

To try to regulate bloggers as if they were professional journalists or compensated endorsements is asinine (incidentally - these guidelines do not apply to professional journalists!) The FTC is trying a land-grab into Internet regulation so they can extend their bureaucratic tentacles and justify their continued existence and funding. All of this is being done under the slogan of their official tagline "Protecting America's Consumers". This of course begs the questions - "from whom?"

This is a screwy world we live in, but the whole premise of blogging on the Internet is predicated on the notion that anyone can have frank and open discussions about any topic of their choosing. Most bloggers do not get paid and do not make any money directly or indirectly from their blogging efforts. They try to build their reputation and disseminate information that their followers may find useful. They never claim to be "objective" and often hold very strong, peculiar, and very personal opinions.

It has always been "buyer beware" on the Internet. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded that we should carefully consider the source and reputation of any information that we encounter online. We certainly don't need a chilling effect on the whole online conversation from a huge government agency.

It is ironic that this is happening under the direction of a man who was elected with the strong support of the Internet community and specifically active social media leaders. Unfortunately typical liberal-leaning tendencies are also to regulate people's lives via the government in order to protect them against unscrupulous big-business practices.

Don't get me wrong - frankly I don't care if the assault on individual liberties comes from the left or right (the four FTC commissioners who voted unanimously for the new guideline were all appointed by Bush). But I do care when big brother injects themselves into normal Internet discourse this heavy-handedly.

Fight this unconstitutional over-reach - these are simply regulations from unelected bureaucrats within the executive branch.

Let's make our voices heard and protect the First Amendment and our ability to have unfettered discourse without fear of lawsuits online.

BTW - no one paid me to "endorse" this position on the new FTC regulations - I guess that my butt is now legally covered (at least for this blog post).

Posted by Tim Ash at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

February 23, 2009

SEW Experts: Social Media Marketing 101, Part 2

Social media marketing can be a great arrow in your quiver of marketing tools. In today's SEM 101 column, "Social Media Marketing 101, Part 2," Ron Jones shows that to leverage it correctly, you must consider first what you want to accomplish.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 17, 2008

SEW Experts: President 2.0

In the same way JFK benefitted from the emerging medium of television, Barack Obama was helped into the White House by the increasing popularity of social media. In today's building brand equity column, "President 2.0," Erik Qualman explains that his appeal to younger audiences, and need to get exposure in a primary race against an established opponent led Obama to develop his online strategy. Businesses can learn from his campaign.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 7, 2008

SEW Experts: Travel Brands Walking a Social Media Tight Rope

As if major airlines don't have enough trouble these days, two well-known brands are in the midst of a very public online reputation management crisis. Internal corporate communications must catch up to the new platform -- and fast. In today's vertical search marketing column, "Travel Brands Walking a Social Media Tight Rope," vertical search expert Elisabeth Osmeloski notes that we're still seeing effects of internal PR groups attempting to control the conversations, and put forth very specific messaging. It simply doesn't work in this new social environment.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 28, 2008

Liana Evans of KeyRelevance on social media optimization (SMO)

One of the people that you will want to hear speak at SES San Jose is Liana Evans of KeyRelevance. Li is the director of Internet marketing at KeyRelevance and a member of the “Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization (SMO)” panel on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at 1 p.m.

I'm bummed out because I'll be speaking at the “News Search SEO” session at the same time, so I won't be able to hear what she has to say in San Jose.

So, through the magic of YouTube video, I've interviewed Li – so I won't miss her keen insights entirely – although there is no substitute to hearing her first hand.

Li is a search marketing guru (literally), especially on topics like social media optimization (SMO). So, here's a sneak preview of what she has to say.

Why Your Social Media Campaigns Should Socialize More Liana is also famous for her Flickr photos from sessions, panels, exhibits, the night life, and everything in between at Search Engine Strategies conferences and she won one of the Flickr photo sharing awards for SES London 2008.

Li specializes in social media marketing, blog optimization, link building and viral marketing. I like to hang out with her at SES conferences because Li has a background in both public relations and information technology.

Li is the creator and main contributor to Search Marketing Gurus and has assembled a well rounded group of professional search marketing professionals to contribute to the blog. Oh, and she's shared her secret for finding the best cheesesteak in Philly with me – not that this has influenced my favorable opinion of her at all.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 6, 2008

Explaining Digg to Clients and Newbies Alike

In the world of social media, Digg is a behemoth. A hot Digg submission is capable of generating tremendous volumes of traffic and links – so much so that many sites experience the "Digg Effect" for the first time and crash under the strain of the traffic.

That said, Digg can be a very important component of many social media and search campaigns. But, how can you possibly explain the Digg concept and its implications to clients who still haven't really acknowledged the Internet as anything more than a passing fad?

Digg is Like a Newspaper Think of Digg as a newspaper ... though not for a specific region, but rather for the entire English-speaking world. This of course means there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of stories submitted daily.

Sections Newspapers have different sections; Business, Sports, Lifestyles, Technology, and so forth. So too does Digg. It has: a. Technology b. World & Business c. Science d. Gaming e. Lifestyle f. Entertainment g. Sports h. Offbeat

Within each section, there are subsections. These are needed to manage the sheer volume of news and information, and help people search by core interests.

The Organization of Stories Democracy meet editorialization ... readers are the editors! Unlike traditional newspapers, where front page news is determined arbitrarily by editors at the paper, Digg-type sites permit voting on each story. Stories with the most votes by readers in each section or subsection move progressively nearer the front page of the section or subsection, with the most popular appearing in the best positions. Ultimately, stories with very large numbers of positive votes will be moved to appear on the main page of Digg, which is equivalent to appearing on the front page of a newspaper.

The Reporters While traditional newspapers often have reporters trained in the art of journalism creating their content, Digg-type sites do not. Stories (news, humor, and educational types) are found across the web, and are submitted by everyday people. Some of these stories will inevitably come from newspapers, but also from blogs, videos found on video sites, and images found virtually anywhere online. This is very interesting though, as it means Joe Average Blogger now has an opportunity to experience the benefits traditionally reserved for the biggest companies. What can follow is exceptional traffic, branding, and numerous relevant links.

Conclusion As a result, clients need to be involved in the content creation process, or at the very least, willing to adopt a content-centric strategy. Do so, and your chances of winning online increase exponentially.

Posted by at 1:40 PM | Permalink

April 29, 2008

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Are there really opportunities for small business to succeed using social media?

Absolutely, if one factors the strengths and weaknesses of the media with the strengths, weaknesses, and goals of the company.

The reality of the matter is that various social media have different strengths and weaknesses. While it is true the most obvious benefit of social media is branding and traffic, the truth is that social media can also:

• generate lots of good, quality, relevant links, which we all know can help a site perform better in the search results
• help to forge relationships. Not necessarily relationships with potential clients, but with those who help to influence potential client decisions i.e. indirect sales
• generate direct sales
• build a company's authority in an industry

In order for a small business to utilize social media to its fullest, and to determine which social media it should be using as part of its effort, it must understand the trade-offs it faces. Without being able to commit time or money to social media, many small businesses will seriously need to question their commitment to winning in their space in the foreseeable future.

What are the variables to consider: a. available client time vs. available client $ b. complexity of client product/service information c. client goals (direct sales, improved positioning, authority building, etc.)

As is the case with search, those social media sites offering the most potential for traffic, also contain the most competition. The more competition there is, the more thought and effort must go into being successful in that medium.

Does that mean that small business should avoid search? Not at all. Same with social media. It just means that small business must assess their desire and means, and find reasonable opportunities where competition is not too intense for their means. Precisely as with search ... though rather than looking for keyword opportunities, you're looking for content and medium opportunities!

For example, would you ever suggest to an SME client that you would try to rank for a generic, ultra-competitive, one-word term such as "weight loss"? Never. Though you may consider "weight loss san diego," right? Precisely!

That said, here are the strengths and weaknesses of several major social media sites, as they relate to small to medium sized businesses:

1. Yahoo Answers: Yahoo Answers will not require much money to engage in, making it an attractive option for small business. Since in most cases, SMMs (Social Media Marketers) won't/can't play a large role in Yahoo Answers, as they're not experts in the space, it will require client time and expertise.

Yahoo Answers is a great tool for generating direct sales, rather than links or even indirect sales ... an anomaly amongst social media sites.

* Some SMMs may offer Yahoo Answers training solutions, designed to get SMEs up to speed quickly, and teach a few inside tricks. It will also be important to make the system as efficient as possible, so senior-level involvement is not necessary in identifying and answering each question. Instead, relevant questions should first be identified (and answered where a simple answer will suffice) by a junior-level person, then handed to more senior-level people as the questions become more in-depth and technical.

2. Wikipedia: Wikipedia is another great solution for companies with more time than money. This is often a do-it-yourself solution for companies, though a good SMM can greatly aid with training, planning, and implementation, and can save companies a great deal of time. Securing a presence on relevant pages on Wikipedia isn't necessarily intuitive.

As Wikipedia doesn't like companies adding information about themselves (as it's likely biased), having information added by an experienced SMM with a solid reputation is worth its weight in gold.

Wikipedia is great for generating links (not direct as they are nofollow, but indirect through copied text), but is not exceptional at generating either indirect sales via forged relationships or direct sales.

3. Digg: Having a submission go hot on Digg is equivalent to ranking on an ultra-competitive keyword on Google, in terms of the number of links generated. Digg is, in reality, the Google of the social media world in terms of those looking to build links, which means Digg itself has had to become very cautious and difficult as a result of being gamed so frequently.

As Digg's algorithm favors larger, more trusted sites, SMEs cannot expect to do well on Digg routinely without a substantial investment of either time and/or money in the effort. The cost of doing so is therefore beyond the means or commitment of many small to medium sized companies.

Beyond its biggest benefit (links), Digg can also be utilized to forge strategic relationships with key influencers such as reporters, DJs, and the like.

4. Reddit: Reddit is capable of generating significant volumes of links, although somewhat less than Digg. It is like Digg, except on a lesser scale. Though it generates fewer links, the results are greater, given the lesser level of effort required compared to Digg. That said, Reddit still requires a significant time and/or money investment from the client. It still involves a commitment to win!

5. Propeller: Propeller (formerly Netscape.com) is also like Digg and Reddit, though generating fewer links again. This is in essence what makes it so attractive though ... it's the MSN of the social world. Most companies focus so heavily on Digg, that Propeller is often overlooked. Accordingly, small business can still win on Propeller with reasonable effort.

Time needs be invested in Propeller to determine how the system works, identify the types of posts that are successful, and to forge the necessary friendships to seed posts properly on the Propeller network. SMM Training solutions can again expedite the process, and engaging the services of an experienced quality SMM will trade money for time where time is very limited.

6. Delicious: Delicious is a good option for small businesses, though it does require a commitment. SMEs need to spend time creating resource, research, and/or instruction type blog posts. These posts take time, often 8-10+ hours of research per post. Special insight into topics that might be successful on Delicious will absolutely be aided by the guidance of an experienced SMM. Otherwise, much time and effort can be spent creating content that really has no chance of being successful.

Posts that do well on Delicious typically attract a good many links, albeit typically less than those on Digg or Reddit, and more than Propeller.

7. StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon is capable of driving large volumes of traffic (more than Reddit and less than Digg) to a site, given the right content. For whatever reason though, it generates substantially fewer links than either Digg or Reddit on average.

For companies with brand new, innovative products and services, StumbleUpon is a great way to gain exposure and build awareness. It is not however, good at generating direct sales unless the item is an impulse type item.

8. YouTube: YouTube is unlike any of the other social media mentioned above. While video itself has the ability to generate substantial quantities of links via other social channels, the YouTube medium essentially attracts all links for its own purposes, leaving the video creator with virtually no additional link power.

What YouTube can do when great content is created is attract additional quality search traffic via the search results (YouTube videos are often included in the search results of major engines), and can help to forge relationships with key influencers.

Summary: In the end, success with any of the above social media sites is still largely based on the quality and creativity of the content. For companies without the time to dedicate to creating such content, it will require a financial investment. In this situation, hiring experienced SMMs skilled in the art of choosing topics is very important, as they can likely aid real quality content be successful on numerous platforms.

This is why I say it takes a commitment to winning. It's going to require either time and/or money from the small business perspective, but success is absolutely achievable, given appropriate amounts of either, and proper selection of media.

Posted by at 10:54 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2008

How to (Actually) Earn Money (Now) with Social Media (Really): Part 2

Short term financial success in social media can be a multi-layered enigma, ranging somewhere between daunting and infuriating. As the socialized Internet explodes it has become increasingly difficult for companies to ignore the ramifications of not tuning in to deal with SMO vernacular & channels.

We all hear buzz words like "reputation management," "social news," "blogs," and "Wikis" but exactly WHAT the heck does all this mean to a business? How do I convince my boss or client that forays into the social media universe will actually pay cash-money any time soon? How DO we engage visitors? Where's the revenue?

In Part One we discussed ideas for Facebook social PPC, the PR tactic of pinging sales prospects with outbound links, increasing landing page conversion by mashing in "evidence of human life" and touched on the Tao of one-on-one conversational marketing.

In this installment, we'll talk about using blog comment threads to create uber-targeted micro-topical email lists, a tactic which can easily result in short term sales and cash. ("Thread" simply means the ongoing exchange of comments in a blog type CMS structure.)

At base, a blog is an open source (free) content management system (CMS) with built in goodies like RSS feeds, automatic content archives, easy WYSIWYG publishing and many other friendly features designed to engage visitors. A staggering percentage of websites incorporate blog-type software for some purpose. What's important to understand is that blogs are much more than the stereotypical perception thereof.

Everyone knows email marketing works. I'm not talking about the junk-spammy kind, rather nice clean opt-in lists that companies build over time. Responsible and compliant email marketing is a component of many a corporations' array of marketing tactics and proving ROI is not difficult. Email just works. Benefits include great "open" and conversion rates, customer loyalty, predictable results, low costs and repeat sales.

It's true that payday loan email blasts are not going to convert at the same level as $1.50 bagged cereal coupons but it's all good. Email is a timeless and undeniable SEM tactic. That said, building great targeted lists takes time and ingenuity. Conversations that take place using blogging software like WordPress are an excellent source for harvesting incredibly focused segmented lists quickly by inviting user interaction, mining the data, and using the thread's mini-list to send email blasts now and later.

Blogs and Email: Anatomy of a Comments Thread When a site visitor comments in a blog, they automatically subscribe by email to the conversation if you've set it up properly. Then with each new comment, including yours, every previous visitor magically receives the new comment by email. Think about it. The pot of gold at the end of successfully engaging users in blog-type comments-dialog is the ability to email all of the conversation's participants simply by commenting yourself. As with all of social media, there is profitable power in marketing to micro-targeted highly specific demographics.

Perhaps you'll return comments by answering users' questions, refuting incorrect assertions, clarifying a situation, explaining a product, or just indulging in a little ol' fashioned meet & greet. Bottom line: get users to converse with each other in a blog and you'll have the entire group at your fingertips to exploit just by commenting again yourself and pressing submit. Everyone who has participated in the thread to-date gets an email! It's so easy.

Now that you understand the theory, the obvious question is "how DO we engage users in comments-thread conversations?" The answer is only limited by your team's creativity. Since every product is different somehow, there is no "one size fits all." However here's a couple of examples from clients aimClear works with to provide insight into the "market think" required to start conversations like a pro. These are all real examples of opportunity turned into creative comments-thread solutions for engaging users for micro-email list building purposes.

1. Opportunity: Your company publishes service manuals for devices you sell. In the existing website hosts about 4000 daily visitors search for and access .pdf product manuals spread across 57 previous and current products.

   Solution: Install the ability for customers to comment or ask specific questions in a publicly posted thread prominently featured just to the left (and outlined in red) of the .pdf download. New visitors see prior questions and have the ability to directly engage previous commentors. Seed the interaction by encouraging visitors to post questions for the product's design team with a promised response time of 24 hours. Respond by...you guessed it...commenting. Over time hundreds or thousands of users will engage as they likely own or are considering purchasing the device. Just about anyone looking for a product manual has some kind of question they need answers for. NOW you have a very targeted micro-list of those interested in specific devices. The list is worth it's weight in gold. The next time you announce an add-on, upgrade, or other news about the device, all you have to do is comment. Everyone who has previously participated gets an email until they opt-out of the thread.

2. Opportunity: Say the regional niche' music production school you market has a staff of experts in their respective fields. Organic traffic brings tons of unique visitors for searches directly related to the academic offerings. The success metric is information-requests from qualified prospective students. The site harvests organic leads each day at a nice conversion rate from which any sale could be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Out of the organic visitors who do not convert, over half come back within 90 days. That's a lot of potential customers just waiting to be engaged. There are millions of dollars on the table. Solution: Set a cookie for every organic visitor based on the incoming query and only delete the cookie if they convert. The next time the visitor shows up, read the cookie and direct them to a landing page which has headlines from thread featuring teacher-experts discussing topics specifically related to the user's original search query. Invite the return visitor to ask a question themselves, in public, and promise a response. You guessed it! Everyone who has previously engaged gets an email with the visitor's question and your response. The next time the college announces a new program, wants to highlight a student's success, or announces a famous instructor, all you have to do is comment and everyone gets an email. (BTW, this tactic is called SMO post-search retargeting.)

When discussing possible social media plays with bosses and/or clients, the first question is often "how can we make money with this effort." Setting short and mid-term financial goals for social media efforts straight away can help smooth the pitch and bring in much needed cash to justify the investment.

Blog comment threads are a great way to harvest highly targeted micro-email lists which can earn money in a relatively short amount of time. Developing strategy and tactics to exploit the turnkey capabilities of free blogging software is only limited by the creativity of the SEM team. An excellent approach is to analyze site traffic that already exists, engage users, track behavior over time, and continually serve up opportunities to interact until they just can't resist. Such is the power of social media.

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 11:38 AM | Permalink

March 25, 2008

How to (Actually) Earn Money (Now) with Social Media (Really): Part 1

OK, everyone knows the nearly mythological powers of social media to help grow long term site equity. Link building comes to mind immediately to most. Traffic waves can carry motivated visitors who might subscribe to your feed, engage in comment threads, complain about how bad your company sucks, and/or rave about fantastic customer service. It's all good.

True, leveraging digital assets and hot social channels for long-term SEM benefit has now become SEO 101. However your boss or client may need to be convinced that investing in another layer of content management system (CMS), content, and conversational networking WILL in fact yield measurable financial results soon. There is no better way than to set and achieve short term goals for immediate social media cash flow, to get folks excited about the long-term.

Here's a few ways to get hands plenty dirty and flow cash in the first quarter of your initial social media forays:

1. Social PPC starts with Facebook if your demographic includes 14-26 year olds. Make no mistake; savvy clients are making millions of dollars in the space. Drill down into the Facebook social graph and you'll find fascinating PPC categories (aimClear has charted about 10,000 preset interest-categories on the USA Facebook PPC social graph.)

   Anything in the pop culture, sports, music, education categories fly really well. Software, games, kissy, and in some cases even an emerging young corporate mindset can work. FB is noisy, applications are really annoying, and sometimes carefully crafted PPC works very sweetly amongst the clutter. Make it go Ka CHING$$$ the first day with landing pages segmented by interest categories (Buzz Pockets) rather than keywords.

2. Other communities have different gateways to insert paid advertising.  StumbleUpon, Digg, MySpace, and LinkedIn have advertising options. Whatever the community there is nearly always some paid method to insert advertising by way of a the site's own and/or major ad platform partners like Google, MSN and/or Yahoo. Some communities use multiple ad platforms, both internal and third party.
3. Open a door with outbound linking for your boss or client to make a sale right away. You'll find an abundance of blogging-tips in the SEM trade pubs regarding the incredible value of outbound linking as a PR mechanism. At base, link out to bloggers and corporate sites to benefit your clients and customers. Any marketing department quality enough to warrant your outbound link will soon discover that you did it. Identify 30 authority-writers in your product or service's space (who don't directly compete) and ping them with an outbound link on compelling anchor text.

   After linking out to them in properly published content, have your VP send an email to alert your target site's VP to the link. Tell your sales department that you've "made a new friend." Suggest they invite the friend out for gruyere and Fume Blanch. This tactic is a more aggressive version of linkbaiting and can work really well. A) The social media department softens the target up. B) The sales staff at corporate follows. Case in point, here I invite distinguished CopyBlogger Brian to the table @ SEW Blog. He'll hear about it in a daily alert. "Hello there" Brian Clark! Use this technique and make a goal of directly associating a SINGLE sale in the first 60 days from which the conversion can be directly attributed at least in part to a social media tactic.

4. Increase conversion on traditional (AdWords/Panama/AdCenter) PPC landing pages by mashing in headlines from feeds of corporate or customer activities. In other words, take the top 3 headlines each from the corporate media and community relations feeds and display them just above or below the conversion goal mechanism you're trying to get users to bite on. aimClear's data shows that when PPC landing pages display mashed-in headlines radiating from true community activity, conversion rises in a measurable way. Ka CHING$$$ again!

   BTW, yes it's certainly OK to moderate what excerpted content is allowed to bubble into PPC landing pages, or any pages for that matter. If you've not incited much user generated content yet, prime the pump by originating the mashed-in feed content as "push PR" from a department of your company I.E. like customer support and relations. There's nearly always good recurrent content available to source somewhere which will prove interesting to potential clients.

Money Talks, BS Walks Methods to immediately quantify the value of investment in social media are limited only by the creativity of the SEM team. With social PPC and other paid SMO, financial objectives are immediately attainable. If cash matters and you're used to PPC, the first questions to ask of any potential social value are "what are these folks chattering about" and "What Ad Platforms insert ads into the SMO stream?"

Outbound linking targeted to savvy customers (who monitor their reputation) can be a terrific door-opener. Partner with your sales department and upper level executives to maximize the "overture of friendship" embodied in giving a high quality outbound link.

After priming community activity within your own site's data flow, mash-in community feed content to traditional PPC landing pages and watch how the authentic nature of the content spurs conversion. Show your boss or client the cash-money early in the game in order to achieve buy-in for long term link, traffic, and community building CMS and content building investments.

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 12:34 PM | Permalink

February 28, 2008

7 Ways Brands Can "Get Social"

Many brands are wary of exposing themselves on social media sites, but as anyone who's been involved in social media for more than five minutes knows, they're too late. In today's SearchDay, "The Role of the Brand in Social Media Marketing," Userplane's Mike Jones shares seven social marketing tactics to help your brand "get social" and join the conversation:

1. Boost the Fun Factor 2. See the Forest and the Trees 3. Widgets are Welcome 4. Conversation is King 5. Engage 6. Research and Listen 7. Don't Go It Alone

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:14 PM | Permalink

February 21, 2008

SEW Experts: Social Media and Online Commerce: Birth of Socialommerce

With all the media attention focused on Microsoft's not-so-friendly takeover bid of Yahoo, a below-the-radar acquisition target proves why social commerce is the future of search. In today's Brand Equity column, "Social Media and Online Commerce: Birth of Socialommerce," Erik Qualman discusses rumors that Google is in talks to acquire Facebook competitor and global social network, Bebo.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 29, 2008

Hospitality Social Media Marketing: Influence Critical Customer Reviews

UGC (User Generated Content), especially in the form of customer reviews, can send scads of excited visitors to your door credit card in hand, or destroy your business's reputation overnight by polluting SERPs. It's certainly a double edge sword.

More and more search marketers lay awake at night, in pools of sweat, freaking out about losing brand control in light of UGC. Hospitality industry SEM success can be the stuff of peaceful dreams or horrible nightmares. Unfortunately/luckily it's all in the hands of actual customers-or well placed shill reviewers.

What sites does Google mine hospitality reviews from, many of which are submitted by the public? How does a hotel or restaurant business get a grip and influence reviews? What major travel and review sites should hotels and restaurants point happy customers (or savvy stand-ins) towards in order to bolster, cleanse, and protect reputation?

Miriam Ellis has published an extremely practical case study over at SearchEngineJournal, profiling websites from which Google harvests reviews showing up in the ever dominant (and now 10-list) “one box” results. She profiled “1000 reviews listed in Google Maps for hospitality industry businesses" and shared results.

If you're objective is to “finesse” reviews from your restaurant or hotel's happy customers, the majority of the 34 sources listed accept public reviews and are therefore susceptible to (at least) some level of manipulation by pleased patrons or savvy local search marketers. Aol.com to Zagat.com, Google's predominant hospitality site sources are listed along with suggested strategies and tactics.

In the rollercoaster world of Google SERPs, especially in light of Universal Search and ever-expanding local search, the landscape is frighteningly fluid. Sites like Yelp appear, disappear, and reappear in Google reviews practically overnight, leaving narrowly targeted review-writing campaigns subject to overnight obsolescence.

Hedge your bet. Miriam's post lays priceless groundwork to cast a wide net, understand, and influence the multi-headed Google review SERP monster to your hospitality business's benefit.

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 11:40 PM | Permalink

January 28, 2008

Facebook Ads & Applications: Critical SEM Learning Curve

The New York Facebook Social Advertising Event Nov. 6, 2007 introduction from boy-wonder Mark Zuckerberg was a millennial harbinger of marketing-things-to-come. If your business or agency's search marketing department has dismissed Facebook applications & paid ads, as outside of your product's demographic, think again. Though advertisers are making millions now on the Facebook platform, the revolution is far more important than Facebook.

Not Your Father's PPC The SEM concepts employed on Facebook's fledgling paid ad platform embody a methodology which will be likely be embraced by mainstream search engines and communities. Keyword research has always been the staple of classic “pull” search marketing. When configuring Facebook paid campaigns, marketers research and target buzz pockets of user interests, as expressed by their dealings with friends. It's called the “social graph.”

As an example, now it's possible to target ads to “Woman between 24-29 years old, interested in gardening, organic food, wine, cooking, live in Minnesota or Wisconsin, and are in a relationship.”

Last week Google responded by (re)announcing beta-testing of an enhanced AdWords feature, called demographic bidding. Advertisers will target gender and age groups on some sites within the Google content network. The feature is being tested over the next few weeks with a select group of advertisers in the U.S. and the U.K.

There has been industry debate regarding the long-term value of demographic targeting. MSN has had similarly rudimentary demographic targeting features for quite some time.

Facebook Applications: Fad or Future? INC Magazine recently published a celebrated case study about quick scores. Whether you believe in Facebook apps or not, Google has already responded with Open Social developers' platform, "a set of common APIs for building social applications across many websites,” and inked deals with prominent social sites. These next-gen social apps and widgets are coming. Early adopters, who figure things out now, will clearly have the advantage.

“Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online,” Zuckerberg imparted to more than 250 advertising and marketing executives on that day in New York. “For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they're going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do.”

Facebook ads and applications represent marketing early adopters' first opportunity to dapple in, what will clearly be, a significant wave of future viral techniques and media buys. Study Facebook and practice marketing to points on the social graph in order to prepare for a future which is already here.

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 7:30 AM | Permalink

January 21, 2008

StumbleUpon Death Threats in eBay Social Network

Search marketers can enrage diehard members of social communities who want to keep marketers at bay. The result? Death threats, cyberterrorism, obscene language, cyberharassment, and calls for suicide.

Social media marketers see StumbleUpon and social networking sites like Facebook as theirs to mine for traffic, links, and sales. A just-released Sapient study shows marketers plan to increase spending on social media marketing this year, where they anticipate higher ROI than both digital advertising and email marketing (see chart).

A covert war is raging between search marketers engaged in social media optimization and long-time members of social networks that could spoil everyone's plans. The impact goes beyond search marketers engaged in SMM. If not resolved, the vicious attacks could spread to corporate brands testing the waters of social media marketing.

On popular eBay-owned social bookmarking and networking site StumbleUpon, I've received death threats and calls for suicide. StumbleUpon death threats may not be dangerous. Perhaps they're no more "real" than the death threats exchanged by "griefers" and "goons" with participants in Second Life and online gaming, as described by Julian Dibbell in Wired this month.

There's no doubt, though, that Second Life holds no appeal for brand marketers who don't want to risk virtual world attacks of flying phalluses. The question is why eBay allows death threats in StumbleUpon.

eBay condones anti-social user behavior by not enforcing obvious violations in the StumbleUpon Terms of Service (TOS). StumbleUpon moderators appear largely ineffectual in preventing death threats or policing members. Death threats against bloggers aren't new. They've been investigated by the Feds.

So I turned to the Minneapolis field office of the FBI.

First, let me tell you how it all began. My first big mistake: posting to a search marketing blog about how much I love StumbleUpon. Friends soon pointed out that long-time members of StumbleUpon were publicly calling for my suicide by methods I choose not to republish here. The feeling was reminiscent of historic book burnings because of violent and Nazi-laced symbolism and hyperbolic rhetoric.

Turns out that bands of longtime-member roving thugs, angry that search marketers have diluted the StumbleUpon content pool (which is true), leave violent and obscene public reviews in droves. SU is slow to react, if at all. After chronicling the experience in several StumbleUpon blog posts, the attacks on my public SU profile increased (must be logged into SU to view). Moderators stepped in and booted a single user for an unrelated TOS violation.

Then all hell broke loose.

Not For the Faint of Heart. I started receiving more obscene online attacks in StumbleUpon: expressions of hatred and threats of physical harm.

I talked to the Minneapolis FBI Field office about the legality of cyber-harassment SU seems to allow users, nearly always with minimal moderation. Internet harassment is a crime. The field agent took my report, the URLs, and said little can be done when offenders violate United States laws from Warsaw, Poland, which the most egregious attacker listed as his home.

StumbleUpon's TOS reserves the right to remove content which, at their “sole discretion” is “threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable” and subjects violators with “termination.” Prohibited content is defined as “(i) is offensive or promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind; (ii) harasses or advocates harassment of another person.”

What actually goes on in the unmentionable corners reflects very badly on eBay, proud owner of the StumbleUpon cesspool. The FBI suggested I contact the moderator of the community at issue and question the TOS and moderator rules.

The thugs post known violations just long enough for their hateful purposes, then backtrack and remove the most damning "evidence" before SU admin gets around to assessing the complaints.

Visit “Justice Reigns: Stumble Troll BANNED by SU, “and follow all the links while logged into SU. They reveal a glimpse of the nastiest seamy underbelly of any social community on earth.

It is true, some social media marketers "game" the system with automated hacks to tilt the table for their clients' profit. Then some StumbleUpon users shout in public for the death of all search marketers, indicating the greater problem.

Social search marketers must ask themselves, "Do I really care about the effect our infiltration has on social communities?" Social site users must not over generalize. Many marketers are fine people who participate whole heartedly to the community's benefit.

There's a war. There needs to be a truce.

My social media conscience, Tamar Weinberg, has taught me that “wisdom of the mob” is community ethic to the point where tinkering (let alone gaming) social sites is downright sacrilegious. Sure, everybody knows that Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn are there for Internet marketers to harvest to their clients advantage. Marketers have been infiltrating wherever and whenever folks congregate to disseminate marketing messages forever. It's called PR.

That said, literally the only pathway to success and longevity in social media is to actually participate and bring value to the community. That type of holistic commitment is why a person's “recommendations” in social media can come to matter so much.

If the problem continues then many people will leave. eBay might be left holding a $75 million investment with limited value to big brands. That would make many folks like me sad. We've loved and contributed to StumbleUpon for months and years.

eBay, your customers and the world are watching. It's time to clean up your social club.

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 11:19 PM | Permalink

December 11, 2007

SEW Experts: Social Media for SEM Savvy Small Biz Owners

Social media campaigns and traffic generally have lower conversion rates -- especially from sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. A huge percentage of visitors from those sites will never buy anything. The challenge, then, is monetizing the traffic. In today's Little Biz column, "Social Media for SEM Savvy Small Biz Owners," Carrie Hill explains how a small business owner can benefit from social media.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 18, 2007

SEW Experts: Think Small, Win Big: Social Media Marketing

In today's Little Biz column, "Think Small, Win Big: Social Media Marketing," Carrie Hill asks if social media has arrived, or if it's still middle school for Web sites. See how your small business can make sense of it.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

June 19, 2007

SEW Experts: Can Social Media Work in Big Business?

In today's Big Biz column, "Can Social Media Work in Big Business?," Aaron Shear reviews various social media strategies and offers advice on justifying it to VPs in the boardroom.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:48 AM | Permalink

May 9, 2007

Social Media Marketing Do's and Don'ts

At Search Engine Strategies in New York last month, some top social media marketers shared the tricks of their trade. In today's SearchDay, Social Media Marketing Do's and Don'ts, Eric Enge offers the compiled wisdom of Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, and Andy Hagans, from the Search Marketing Optimization session.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:49 PM | Permalink

March 13, 2007

Want to Get Into Social Media? Get Vertical.

We mentioned ClickZ's coverage of a new JupiterResearch social media report, which said that more marketers are expected to get involved with social networking sites this year.

Also in ClickZ today, Organic's Chad Stoller shares some tips for marketers interested in getting involved in social media– get vertical. Stoller says that while MySpace and Facebook are a popular platform right now for relationship building and personal expression, the next place marketers should be looking is vertical social networks. He shares some basic guidelines for marketers to follow, including:

• Find networks that appeal to your audience.
• Check out the community.
• Learn what works.
• Don't market; create a conversation.
• Be transparent.
• Study through observation.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:47 AM | Permalink

Marketers Increasingly Turn to Social Networks

In 2007, as many as 48 percent of brand marketers will deploy marketing on social networking channels, up from about 38 percent who were messaging on the channel in 2006, according to a new JupiterResearch report.

The study finds social networks to be a way for advertisers and marketers to break through the clutter and enlist brand advocates for their cause. This year will likely see an increase in the number of brands using social marketing to reach consumers.

Adoption of social marketing tactics stems from the discovery that "30 percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers' opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only 10 percent trust an advertisement," said Emily Riley, JupiterResearch analyst and lead author of the report.

Enid Burns has more details on the report at ClickZ News.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:37 AM | Permalink

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