3 Simple Facebook Tricks for Marketers

A lot of people ask me often "How did you do that?" in regards to some of the cool things I do with Facebook status updates, managing my pages, and so on. So here's a few of my little tricks you can use while marketing to your peeps.

1) Tagging in a Status Update or Comment
Tagging people or pages in Facebook is a common occurrence, but unfortunately a lot of people don't quite know how to do it, or how to use it to their marketing benefit. Adding a tag to an update can have many benefits. Thankfully, Facebook has recognized this downside to the secrets of tagging and has now made it easier to do by simply listing out people or pages you have "like"d to make it easier, but in some cases you may not see the suggestions pop up. In this case, you cans till use the "@" for tagging. One of the glitches is that at times it takes a bit for the system to populate the suggestions, so if you don't see them right away just delete everything back tot he "@" and redo it until it shows up. Also, if you aren't friends with the person, or "like" the page of the place or business you are tagging you won't see it in your suggestions. So be sure to "friend" or "like" them before tagging.
Here's how you do it:
Begin posting your status and simply add the "@" then immediately type in the name or page (no space after the "@" is typed) and you can see the suggestions pop up.

Using Tagging for Marketing
In some cases the status or post you made will show up on the person, business, or place's wall you tagged. If the person, place or business set their preferences to not allow people to tag them, or the page settings only show their posts to the wall, then your tag will not show up. It is still a good practice to tag when mentioning them though as it provides a link to their profile or page. Wappow uses tagging as we mention businesses that sponsor our events. The users can just click to their page and "like" them or just learn more about our sponsors. We also use this method for our speakers so our attendees can see who is speaking and learn a bit more about them by checking out their profile on Facebook. Some other uses are if you are offering a promotion with a partner company, you can tag the other company to gain more exposure. Blog posts that mention companies can be posted to your profile with a tag to the company you are blogging about. You can even call out your most active fans to show them appreciation for spreading the word about your company and encourage more brand advocates as others see you giving credit for active marketing on your behalf. Got more ideas? Comment below and tell me how you have used tagging to benefit your marketing.

2) Sharing Facebook URLs (Pages, Videos, and Photos)
The sharing of other Facebook photos, videos, or pages unfortunately isn't just a click away form the Facebook interface. At times you are given the option to "share" a post, or "like" a post or comment, but the post to your profile or page isn't as visible as it would be if you were to post them yourself.
For example: if you simply "like" something this is what it looks like in the stream:

The sample above is a comment on a video posted by a friend. As you can see it's pretty hidden amongst the other posts made. If it's a video or picture you really want your users to see and give credit to the person who originally posted it and you see the "share" option is available, got that route. Click the share link and a popup will appear with the option to make a comment and "share".

This is what it will look like if you "share":

Notice the video is much more prominent on the page than the comment. 

If the "share" option isn't available, or you want to take full credit for sharing the photo or video, simply right click the link of the photo or video and select "copy link location". Then select the "link" on your page or profile and paste the link in the field and click "attach" - then comment away.

When sharing photos and videos from other sources (such as youtube.com, slideshare presentations, etc) simply grab the URL (link) of the item and paste it in the link field as shown above. In most cases Facebook recognizes the URL as a video or flash player and will render it on the wall as such so the user can just play from your stream. We use this for photo sets on Flickr, posting the link to the set directly to our wall so the user doesn't have to leave Facebook. Posting videos and photo set links to events before, during, and after is very beneficial to marketing efforts. People can see examples from the event and say they are "attending" or "maybe attending" which allows for us to continue to encourage them to register for the event and show up. In return your users will often share the videos or pictures which gives you more exposure and sparks the viral marketing effect. 

Here's an example of what it looks like as your friends and fans comment, share, like, etc the item you posted:

Akvile had attended one of our events and commented on one of the pictures in photo album I had posted to the Wappow page. People that didn't make it to this particular event get to see who was there, who spoke (in this case Rand Fishkin CEO of SEOmoz) and will be thinking to themselves "Darn, I wish I had gone. I'll have to go next time." which for our monthly Wappow Social Day! is exactly what we want them to do.

3) Getting People to "Like" You

You've probably seen those ads or Facebook posts to groups or pages that say "Make money now on Facebook, get 'likes' for your page" or something similar. The truth is, there are no quick fixes to getting a ton of "like"s for your fan page. Sure you can pay some money to a company that will magically get you thousands of "like"s but what are they really going to get you? Nothing...

The best way I have found to getting "like"s is to be patient and know where your fan base is. You don't want thousands of random people that aren't going to benefit you by "like"ing your page, you want true brand evangelists that will buy your product, use your software, attend your event, will share out your content, and spark the viral effect (They "like" or comment, three friends see it and "like" or comment, and those people have three friends that see it, and so on.) 

One of the most effective ways we have gotten "like"s with regards to business related pages is to add the like box to the website. After adding the SEOGoddess fan page to the SEOGoddess website I noticed a huge lift in "like"s to the page. Now the page has over 1,000 likes in just a few months, and the good news is: they are all people that took it upon themselves to "like" the page. 

Add a "Like" Box to a Website

Adding a Like Box to your website is pretty simple - just grab the URL of the page you want to add, and go to the Facebook Developer's section and enter the URL of the page in the WYSIWYG they provide:

Click the "Get Code" button and copy the html code provided. You can then add the code to your website (or give it to your developer to add for you). If you have a Wordpress or other content management system, simply go into the source code or "edit html" option and paste the code where you want the widget to appear. 

Don't Have a Website?

If you don't have a page that is associated with a website you can still get "like"s the natural way, it just might go a bit slower than you are wanting. Just remember, being patient is the key to quality "like"s. I created the Seattle, WA page on May 19, 2011 which now has 10 "like"s on it (1 week after it's creation) which are all very active in posting to the page and sharing posts.  My initial strategy was to post to the Seattle, WA Group the page is associated with, shared it to my personal wall, and every couple of days share it to the SEOGoddess fans, Wappow fans, etc. I also scheduled posts to hit the page from Hootsuite with links to places to visit around Seattle, and events happening. As people catch on with posting events, businesses, etc the "like"s will grow and all will benefit from the page. How does this page benefit our marketing? Wappow hosts a lot of events in Seattle, WA so having a group just for Seattle, and a page that goes with it that both have a large following will eventually benefit the company gaining exposure to the event we hold. It also shows a sense of community on a personal level as Seattle is my home, my family history, and therefore very close to my heart. In a year or so as the company grows, the fan base will grow, and our branding in the local area will become strong resulting in people trusting in, and frequently attending our events.

So there you have it - 3 simple tricks you can do to get your Facebook marketing going. Don't forget to remember to engage with your friends and fans on Facebook and you'll be successful in driving leads and establishing a solid brand presence.

Social Media for a Cause

Yesterday Gillian Muessig (President of SEOmoz and my SEOmom) asked me to do her a favor, and when SEOmom asks me to help her out, help her out I shall do.

She sent me a link to Chase Community Giving and described the charity she has been working with for a while now and is needing help in getting enough votes to get the much needed $25,000. The charity is called the "The Akshaya Patra Foundation" which is the world's largest NGO-run midday meal program, feeding 1.3 million children each day in over 8,000 schools through 18 kitchens in 8 states in India.  Being a woman passionate about children and aiding people in other countries, I naturally took this one on. Not to mention that on 5/19 they where at 210 votes with 6 days to get to 200,000 votes we had a long ways to go. Gillian was at first discouraged, but I know if social media goes viral in the right ways anything is possible. So I immediately did the math - in order to get to 200k in 6 days if we could get at least 200 people (which is about where they where at to begin with) to each share to one person and ask that person to vote then we could double the amount of votes in 1 day. From there it's just a matter of getting each person that votes to encourage 5 friends to vote (or vote 5 times themselves and get one friend to share and vote 5 times) then day one should end with 2x what they started with. From there - if each person votes and shares to 5 people the viral effect should take hold and the numbers should grow to 250,000 by the 5th day.

Here's how it works:
Day 1 get to share to at least one friend - 200x2=400
Day 2 get those 400 to share to 5 friends - 400x5= 2,000
Day 3 get those 2000 people to share to 5 friends - 2,000x5= 10,000
Day 4 get those 10,000 people to share to 5 friends - 10,000x5=50,000
Day 5 get those 50,000 people to share to 5 friends - 50,000x5=250,000

So naturally by day 6 we should be well over the 200,000 votes...

How are we doing it you ask?
The beauty of marketing in social media for charities is that they are a charity. Asking people to vote for a person or a product is one thing, but asking them to give to help feed starving children, well it just tugs at the heart strings. Which is the driving success of any social media effort. It's not just about messaging, imagery, user experience, numbers, and any other traditional marketing strategy. It starts with emotion and social engagement first and then messaging, imagery, user experience, and numbers to drive the success.

So I started naturally started with a post to my Facebook status asking people to vote and share it out as well. The awesome thing too is that the page for the charity offers up ways to share it out and get people to vote (smart). A simple click to the Facebook like icon and I added a comment "This one is VERY important - we need 200,000 votes by May 25th. Help me spread the word by copying and pasting this and posting to your status..." But oops - I forgot the call to action to "vote", so while I shared it out, I didn't quite get the messaging right. What I should have said was "This one is VERY important - we need 200,000 votes by May 25th - go vote and then help me spread the word by copying and pasting this and posting to your status..." but then I didn't tug at the emotions of the people I am sharing to, so some of my friends thought it was spam (doh). So once again, I revised the post "Help us fight childhood hunger and promote education to the children in India. We need 200k votes by 5/25 to raise $25k - go vote and spread the word by copying and pasting this and posting to your status...".

From there I utilized some of the pages and groups I manage. The only thing is that the message and the nature of the charity didn't match up with the demographic of some of the pages. The "I had 'Learning Disabilities' as a kid and now I'm a genius" and the "Breakfast Sandwich" pages were both a prime example of where NOT to post a request to help a charity. The fans of those pages are looking for certain things, and starving children in India was not one of them. But I have others - and those pages (while not 100% the demographic we where looking for) could be worked into helping out. I refrained from using any of the Wappow business pages (the Wappow page, and the Social Day page are focused on marketing and social media marketing and to stray for even one post would discourage our fans), but the SEOGoddess fan page has a level of personality, and enough fans to make a difference, that twisting the message to work with the audience could actually grab some attention. So here's what I posted "President of SEOmoz, Gillian Muessig asked me to help her get votes for her favorite charity. I'm a sucker for helping to feed children in other countries so I voted... If you get a chance, go vote and get your friends to vote - we need 200k votes by 5/25 to raise $25k from Chase Community Giving." It ties in the SEO community by mentioning Gillian and the company she runs (in which SEOGoddess fans are also familiar with), and validates the post by mentioning what the charity does, and where the money is coming from. I also pulled in the sense of urgency and challenge (which sparks the competitive emotion in people) by mentioning the goal of getting 200k votes by 5/25. If you also notice, I validated why SEOGoddess is helping the charity herself (or myself as you look at it).  By tagging Gillian, SEOmoz, and Chase it also puts the post on the walls of each of them (if they allow it in their settings) which validates each mention with a link to them, plus gets more exposure. Oh, and I didn't forget the 2 call to actions - 1) Go vote, and 2) Share with your friends.

But I didn't stop there...
I have a few strategies and tricks up my sleeve as a marketer. Asking friends to help share things out on a personal level goes a long way. I have found most times if I write out the message myself and send an email with an explanation as to why I am asking them, and why they should do it most times they are more than happy to help out. The trick is to email the people who's followers (and friends) are going to be the right demographic for the message. I wouldn't ask my Mother or Father to share this out (my Mom had a hard time even taking a cruise to Greece as it was just too foreign for her) so supporting children in another country isn't her thing. Not to mention her friends would think something is wrong with her. My Father is in Real Estate... (do I really need to explain why that demographic won't work?).  So I selected a handful of friends in the SEO industry that know Gillian and SEOmoz well. I also hit a couple of friends that have been known to support charities similar to this one that aren't in the industry. So between Googletalk and Emails I managed to  ask over 50 of my friends to help out. Each one came back with a "I'd be happy to"... It was because of the choice of demographic in friends, and their followers, and the personal messaging from me that encouraged them to say "yes". Now whether they message it right is up to them. I do at times have something to copy and paste, but a lot of times how I say something isn't necessarily the way they would say it so it doesn't quite come across right.
Of course there is still lot's more we can do - but at least we are off to a great start.
As of last night (after a full day of sharing) they where up to 260 votes (6:15 pm pst) and 690 this morning (6:30 am pst). As of now they are at 925 (1:35 pm pst) and growing each time I refresh the page. So according to the plan we should end with 2,000 today and continue to grow as each person votes each day (up to 5 times) and shares to 5 people who vote, and those 5 people share to 5 people who each vote and share and so on.

So when you get a chance today - go vote and share to at least 5 friends: http://wppw.me/4ZwVP 
Don't forget to ask your friends to vote and share (and dont' forget to get your messaging in)...

Social Media, SEO, Starbucks, and the Breakfast Sandwich

In January of 2008, I was gainfully employed with one of the many technology corporations based in Redmond, WA (No it wasn't Microsoft). It was Concur Technologies, an expense management software company (you've probably used them while booking your business trip and/or filed your expenses). As you know, while working at companies such as this, meetings are scheduled throughout the day (if not back-to-back) and in order for me to get a decent breakfast (well, almost decent) I would stop by my favorite Starbucks drive through and grab my Venti quad Vanilla Latte with 10 pumps of vanilla and a sausage breakfast sandwich. When I would get into work I would bring my coffee and breakfast sandwich into my first meeting of the day and eat happily as the meeting leads would hash out whatever it was they needed to hash out for the moment. My boss and my team got very used to seeing me every morning with my routine breakfast and they had all heard the story about how I had been grabbing my Starbucks coffee every morning since I could drive to school. As soon as the breakfast sandwiches were introduced I added them to my morning routine.

Starbucks announced it was discontinuing the breakfast sandwiches in the January 30, 2008 earnings call. Shortly after my Boss said casually as I opened up my white sack with "Jen" handwritten on it, "You know they're going to discontinue the breakfast sandwich, right?" My mouth dropped open and my heart skipped a couple of beats as a moment of panic struck me. The scream of "nooooo" was heard throughout the land and everyone in the room looked on in horror. I proceeded from meeting room to meeting room telling everyone how horrible it was that the breakfast sandwich was going to be discontinued. My Boss finally said, "With all the websites you have created, why not create one to save the breakfast sandwich?"
I headed home that evening and checked Network Solutions (the registrar and hosting company I have been using since my first website in 1999) to see if "savethebreakfastsandwich.com" or something similar was available for registration. Since it was available, I grabbed it, and set-up hosting for the website I was going to create. The marketing person in me began questioning "Why am I doing this?", "What is the sole purpose of the website?", "What is the ultimate goal?", and "What is the target market for the website?". Once I determined my marketing persona and strategy and my $0.00 budget, little effort marketing began.

Blog Comment

I posted a comment to the Starbucks Gossip Blog post titled "Starbucks to get rid of warm breakfast sandwiches" when the site was completed which resulted in a blog post dedicated to the 7 members we had in February 21, 2008. As a result of the comment and then blog post the site began generating a plethora of buzz around it.

Press and Buzz

February 29, 2008 - Seattle Time NWSource Blogger Amy Martinez wrote in Tidbits
"As of Thursday morning, 60 people had joined a Web site dedicated to saving Starbucks' warmed breakfast sandwiches, which the company plans to phase out this year.
One member of the newly launched http://www.savethebreakfastsandwich.com wrote "My homage to the Breakfast Sadwich (sic): Don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge, I'm tryin' not to lose my head, but it (sic) you take my sandwich away uh huh uh huh... " — MA"
May 15, 2008 - National Post "Starbucks Does Breakfast"
July 31, 2008 - Fresno Beehive Blog post "Starbucks introduces less stinky sandwiches"
"Starbucks recently announced it will begin making less smelly breakfast sandwiches.
First, some back story: In an effort to get back to its roots, the Starbucks CEO announced in January that the chain would stop carrying its hot breakfast sandwiches. Apparently the smell of baking (reheating?) bread, cheese and eggs overpowered the smell of coffee.
It was part of an effort to stay strong in a tough economy, with changes like closing local stores and laying off employees.
The folks at www.savethebreakfastsandwich.com mounted a mini rebellion, complete with posts like, "You can pry my peppered bacon, aged cheddar and egg from my cold, dead hands."
For whatever reason -- perhaps to fend off competitors like Dunkin' Donuts offering coffee and breakfast -- Starbucks reversed course. The breakfast sandwiches would stay. Only now, they'll be made with a new type of cheese (oh, I'm dying to know how they tested the smelliness of cheese) and less butter in the eggs to help control the smell."
September 5, 2008 - New York Times Executive Blogs post by Joe Nocera "The Starbucks Egg Sandwich Double-Cross"
"A few days later, I received an e-mail message from one of Mr. Varma’s (friend of writer and new employee of Starbucks) new colleagues, informing me that it wasn’t ineptitude that was keeping the sandwiches on the shelf — Mr. Schultz had decided to reverse his decision and keep them! "As you recall, Howard made a point that we would address the issues of quality and store experience as it related to breakfast sandwiches," she wrote. "We took a look at the sandwiches here in our Starbucks kitchens and were able to make improvements to the recipe to address the aroma and quality concerns. Bottom line — warm breakfast is an important complement to the daily coffee ritual of a significant portion of our customers and we think we have a win-win solution here."
The Starbucks woman also pointed me to a Web site called “Save The Breakfast Sandwich,” claiming that it showed there was a groundswell of customer support for them. But when I checked the Web site, I couldn’t help notice that it had all of 195 members."

We Got Traffic

Within the first month of the website launching the site received over 4,000 visits. I knew I couldn't rely on social media and the buzz of blogs to keep the traffic going at this rate, so I began optimizing for search engines creating a page for every city and state in the United States and optimizing for the key phrase "Starbucks in ...". 3 years to the date the site receives roughly 1200 visits in one month's time with 91% of the traffic coming from search engines.

Social Media

Now when this site was developed 3 years ago, Twitter was only a couple of years old, Facebook had opened it's doors to everyone just 2 years prior (September 26, 2006). What marketers used for "Social Media Marketing" back then was primarily MySpace, Linkedin, blogs, chat rooms, bookmarking sites, commenting on products, forums, list-serves, and the like. Not to mention that SEO was a "do some work and wait" type of job as Google's updates were happening every few months rather than every day as they are today. My social media marketing efforts were solely reliant upon bookmarking sites (adding the quick bookmarking links to each page of the website), blogs, press, and the general groundswell that online buzz marketing produced.

The Site Gets me a Job?

In November of 2009, I was working as VP of Interactive Marketing at Obvio.us.com and was looking to get back in-house with an established corporation again, when a Starbucks HR person posted to the Seattle Digital Eve list that they were looking for a Manager in Social Media. She specifically requested that all applicants put "digitaleve - manager - social media" in the subject line and send to her email address directly. I proceeded to update my resume to reflect the latest work I had done with clients, Concur, Classmates.com, Smartsheet, and mentioned the savethebreakfastsandwich.com website, the Facebook fan page, and talked about my checkins on Foursquare. Hoping to show how I not only support Starbucks, but also know the latest social media trends. Unfortunately I did not hear word back from her regarding the position. I have been told by numerous HR professionals that the market is (and was) flooded with individuals looking for work and resume's were being submitted by the hundreds of thousands making it extremely difficult for them to see every resume that crossed the system, email, or desk. Go figure...

It just goes to show you that creating a website that gets the attention of press, blogs, and all sorts of online sources will get you traffic, but unfortunately won't get you a job.

STBS Gets a Mention

On March 28, 2011 CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz spoke at a kick-off event for his new book "Onward" that shares the story of the company's turnaround revealing how Starbucks achieved profitability without "sacrificing humanity."

It was brought to my attention by one of Wappow's Search and Social Hawaii 2010 attendees Linda Sherman as she shared a link to the book on her Facebook wall. With the link she commented "I got so excited when Howard Schultz declared the importance of social media for any enterprise that I pulled out the only recording device I had with me at the moment - my iPhone 4." Naturally I had to respond with a plug for the savethebreakfastsandwich.com who's sole source of traffic is through social media and SEO. After she pointed out that the website is mentioned in his book, I quickly headed to Amazon.com and purchased both the Kindle and Hard Copy versions. Sure enough, on Page 231 it says "After I’d announced the end of the breakfast sandwich on the earnings call back in January 2008, we had immediately pulled the sandwiches out of stores’ display cases, although customers could still order them by request. And, as predicted, we saw an immediate decline in stores that had carried the product, but we also saw impassioned customer comments posted at MyStarbucksIdea.com and got them at our customer call center. A website even sprang up: Savethebreakfastsandwich.com.” Now here's where I point out that oddly the MyStarbucksIdea.com website was launched in March of 2008 and the only real comment that was made asking that Starbucks keeps the Breakfast Sandwich is my post by STBS (Save The Breakfast Sandwich) in June of 2008. Is this enough to warrant calling it an "impassioned customer comment"? or a plug to help boost a bad idea?

So?

So in the end, the website had caught the attention of some bloggers, press, breakfast sandwich fans, and even the CEO himself Howard Schultz all from social media marketing and SEO. Did the website truly save the breakfast sandwich at Starbucks? A question I will never truly be able to answer as no one from Starbucks has ever spoken with me (not about the site or for a position I directly applied for) - so it will forever remain a mystery.

Even after the website mention in the book and the traffic that the website is still getting from the individual city and state pages, I still pay every month to Network Solutions to host the website. I have now since revamped the site to reflect the saving of the sandwich and providing social interactivity that Facebook and Twitter allow us website developers to provide. I also set the Google maps to show all the Starbucks within each city and state on the according page so that the analytics stop showing a 99.8% bounce rate and a time of less than 1 minute spent on each page. Since the book mention and the changes that have been made, the site has seen a boost from 5% Direct Traffic referrals to 15% and from 3% referring websites to 8% with Facebook bringing in 3.5% of that traffic - though Google Organic is still bringing in a large amount of traffic all going to the individual location pages (roughly 60 keywords per day referring traffic from SEO to the individual pages).

I'm sure at some point Google will probably shut me down (or algorithm me out) as they punished JCPenney for buying links - according to the NY Times article "The Dirty Little Secrets of Search". Though I am hoping my "doorway pages" are user friendly enough that they will let them stay (especially since Starbucks doesn't offer maps with store locations for searchers).

The site is and has been used as a lesson in the effectiveness in social media and search engine optimization to the Wappow workshop attendees. I also do occasionally have an interviewer pull it up on their computer to show them what I am capable of when it comes to fooling around with silly little websites.

Facebook Like and Facebook Share

As you may have noticed Facebook is popping up on sites all over the web. You can like, share, login, or even comment on blog posts, news articles, or any other page of a website.  In typical Facebook fashion, developers used to be able to add either a "share" button or a "like" button to their website pages. The difference was that the like button was a simple click and notification that you "like" the page. There was no other effort on your part to write a comment, or anything else. The "share" allowed you to not only write a comment, but to edit the information (title, description, image) that was to be shared – giving the user a bit more control.Both would show up in the news stream, and on their wall, but the like was a simple line saying "Bob likes the blah page". The "share" showed up with a graphic, the comment, and the title and description of the page.
This allowed for more noticeability in the very busy news feed of the user’s friends. In most cases I would personally choose (and recommend) the "share" button.
And so did Facebook...
In recent developments Facebook has changed how the "like" button behaves making it more like the "share" button – allowing the user to "like" something, giving them the option to make a statement about it, and showing up more prominently in the news feed. So now when you setup your "like" button there are a couple of different options you can choose. 1) choose the word "recommend" or "like" in the button itself. 2) choose the layout style of Standard, Button Count, or Box Count.

So now when you "recommend" or "like" a page it gives you the option to say "what's on your mind?" adding a comment to the item in the news feed.

And instead of showing up in the news feed as "Bob like the Blah page" it now shows up more prominently with a graphic, title, and description.

Google is Finding more high-quality sites in search

It's official - Google is focusing more on high quality websites and less on the fodder.

As Matt Cutts himself stated "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search

Does this mean that us SEO's need to focus more on social media?
It's a trend I have been boasting about for several years now. With the indoncination of twitter several years back - while they may have added "nofollow" tage to all their links, I was still noticing a trend in rankings with our tweet blasts.

It was social media that has been driving the traffic to Wappow.com, and while search traffic has been picking up considerably the past few months as we reach our 1 year anniversary, I truly believe that social media is leading the way to those rankings.

The Internet and Beyond

There are many aspects of society that are shared among all the diverse cultures in this world: love; food; friendships; and the Internet...

We have gone from a world separated by water, boats, planes, and cultures to a world now brought together by one common space. The internet has opened up possibilities that are endless - education, communication, and trade. I myself remember as a child our household was lucky enough to own an encyclopedia set my Mother had purchased on a payment plan. Most of my reports for school were completed easily at home with severalhours spent in the library looking things up in the Dewey Decimal System. My papers were hand written for draft #1, #2, and #3 and finally typed up on a typewriter. Today my 13 year old daughter plops herself in front of the computer, types in some key phrases and comes up with an abundant amount of information without ever having to set foot in a library. If she has a question, she can log into forums or comment on a blog and someone will reply with even more information. In the process she has educated herself and communicated with experts.

In the past to start a company a person would have to have an exorbitant amount of cash to find a place of business (whether it be a storefront, office location, warehouse space, etc) and now anyone can setup a website without knowing how to design or develop. They can even market that business without having to spend money through search marketing and social media marketing. Money is being transferred from person to person, business to consumer, and even business to business with ease. Instead of that one person setting up a business or retail shop and reaching the city surrounding them, they are now reaching millions of people and thousands of companies all over the world.

We now have access to so many countries, cultures, businesses, and people all from the point of one connection whether it be from a computer, phone, or other device. The possibilities of someone starting their own business,  educating themselves and communicating with the world are endless. It's just up to that individual to know where to go to educate themselves on how to start their business, get an education and/or degree, research, network, and use the tools available to them to become successful.

Google Chrome OS - what does it mean?

Announced in July of 2009 was Google Chrome OS - Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS - when I first read it I was shocked. Does this really mean that Google is going to try to develop an operating system?

The nitty gritty of the announcement is pretty abundant when you read who is involved and the work they are putting into the product is impressive. The whole goal is to launch a user friendly, ant-virus prone, system that people can install and start using without having to relearn and "to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web." In otherwords "It should just work."

In conjunction with my theory years ago about how TV, Phones, and the Internet will all work on one basic system as the technologies merge into one another the theory behind the Google Chrome OS and could computing is indicative that we are heading into a direction that our phones, computers, and television will all work as one streamlined process.

I can already see where Google is going to go as I recently was forced to purchase a Google Phone (G1) from T-Mobile as I went swimming with my iPhone that I had for over 2 years now. (pictured here) In order to get a new phone I had to sign a new 2 year contract with at&t which I was not ready to do. The best alternative was to use the extra line to my kids' T-Mobile account (which I have had since 2002). In addition to the lower cost to maintain the phone, the purchasing and setup of the phone was even easier then when I had originally gotten my iPhone. The downside was the fact that I had to setup a gmail account finally, but once setup and imported all my calendar items and my contacts from outlook they downloaded right to the phone. No using iTunes to synch my phone. It was all from the internet...

So you can probably see where Google is going with this. Right now with Google Docs, the Google G1 Phone, Gmail and signing in to the personalized Google search all of my information is stored in one place and synched without having to install software, plug in my phone, or learn how to do it. It just worked!

My prediction - the Google Chrome OS will get someone up on the internet and running with cloud computing in just a few simple steps:
1)Download the Google Chrome OS FREE!
2)Install
3)Enter your username and password for your Google Gmail, or personal account
4)and your all synched up including calendar, contacts, documents, email, etc.

Not to mention that they will be launching the open source by the end of 2009 so that other companies and developers can benefit through developing apps and the like as they have for the Google G1 phone.

...and the look: (unofficial photos courtesy of Mashable)

The Coolest Search Peeps Ever!

In my many years in search marketing I have come to know a lot of people in the industry. Some are well known and some not so much but are rock stars in their own right. This post has been a long time brewing in my head. I have wanted to do a shout out to all the people that have been around for many years and have influenced not only myself, but others as well. To keep the list from getting too long I stuck with those I had photos of on-hand. As some of you know I am always the one behind the camera taking pics of multiple events in the search industry so naturally I had photos of each and every one of these cool search peeps. I also kept the list alphabetical so as not to make anyone feel bad for being at the bottom of the list (sorry Rand and Todd, it just ended up that way).

  Aaron Goldman 

I have known Aaron for a few years now through from his writings for Media Post, including the table topics he had gathered for the past couple of years for the Search Insider Summits. Aaron was the VP of Marketing & Strategic Partnerships at Resolution Media for nearly 5 years before breaking off with Connectual as a Managing Partner bringing together buyers and sellers of digital marketing solutions. Aaron also serves on the Executive Board of Directors for the Chicago Interactive Marketing Association and is a frequent speaker at SES, OMMA, and Search Insider Summits. Aaron's propensity to wear shirts with funny phrases such as "Google Me" and "Who Tweeted?" leads to great conversations about the power of natural search and social media. You're shirts inspire me Aaron!

Dan Perry 

One of the best In-House SEO's I have had the pleasure of working with in planning the In-House Day for the Search Insider Summits. Dan's collaboration and ideas have driven the agenda to a finely tuned and informational day catered to the issues that only In-House SEO's face. Dan has been the SEO Manager for Cars.com for over 3 years in which he has managed the organic direction. Big kudos go out to Dan for his recent weight loss. I have got to say I didn't even recognize him at the last Search Insider Summit. Yay Dan!

David Berkowitz 

With over 7,500 followers on Twitter, David has been an influential participant in the search marketing industry. Having been a speaker at over 80 events, appearing on CNBC, and quoted in the NY Times, Ad Age, and many other publications David continues to educate and influence the search (now social) industry. I have known David for a few years and have always enjoyed the conversations about search and most recently share a passion for social media marketing. David recommended the book Groundswell over a year ago and since then I have been focusing on social media strategies in order to drive search rankings. David always has time to give great advice and has been a huge advocate as I work with Media Post on the Search Insider Summits and a great source to bounce ideas off of. David has a smile that seems to get larger the more he drinks and is always willing to watch my purse while I take photos. Thank You David!

Gord Hotchkiss 

Having served as the Programming Chair for the Search Insider Summit for several years now Gord has been a great support in every crazy idea I come up with in planning or promoting the summits. I first met Gord at SES NY in 2006 and had a chance to talk to him in more depth with the idea for the In-House Day at the Search Insider Summit while walking the beach on a remote island with the rest of the "dolphin" tour group ("dolphin" is in quotes because I have yet to see a dolphin on the tour). Gord and I talked about the struggles In-House SEO's face and after introducing me to Dan Perry we began putting the agenda into affect. While Gord gets out from time to time with the rest of us, he somehow manages to get up bright and early each morning to kick off each day's discussions. Keep those panels going Gord!

Janel Landis 

What can you say about Janel? When I first met Janel she was on a panel of mine a while back and I was told before meeting her that she tends to be a bit quiet. I don't know where this person got the impression that she is quiet because Janel is anything but. She has always been there through the late nights as we talk SEO by the harbor with the rest of the cool SEO Peeps. Janel has a lot of great ideas and has brought insight into every panel she has spoken on. I never leave the room after she has spoken without a little bit more in my database of SEO knowledge. Janel has been the VP of Search Marketing for SendTec for over 4 years. She has spoken at numerous conferences and writes for Media Post regularly. I always enjoy Janel's panels but have to say the discussion on RFP's Fundementaly Broken Moderated by Aaron Goldman was by far my favorite as it was great to see the trials and tribulations our vendors go through to write proposals (that video can be viewed here). Thank You Janel!

Olivier Lemaignen 

Almost 10 years at Intuit brings Olivier a wealth of experience and knowledge. Olivier has gone from Senior Marketing Manager to Group Manager of Online Acquisition in the Small Business division and is now the Group Manager for Global Search Marketing. I met Olivier while working on the agenda for the In-House day at the search Insider Summit. He has not only spoken at the Summit but has spoken at SES and is on the Board of Advisors for SEMPO. Olivier always has a lot to offer when it comes to the In-House agenda and is always a delight to talk to while at the Summit's various activities. Olivier is always willing (with some arm twisting) to continue the networking with his appletini in hand. Keep 'em coming!

Rand Fishkin 

5 years ago Rand Fishkin started SEOmoz.com which has since grown to over 150,000 members. Rand has become a Rock Star in the SEO community with close to 9,000 followers on Twitter (even though he doesn't get the fascination people have with Twitter) and so many friends on Facebook he can't keep track. When Rand isn't posting for the T_Max Twitter handle (and you thought it was Todd) with myself and his wife he is speaking at one of the many search conferences around the world (despite his pitch for SMX East getting turned down). Rand has a great insightful point of view when it comes to search marketing on the SEOmoz Blog which has over 40,000 readers. Rand has always been very dapper and manages to maintain his composure even when his wife is cutting a search marketer down (and you know she will).

Todd Friesen 

AKA Oilman (a nickname for searchengineforums.com he used while he was an accountant for Chevron Canada), Todd has been a key player in the SEO industry since 1998. Before his current position as VP of Search at Position Technologies he was the Director of Search at Range Media. If you haven't heard Todd on WebmasterRadio.fm you can find him speaking at conferences such as Search Engine Strategies, SMX and Media Post's Search Insider Summit. I first heard Todd's name after I left Visible Technologies as he had briefly taken over the Search team there. Since then Todd and I have been through discussions from how he thinks H1 tags actually effect your rankings to arguing with Rand about how Twitter is cool. Todd is very passionate (to say the least) about SEO. Get him on the right topic and he will convince you to see it his way before letting you go anywhere. Take a Valium Oilman!

  Topher Kohan 

One of my favorite SEO's Topher is the Search Engine Optimization Coordinator for CNN.com. Topher came highly recommended by Dan Perry for the In-House day this last May 2009 and added great value to our panel representing the large corporation as an In-House SEO. At one point he even stumped Jeremiah Andrick to the point where he was focusing on what Topher had said. Topher is always a delight to hang out with and his tweets never fail to educate and amuse. Keep it up little buddy!

Twitter Search Help

On July 14, 2008 the folks at Twitter announced that they acquired Summize to help power the searching of all those random tweets by users. The downside to having such a powerful user generated website is that there isn't much control over what people say or how they say it. We even ran into this when marketing for the Search Insider Summit last spring when trying to get attendees used to using the #MPSIS branding hashtag in referencing the summit while they had been used to using the #SIS in the past. The move was not only a branding decision, but one that help steer away from any confusion when someone talked about their "sis" (short for "sister").

So how does one search for what they are looking for specifically on Twitter?

The folks at Twitter and Summize have streamlined the process by allowing for some basic operators you can use quickly without having to fill out the advanced search on Twitter. Thanks to Twitter not only can we find tweets about specific topics close to us (such as Drinks in Seattle) but we can now track them in our various applications (I personally like the feeds in Tweetdeck to stay up-to-date)

How does one use these for Marketing?

Track Your Brand - When keeping up to date on what people are saying about your brand you can use the simple hashtag or just phrase search in the handle and keep the feed on your Tweetdeck, or even your Google personal or reader page. Customer Service - One of my favorite examples of how Twitter search is used is from both Comcast and Qwest who are prime examples of how companies are now using Twitter to track what their customers are saying. Most people at one time or another have tweeted that "Comcast Sucks" or "Comast is slow" or even that they are "waiting for Comcast" - Comcast has a handle @comcastcares and the people monitoring it track all of these phrases or key words through Twitter's search. When a new tweet is posted they simply respond to that person and try to work them through their frustrations through Twitter. For Example: @micahn posted "Comcast crawling again... 3:43 PM Jan 17th" to which Comcast had replied immediately ultimately resulting in @micahn happy again about his internet connection I myself have had great help from Qwest when tweeting "Still no modem from qwest. C'mon guys" they quickly responded with "@SEOGoddess Hi if you DM me your Qwest number/contact number I'll check the modem status for you. Thanks Corey" and sent me a message of when my modem was scheduled to arrive. From customer service to monitoring your brand - even using key terms in your tweets to help people find you and gain quality followers Twitter search can be a powerful tool all around. Below is a quick reference for those of you not sure exactly how these search operators on Twitter work - Enjoy! dog bone Contains both "dog" and "bone" somewhere in the tweet. "tweetup Seattle" Contains the exact phrase "tweetup Seattle" somewhere in the Tweet. vegan OR vegetarian Contains either "vegan", "vegetarian" or both somewhere in the tweet. toilet-paper Contains the word "toilet" but not "paper" in the tweet. #twitlingo Contains the hashtag "twitlingo" which most people will use when tweeting a specific word, phrase, or topic as a group collective. from:SEOGoddess A tweet that has been sent from the "SEOGoddess" handle. to:jandrick Any tweet sent to the "jandrick" handle in twitter. @RealitySEO Any tweets referencing the "RealitySEO" handle (usually replies, #followfriday, or any other types of mentions. "happy hour" near:"san francisco" Any tweet containing the exact phrase "happy hour" and sent near "san francisco". near:Seattle within:5mi Any tweets by people Billy Mayssince:2009-06-28 Any tweets containing "Billy Mays" that were tweeted since the date "2009-06-28" (year-month-day). followfriday until:2009-06-26 Any tweets containing "followfriday" tweeted until the date "2009-06-29". movie bruno:) Any tweet containing the word "movie", and "Bruno", and with a positive attitude. Star Trek :( Any tweet containing "Star Trek" with a negative attitude. twitlingo? Any tweet containing "twitlingo" and asking a question. funny filter:links Any tweets containing "funny" and linking to URLs. news source:tweetdeck Any tweet containing "news" and entered via TweetDeck (more twitter apps)

Rand Fishkin gets "Honest about Social Media Marketing"

I am not one to engage in heated discussions especially topics thrown out in order to spark a "lively debate" on the internet. In fact my general rule is that if something strikes a cord with me I will sit on it a few days and will usually completely forget it ever was said but at times fins myself am still thinking on it. In which case I will then respond later when the initial reaction has wavered a bit.

Today I was hit by a posting that happened to spark a blogpost of my own after laying dormant for so many months. But why? Could it be that I am calmly in Florida for the Search Insider Summit wrapping up Winshuttle's Community Site (launching next Tuesday) and helping to put the final touches on Media Post's Search Insider Summit agenda, and speakers that I now have time to post? Possibly - since I still stick by my theory that people that have time to rant are people that don't have enough work to do. This evening I seem to fall into that category.

So my rant for the evening is in response to a good friend of mine Rand Fishkin. I am going to start off by stating that while I have known Rand for a short period of time he has been a great supporter and I still hold him in high regards. Unfortunately Rand Fishkin's post to his blog at 1:49 am Monday May 4th in which he states,

"The majority of marketers who engage in social media do so NOT because it produces greater ROI (professionally), but because the metrics are more immediately tangible and emotionally rewarding."

A very a bold statement in which Rand Fishkin continues to state his case by simplifying the act of what it takes to optimize a website,

"Let's say I put in some effort attracting more relevant visitors to my site. I see that a certain phrase is sending good quality traffic via my analytics and decide to pursue a higher ranking for that keyword. I do a bit of external link research, find some good places for a listing, maybe acquire a small handful of external links. I tweak the title tag, the H1 and a bit of the page content and make the call to action more prominent and compelling. I find a few important pages on my site (the top pages tool is badass for this) and place some good internal links. My rankings rise a few positions and I see more traffic the next week.

My conversions go up, and my company makes a few hundred more dollars in signups every week thereafter."

Now before I continue to quote his blog posting I am going to break a part the entire posting as I would an email to some of my favorite and very intelligent developers from my past (you know who you are) as we would discuss why work needed to be done on the website in order to obtain rankings (discussions that oddly don't happen anymore as more and more developers and others are seeing that SEO isn't a bunch of "smoke and mirrors"). In the past my emails would come with links to Google's webmaster guidelines and other websites that included SEO best practices, but in this case I am just going to state my opinion in response to Rand Fishkin's opinion (and remember, this is just my opinion).

So picking apart the above statement:

1) First item on the agenda "some effort". Really? SEO takes some effort? simply add meta tags, keywords, h1 tags and some internal linking and bam you have rankings...

If that were really the case a lot of us SEO's would be out of a job. Ok that statement was a bit broad - so more detail: Understanding the basics of SEO is great. Focus on a few key terms that you know your audience is searching for and get your Title tags to reflect them (so that the snippet draws your user to click when you do get rankings) place them in the correct densities within the content of your site (across the site for broad aggressive 1-2 word terms and whole pages around specific 3-5 word phrases for a more targeted audience) internal linking including those terms in the anchor text seeded throughout the site (yes the navigation on each page gets skipped as they are overlooked as shingles) with related content linking to other related content not just for users but bots as well.

Of course that's just scratching the surface - once you get rankings how you present your value proposition and your call to action after the user has clicked through the snippet to the page that is ranking is crucial in driving that conversion.

2) "I do a bit of external link research, find some good places for a listing, maybe acquire a small handful of external links." Where are these external links coming from? Rand doesn't get into detail here, but my assumption would be that the person obtaining the links would be hitting up forums that have postings on the topic in which they would be optimizing for, or comment on a blog post here and there with the phrase located in the comment surrounded by a hyperlink. But isn't that social media marketing? I would hope the SEO isn't purchasing links on a website somewhere, 'cause that would be bad...

Rand Fishkin continues to talk about the metrics of SEO and how effective the "some effort" is:

"To see 59 conversions this week vs. 53 from last week means an improvement of more than 10% for an investment of only a day's work. Repeat that process and you've got something amazing on your hands."

An average SEO makes anywhere between $30-$80,000 per years salary. let's assume that the SEO putting in "some effort" is a beginning SEO since the work is pretty basic. A days work would cost the company $115 for an SEO making $30,000 a year (not counting the cost in benefits, computer, software, etc). That "one days work" just brought in 6 more conversions than the week before bringing them to a $19 cost per conversion. I don't know about you but that's kinda high. In fact I just brought Winshuttle from a $18 cost per conversion in Adwords to now $6 cost per conversion and increased conversions from 100 per week to 100 per day with 1 weeks work. (not gonna bring my salary into it, I'll let you figure out the math on your own)

Rand Fishkin goes on to talk about the social media side of his statement. Now here's where I am going to slightly agree with him that the psychology of having friends is what drives social media marketing. In fact studies have shown over the past few years that the driving factor behind social networking and why it is becoming so popular is the psychology of human interaction. When it comes to the buying decision process us humans will usually talk to friends or go into a store and talk to a salesperson about their take on products comparing each item's pros and cons before making that purchase. why do we want to do this? We are social creatures at heart and will "trust" anything a "friend" has to say about something before we make that decision ourselves. How many times have you not only gone to a friend before making a buying decision, but talked to a friend before making life decisions in general? Choosing what college to go to, who you want to date, if you should marry them or not, should you buy a house or rent an apartment, and so on. Ultimately the decision is yours but you generally won't make it without talking to someone first.

That is where the power of social media comes into play. Especially in my case at Winshuttle working with business to business as the purchasing decision making process takes months and requires a bit of nurturing throughout. That process can be sped up or solidified in the company's direction if handled appropriately as the lead comes through the gate. Social media plays a huge part in that initial messaging. If the user sees the brand not only mentioned but talked about in a positive way before ever coming to the site they are swayed that much more before we capture that lead. If this is done right it not only shortens the buying cycle, but also frees up our sales people by bringing them more qualified leads faster. The less time they take, the more they can close, the less the company has to pay per qualified lead and so on and so on.

Here's where I start to pick apart Rand's post piece by piece:

After showing a screenshot of SEOmoz's own analytics rand fishkin goes on by pointing out that Twitter has only .35% of the conversions while Google holds .72%,

"There's Twitter at the bottom of the list, bringing 10K+ visits to our site! That's huge, right?

Here's the problem... It's also the lowest converting traffic of any referral source - less than half that of aggregate Google referrals."

Here Rand is counting just Twitter, but what about Facebook, or possibly other social sites in which SEOmoz is mentioned? When I search for SEOmoz I see not only the offical website but look - there's twitter, a blog (copyblogger.com), youtube, stumbleupon, digg and of course Facebook (on page 2). All which obtain rankings and help in solidifying the SEOmoz brand as users conduct research for the best ways to learn how to optimize their website or look for cool tools to help in optimizing the site. Oh and wait - wasn't this blog posting by Rand himself social media marketing? In looking at the amount that Rand Fishkin blogs seems that he manages to get in at least 1 post a day if not every few days.

Rand continues on by stating,

"I grant that direct referrals are never the whole story, and that there is real branding, marketing and user acquisition value to the traffic, participation and effort spent in social media. What I worry about is whether these intangibles are worth the expenditure.

In every one of the social media cases, the feedback and the metrics are coming from real people that I can reply to, hear back from and strike up a conversation with. The lonely days of lines & numbers as the only recompense for my marketing efforts are at an end. When I engage in social media marketing, I don't feel like an SEO geek, toiling against an algorithm and an anonymous search audience. I feel like a social butterfly, blossoming in the world of Twitter & Facebook, the same outlets the media is raving on about all day long (when not obsessed with swine flu, that is)."

I admit I myself tend to get distracted from time to time when a topic I am interested becomes a buzz on Twitter or Facebook. I of course will justify it by saying that it's for work since most of the discussions I take an interest in are online marketing related. There are days in which I know I need to sit with my head down and get work done and those are the days that the tweetdeck gets shut off and I don't touch Facebook until I get home at night and the kids are fast asleep.

Just as any addiction, social networking should be used in moderation.

Why am I picking on Rand you ask? Because this is a point of discussion each time I go out with Rand and give him a hard time about not tweeting a lot (or that Todd Friesen tweets too much) or that Rand doesn't follow a lot of people on Twitter (but neither do I so I can't pick on him there) or that he almost never logs into Facebook and ads all those people that want to be his friend. He just "doesn't understand why people are so addicted to Twitter or Facebook". A discussion we continue to have and have always walked away with Rand Fishkin continuing to have his opinion and the rest of us social media brats with ours.

I know that in the case of my position at Winshuttle the social media work has become extremely effective in not only generating brand awareness in resolving issues people might have for SAP that Winshuttle's products can solve, but also in engaging SAP consultants that might use transactionSHUTTLE with one client and recommend it for another (I actually have quite a few consultants as Facebook friends and have engaged in discussions with them at times).

The moral of my story is simply this. Rand Fishkin's post brought up a statement I have been often telling people especially as I am here attending the Media Post Email and Search Insider Summits that Social Media Marketing is today what SEO was several years ago. Back in the day when I worked for an agency and then at Classmates the struggle was to get buy in from others in order to get changes made for search optimization. Optimizing was more about proving that SEO was valid and worked when there was no way of really tracking that the efforts made were bringing in the dough (ROI). Now Search optimization has become not only proven over and over to the extent that executives and other people are asking me what are we going to do next (rather than me asking for the work and getting some of it done) but is now easily tracked and measured.

I say give social media a few years (especially in today's economy) as company's start to see the value in the benefits a tweet a day and a Facebook page can make.