Biznology Blog: March 2010

« February 2010 | Main | April 2010 »

March 31, 2010

Why Infographics Are the New Favorite Link Bait

by Chris Angus

With the Internet constantly advancing, you must stay on top of what Internet users are responding to. Infographics, are graphical representations of an ideal or a concept with an embedded link to your site. They are becoming the new fashionable link bait because they grab people's attention. Put simply, an infographic can portray a message that words just cannot do justice to, prompting an instant reaction.

Engaging infographics have several advantages in generating links back to your site, and can range from humorous cartoon characters to graphs and charts that condense complicated information into understandable bite-size chunks. By presenting an image that is colorful, lively, interesting, or even shocking and hard-hitting, you rapidly draw people to your site with one click of the mouse. A successful infographic can increase traffic to your site and improve brand awareness.

Infographics can also be used to share content with similar Web sites, sometimes helping a message go viral. By contributing your infographics to high profile blogs or social media, you gain significant exposure for a number of audiences. The key to using infographics is to make them educational or entertaining or both.

An SEO Company like mine will also advise clients to create infographics because people prefer them to standard Web site content. People are more inclined to link to infographic content, aiding your search rankings (because Google ranks sites with better links more highly).

Remember to reflect your own style in the infographics you create. With more and more people utilizing this valuable method of link baiting, you don't want to become a mere drop in the SEO pool. Infographics have the power to generate quality links because they offer unique content that goes beyond a catchy headline. Internet users are constantly bombarded with ads every day and it is only when faced with something different and exciting that they start to take notice. Tapping into this need for fast, effective information is where your infographics will really begin to gain results, often within just a few weeks.

Posted by ChrisAngus at 7:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 30, 2010

Google Buzz Reconsidered

With all the discussion about Google Buzz that occurred when it first came out, I wonder if there was more heat than light. Opinions raged in those first few days, pro and (mostly) con, but I wonder if in retrospect we missed the bigger story about the significance of Google Buzz, which is what Buzz says about Google's approach to social media. To learn more, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Google Buzz Reconsidered."

Posted by MikeMoran at 2:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 29, 2010

Google wants you to speed up your servers

There are so many things to think about when you are working on search marketing, but have you ever thought about the speed of your site's servers? Page load times are increasingly important to your search results, and it's something simple to improve, even if it does cost some cash. To find out more about Google's need for speed, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Google wants you to speed up your servers."

Posted by MikeMoran at 9:14 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 26, 2010

Translators aren't search experts

I run across clients every day that want to expand internationally, and naturally, they expect to use search marketing to do it. So, they carefully choose the Web pages they need to translate into local languages, they throw open the doors to the country Web sites, and hear the sound of...crickets. What went wrong? They carefully optimized their original Web site for search and they hired capable translators to convert them to other languages. But they missed an important step.

It sounds like the right things to do. Write the site in English, do all of your search optimization, and it works great. But when you translate your site to French, you aren't done. You must redo your optimization for search.

Here's why. Just imagine that you originally wrote your pages in French for your computer business. You've done all the optimization for search, and it's working fine--in French. When you translate it to English, the translator correctly uses all the words required, but he constantly refers to "notebook" computers, rather than "laptops."

Is the translation correct? Yes. Is it search optimized? No. People use the word "laptop" in their searches far more often than the word "notebook." If your site uses the less popular word, you'll get far fewer searcher visits. Instead, you need to repeat your search optimization work in every language. Each time you translate, you must repeat the keyword research to determine popular terms and then use them in the translated text.

It costs more than relying on your translators, but the advantage is that the searchers actually find your translated site. If you want to save money, you can, but you're likely to find that your translators are not search experts.

Posted by MikeMoran at 7:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 25, 2010

Beware the Sponsored Study in the Online Space

by Frank Reed

Marketers talk a lot about the beauty of the online advertising and marketing world. The once elusive "proof that this really working" an age-old issue for traditional marketing, is no longer a problem. There are ways to monitor and manage just about anything related to online campaigns to some degree or another. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot, but considering how young the online space is relative to the traditional marketing and advertising channels, there is little comparison between the two. For the most part, a marketer can measure online success metrics much more easily and readily than they can the offline options.

Of course, every rose has its thorns, as the saying goes. One phenomenon that I have been witnessing in the online space is the amount of market research that is produced to convince those with control of the corporate marketing purse strings that the online space is a safe bet.

You would think that this would be obvious to the marketers of the world, but when you step back and take a real look at the online marketing space, it is rife with pitfalls, potholes, land mines, and other places where a marketer can easily make a misstep. The largest concern seems to be around privacy information of the online buyer and the rights of a marketer concerning vital personal information, for how long and to what degree as well. This keeps marketing executives up at night. The industry knows it and the industry has found a way to overcome it as well.

It's called the sponsored study or report. This kind of research has been around since the dawn of modern market activity to some degree or another. Someone is always sponsoring a survey or report somewhere that helps them make their own business case and get some publicity along the way as well. What is happening in the online space, though, is different. The pace of production of these studies has accelerated to incredible speeds. If you have a position in the marketing field that needs some third party validation in order for you to get it approved, I bet there's a report for that.

This sounds great, but I think it is something that is being abused to the nth degree, and in the process is sacrificing what the real truth is about much of the Internet marketing space. I just wrote about a study from the National Advertisers Initiative that sings the praises of a controversial marketing tactic called behavioral targeting. In BT, ads are served based on behavioral patterns that the online visitor has exhibited. The claim is that the likelihood of an online conversion doubles using this technique. The NAI makes it seem like a no-brainer to engage in this and why wouldn't they? It is made up, after all, of online marketers and analytics providers. You get it right? These are the people that stand to gain the most by the validation of this practice.

This is just one instance of this type of self-regulated industry validation that I see come across my path on a weekly basis. The flood of reports and surveys by companies that we may never have heard of but happen to provide the exact same service that their 'study' is validating is endless.

Is this a real problem? I think so. It's like telling a pack of wolves that they can make the rules for shepherds regarding the safety of their flocks. The interest of the flock is going to pale in comparison to the greater interest of the wolf. It should be no surprise then when a finding comes out that says that it is healthy to leave sheep unattended for several hours at a time. The shepherds say "I have always thought that and was hoping to catch a break during the day.", Now their desired activity, which is not in the sheeps' best interest, is validated by a third party that has their own best interest at heart. The end result is that the wolves get fed and the sheep...well, you get the picture.

So, what's the bottom line here? As an Internet marketer, don't be so quick and gullible as to take every bit of research that validates anything just so you can feel OK when you do it. If an industry is to be truly self-regulating and self-policing, they should not be the sponsor of studies that support every controversial claim they need to have validated. I would have been impressed if the behavioral targeting industry had allowed an outside auditor be chosen by another unassociated group, with the completely unbiased report was issued by that group.

Will that ever happen? Not likely. Why? Because there is a real risk for these marketing special interests. The risk is that an objective source may come up with findings that don't support the group's needs. We can't have that now, can we? If we did, we would be moving forward in the Internet marketing space with the truth, and that might slow us down.

Posted by FrankReed at 6:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 24, 2010

Google fights evil, except when it doesn't

All eyes are on Google, 24x7, it seems. Google's latest news is big enough for CNN, because it features a steel cage match among two gotta watch wrestlers, Google vs. China. I applaud Google's pressure on China to relax its information barriers by trying to evade the Great Firewall of China. Censorship of information is evil and Google is on the right side of this one, no matter whose engineers win. But Google seems to be on the side of evil in at least one other area.

Recently, I wrote about how the Internet makes it hard to fool everybody, talking about how a few slimy companies are trying to sneak credit card charges past unsuspecting customers. Little did I know that Google is doing the same kind of thing.

My wife uncovered a fishy-smelling offer from an e-Commerce site powered by DoubleClick (you know, the company owned by Google). Pardon me for thinking this is evil and somehow against Google's mantra.

Now understand that I haven't been one to point out every Google transgression (real and imagined) to hoist it with its own petard. Far from it. My belief is that most big companies make many more mistakes than commit acts that are truly malicious, but it is hard for me to give Google the benefit of the doubt here.

These offers purport to give you a discount on a purchase, but in the fine print they set up a recurring charge on your credit card to join some kind of discount club. Now it's remotely possible that a few people really do shop prolifically at these sites and that the discount truly outweighs the monthly charge, but I would bet it is an infinitesimal percentage. My guess is that the vast majority have no idea that their cards are to be charged and think they are getting a deal on their purchase, and nothing more.

Surely Google knows this, if for no other reason than customers must be calling in droves to have the charges removed from their bills. It's not illegal, but it is evil. How exactly is this different from those evil spammers that are fooling Google? Both DoubleClick and spammers are trying to fool people for their own gain. If either party were open about what they are doing, their game would no longer be effective. That sounds kind of evil to me.

So, how about it, Google? Kudos for your stand on opening up some sunshine in China, but what about shining a light on your own shady business practices?

Posted by MikeMoran at 7:14 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 23, 2010

The Internet blurs the old organizational lines

Who owns the Internet? Obviously no one actually owns the Internet, but this is a question that I hear every day from big companies, because they want to know which organization within the company should take the lead with all Internet work. Big companies fail in Internet marketing every day because they waste time answering that question instead of just using the Internet. Large firms are trapped in the old thinking that problems get broken into small pieces, assigned to the right organizations, and "solutioned." But the Internet doesn't fit into any of those neat little boxes, and all attempts to squeeze it into an organizational structure are doomed to failure. Is your company stuck in the old silos?

Silos rule at your company if your company is still asking which group owns the Internet. Or what team owns search marketing. Or social media. The truth is that no one group ought to own the Internet in any organization, any more than one organization owns the telephone. Sure, one team owns the call center, but everyone else still gets to use phones.

I had dinner with a very smart client last night, who runs social media at a huge firm. She spends no time at all staking her claim to "own" social media at her company. Instead, she treats every other organization as her client, making sure that they know what they can do, how she can help, and how my company can help. She also wonders what standards and governance can be applied so the company listens with the same ears and speaks with related voices.

It's no wonder that she is wildly successful and her company is using social media effectively. So, how does your company stack up? Are you still fighting about whether marketing or IT owns SEO? Or whether PR ought to lead marketing for social media campaigns? And whether social media listening should be run by CRM or market research?

None of these questions are productive. The illusion that any of these groups has a corner on any of these new areas is a big part of what is holding back progress, and I spend a lot of my time helping large companies break through these impulses so that they can really benefit from the power of the Internet.

Take one example from social media listening to make the point. If one of your customers tweets, "The battery life on this phone is awful," which organization needs to see it? Almost every one does. Customer service? Check. Public relations? Yes, if it is something others are saying. Marketing? Sure, if this product is the big thing for the company that year. R&D? Absolutely, so they can correct the problem the next time around. Market research? CRM? Yes and yes.

Instead of focusing on who owns the Internet or search marketing or social media, instead focus on which organizations need to be involved and how they can share in the benefits. Your customer cares which company you work for, not which department you are in.

Posted by MikeMoran at 8:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 22, 2010

Stop Selling Your Products!

We all get paid to sell our products. The best sales advice used to be "Always Be Closing" but that's not always true in Internet marketing. Too often, we've become so focused on selling our product right at that moment—Buy Now! 70% off!— that we sound more like carnival barkers than people truly interested in solving our customer's problems. (And guess which approach works better with customers on the Internet.) To see how to re-orient your thinking to use search marketing in the most optimal way, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Stop Selling Your Products!"

Posted by MikeMoran at 5:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 19, 2010

Dear SMBs: Don't Complicate Blogging

by Frank Reed

It appears as if the years and years of shameless self-promotion, and an overly important view of itself, is catching up with the Internet marketing industry. I say this because, as we sit here in 2010 and race toward the world of mobile, we haven't even scratched the surface of helping the vast majority of people execute some of the online basics. The only thing that is really being scratched are the heads of regular workaday folks who just want to get a reasonable Internet marketing foundation in place. They search for simple answers and explanations, but they get industry double-speak and a weird glance by "consultants" because they "don't get it yet."

I think the place where this is the most evident is in business blogging, especially for the SMB (small and medium business). The industry has made this simple concept so convoluted (in order for consultants to charge a fee of course) that most small business folks are afraid to step out and even attempt a blog.

The Internet marketing industry talks about blogs generating leads, helping to perform market research, building relationships with your customers, helping with search engine rankings, etc. All are basically true to some exten,t and can be valid points. But they are the classic cart before the horse scenario also.

Why? Because most SMBs have been trying to advertise to "tell their story" for years on end. They sit and wonder why no one seems to "get" who they are and what they do just from their advertising, and become resigned to the classic "I get most of my business from referrals" line. They then look to other ways to "generate" business, but are sold a bill of goods about the complexities of Internet marketing. As a result, they are scared into inaction. Now they wonder why the business is not doing well in the new world order.

Don't get me wrong. Internet marketing isn't "easy peasy" by any stretch. I posit, though, that it's not nearly as complicated as we (the industry) make it out to be. Which brings us back to the blogging thing. It's not as difficult as it seems, and here's why. Here's the big secret. Ready? Here it goes! Just tell your story.

You see, as an SMB, your blog needs to tell stories about who you are, what your business is, and how it helps people. You do not need to approach your blog the same way that a Fortune 500 company does. In fact, I would completely discourage that, because if there is ever anything that dehumanizes a good story, it's how Fortune 500s tell them. How many customer case studies (which is a STUPID term anyway because no one wants to be a study, they want to be a story) have you read that make your eyelids heavy five lines into it? Do you want your small business to sound that way too? I hope not.

So what's the point here? Stop worrying about the "objectives" of your blog. Start worrying about telling your story. As an SMB, your business is about referrals and relationships, right? Talk about your customers' issues and concerns. What better way to cement a strong referral (which, by the way, is someone else telling YOUR story) than to have a blog that expands on the trust that was conveyed in that referral in the first place?

While I am not advocating that you ignore all the various measurements of success for your business blog, I am saying that none of those metrics will even be measurable if you are trying to obtain a number rather than to tell a story. Your business story. The one with the happy customer endings.

Worry less and tell your story. Now that's a business blog.

Posted by FrankReed at 3:48 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 18, 2010

What do you do after a social media and PR crisis?

You weathered the crisis. You're exhausted, but at least you lived through it. Yesterday, I wrote about how to be prepared for a PR crisis with social media, but for many companies, that advice will come too late. Unfortunately, it's human nature for us to ignore things (such as getting prepared for a crisis) until after we are hit with the crisis. It always feels like we can put that task off in favor of more urgent matters, but eventually the crisis comes and are caught unprepared. So, if you've just weathered such a PR crisis, what do you do now? OK, I mean after you get some sleep.

The first thing you should do, post-crisis, is to conduct the dreadfully named post-mortem. What went right? What went wrong? What do you wish you had already in place before the crisis, that would have made life so much easier? As painful as it is, it's critical that you examine everything that happened while it is fresh in your mind. I once heard someone say, "Write it down while it is still true." Too often, we think we'll remember, but time dims our memories and changes the stories we tell ourselves. Don't miss your chance to really identify the successes and failures of how you handled the crisis, so you can learn from them.

The next step is the hardest. You must immediately take the steps to prepare for the next crisis. Everything you wished was in place for this crisis? Put them in place now for the next one. If you wish that your Twitter presence had a bigger following, take the steps to attract followers now. If you wish you had a list of all the blogs that might talk about your industry, don't wait to put it together. If you realized you need listening services to stay on top of what people are saying, now is the time to address that.

The last step is the most unexpected for some people. You need to accept the painful fact that the crisis is not really over. Everything said about you stays on the Internet forever and Google makes that information a click away from the right search. Some people making decisions about who to buy from will come across that bad PR years after the events have played out, so you must make sure that your story of how the crisis was resolved gets the attention of searchers. Perhaps that requires work in organic search, but you might even pay for paid search ads that show your side of the story. Just because the media has moved on doesn't mean the story can't continue to do damage.

Remember the sage advice to never let a crisis pass without taking advantage. This is the moment when your colleagues are most ready to do what it takes and when your execs are most likely to pony up the money. You just had a near-death experience and you don't want to repeat it. Take these steps now to be ready for the next crisis--you never know when it is coming.

Posted by MikeMoran at 5:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 17, 2010

What can social media do for me in a PR crisis?

When that bad story first hits your computer screen, you can be excused for feeling just a little bit panicked. If you're like most companies, you aren't prepared for a PR crisis. You might have some action plan in mothballs, but if it doesn't include social media readiness, you're not prepared for a full-blown 21st century PR imbroglio. If you haven't thought through how social media transforms your PR crisis planning, it's time to do so now.

Social media can be ideal in crisis management for a few reasons. First, nothing beats the speed with which you can respond. You don't have to wait for media to call. You can answer the story right where it starts, possibly quelling an issue before it gains too much negative momentum. On the other hand, social media demands that you respond quickly, so one person's opportunity can be perceived as another's curse.

You also have the advantage of being unfiltered--no news media is interpreting or editing what you say. Your words, unfettered, can make the impression directly on your audience. Your words also influence the mainstream media, so you get your cake and can eat it, too.

And your response can be personal, and therefore more believable, than the corporate-speak press releases we did in the old days. When Ford was criticized for taking legal action against a fan club, Ford's Scott Monty jumped into the discussion to let people know that Ford was listening, and quickly brought forward facts that the fan club was copying Ford trademarks without permission and turned opinion around in just one day. Scott's credibility built from years in the community made that happen as much as anything else.

So, if you are not prepared for your next crisis, this is your big chance to get ready. You must build the credibility now, before the crisis, by participating on blogs, message boards, Twitter--wherever your audience hangs out. Then when the crisis hits, you'll have credible voices already in the right places--voices that will be listened to much more than a PR person you parachute in.

As you watch companies pilloried in social media each day for real and imagined transgressions, remember that some day it will be your turn. By preparing for that crisis moment, you'll be able to weather that crisis and emerged relatively unscathed. (I am not sure what it is, but I definitely don't ever want to be scathed.)

Posted by MikeMoran at 8:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 16, 2010

How can small businesses measure offline sales?

Big companies use big systems to track their Web marketing activity all the way through to a sale. But what do small businesses do? E-commerce companies have it easy, but the ones that sell offline have some challenges. If that sounds like your business, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "How can small businesses measure offline sales?"

Posted by MikeMoran at 4:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 15, 2010

How Do I Calculate the ROI of TV Advertising?

Sometimes it perplexes me that we spend so much time questioning the return on investment on Internet marketing spending, but we spend almost no time asking about the ROI of the "tried and true" methods, such as television advertising. So, it was refreshing when I was approached the other day with that question, but the answer, as you might expect, is not so simple.

The first question you need to ask is if you can calculate the ROI of any marketing spend. Many companies can't, especially if they sell offline. While some companies have fancy CRM systems that track leads, many don't. Even among those that do, there is the messy question of knowing where the lead comes from, which techies call attribution.

If someone watches your TV commercial, how can you capture that relationship, so that you know that the TV ad drove that lead? For some, it's easy. If your ad is an infomercial, or ends with "Call now," you can provide a special phone number in the ad so that everyone who calls that number is properly attributed. But what if you have a corporate feel-good commercial talking about how you are industry leader who is kind to animals? B2B companies swear by their effectiveness in raising their images with customers, but how do you know that it worked? And what if you are advertising dish soap? how do you know if someone walked into the store and bought something?

Direct marketers have struggled with this question for decades. Long before people were talking about attribution, direct marketers were designing matchback systems, to tease out answers to the same question--which customer touch contributed to this sale?

Both attribution and matchback systems rely on guesstimates--they might have rules that credit the last touchpoint (which have in the past often been search for online and catalogs for offline) with the sale. Or, one clever company I worked with attributed branded search terms to TV advertising and unbranded ones to SEO.

It's hard enough to attribute online actions to sales, but offline advertising like TV commercials is even tougher. If you can't use a simple trick, such as the branded vs. unbranded keywords, or the unique phone number, you need some kind of call to action. Perhaps it is a microsite with a URL that you use only in the TV ad. Whatever you do, you need to come up with some rational way of tying the ad to a customer action you can count (and then tying that action to a sale, online or offline).

Most marketers find it easier to tie the marketing tactic to a Web action, because our Web metrics systems are usually easier to use for attribution than systems for counting phone calls. Many companies don't even have a system for logging phone calls or tracking coupons, while almost everyone has Google Analytics, at least.

And attribution doesn't have to be 100%. Some marketers use cookies or other matching data to estimate the share of credit for each tactic. So, even though a customer might have ended by purchasing after a search, cookies can often reveal the customer was exposed to a banner ad or social media message, which should get partial attribution.

Even then, attribution is an approximation. Although we might all like it to be different, calculating the ROI of any marketing is still an art rather than a science. It's not a one-size-fits-all undertaking, but undertake it you should. (I am starting to sound like Yoda, and my kids already think I am the same age...)

Posted by MikeMoran at 1:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 12, 2010

JetBlue Flies a Successful Twitter Promo

by Frank Reed

In the social media world, it is so important to try to do things that haven't been done before. Why? Well, since social media is so new and the applications of it have not even begun to be thought of yet, you must be a risk taker by default to see if it will work for you and your business. We hear more about social media flame-outs, which I attribute to our human nature to feel that news is mostly negative. Fortunately, there have been some risk takers that have had success worth discussing.

This week, JetBlue ran a very successful campaign in New York City. How do we know it was successful? No one was hurt, no one is really complaining, and it got some press. While many in the social media world would use other metrics, I think these are pretty darn good.

So what did they do? They gave away 1000 round trip tickets in three locations that required people to follow their "guidance" on Twitter to know where to go and what to show up with. This is where the "no one got hurt" part makes sense, huh?

CNET reported:

It was apparently one step short of a cattle stampede when low-cost airline JetBlue used its Twitter account to announce that, as part of its 10th anniversary celebration, it would be giving out about a thousand free round-trip tickets at three undisclosed locations in Manhattan on Wednesday.

"One of the things we knew was that people were just going to follow us," JetBlue public relations representative Morgan Johnston told CNET, relating anecdotes about one woman who claimed she sprinted in heels from midtown to the Financial District (one of the giveaway spots), people chasing the JetBlue team in taxis as they left one location to head to the next, entire offices clearing out when they heard that one of the ticket giveaways was nearby, and a cab driver who left his passenger behind in order to get out and claim a ticket. "It was like the Pied Piper of Hamlin."

Once again I reiterate: no one got hurt. I have to admit that if I was responsible for this kind of promotion that caused mini-panics in offices and a run on taxi cab fares in NYC, I would have some concerns. Fortunately for JetBlue, this one worked well, and I tip my cap to them.

So, would you have the confidence to give something like this a shot? Of course, it would be best if your business lends itself to this kind of reaction. If you are selling pipe fittings in Peoria, you will need to tweak the concept considerably.

This is the fun of social media, though. There is a chance to do things that have never been done before. As people begin to experiment more and more, it is likely that those with jangly nerves need not apply.

What do you think about JetBlue's "event?" What could you do that would cause a stir and make the cash register ring?

Posted by FrankReed at 3:55 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 11, 2010

Internet Marketing requires courage

Most of you know I named my second book, "Do It Wrong Quickly," which is a snarky way of saying you won't get it perfect, so you can't let that stop you from trying. But I got to thinking about how so many of the things that we do are harder than they need to be, not because they are intrinsically difficult, but because we make them difficult by worrying about whether they will succeed—and what happens if we fail.

It reminded me of a story someone once told me. I don't know the origination of the story and maybe someone can attribute it properly, but it is something we need to think about from time to time in Internet marketing.

Imagine that someone took a 2x4 piece of wood—a long plank—and set it on the floor, challenging you to walk across the plank without your feet slipping off the plank and touching the floor. Piece of cake, right? Nothing hard about that. It requires a wee bit of balance but nothing the average person can't manage.

Now, suppose that we suspend the 2x4 1000 feet in the air. Do you feel as confident? No? Why not?

It has nothing to do with the task—both tasks are exactly the same. It has to do with the risk surrounding failure. Too often, we obsess about what will happen if this marketing tactic or that tactic doesn't work. What if we try something and we fail? We "awful-ize" our situation and make the stakes higher and higher until we are paralyzed from trying even simple tasks.

Sometimes these fears are quite justified, but they often reside mostly in our heads. Especially for Internet marketing, the risks are quite low, because failure is not that costly. So, take your plank and lay it on the floor and start walking across it. If you slip, it won't be that bad.

Posted by MikeMoran at 3:23 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

March 10, 2010

Should I re-publish content on my blog?

We like to tell ourselves that blogs are this breathtakingly new way of communicating with customers unlike anything we've ever seen before. And, to some extent, that's true. But if you are a veteran of electronic or even paper newsletters, I'll excuse you for not being so bowled over. You've been doing this for years and you know how it's done. One of the things you know is that coming up with fresh content takes work, and one of your secrets is re-publishing content originally published elsewhere. But should you do that on your blog?

It's an interesting question, but first, let's get one thing out of the way. Never, in any environment, re-publish something that doesn't belong to you without the permission of the owner. You can't go Googling your way around the Internet swiping stuff you like and posting it in your own newsletter, blog, Web site, or any other form. And, no, you can't do it even if you put the original author's byline in. Or their copyright. I know that you see that done all the time. Copying and pasting is nearly effortless and it is a lot easier than writing your own stuff. But it's against the law.

Reputable newsletters were never doing that anyway. They found the content they wanted to re-publish, they got the proper permissions, they included bylines and copyright notices, and they re-published the content in a perfectly legal way. The advantage is that you can provide your readership with high quality content and it is easier than coming up with your own ideas every issue. It's the Reader's Digest approach, for those who remember that venerable magazine.

Many paper newsletters, and some e-mail newsletters, use the Reader's Digest approach effectively, but should you do the same for your blog?

Probably not. Blogs are somewhat different from newsletters in that they are more than informational--they are a more personal voice. So, if your goal for your blog is to establish yourself, than re-publishing others won't likely help.

And blogs differ from newsletters in another way--they typically attract more of their traffic from search than from subscribers. To understand why this matters, you need to know a bit about search engines. Search engines try to look at every page on the Web, so they eventually see every copy of the article you re-published--the original, your copy, and every other copy--but they want to show only the original, because they believe that is the one that searchers want. (And they can tell which one is the original by the dates on the pages, and other methods.)

So, if you re-publish content, even if it is to a far wider audience than the original reached, Google is still likely to show the original in search results. Search geeks call this the "duplicate content problem," and it is indeed a problem for the re-publisher, but it's not much of a problem for the originator. So, re-publishing content solves your problem of having material for your blog, but it will likely attract far fewer searchers than original content.

Some successful blogs do re-publish (they often use the word "syndicate") material from other blogs, but they don't do nearly as well as blogs with original content. I have a deal with a few places to syndicate my content, and they probably sell enough ads for it to be worthwhile, but when searchers look for articles on my subject, they find my Web site rather than the syndicated version.

So, original content is better, but then you're stuck coming up with ideas and writing your own stuff, which sounds hard (because it is). One way to have your cake and eat it, too, is to comment on the articles of other people. So, when you find an article you would have re-published in your paper newsletter (with permission, of course), instead of re-publishing it in your blog, you should write your own opinion about it and link to it. That way your readers get an original opinion from you, and they also are exposed to the original piece.

If you just write a sentence saying, "great post," that won't help you very much, but if you can consistently write two or three paragraphs with your take, that will provide some fodder for the search engines to find your site while also satisfying your loyal subscribers who depend on you for information in this area. And if you can write five or ten paragraphs with a well-thought-out opinion, agreeing or disagreeing with the original, or adding and expanding on points in the original, you have likely created a nice article both for your readers and for search engines, without the heavy lifting of having to think up an idea on your own.

If you're lucky, the originating blog supports trackbacks, which means your post will be linked from the original blog post in its comments section. That way, you also get traffic coming from the original post itself, which you'd never get by re-publishing.

Re-publishing, while a staple of the newsletter era, probably doesn't do enough for you to be part of your blog strategy in all but a few cases. In blogging, there is no substitute for originality.

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:26 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 9, 2010

Augmented Reality Becomes Marketing Reality

I know, I know--most of us don't have enough brain cells to deal with simple reality, much less any augmented kind. But you might have to. More and more, your customers are seeing the world in a brand new way, where technology enhances the experience of everyday life. It's exciting, but it also requires some thinking for marketers to adapt to this brave new world. If you'd like to learn more about all of this, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Augmented Reality Becomes Marketing Reality."

Posted by MikeMoran at 4:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 8, 2010

"I don't have time for Facebook and Twitter"

I know that social media is every marketer's favorite advice for clients these days. And it's my favorite price--free. But you can be excused for wondering how you have the time for updating Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and maybe other social networks. If you're wondering what the secret is to sending messages across all these social networks, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "I don't have time for Facebook and Twitter" (and don't forget to read the comments to get some tips on how to do it).

Posted by MikeMoran at 10:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 5, 2010

The Internet Marketing Industry Needs a Reality Check

by Frank Reed

I just read an interesting post over at Search Engine Land by Greg Sterling. He gives some information about a study recently done that measured the impact of real-time search results in Google. (For the uninitiated, "real-time search" is the ability of Google and other search engines to return content in the search results that might be mere minutes old, such as newly-minted blog entries, Facebook status updates, and tweets, rather than returning only the traditional Web pages and other content that might have been published far earlier than the search being performed.)

To cut to the chase, I can tell you that the impact is minimal at best. Sterling's articles are always informative and insightful and in this one I think he hit the nail on the head with the following sentence:

While there's enormous hype and coverage among tech-insiders about "real time search," the public doesn't really understand (or perhaps care) what the fuss is all about.

I say he hit the nail on the head, only because he is echoing something I have felt and said for some time. My position, however, is not particularly popular in Internet marketing circles because it's a classic "I call BS!" position.

You see, I spend a good portion of my day reading about the latest and greatest in Internet marketing. This is never just reported though because everyone needs to add their opinion to each story because that's how we become "important." Important to whom, you ask? Mostly to each other inside the industry. This little popularity play leads to some interesting assumptions about just how important all of these earth-shattering Internet marketing developments really are to the public at large. That group,, by the way is significantly larger than anyone would care to admit

So back to Greg's comment. He is at least willing to admit that "the public" likely doesn't understand or even care about what we in the industry will prattle on about for weeks, as if world peace had been achieved. Don't get me wrong, I do it as well, but I have become less comfortable with it. Why? Because my non-industry friends (which make up about 95% of my friends) don't give a hoot about real-time search. They don't know what it is and they actually don't care. I don't need to assume it. I know it. They couldn't care less.

Now, here's the catch. These are people that use the Internet and social media a lot. They are not online novices by any stretch of the imagination. They have really good jobs, make nice livings, have families, and much more. In addition, they don't care about the latest and greatest toy that Google or Apple or anyone else has developed. They have too much living to do to worry about this stuff. They use Google to answer a lot of questions but wouldn't even have a clue about how to do an advanced search let alone wonder about real-time search. Oh, and one other thing: They are online marketing's prime targets, "Wouldn't it be better to truly understand how the vast majority of people use the tools that we talk about all the time, rather than assume that everyone does what we do?" Maybe the industry struggles at times because we completely miss the point: Most people simply don't care about the details. They want results. They don't have time to waste and they are not all under the age of 30 and completely wired (which I contend is another foolish myth we like to perpetuate).

So, do you agree or disagree? Are we just a bunch of self-serving insiders that have lost touch with the actual users of these tools, or am I just whining? Let's hear it.

Posted by FrankReed at 10:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 4, 2010

Should I hire a ghost writer for my blog?

Many people feel unsure in their writing abilities and although they want to have a blog they feel ill-equipped to actually write the blog posts. After all, ghost writers put the words together for autobiographies and lots of other published works. Why not a blog, too? It might seem like a good idea, but my advice is to avoid this practice. Instead of getting someone to pretend to be you, there are better ways to get your company's blog off the ground.

Ghost writers can work just fine in lots of situations. I mean, when they write autobiographies, they are essentially shaping the words of the subject into a narrative. It makes sense that many people with a story to tell don't have the ability to craft a 300-page book, with a start, middle, and end that tells a story. You really need writing skills (and lots of them) to do that.

But blog posts are different. They are short, so they require the ability to have an idea and write a few sentences, but they require nowhere near the skills needed for a book. Also, they are continuous, so you can't sit down with a ghost writer a few times and have them pump out 20 posts. Blog posts need to be written by you.

They need to be your ideas. They need to reflect who you are as a company. If you don't have any ideas, then you don't need a ghost writer--you need to have someone else do the blogging (with their own byline on it). Don't hire someone to write their own ideas and put your name on it.

You can't outsource your personality.

If you really have ideas, but worry about your writing ability--stop. What you need to do is stop obsessing over how bad a writer you are and just give it a try. If you really can't put two grammatical sentences together, get an editor who proofreads your stuff and makes corrections before posting. With practice, your writing will improve and you'll need less editing.

You can also do team blogging, where you have a co-author for your blog. You might have the ideas and the other person might do more of the writing. It's less common for blogs than for books, but it's better than a ghost writer.

Social media is about transparency, so keeping a secret as to who writes your blog gets you off to the wrong start. If you want to blog, you'll figure out a way to do it yourself, get someone else to do it, or get help to do it yourself. But a ghost writer is not the approach you need--there are too many better alternatives.

Posted by MikeMoran at 4:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 3, 2010

The New New Rules of Marketing and PR

David Meerman Scott is at it again. If you read his groundbreaking 2007 book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR (pictured at right), you're on notice. You need to read it again. No, not the original--David has updated his book with a second edition that contains 40% new content, including loads of case studies and stories not found in the original edition. When the first edition came out, it was one of the first books to help veteran marketing and PR pros to understand what was happening online and how to change their thinking to adapt. But three years is a long time in this business, so it's time to bring out the second edition.

I've had to update a book to a second edition, so I know it's not easy. In fact, in some ways it is harder than writing the original book, because you must check every URL, every fact, to make sure that everything is still true. What's more, in this business, things change so fast! When David's book first came out, Twitter did not even exist.

Obviously, if you never read the first edition, get the second edition now. Lots of books get published, but a second edition marks a book as one that is so important that everyone in the field needs to be familiar with it. You might find yourself one of teh few people who haven't read David's book. Don't let that happen.

But even if you did read the first edition, check out the second edition to find out how the Air Force is using social media, what Obama's election campaign can teach us, and what you can learn from open source marketing. And re-reading the book is a great refresher on the bedrock principles that all marketers must know to survive in our new connected world. I heartily recommend it.

Posted by MikeMoran at 8:55 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 2, 2010

What to do when reviewers lie about you

Perhaps it has happened to you. You notice an awful review about your business online, in Yelp or some other site. It's depressing, sure, but it would be even worse if the review was an outright lie. If those things had never happened. If someone was making things up about you. There's nothing you can do to prevent this from happening, but if you wonder how to respond, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "What to do when reviewers lie about you."

Posted by MikeMoran at 2:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 1, 2010

Small Business Discovers Social Media

When we think about social media, we think about big companies doing big things--Dell seems to be everyone's poster child for social media success these days. But a lot of the real action is taking place in small businesses. While it is true that it is the rare small business that is succeeding with social media, the stories have been around for a while, with more emerging every day. If you are missing the range of social media employed by small business, open your eyes. You might see a Kogi Korean taco truck.

If you're not in Los Angeles, you probably haven't heard of Kogi Korean BBQ, but it's developed a cult following there. LA is known for its taco trucks, but Kogi (pronounced with a hard "g") has a few twists. First, its food is a combination of Korean and Mexican flavors, and it uses social media to alert fans as to where the trucks will be. Blog posts and tweets alert fans where the trucks are going, and even solicit help with finding the best parking spots in the neighborhood. A tweet might also let waiting customers know when a truck is running late. From humble beginnings, Kogi has expanded to four trucks, each of which serves hundreds of patiently waiting customers at each stop. Newsweek has called Kogi "America's first viral restaurant." (Social media suggestions from customers even named the trucks.)

But what do you do if you don't have a truck? I mean, if there's no interesting news bulletins about where you're going to be, what do you say all day? Just ask Ramon de Leon, a Domino's owner-operator from the Chicago area. I shared a panel with Ramon at a recent event in Amsterdam and he explained how he interacts with his community on social media. He responds to every mention of his restaurants online, once personally making an apology video for an unhappy customer he posted on YouTube that has received almost 100,000 views. He works with charities to promote days where the charity sends someone to work in a Domino's store for the day and the store donates part of the receipts. You can bet Ramon promotes the day before the fact on social media and posts a video afterwards.

And it's not just restaurants. Bag manufacturer Tom Bihn also uses forums and Facebook to communicate with fans, as well as Flickr and YouTube to show off its unique styles. OPEN Forum summed up the secret to Tom Bihn's social media success: "Each social media platform has unique Tom Bihn content that doesn't overlap with the other platforms the company is on, yet at the same time, they're integrated and linked to each other."

As difficult as it can be for a small business to break through the clutter to find its market, I don't understand why more don't try free social media techniques. It take some technical savvy, and certainly takes focus and time, but the payoff can be enormous for businesses that can't afford traditional advertising. Perhaps these stories will give you the inspiration you need.

Posted by MikeMoran at 8:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack