Biznology Blog: April 2010

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April 30, 2010

All Content Could Be Online Content

by Frank Reed

I have had a realization as of late. Maybe, like many other times in my life, I am a little slow on the uptake and I am just pointing out what everyone already knows. Perhaps, though, I am having some kind of epiphany about the truth about our world of content. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Maybe it's best that I give you the example that made me think that every last bit of business communication we take part in has the potential to be part of our online content, whether we plan it or not.

The experience I had was pretty interesting, in a mundane sort of way. You see, I switched banks recently. Pretty routine stuff really. As I started to go into the branch, I appreciated the personal service I was receiving. They really seemed to care about the people who banked there.

After a month or so, I received a little card from the bank which was addressed in someone's handwriting. My immediate thought was that the branch manager sent me a note. Well, I was wrong. It was actually the teller that I usually work with. (Yes I actually go inside the bank and talk with people, I'm kinda weird in a relationship kinda way.)

Here it is:

Now, just on a relationship scale, this scores points with me. My question, though, is did this bank ever think that a handwritten note could potentially become part of their online content? Not likely. Of course, since I blurred out the name and I am not using the bank name at all here (I'm open online, but not stupid) the impact doesn't apply here. What it does show, though, is that anything can turn into online content in this new media world.

If your store is sloppy and disorganized, a simple picture taken from a smart phone is now part of your online content. If you are a respected business person with a stellar image, but you have a moment of poor judgment (which we all do at some time) that is "recorded," whether with audio or video, that is now part of your online content. If someone within your organization takes it upon themselves to correspond with a former customer in a less than professional way, that letter could be scanned and is now part of your online content. You can have an employee be less than cordial to a customer and find a review shows up on Yelp that is now part of your online content.

You see, while you create different ways to communicate with customers and prospects in the offline world, those interactions are no longer in your complete control. As a result, they can now become part of your online content because someone like me decided to put it out there for you.

What are the implications for your business? They could be good if you are making sure that all of your interactions can be taken in a positive way. How likely is that, however? Not very. Unfortunately, the implications for the negative side of the ledger are considerable.

So, here is something to think about as you go about business from this point on. When you do anything in your business, what will it look like if it becomes part of your online content, whether you plan for it or not?

Next week, I'll talk about a few ways to keep track of what happened to that content "out in the wild."

Posted by FrankReed at 7:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 29, 2010

We have met the social media enemy, and it is us

Yesterday, Tony Orsini, my son's middle school principal sent a blunt letter to all parents telling us that we should ban social networks for our middle school children. I was unsure whether it was acceptable for me to print the letter when I got it, but our New York CBS TV station had a headline today, "NJ Principal Asks Parents To Ban Social Networking" in which it prints the whole letter. You should read it for yourself. I respect Tony, but he's wrong on this one.

Before I comment on the letter, I want to tell you a little bit about its author, Tony Orsini. I can't say that I know him very well, but all four of my kids attended his Ridgewood New Jersey middle school and he is a good principal. He is passionate about what's right for his students, and I guarantee you that every word in his letter is built on what he believes is right.

I just think he is misguided on this one. And it is very understandable how that happens, because it happens to all of us when faced with new technology. Because the technology is the thing being injected into our otherwise settled equation, it feels right that the technology is the problem, when we are our own worst enemies. It's not the technology. It's us.

Think about it. Tony points out that Facebook and other social networks have become the newest venues for bullying, which is an incredibly serious problem. But the issue isn't where the bullying is happening. The issue is the bullying. Let me make this point with a personal story.

Even though I am older than dirt, I was in sixth grade once myself. My family had moved from another state and I was "the new kid." I was short and scrawny--a patsy. I was the easiest victim they'd ever seen, so the other boys in my grade bullied me for well over a year at every recess every school day.

One day, in seventh grade, I decided that I wasn't going to subject myself to it anymore, so when everyone else went to play at recess, I just plopped myself down away from the other kids and did not move from there. A teacher who had apparently never noticed the bullying going one for months noticed me today and asked me what was wrong, so I told her. At that point, the school cracked down on the kids and my life got better.

Schools have changed a lot since I was 12. They now take bullying extremely seriously and no kid would go through what I did, because the kids are told that the adults care about this problem and that they can be approached. I never knew that anyone would care if I told them and the bullies had made it clear that that wasn't my best strategy. So, I wasn't intending to tell someone about my problem when I removed myself physically from the bullying. I had taken Tony's solution. Instead of addressing the problem, I canceled my own recess.

So, I understand where Tony is coming from. If they are bullying you at recess, cancel recess. If they are bullying you in Facebook, cancel Facebook. But that was my solution as a 12-year-old. Fortunately, the adults, the teachers and other educators, have spent the last 40 years figuring out how to stop bullying without canceling recess. And as far as I can tell, it has been highly effective. The teachers try to monitor bullying behavior more than they once did, yes, but the main thing they do is to empower the victims of bullying by telling them what to do when it happens. And they also drill into kids from an early age that bullying is unacceptable. And it works. Without canceling recess.

The truth is that although Facebook seems like this brave new world to us oldsters (and in some ways it is), it doesn't repeal the laws of human behavior. The problem is not bullying on Facebook. The problem is bullying. Forty years ago, many teachers said things like "boys will be boys" over this problem because they felt helpless about what they could do to stop it. It is understandable that we might feel a bit helpless about cyber-bullying now, but canceling Facebook is not the solution.

Instead, we must accept that bullying is unacceptable no matter where it happens. And we must accept that in the real world or the cyberworld, adults can't always monitor what kids do. And we must accept that this technology will be used no matter what we want. At what age is Facebook OK? How do children learn how to act appropriately online? We must step up to teach them and we must emphasize that they are accountable for what they do online as well as everywhere else. And we must emphasize that we care what happens to them online, just as we do everywhere else. Canceling Facebook is just drawing a line that cannot hold.

Having said that, I have no issue with parents who want to follow Tony's advice. That might be the right approach for your kid. But it can't be right for every kid. There are plenty of mature eighth graders that can handle Facebook, just as there are probably some ninth graders that can't. Each parent can make that decision based on their own kid. If Tony's letter helps parents reclaim their confidence to make that decision, good. But if his letter just scares everyone into thinking that putting our heads in the sand will keep the cyber-bullies away, that would be a shame.

It's easy to demonize Facebook for cyber-bullying. It's harder to address the problem of student behavior, whether it happens online or off. But just as 40 years ago we ignored the problem offline, we have learned enough to know that we must confront bullying wherever it happens. On Facebook, too.

Thanks for raising the issue, Tony. I know it comes from a good heart. I just think we need to take a different approach.

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:14 PM | Comments (27) | TrackBack

April 28, 2010

Google's Ranking Algorithm Goes Social

by Chris Angus

Google's algorithm is believed to use over 200 signals to determine where a page should rank for a particular query, and this number seems to be growing at a phenomenal rate. Google hates its search engine being manipulated by SEO practitioners like me, and is constantly changing its algorithm to become more resilient against search spam.

While hyperlinks from other Web sites remain by far the strongest signal of a Web page's quality (and therefore its visibility on Google), now Google also looks to many other factors to determine whether a page or Web site is important. They are doing this because back links are too readily manipulated (mainly through people buying them), so Google wants some back-up verification as to whether the page has genuine interest or importance.

These secondary signals will largely come from the largest social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook , Digg, and Delicious. Google won't look only at if there have been submissions to these sites, but, more importantly, how successful they have been. Some examples of strong signals that Google might be looking for include:

• How many Tweets a particular piece of content has received, and the reputation of the Tweeters
• How many Diggs a piece of content received, and whether it reached the front page of Digg.
• How many votes a particular submission has received on Delicious

Similar signals might apply to the other social media sites, so Google can further understand whether a particular page is important.

Google is starting to look for signals beyond its own boundaries because regular link spammers will have to manipulate many more systems and algorithms to achieve the same results. At the same time. links are not as free flowing as before because people are voting for pieces of content without having to link to them. We've started to notice that a particular piece of content before might have received 100 or more links if it was well-written and strongly promoted. These days, it might get just four or five links and 90 tweets. So Google must look beyond links and their particular reputation or level of trust to understand what the Web is doing and what's important and current.

To rank well on Google in the future, take a holistic and organic approach and promoting yourself and your company in as many popular mediums as possible. You'll also reap all the side benefits of social media interaction. This is truly a case of 1 + 1 = 3 for savvy marketers.

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:59 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

April 27, 2010

Search Marketing Is Not About You

If you are like most people, you do marketing by telling everyone about your products. The problem is that, on the Internet, that's sometimes the last thing that people want to know about you. Instead, they are trying to form a relationship with your company and you need to talk about something besides your product catalog. If you are struggling with exactly what you should say, then check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Search Marketing Is Not About You."

Posted by MikeMoran at 7:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2010

Do you use technology to optimize for customers?

Recently, I wrote a couple of posts on whether we are optimizing our sites for search engines or customers. I'd like to return to that theme and show an example of a company that is using its site to optimize for customers, and in so doing, helps themselves, too. PeaPod, for those who don't know is a leading grocery delivery business owned by Stop & Shop, and you might learn a trick from them.

This optimization offered by PeaPod isn't around anything really exciting, but about the truly mundane: delivering groceries.

If you've never used an online grocery service, you might not have thought about how it works, but thousands of customers use PeaPod to deliver groceries to their homes when they want them, some several times a week. So, after they've loaded up their shopping cart, customers select from dozens of time windows for the delivery in the next few days.

PeaPod shows a list of times, which you'd expect, but they also do something you might not expect. A couple of those times alert the customer that selecting that time wil cut $1 or $1.50 from the delivery fee. Now, I don't know for sure why some times are discounted, but I can guess that it might be PeaPod is trying to fill the schedule for that truck. I don't know how sophisticated the algorithm is, but it might be more aggressive about offering discounts as the time gets closer (the same way airlines maximize revenue per seat based on load). It's better for PeaPod if the truck leaves full with a full delivery schedule, just as no airline wants a plane to take off with an empty seat it could have sold, even at a steep discount.

Sometimes, PeaPod offers even larger discounts—as much as $3 off the $10 delivery fee. It's possible that PeaPod is giving discounts because the particular customer is proximate to another house that has a delivery at that time, so it costs almost nothing in time and gas to deliver while they are in the neighborhood.

You're probably not in the grocery business, but how could you use this idea? Many businesses must schedule deliveries or other appointments for repairs and other home visits. Today this is largely a hassle for the customer, where they must be home for an entire day or half a day and the fee is the same no matter when they do it. Most companies do this because after they have all the locations lined up for the day, they plot the most efficient route that saves the most time and gas.

Suppose you did what PeaPod seems to be doing, and offered discounts for people to choose less popular times of day (to fill your schedule) or times when you have another call nearby? Suddenly, because you are cutting customers in on a reduced fee, they suddenly are less frustrated about the inconvenience, because you've made them part of the process and given them some control over their schedule and their costs.

Take a hard look at your own policies and procedures and ask yourself if you are doing things the same old way. Could technology be applied in a new way to optimize your process for you and your customers? What wasn't possible just a few years ago is cheap today, so don't let old thinking stymie improving your customer's experience.

Posted by MikeMoran at 2:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 23, 2010

Content Development is Easy

by Frank Reed

I suspect that the title of this post creates different reactions amongst different groups. I also suspect that none of the reactions include, "I agree wholeheartedly!" Why does the specter of creating content set off service providers, agency clients, and businesses flying solo, making them more than a little squirrel-y? I'll tell you why. It's because of the perception of good content. When someone reads good content, there is this feeling that "I could have done that." As a result, there is a perception that developing good content is easy.

Well, it's not. In fact, because of the deafening noise of the Internet marketplace and the need to rise above the din of the fantastically average (and WELL below average) content that makes up the vast majority of the Internet, you have to do a few things well to create good content. Here's what I think they are. If you agree, great, and if you don't, then go create some content around your argument.

Create Consistently - This is the one that makes everyone queasy. Businesses in the SMB (small and medium business) and SME (small and medium enterprise) space absolutely hate this fact. They want everything to be "one and done," but content doesn't play that game. Denying that fact will only hurt a business in the long run. If you are serious about Internet marketing, you have to be serious about consistently generating content AND placing the correct value on it, so it can continue to be developed at a high level.

Create Passionately - Even if you are selling the most boring product or service on the planet, you have to be passionate about your content or else no one will be. Boring content breeds bad results. Sure, you might still sell things, but you will not sell more than if your passion for your work were evident for all to see. By the way, if you need to hire someone to convey that passion, you are not alone. It is something you need to consider very seriously.

Create Creatively - Kinda goofy, I admit, but if you are just doing one thing over and over (like writing and just providing that kind of content), then you run the risk of losing those who would like to see some pictures or video or something else. I am very guilty of this at times, and need to start drinking my own Kool Aid, so to speak. The written word is powerful but it takes time to ingest and digest. The nice thing about it, though, is that the search engines find it to be the healthiest food for their spiders.

Create Intentionally - I once again will blow the whistle on myself here. Planning your content and the delivery of that content will produce more predictable results. In other words, you can start to tell stories, create themes, and do other things that keep content consumers coming back to you. If you just leave everything to the idea of being "inspired in the moment," you will have some rough days and some gaps in content. I know where from I speak.

So, despite my claim in the title, developing good content for the Internet is NOT easy. It just looks that way. I challenge you to think about your own content efforts in a brutally honest fashion and decide whether you are serious or not. If you are serious, you will be rewarded and if you are not then I honestly don't know what will happen to you. Now that's scarier than anything isn't it?

Posted by FrankReed at 5:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 22, 2010

Hey, marketers: What if there was no Google?

Last week, at the Search Insider Summit at Captiva Island, Chris Copeland had an interesting talk entitled, "What if there was no Google?" Chris worked through a number of different alternatives for how to cope with a marketing program where you could not put any of your spending in Google's pocket--you just drew a line through that Google row in your spreadsheet. Chris made a lot of good points and really helped the audience. But I want to take the question that he asked and think about it a different way. What if there were no search engines?

At first, it might seem like dumb question. After all, we are 15 years into the Web age, and search engines have been part of our experience for nearly all of that time. And it is hard to imagine that any of us as users of the Web could go for very long without missing our favorite search engine.

But I want to ask the question of marketers. What if there were no search engines? What would you do differently?

We've all come to depend on search engines to drive traffic to our sites. Sure, we put effort and budget into paid search, but for organic search, most of us don't do any more than putting the content out there. We assume if we get the content onto the site that it will be found. If we announce a new product, we put out the press release and we put a new product page on the site and then good things happen. All because of Google and company.

And our organic search efforts are disconnected from creating new content, in many ways. We spend time looking at infrastructure to ensure our sites are crawled and we do keyword research to be sure we know what searchers want and we optimize pages to use those keywords. Most of this SEO work comes after the fact--after we've created the content.

But what if there was no Google? Clearly you wouldn't be doing any of these SEO tasks. There wouldn't even be any keywords to research. What if when you put content out there, no search engine would find it. No searchers would see it? What would you do then?

I suspect you'd spend a heckuva lot more time promoting your content. I think you'd tweet it. I think you'd blog about it to your subscribers. I think you'd post a video about it on YouTube. I think you'd mention it in your e-mail newsletter. I think you'd make very sure that you were promoting it every way you could to people you thought might be interested.

This might seem somewhat unsettling. I mean, do you have this nagging feeling that you wouldn't want to send out the link to your new product page to all your e-mail subscribers? Does it feel a bit intrusive to blog about that new product feature? If so, then maybe your content is wrong. You should be producing content that you want to tell others about, not boring stuff that just sits out there for the search engines.

But if these promotion ideas seemed perfectly reasonable to you, then you are producing the right kind of content. And then my question would be, why aren't you promoting it just as I suggested? Why do you need to imagine there is no Google before you start promoting what you've got? I mean, all that traffic still counts, doesn't it? And, do you realize that doing all those things also drives your search rankings? Because there really is a Google, it looks at links to your content. Increasingly, search engines are looking at social media activity, too, as a surrogate for page quality (just as links are).

So, don't sit back and let the search engines find you. Don't let Google make you lazy. Go out and promote your content. That strategy will help you with those who don't search, and it will help with searchers, too. And if you don't think your content is worthy of that level of promotion, then that's the first thing for you to work on, because Google probably doesn't think much of that kind of content either.

Posted by MikeMoran at 5:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 21, 2010

Is your IT team still designing your Web site?

Back in the late '90s, just putting up a Web site was a technical feat. Things broke every minute of the day and none of us really knew how to make the site perform, much less do things the way customers expected. I know. I was there. But it's not 1998 anymore. If your IT team is still making decisions that affect your customer's experience, it's time to move on. Is your customer's Web experience what it should be, or is it still being designed by IT?

All this was brought to mind recently when my wife tried to make a large purchase on the Kohl's Web site. On Friday night, she shopped for about an hour and a half on their site, put about $500 worth of clothing and accessories in her cart, but did not know to explicitly save her cart. The next morning, she saw that her session had timed out, and when she signed back in, the cart was empty.

Let's stop the story right here. Why would the session time out? There's no real harm in having someone signed in for quite a while. Time was that it put great stress on Web servers to have thousands of carts active at once, but those days are gone. This timeout is undoubtedly a throwback to those performance-conscious days that is no longer needed to be anywhere near this strict.

But let's let that one go. Perhaps there's a security or other reason to time out carts that I don't know about. Why wouldn't Kohl's save the cart? How much merchandise is unceremoniously dumped out of carts each year than could have been revenue? If the IT people tell you that the resources to keep those carts around are not in the budget, perhaps it's time to put it there. How many sales do you want to lose over this?

So, back to our story. My wife, Linda, not being very easy to get rid of, woke up Saturday morning determined to complete her purchase. Already you can see that few Kohl's customers would exhibit this much loyalty, but let's see the reward for those that do. My wife redid all her shopping in about an hour, got everything neatly tucked into her cart, and then made the foolish mistake of allowing one of our four kids to interrupt her for a few minutes (less than 15 minutes, she is sure). When she returned (you guessed it), the session timed out.

When Linda went to contact customer service, the e-mail in "contact us" was broken, so (reluctantly), she called customer service. The phone rep, Roberta, understood what happened to my wife because she had heard this story many times before.

Let's break into the story again here. If this rep has heard this story so many times, how is it that Kohl's has not fixed this problem on the Web site? I can't help but wonder how much money this has cost Kohl's over the years.

Back to our story. After Linda gave Roberta some free technical and design advice for the Kohl's Web site, Roberta offered to place Linda's order at a thirty percent discount. Linda pointed out that she had already planned to use a promo code for thirty percent, so Roberta then offered a sixty percent discount.

Interruption, again. Now we are starting to see what this has cost Kohl's. You can imagine that most of the sales disappear forever when this problem occurs, but even the sales that are consummated might have a 30 percent discount applied just to soothe the customer. Although it is crazy that Kohl's hasn't fixed their Web site, it is very smart for them to provide discounts when customers are this inconvenienced, so Kohl's customer service is doing the smart thing here, even though eliminating the problem would obviously be the smartest thing.

To Kohl's credit, Roberta took a serious interest in both Linda's customer experience and her advice for how the site should be fixed. Linda appreciated the discount for all her trouble and still considers herself a loyal Kohl's customer, but that will only stick if they change their site in short order. But kudos to them for at very least rectifying the problem.

In my opinion, all of this was caused by an IT-centric approach to the commerce experience, where the computers are more important than the customers. No one could want this to happen to their customers, but the reason that it does is because of some ill-conceived idea on server performance or scalability that should be a distant second to the customer experience. I mean, with the sales that are being lost here, they could probably buy as many extra servers as they need to make the site work the right way.

So, ask yourself, "Who is designing my customer experience?" As a long-time IT person, I can still say that if it is your IT team, it probably isn't going as well as it should.

Posted by MikeMoran at 5:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 20, 2010

Search Engine Optimization vs. Customer Connection

Yesterday, I posted my slides for my talk at Search Insider Summit on transparency in organic search marketing. Today, I want to go deeper, by explaining some of the slides that help people to grasp the attitude change we need to to consider when we approach SEO. I'm not suggesting a 180-degree shift, but rather an adjustment that helps us to do a better job not just with search marketing but all of our marketing. To learn more, check out my latest post, "Search Engine Optimization vs. Customer Connection" on Search Engine Guide.

Posted by MikeMoran at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 19, 2010

Organic Search Marketing in a Transparent World

Friday, I had the pleasure of speaking at Search Insider Summit last week at Captiva Island, Florida. The topic for the conference was the future of search--I spoke about the changes in marketing that are affecting SEO now and in the future. Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost covered the future of search session with a few quotes from me. You can also download my slides for Untangled Web to get more of a glimpse into my thinking. As more and more marketing, especially digital marketing, requires transparency, you might be surprised to see how organic search marketing will be affected.

Posted by MikeMoran at 3:45 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 16, 2010

Why Twitter ads draw a big "So what?" from me

by Frank Reed

There has always been considerable buzz around just how Twitter would make money. Everyone has always been so concerned for the welfare of Twitter. Why? I honestly don't know. Maybe it's because people can't imagine their life without Twitter if it were to "go away." I suspect that the last statement is more telling than if Twitter will ever make money. If we must ponder a Twitterless life and be concerned about that possibility, that is more worrisome than anything else.

As for all of the hubbub about Twitter and ads? I say, "So what?" Some have been on Twitter from the start and bemoan the acceptance of Twitter by a larger audience. (I won't say mass audience yet because Twitter definitely is not for everyone—just ask teens and other younger folks.) For the Twitterati, imagining life without Twitter is the end of the world as they know it. Not only are there too many people who are not cool enough on Twitter, but now ads are showing up. Call it a day. For these users Twitter is dead. I still say "So what?"

As for those of us who came on board within the last two years? Well, we're the reason that Twitter is now ruined for the cool kids (actually the geeky, nerd, tech crowd which has never been very cool other than amongst themselves). By coming on board and turning the Twittersphere into the spam-filled, self-promotion tool that it is today, we have made Twitter more mainstream. Unfortunately we have also made Twitter unbearable at times. I know I limit my time there because it's hard to stomach the auto-responses, multi-level marketing offers, and self-proclaimed social media GuruExpertTitanMasterNinja types that are now pervasive throughout the Twitter experience.

So putting ads in Twitter, to me, generates a big "ho hum" as a user. I never pay attention to paid search ads on Google (which I am not saying is the norm, it's just how I do things), so seeing an ad on Twitter won't be a big deal. I am most interested in seeing just how quickly I develop Twitter ad blindness. My ability to mentally block ads on virtually all things online has strengthened considerably over the past few years. Now, even the most obnoxious expanding ad can't stop me as I have developed an incredibly quick "close button" finger.

As an advertiser? It is just too early to tell. I realize that how I approach these things may not be how the masses do. In fact, the first ads will be attached only to Twitter search results, a feature I rarely use. I would much rather find a good strong list of people to subscribe to and get my information from "trusted" sources rather than leave my information needs to the Twitterverse at large.

In fact, I see Twitter as turning into the old version of New York's Times Square. Before it became the pseudo-Disneyland that it is today, it was the seediest area of the city. It was filled with unsavory characters and the home of every vile and despicable thing that the world had to offer. And it was all in the open. I see Twitter moving in that direction, unfortunately. It is so full of junk, hucksters, online "three-card monty" types, and just plain BS, that it's sometimes difficult to stomach. Now, add to that the glitter of advertising, Twitter's version of flashing neon that is still synonymous with Times Square, and you have something that will be hard to handle.

Twitter assures us that it will be stressing relevance of ads. Well, Google did the same for AdWords and that is still a work in progress. By the way, folks, Twitter is no Google either. It will take them a long time to sort through and sort out the good, the bad, and the ugly of advertising and relevance in the wide open world of Twitter.

As for me and my family? We say "So what?" to Twitter ads. It's just another thing to adapt to and filter out to the best of our ability. Will I ever click on a Twitter ad? I can't predict that. I will say though that if I do it will be for a very good reason and I will hail Twitter for breaking through my bias.

What about you? Is this a big "so what?" or is it the best thing to happen to the Internet in a while? Let's hear your thoughts.

Posted by FrankReed at 7:37 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 15, 2010

I need a job, so chat me up!

by Janine Swenson

I had to chuckle to myself when a young man visiting in my home noticed on the wall a photograph of my college-aged daughter and absent-mindedly said to no one in particular, "Chat me up!" That young man understood the importance of one of the foundations of social media marketing, which is to get others on your behalf to speak of and promote your positive traits. However, he had not convinced me to be his evangelist because I had no history or experience with him, no knowledge of his character. Whether or not I chatted him up depended entirely upon what I knew of him, whether he might be the type of beau my daughter would like, and if her father and I viewed said prospective suitor as, well, suitable. This is not different from a company seeking a prospective employee having a chance meeting between a job seeker and an employee of the organization.

The fact remains, if you need a job, you need someone who is willing to "Chat you up!" The job seeker does not just walk into a room and immediately say to their friends and contacts, "Chat me up!" I suppose that someone could do such a thing, but rarely would such an encounter result in employment, any more than my daughter's admirer's request of a reference would land him a date. Getting others to "chat you up," is in essence a social skill.

People can acquire social skills. Like the taste of Oma's Strawberry Rhubarb pie, social skills require the right combination of not too sour and not too sweet. Some people are born with this innate ability, the skill to charm or interact in just the right way with each individual or organization they encounter, no matter the circumstances. Words used to describe such a person might be "a real charmer." Look at how the word charm is defined: "a manner to magically impart a spell or desired effect."

Harry Potter is a real charmer. However, if someone does not possess such skills in real-time, Internet social media tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will not charm social skills into their interactions. In my experience, it is quite the opposite. I am always amazed at the choice of words people use while trying to achieve a goal through social media interaction.

Social is the people part. Media is the tool. While the invention of Morse code, shortwave radio, the telephone, e-mail, and social media have changed how people communicate, the social act is still a personal skill of timing, words selected, and intensity of conveyed meaning to get a message across to others.

Social networking for a job is no different today than hundreds of years ago. It is the attitude you take in social interactions that makes all the difference--it's not the tools, it's the person and how they use the tools. Therefore, how does a job seeker get "chatted up," to increase their professional network or to a prospective employer through social media?

1. Social. Establish and stay in touch with a network of personal and professional friends and acquaintances that you meet through life, involvement in groups, clubs, charities, churches, organizations, and associations--whether you participate, lead, or volunteer. Now you are social.
2. Useful. Contribute something to life and to those groups. My mother always says, "Any group always has its workers and its shirkers." Be a worker. Help others whenever you can, for no reason and without expectations. (See Social.)
3. Timely. You might miss an opportunity if you are not seeking employment daily, aware of what is available in the employment marketplace. When you are ready to give up, keep going. Better yet, help someone else. (See Social.)
4. Appropriate. Be appropriate in your actions and in your interactions with others, as well as in what opportunities you pursue. Do not send a "stock" join my network request. Personalize your message. (See Social.)
5. Courteous. Ask nicely, explain your position, use please and thank you. Often people fail to ask, for help or for the job. Let everyone know what you want and thank them for their help. (See Social.)
6. Everywhere. Connect with people through face-to-face communication, telephone, e-mail, social media, and the employer's preferred method of applying for jobs, as well as job boards, personal introductions, informational interviews and hand written notes. (See Social.)
7. Strategic. Get your name and experience in front of the decision maker from multiple sources. Your name will stand out from the volume of applicants. (See Everywhere, then see Social.)
8. Retro. Follow up with a thank you whether in the form of an e-mail or snail mail to anyone who has given you their consideration whether in time, an interview, lunch, contacts or information. (See Social.)
9. Empathetic. Feel what they feel, which means you have to do research into the individuals, company, products, services, customers, market, and environment. You will have ideas that will move you to the top of the hiring list because you will understand the needs. (See Social.)
10. Confident. If you have done everything you know how to and you still do not get the job, do not get discouraged. Just start all over again at the beginning. (See Social.)

Every item in my list sends the reader back to how to be social. Therefore, whether you use Twitter, or Facebook, LinkedIn or Zoom, you, too, can be like my daughter's suitor by setting the foundation for others to see the best in you--not too sour, not too sweet--and always with high hopes that someone will be your evangelist and "Chat you up!" to help you land a perfect job.

Posted by JanineSwenson at 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 14, 2010

Site Speed Is Now a Google Search Ranking Factor

by Chris Angus

SEO is an ever-changing industry with ever-moving goalposts due to Google continuously tweaking its algorithm to provide higher quality search results to its users. It's hard for search marketers and hard for SEO companies, too, like mine. Google has shaped the face of the Internet because high rankings on Google are so lucrative that people will always try to make their Web site "appealing" to Google in order to obtain higher rankings. Google is therefore driving forward the overall quality of the Internet inadvertently. One of these areas of higher quality is site speed.

After much speculation on how Google uses site speed measurements, last week, Google officially reported that site speed is indeed a ranking factor. The decision came about after extensive internal studies indicated that when a site is running slowly, visitors will spend less time on the site.

The ranking factor has now been implemented, however currently it will affect only English-language searchers. Google has also expressed that the relevance of a page is still at the forefront of the ranking algorithms, because the new ranking factor might affect less than one percent of all search inquiries. Therefore, if your site is one of the best resources for a specific query, there is still a great chance that your site will stand out over others, even if it is slow.

Web site speed is naturally influenced by dozens of factors, including errors within your code, conflicting applications or add-ons, the size of images, the speed of your host server, the load on your server at a particular time, and the location of your user in relation to server. For example, if a user from the United States visits your server in the UK, the load time will almost certainly be longer than if it was a UK visitor visiting your site.

I am stating the obvious here: No Web site is the same. The Internet has grown exponentially, with billions of Web sites that each have different qualities and functions. More simply, if two Web sites have the same quality in other respects, but one is running slower, obviously the faster Web site provides a better service for its users. Taking the same two Web sites, if one is superior to the other in other quality factors, it might not need to improve its speed, even if the other is faster.

You can use many free tools to understand the page speed and load times of your Web site (many are listed in Google's official post) and I strongly suggest using these tools to get a better picture of how Google measures your page loading times.

Posted by ChrisAngus at 10:18 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 13, 2010

Are You Optimizing for Search Engines or for Customers?

Get your pages indexed for the search engines. Identify the keywords most popular with the search engines. Optimize your content for the search engines. Good advice, yes, but is that all there is? If you follow that advice and all your competitors do, too, are you really going to beat them out? There is more to search engine optimization that you need to know to rise above the pack. To find out more, read my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Are You Optimizing for Search Engines or for Customers?"

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 12, 2010

Do Your Employees Know Your Social Media Guidelines?

by Aaron Kim

Have you defined social media guidelines for your employees? If not, you might be an accident waiting to happen. Regardless of your company's position in the spectrum of social media adoption, it's way past the time when you should have defined the guard rails for your workforce regarding the use of social media inside and outside the enterprise. Even if you have a social media policy already, revisiting it often is a must, because the landscape keeps changing. Furthermore, you need to ask yourself (and your target audience), "How strict or how loose should you allow the guidelines to be?"

Despite all the buzz around Enterprise 2.0, there are still plenty of companies out there that don't have any intention to use blogs, YouTube, or Twitter any time soon. Many others are still timidly taking the first baby steps in that direction. Late adopters might just assume that they won't need to establish social media guidelines until they start drinking the 2.0 Kool-Aid.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the now infamous Domino Pizza video prank by two former employees, it's concerning to know that very few companies have taken social media guidelines seriously. Considering that, even a year later, a Google search for "domino pizza video" will not bring a single result NOT related to that video on the first page, it's safe to say that ensuring your employees are well aware of what's OK and what's off-limits when it comes to social media may be good for your brand. Remember, Domino's didn't intend to enter the social media world in that moment--their fame was thrust upon them with no guidelines, training, or preparation for their employees. Don't let your entry into social media be accidental.

So, if you are late to the game, you might not want want to start your social media guidelines with a blank sheet. Chris Boudreaux keeps an excellent list of social media policies at SocialMediaGovernance.com that serves as a handy reference when drafting your own.

Make sure that you don't take the easy route and just copy one of them. Ideally, these policies should fit your company's profile and workforce, and one size definitely does not fit all. I really liked the process IBM used to define their social computing guidelines: capturing ideas from the whole community on a wiki, then running it by legal, and revisiting the policy often after that using other social media channels, like blogs and social file sharing.

Once your guidelines are ready for prime time, socialize them widely, and include them in the overall business conduct guidelines training. Don't forget that the occasional user of social media might be more likely than many of your early adopters to violate the guidelines due to lack of awareness.

Finally, define a mechanism to monitor and enforce the guidelines. For internal usage, I prefer to let the community auto-regulate when it's important to intervene, but I also recognize that this may not be appropriate in some cases. As I wrote a few years ago in another blog:

(...) don't enforce guidelines as if you were the police. Do it as if you were a parent. People will occasionally post content that will challenge some of the guidelines. Unless it's blatantly inappropriate, you may be better off leaving it there for a while, for the community to make a judgement. Sometimes breaking a guideline says more about the guideline than about the violator, and guidelines are supposed to evolve with the maturity of the blogging community.

In next month's post, I'll discuss in more detail the process of refining guidelines. Stay tuned!

Posted by AaronKim at 6:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 2, 2010

Are SMBs the Chicago Cubs of Internet Marketing?

by Frank Reed

I have written for the past several years about SMBs and their need to do Internet marketing. I still believe that with all of my heart. There is, however, sometimes a disconnect with what we believe is absolutely true and what is possible. I equate it with being a Cubs fan. You know that having the Cubs win the World Series would be extremely cool and wonderful. That's what you believe and you know it is good. The reality is though that there are black cats and goats and Steve Bartmans in the way that make it seem almost impossible to be reality. (Sorry Mike, but it's true, right?)

I am beginning to think that, for the average SMB, real Internet marketing might be out of reach. The SMB wants to win desperately. They say they will do anything to get to success. Unfortunately, in many cases the reality hits and it hits hard.

The reality of Internet marketing is that it takes resources. Real resources. The three major ones are people, money and time. In the best cases for the real small SMB's, Two out of three of these things are not available in the right amount to make Internet marketing techniques (such as SEO, paid search, blogging and social media) a reality.

I hate thinking this way but I have decided that being an Internet marketing realist is the best way to go. How did I get to this point? By working with enough SMBs to make the point. I have performed market assessments for many SMBs that show exactly where they are in the competitive landscape, what their competition is doing, and what they need to do to succeed in their vertical online. Each client has really appreciated the report. It's what happens next that is making me move my target to the SME (small and medium enterprise) market.

With the vast majority of clients, the next thing that happened was a blank stare. The stare that signifies their realization that they know exactly what they need to do. They also realize that what it takes to do it may be more than they can handle.

Don't get me wrong, there are more than a few SMB's that can make these things happen. I will say though, that they are the exception and not the rule. I wish it were the other way around but it's not.

I have seen enough to decide that going after a market that has less flexibility but more resources (the SME) is the better way for me to go. While there are millions of SMBs there are "only" 115,000 or so SMEs in the US (define as having 100-1000 employees). I can service about half of those so there is plenty of room for others. (OK, OK, maybe 1/3.)

So, is this the end of SMB Internet marketing? Hardly. There will be plenty of SMB success stories around Internet marketing. That's because there are always some SMBs that will find a way to get it done. They will read some books and get as much free advice as possible and they will learn enough to get it done. That's why they are the backbone of business in the US.

As for making a living serving them? I wish it were more possible but it's not a truly viable market. I hate to say it but it's true. Like the Cubs, you want to root for SMBs but years of experience tell you it's not the way to bet. At least in my opinion, that is. What about yours?

Posted by FrankReed at 3:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 1, 2010

How do you post to your blog every day?

One of my colleagues calls me "committed." Others think I should be committed. But one way or the other, I post an entry to my blog every work day. How do I do it? Often, it's a labor of love, but sometimes it feels like a chore. I find something I think is worth saying every day, but I admit that it is not always easy. Today, it was easy, because I can tell you all of the things that I do to post every day.

First, I cheat by asking other people to post to my blog. It might strike you as the easiest way to fill the days, and in some ways it is. We have a great staff of Biznology bloggers, ranging Chris Angus, who posted his first one yesterday to Frank Reed, our most prolific blogger, posting each Friday. But it tooka few years to create a popular enough blog for others to want to contribute. And I still must be constantly talking to bloggers and getting new ones or cajoling veterans for another post. It's important, but it isn't always easy.

Despite these great contributions from others, I still write more of the posts than anyone, and people want to know how I pull that off. I have a few methods that keep those posts coming, some obvious, but I hope a few are new to you:

• Save ideas. Keep a running list of every idea that occurs to you that might be a post. Don't judge them. I have ideas that have sat around for a year before I felt like writing them, but waking up to several dozen ideas on a list to pick from is a lot better than a blank page. I also write part of the post when I jot the idea down. That way, I feel like I am off to a running start and just need to finish it. For some reason, it feels much easier that way. (I jotted down the bullet points in this post two weeks ago.)
• Schedule a post each day. Scheduling is important in two ways. First, you must schedule the time that you will write the post—block an hour on your calendar if you have to. But I go further and actually plan which post I will write each day. That way, some big decisions have already been made for me when the appointed hour arrives.
• Write for other venues. Even that schedule isn't enough pf a prod for me. I write for other sites on a regular basis because I promised that I would. When one of my posts runs on another site, I can link to it from Biznology and my post for that day is done.
• Write down questions. If you are like me, you can't go 20 minutes without someone asking you a question. Sometimes, like yesterday, it's in a formal setting, such as after I present a Webinar. Most times, it is informal, such as with co-workers, clients, or just over e-mail. Every time someone asks you a question that you know the answer to, it's a possible blog post. Usually others have the same question.
• Take breaks. This might seem counter-intuitive, but it's easy to burn out on something you do every day, so give yourself some time off. I don't write when I am on vacation, and I take a lot of vacation. Hey, I am taking one now--a long one. I will see you again on April 12. Frank Reed's got tomorrow and then we'll be back later.

Perhaps I'm leaving out the most important reason I post every day. I like to write and the writing helps my business. I get more consulting and speaking engagements from my writing than from any other source. If you like to write and you want an easier way of making a name for yourself, you might find that writing a blog is not as tough as a lot of other ways to spend your time. Good luck.

Posted by MikeMoran at 12:37 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack