Branding

June 24, 2009

Microsoft the Underdog

If I asked you 10 years ago "Who is the bully, the giant, the dominant force of the tech world?" what would you have said?

You would have said Microsoft without missing a beat.

If I were to ask you that same question today what would your answer be? Google, anyone?

Certainly Microsoft's no wimp, but over the last decade, Bill Gates's aging technology corporation has been relegated to second-fiddle as Google now boasts the title of reigning tech titan. When the pinnacle of technology revolved around computer operating systems and software, no one could touch Microsoft. Once the Internet became the center of attention, Google was there to pick up the baton. And faster than anyone noticed, Microsoft went from being considered a power-hungry tyrant to a sympathy-inducing runner-up in the search game. Oddly enough, this could work in Microsoft's favor.

Have you ever rooted for the underdog just because they're the underdog? In sports, I do it all the time. There are few sports I follow fanatically (Actually, make that one sport: hockey. Those dudes got mad skillz. [Go Ducks! --Susan]) but when championships or tournaments come around, I have two questions I use to decide what team I'll cheer for. Here's a fancy-pants diagram of my decision making process:

Okay, I had way too much fun drawing that diagram so I sure hope it makes a point. There's something about the long shot that sparks the American psyche. Yes, America loves a winner, but America loves the underdog, too. Maybe it comes back to the reason this country was founded: giving an opportunity to those who might otherwise have no chance. Whatever the reason, I think it's a phenomenon worth identifying and observing in the search realm.

Microsoft's former search product, Live Search, sat near the bottom of the search engine totem poll right up until last month. Fast forward to this month, when I hear little beside praise for Bing. Users are happy with the improved results and interface and advertisers are happy with the results they're seeing from Bing as well.

Microsoft paired its opportunity as a sympathetic dark horse with a blitz of an ad campaign and a fresh new brand and, what do you know, Bing is looking much more active than its predecessor. While Microsoft may never have wanted to find itself out of the top spot, if they can swing popular opinion thanks to underdog-driven sympathy, we may eventually see a more even search playing field sooner than anyone expected.

[I think it's short lived goodwill. Microsoft's tried this tack before. They were the scrappy underdog back when I was the regular blogger. (Blog posts were much shorter back then.) --Susan] Thanks for making mine a little longer and a little smarter, Susan. :)

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/24/09 at 4:55 PM | Comments (6)
See more entries in Branding, Live Search, Microsoft, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines

June 1, 2009

Can Bing Build a Brand?

This morning I attended Bing.com's live demo webcast, now available on demand. Stefan Weitz, director of Bing Search, chatted about Microsoft's new search product and quickly convinced me to give Bing a serious chance. Not only did Stefan charm me with his charismatic geekdom and genuine enthusiasm, but Bing, with its fancy new features and overall popularity, proved quite the charmer as well.

Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum. Shortly after my excitement reached a pitch and I started getting all evangelize-y on Bing's behalf, a few less-than-favorable observations were brought to my attention. The most intriguing: Microsoft can't rebrand itself because it's Microsoft.

So, is Microsoft doing its product a disservice by giving it a new name?

Certainly Microsoft's Live Search product had a bit of a conundrum on its hands before, as explained by Eric Hadley, general manager of Brand at Microsoft:

"We've created a lot of confusion amongst our search brands today, by moving from MSN to Live and not putting much emphasis behind the brand. Live Search and MSN Search have always been a piece of a bigger brand. We're at the point now where we have a great product, but the brand is so important."

In a video on DiscoverBing.com, Hadley makes this refreshing confession that Microsoft's search product, up to now, has lived with an under-appreciated brand. This time around, Microsoft execs aren't making the same mistake twice. No sir! This time the search engine is going to have a real brand, and people are going to hear about it, dangnabit! At least $80 million worth! Branding a new search engine is a worthy goal, but will almost definitely be a merciless challenge.

Photo by DDFic via Creative Commons

As Danny Sullivan points out in his analysis on Bing and the state of search, Google and Yahoo both started out as funny words that eventually took on a life of their own. Theoretically, Bing has the same potential for branding success. But we all know that lightning rarely strikes twice. Microsoft already has a magically delicious brand. How likely is it that they pull another ace from their sleeve?

Luckily for Microsoft, they can afford to staff the Bing campaign with the sharpest marketing minds. But, if the uninspired marketing campaigns of the past cast any light on expectations for the future, it's going to take more than recycled "I'm a PC" slogans or Jerry Seinfeld to grab the already compromised attention of viewers.

Here's a tip, Bing. When I introduce myself, there's a good chance a stranger won't remember my name. But if they remember my smile, then we're off to a good start. Get it? It's about the content, not the name. Lead with your bright and shiny features -- like your airline fare predictor and shopping product filters -- and let your name follow. If the product shines before the name takes hold, a brand can take on a life of its own reflecting all the good things it has to offer.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/ 1/09 at 3:49 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Branding, Live Search, Search Engines

April 28, 2009

Colorful Musings on Customer Loyalty

I subscribe to a lot of email newsletters. I've got one for almost every aspect of my life. There's one for trendy L.A. shopping and events. I'm signed up for a couple about beauty products. There's one for green living and one for tortoise lovers. And of course, I receive five or six newsletters about Internet marketing.

Funkification: yellow green nail polish!

One of the newsletters I'm subscribed to is all about nail polish. What can I say? I love to rock the funky colors on my finger tips. I ordered from this Web site once, and during the process I checked the little box that signed me up for their weekly newsletter. Sadly, I haven't purchased any nail polish since. I actually visit the site every time a newsletter arrives to do a little window shopping and ogle the new colors, but so far I've resisted the temptation to click "buy".

Personally, the reason I haven't bought any nail polish since the initial purchase is because the first time around was a bit of a splurge. I bought $70 worth of nail polish in one feel swoop, and frankly, I haven't even cracked open half the bottles. (Yes, I have a problem.) [Ooh, spa party at V's, everyone! --Susan]

But despite the fact that I haven't yet set up any lifetime value for the company on paper, I look a lot like their ideal customer -- in my mind anyway. And that's because I'm loyal.

The Grass Isn't Greener

On the Convince and Convert blog, Jason Baer reminds us that it costs more to get a new customer than it does to keep an old one. We've heard it before, but we're prone to forgetfulness. Instead of spending time seducing new customers, it's more effective and profitable to keep your happy customers, well, happy. A little loyalty can go a long way.

It's Not All About Price

This week's MarketingSherpa chart of the week shows us that price reductions aren't the only way to build a customer base during tight times. While cutting prices is usually the first idea to keep the customers coming, there are other ways to boost customer engagement, and hopefully, loyalty. Limited time promotions, customer loyalty programs and bonus gifts are a few of the ideas that make the grade. I was reeled in to my nail polish binge by the offer of free shipping for orders over a certain amount and a discount on orders of more than four items.

The Problem with Satisfaction

Rohit Bhargava of the Influential Marketing Blog explains the difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal one -- and how much more important a loyal customer is than a happy one. Whereas a satisfied customer would be willing to switch to a better option, a loyal customer is willing to make excuses for your occasional fumbles. According to Rohit, loyalty is derived from a mix of excellent customer service, fulfillment of your promises, and the personality of your brand.

So ignore the fact that I haven't made a second purchase from my beloved nail polish site, because it's actually just a matter of time. There's just something about their great deals, their awesome selection and the way they exceeded my expectations -- this winning combo will draw me back time and time again.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/28/09 at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)
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April 22, 2009

Online Reputation Management - SEM Synergy Extras

My guest on today's weekly broadcast of SEM Synergy was Michael Streko, co-founder of KnowEm.com. KnowEm? launched this week under the banner "thwart social media identity theft" and through the site you can search 120 social media sites for your preferred username and register that name where it is available. Recognizing that the new territory of cybersquatting is social sites, Michael and his partner Barry Wise set out to provide a service that addressed the issue of username and vanity domain ownership.

Individuals and enterprise organizations alike can reap the benefits and ease of multiple registrations for less than $65. It's a helpful service provided by a team that's dedicated to growing the functionality to meet the needs of the changing social media environment. Michael assured me that there are many more social media sites to be added and a number of new features in development. But what's the real benefit of a tool like KnowEm?

Photo by victoriapeckham via Creative Commons

Social Media Blurs the Brand

As Julie Joyce explained in an article on Search Engine Land yesterday, social media has given rise to un-sanctioned brand adoption. While a group of passionate brand evangelists can be a real asset for your company, several profiles laying claim to your brand name can be confusing to users. Competing for your own brand identity can take away reach from that marketing platform and can undermine the potential of link building efforts. You've got to snatch up your username and establish its authority.

Social Media is a Speed Demon

Photo by law_keven via Creative Commons

On his Convince & Convert blog, Jason Baer says that hesitation or slow reaction time is one of the worst enemies of a company managing its online reputation. Jason asks, "Is the barometer of success in marketing you or your organization's ability to react the fastest? And if so, how do you staff a company like that?" Solutions like KnowEm, which let you outsource and partially automate the process of username registration, shine in this situation. When two Domino's employees uploaded a video of themselves doing nasty things to a sub, it was just hours before Twitterers wondered how long Domino's would wait before it stood up for itself. You've got to be quick and efficient in the social media space.

Photo by Kapungo via Creative Commons

Social Media Magnifies Brand Associations

If you're not convinced that social media requires company energy and resources, you're partially right. Creating some positive spin online will have a negligible effect if your customer base is dissatisfied. But in a highly competitive business environment, you can have a top-notch product or service and will likely still rely on the reach and merit of your reputation. Morever, the reputation that you establish -- be it positive or negative -- will be distributed more widely and will grow exponentially in the online realm. You've got to remember that the brand reputation you have will be amplified online.

Those are just three reasons why you need to be an active participant in your online reputation. Luckily, there are tools to help ease the workload. Thanks to Michael Streko for coming on the show and sharing the news about KnowEm.com.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/22/09 at 5:26 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Branding, Reputation Management, SEM Synergy

April 15, 2009

Brands and Search Engine Rankings Revisited

Today on SEM Synergy, our weekly podcast on WebmasterRadio, Susan and Chris gave everybody the lowdown on IM Spring Break and Scott joined the convo to look at how the demand for conferences is growing and changing.

My guest was Danny Sullivan, one of the power figures behind the conference series Search Marketing Expo, and we talked about trends on the conference circuit and the increasing demand for search marketing education. In fact, next week the interactive marketing conference ad:tech is taking place in San Francisco and one day of the show will feature a search marketing track in partnership with SMX -- SMX @ ad:tech. The winds of change are a blowin'.

I've written before about how I think developments in SEO conferences will play out. So instead of your regularly scheduled diet of SEM Synergy Extras, I wanted to point out some other exciting news of the day -- that SEO Newsletter sitting in your inbox! (If, by chance, you haven't subscribed, do your self a favor and sign up already! See where it says "Subscribe to our SEO Newsletter" in the right-hand side bar? No, right under the "Follow Us on Twitter" graphic. Yeah, there. Sweet!)

Photo by Clydehurst via Creative Commons

So, right, the newsletter. There's a great feature piece this month about one SEO's opinion of January's branding update, a.k.a. the Vince update. Fernando Chavez was one of the hosts of the SEM Synergy episode where we dedicated significant time to the topic. While we were recording I remember watching, gape jawed, as Susan and Fernando passionately debated whether the change was indeed targeted toward brands or if the boost brands saw was merely a side effect of a greater goal. Fernando took the opportunity to lay out his argument in further detail in his article. Here are a few of the highlights:

• He doesn't think that Google intentionally increased the rankings of branded sites.
• If Google had made changes to reduce the effectiveness of spam as well as changes to increase certain SEO factors, the combined effect could have easily resulted in increased rankings for branded sites for certain queries.
• Matt Cutts has responded by saying, "We don't really think about brands. We think about words like trust, authority, reputation, PageRank [and] high-quality." Fernando believes that while Google representatives are usually vague, they don't lie outright. What Matt said in his video amounts to a fairly direct statement.
• Tweaks to the algorithm that increase the value of link age or domain age or the text surrounding a link are all alternative possibilities that could have caused such a shift in rankings.
• In the end, an SEO won't need to change his or her strategy as a result of the algorithm change. Recommendations for branding a site are just as important as they were before.

Based on years of search engine optimization experience, Fernando's article is heavy with opinion and theory. I'm just guessing here, but I bet you've got your own, too. Was Google targeting brands with the update, even if only in their round-about way? What are some of the value shifts that could have occurred to lead to a brand boost? Has your strategy shifted at all since you learned about the change? Since comments can't be left on newsletter articles, let's open up the conversation here on the blog.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 04/15/09 at 5:14 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Branding, Google, SEM Industry, SEM Synergy

March 30, 2009

Tales of The Stand Out Brand

Photo by Jezz via Creative Commons

This afternoon I headed over to KFC for lunch. The chicken chain had been on my mind since this morning when I read about the company's plans to sponsor pothole repairs across the nation. [Mmm, delicious asphalt. --Susan] The city of Chicago may be looking at the opportunity to be one of five cities that will benefit from the campaign; a city spokesperson said, "Our reason for considering programs like this is in an era of dwindling resources, we feel it's prudent to look at public-private partnerships."

After listening to John Gerzema speak to a full house at Search Engine Strategies New York on Thursday morning, it appears that much of the public may be on the same page. There's a new measure of value among the American public and it has to do more with the basic desires of trust and respect than luxury and keeping up with the Jones. People are responding positively when companies offer something that a consumer really needs at a cost they can't pass up.

Photo by Brent and MariLynn via Creative Commons

In the case of KFC, that something is pretty out of the box -- transcending the sphere of seasoned poultry into the arena of asphalt aspirations. You can find a diagram of Maslow's hierarchy of needs on page 21 of Gerzema's SES keynote presentation. While potholes and fried chicken may seem unrelated, KFC's decision to provide help through improved safety comes as a fitting complement to their primary food-driven service, thereby speaking to the bottom two tiers of the triangle. Alternatively, more direct correlations work too.

On my way home from New York I flew Jet Blue, a company that's often mentioned as one that's "doing it right" with marketing, branding and customer service. I got to talking with the woman sitting next to me who was also returning home to the Los Angeles area. She had been in New York attending a funeral, and since the trip was last minute her regular airline's fares were higher than she wanted to pay -- even with the bereavement rate. She shopped around and found the best deal with Jet Blue, but that wasn't the end of the line for her good impression of the airline.

Photo by wbaiv via Creative Commons

She was enamored by the friendly flight attendants. She was in awe of the value, from the variety of snacks to the inexpensive headphones. She said to me that the difference in service was so slight when compared to the difference in cost. And then she told me she'd be flying Jet Blue from now on. I smiled and clapped and said, "Yay! They converted another one!" almost as though Jet Blue's victory was my own, like her victory was my own. And then I realized I was an unwitting brand evangelist and so was she! Well done, Jet Blue, well done.

Consumers are rethinking the differences between what they want and what they need. Value is more important than ever, and so is the unexpected additional value that provides a much-needed occasional surprise. Have your brand loyalties shifted at all since your bottom line became the bottom line? When you're booking your next flight, which airline will you turn to? As you're swerving to miss the potholes, will you crave chicken? Let's just say I've got a belly full of mashed potatoes that are doing the twist toward true blue loyalty.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/30/09 at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Branding

March 26, 2009

Morning Keynote: The Brand Bubble by John Gerzema

Good morning and welcome to day three of SES New York. To launch this final day of a whirlwind conference, we'll be hearing from John Gerzema, our keynote speaker, Chief Insights Officer of Young & Rubicam Group and author of The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It.

There's a slide on the screen that says you can download the presentation by visiting thebrandbubble.com/blog. You can also follow John on Twitter, @johngerzema.

I'm sitting next to Lisa Barone, who is also liveblogging this one. Check out the Outspoken Media blog for additional coverage. Kevin Ryan is up here to introduce John, but he mentions that there was a lot of interesting feedback about Guy Kawasaki's keynote. He calls out Lisa and says that there's a chance that in a few years we could be calling what Guy does spam. Lisa needs five more followers to get to 3,000, by the way. [3011 at the time of posting. Nice going, @LisaBarone --Susan]

John comes up to the stage and says today he'll be talking about brand building in the context of the recession. He wants to cut through the two words "brand" and "recession" and see the fundamental societal shift that is exhibited in the crisis of confidence. Cultural trends have made it so companies have to change the way they relate to the consumer.

Managing for an Upturn

• Superior cash flow and sustainable growth: Every household in America is auditing their budgets to spend less. Some people are also reappraising what they're doing. There's a short term and long term emphasis.
• Align brand and business strategy: What can you do to reevaluate your market?
• Acquire talent and quality.
• Do more with less.
• Sharpen messaging and ROI.
• Return to your core.
• Face your customer.

Half of All Global Wealth has Evaporated

• $36 trillion dollar loss worldwide.
• S&P 500 declined 64.4 percent from 2000.
• 45 percent of American wealth was lost.

Consumer confidence is at its lowest point since 1967, when they started the study. There is a fractured faith in the American dream. Housing values have eroded around all 50 states. Now the average price of a home in Detroit is $18,000 and people used to rely on their house as their keylock. The credit crisis has also halted housing starts.

The consumer psyche has been hardest hit by unemployment. Unemployment is at 8.1 percent -- the highest in 25 years. It's the third straight month of a 600,000 job loss. This period is marked by the most job losses and the weakest recovery.

It's an equal opportunity recession. Millionaires have lost one-third of their net worth.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs has been upended. Individual pursuits, self-actualization were the highest order until 2007. Now there's an understanding that the consumer doesn't feel this way. They are looking for safety and belonging -- more basics needs. Marketing must move from passion to compassion.

Consumers can't trust politicians. They don't know who to trust.

• Lack of leadership and responsibility
• Selfishness and collusion
• Prolonged conflicts and partisanship
• Egregious and criminal behavior
• Failure of regulators
• Decaying infrastructure (emotional and physical)
• Lack of permanence
• The new cultural fault line between Main Street and Wall Street

Consumers are taking a complete reappraisal of who they trust and who they should rely on. He studied data over 12 years and found that brands now represent a third of a company's value. The 250 most valuable global brands were worth more than the GDP of France a couple years ago. But now:

• Brand esteem and regard is down 12 percent.
• Brand awareness has declined by 20 percent.
• Perceptions of brand quality has eroded 24 percent.
• Trust in brands has declined by 50 percent.

This study was done in 2008 and trust in brands has gone down since. The second most important thing for a brand is trust. The most important is quality. In the past quarter, a trust virus has infected many categories. Apparel and accessories, auto and foods top the list for the highest change of trust.

Consumers are beginning to own their problems. They realize there's a long, hard slog ahead so their realizing their behaviors and changing. It takes 5 to 10 years to come out of the kinds of challenges we're facing. Savings has reason in the last five months. Q4 consumer spending fell the steepest in 62 years. They have retreated to rethink their spending strategies.

Create Competitive Advantage Now

Every recession ends eventually so how you act now will affect your future performance.

Post-Crisis Consumerism Rule 1

Cultural Value = Indestructible Spirit
Consumer Strategy = Durable Living
Management Principle = Brands that Last

Durable Living:

There's a rise in shoe repair and clothing. Spice sales are going up as consumers focus on comfort foods in the home. Americans are holding on to their cars longer (9.4 years -- the highest in American history). Couponing is up 300 percent. There's a trend toward nesting, spending money on things for the home. 68 percent of Americans carry a library card -- the highest ever. Recipes are stretched out and there's a trend toward casseroles. Craigslist shopping is up. There's an idea of "settling in". There is a resurgence in layaway programs.

Brands that Last:

Inexpensive beauty products are doing well. Ziploc is leveraging this on their site. McDonalds has been pushing "unsnobby coffee". LG is pushing their lifetime warranty. Campbell's has a kitchen site that helps busy parents put meals together. Tide is positioning the brand with a like-new guarantee. Old fashioned benefits like a meal on a plane is coming out of Continental Airlines.

Post-Crisis Consumerism Rule 2

Cultural Value = Ethics and Fair Play
Consumer Strategy = Empathy and Respect
Management Value = Value and Values

Empathy and Respect:

Everything has to be transparent. There is starting to be an anti-green movement that questions marketers' intentions. Consumers have all the tools to dissect brands and businesses. Empathy and respect comes in the form of honesty as well as "indulge me." Candy sales are up -- holding on to small indulgences. There's been a rise in lingerie sales.

Value and Values:

Denny's free super bowl breakfast was a huge success. American Express has been paying customers $300 to leave their franchise. Alpo is saying, "Enough with the doggie sweaters and day care. Let dogs be dogs again." FedEx offered free resume Tuesdays giving away 25 free copies. Tropicana repackaged their orange juice and quickly changed back after the uproar. Hyundai's assurance plus program was very successful.

Post-Crisis Consumerism Rule 3

Cultural Value = Liquid Life
Consumer Strategy = Declasse Consumption
Management Principle = Dollars and Sense

Declasse Consumption:

It's no longer cool to flaunt your wealth. P. Diddy vowed to tone down his bling. Designer Ducky Brown gave models a coupon for McDonalds. Radiohead lets you set your own ticket price. 5th Avenue stores are giving shoppers ordinary brown bags. At Howie's they are selling second-hand bags. Haggling on prices is coming into vogue.

Dollars and Sense:

Frito Lay is selling larger bags and smaller bags of chips depending on the time of month they find people have more and less money. Gillette Fusion Power has reframed razor blades with a promotion for $1 per week. Toll Brothers have been going straight to consumers to offer mortgages. Miller Lite's one second super bowl ads struck a chord.

Post-Crisis Consumerism Rule 4

Cultural Value = Return to the Fold
Consumer Strategy = Cooperative Consumerism
Management Principle = Community Organizer

Cooperative Consumers:

Consumers are getting clever with understanding the media game and how they can brand and scale themselves.

Community Organizer:

Mommy bloggers are more visible. Walmart's Elevenmoms act as evangelists for the company. Consumers don't trust companies but rather the people from the company. Check Out blog is a blog from Walmart by employees. The idea of scaling employees is seeing employees allowed to speak for the company -- everything doesn't have to go through PR anymore. Lego lets consumers design their own models.

Big companies are starting to do great things in the social media space. The Chinese character for crisis also means opportunity. Look at it in an optimistic way.

The search engine isn't you. It's your consumer. The rise in search, the declining Maslow hierarchy is bringing consumers back down. Search is emotional. People are looking for value and offers. You have an obligation to own that consumer relationship and that brand.

Q&A

Kevin asks that since we have such a short memory, is the change going to last? John says that they are going to make decisions based on smaller groups of people that they can trust.

How sustainable is CEO bloggers when consumers get the idea that it's a pitch and the message is not sincere?

Every CEO needs to evaluate their own blog strategy and what they're comfortable with based on the values of the company. You have to look at your capacity for interacting with the public that way but there are some great examples of direct consumer communication out there. He thinks it's sustainable because there is no other way.

There's been a big push toward organic and health-conscious products, which are a little pricier. What will it take for them?

It's about communicating the value behind the product, not just the brand itself. Marketers have to be careful with their green statements; they have to walk the talk or consumers will figure it out. We noticed that some marketers are doing a good job of marketing green as green ($) and savings to the consumer.

Is there a way to invest in the employee advocate but at the same time not let that become your company?

Zappos is great because you have to create a culture that allows your executives to rise up and not be solely dependent on one person. More employees have to speak on behalf of the company itself because they don't want to talk to the PR people. Social media has made consumers part of the play, and with that comes the understanding that companies will make mistakes.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/26/09 at 8:03 AM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Branding, Liveblog, SES New York 2009

March 25, 2009

Orion Panel: The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?

Our moderator is the witty Kevin M. Ryan, the chair of the SES Advisory Board and CMO of WebVisible, Inc. Our speakers for this high-level strategy session are: James Colborn, director of Microsoft advertising at Microsoft; Robert Murray, CEO of iProspect; Steven Kaufman, SVP media director for Digitas; Jon Diorio, group product manager for AdWords and Monetization Products for Google; and Jeffrey Pruitt, executive VP of iCrossing and president of SEMPO.

Kevin says that the focus of the session is talk about the history of search, where it's going and the key drivers of search. He's showing us a slide of a "day in the search life". Growth of search is coming out of Europe, North America, the Asia Pacific followed by Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Search has to be thought about in the global economy.

Search drivers include search engines and social networks and forums. On the chart, social networking was a growing driver until June of 2007. Then it went down and up and down again. Search, meanwhile, has a steady, gradual growth slope.

In 2007, 87 percent of mobile customers weren't online. By 2011, almost 90 percent of mobile Internet users will be searching. Users expect exact information whether on a mobile device or on their PC, but mobile users immediately act on in. Jon says that the critical point is not the technology or how the ads are rendered -- it's about what message resonates with the user while they're wandering the streets on their mobile. He's spending a lot of time studying how mobile search differs from standard desktop search. Kevin asks if we're going to see a significant number of searches coming out of mobile soon. Jon says that mobile is considered experimental and in the poor economy experimental methods are being cut. It won't be as big as it could be until we get past the recession.

Kevin asks Steven, as an agency representative, where his clients are spending the money. Steven says that on the search side, acquisition is the number one cost and it's not going to be cut because it's measureable and accountable and justifiable. The branding value of search is a more challenging argument.

Robert says that in 2008 large brand marketers were putting themselves in search. Now they're asking how to make search more effective, how can they use display and other types of advertising to drive people to search. Two-thirds of online search users are driven to perform searches as a result of exposure to some offline channel. Both TV and word of mouth influence over one-third each. Jon mentions that he saw a business that had a TV ad campaign that drove searches, but they weren't showing up for those searches so people ended up going to competitors. The problem was the lack of communication between the TV and search marketing departments.

Jeff adds that in the SEMPO state of the market survey, brand was the first priority and driving conversions was the second. However, fewer businesses were tracking their branding efforts than their conversions. Brands are engaged through many different channels and all those become a search component. James says that search is user-directed information sourcing. For Microsoft the challenge is to help advertisers understand all the ways search can be used to improve search results and also to help other media. Jon says search people should go to other marketing departments with keywords.

Are people walking down the hall more than in 2004? Steven says clients are catching on and demanding more. Pitching business as a team is getting better. It's still not great and there are still fights over budgets, but it's getting better. Jeff says that multiple budgets are coming together better but there needs to be an initiative driven from the top level and incentivized. Robert says that there's more willingness to engage in dialogues as people are trying to make their budgets go farther in the tight times.

Kevin wants to know if we're talking in the inner circle and not getting to the wider population. Jon says he agrees that there is definitely an inner circle but as far as awareness of search, it's very high. The cryptic piece that's left is the interplay between the channels. James says that search is finding an easy place and adoption as a direct response channel but brand environment has more barriers to entry. The brand arena is not moving online as quickly. Jon says there is more brand value from search than people realize. Google is looking at studies of 15-20 verticals to study brand value. They asked people in a panel in a controlled environment to do a specific search. Everyone sees a variation and then they are asked about propensity to buy. They're finding that organic plus paid results in higher brand awareness and a decrease in competitor brand awareness.

What is an evergreen challenge in search? James says an evergreen challenge is to address the person's reason for going to search. There is still a lot of variation in the words used that result in different ads being shown. The goal is to make sure the queries are answered as best as possible. Robert says the heart of the problem is attribution and understanding the full purchase cycle of a consumer. He wouldn't advocate search alone -- it's a mix. James says that search is the last click but the billboard can be what gets you there.

Kevin says that according to JupiterResearch, there are four top objections to search: insufficient staff, afraid of risking ROI performance, unable to hit financial targets on cost per keyword, and proving effectiveness to management. Can search grow? These are the biggest internal barriers. What do you think is going to be the next stage of development that will help us overcome these barriers?

Robert says first and foremost, integrated technology that lets you understand offline and online will help streamline the process. Jon says that answer to a lot of the problems can be addressed with automation services they're working on now. This would let you do more with less people. On the ROI side, the biggest growth will come from the audience in the room. Search advertisers are looking beyond click through and conversion rate to ROI. The mentality is shifting to a realization that there's no need for a budget cap if you're making a good ROI. James agrees and says that eight years ago, advertising and searching was based on one keyword. As time went on searchers became smarter and their queries were more sophisticated. The new goal for Live is to keep up with the trends and make it easy for advertisers to keep up with the trends through tools. Increasing the pool of commercial keywords will add opportunities for advertisers. As the market evolves, the opportunity for advertisers continues to evolve.

Kevin says that as CMO, people are trying to sell him crap all the time. It's hard to figure out what he should and shouldn't be paying attention to. So take the following questions and answer home. What are the social drivers? Search integration? Growth?

Robert says that the integration argument has been beaten to death. If you're not integrating at least display and email to your search campaigns you're missing easy pickings. Steven says social is going to continue to grow as a driver. Make sure whatever social content you're putting out is findable and indexable. As for growth, the product needs to evolve as well. He mentions search retargeting and Yahoo rich ads as evolution. New products will help overcome search integration barriers.

Jeff says that the engine relationships with marketers are getting better. The engines are asking for feedback with issues from advertisers. Integration is a point to focus on because search is really broader than just content in engines. The distribution can be optimized in engines and social networks. They've all got to come together under the same plan at some point.

James says that now the plethora of solutions available means finding the right mix of media and targeting types to solve campaign objectives. Without stepping on toes, there's a growth opportunity in engines suggesting new channels to the advertisers. As for as social drivers, they are very interested in becoming the key search provider for Facebook and offering educational opportunities to advertisers and create solutions for advertisers, agencies and partners. Jon says that in the growth arena they're looking at words that aren't being monetized today. They're working to open up the inventory and make it more accessible. In a study they found that users are searching longer and deeper in their research. This means branding at the early stages is important.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/25/09 at 11:09 AM | Comments (3)
See more entries in Branding, E-commerce, Liveblog, SES New York 2009

March 9, 2009

Twitter: Your Weapon in the Internet Marketing War

Update: With all the interest generated by this post, we want to know how you really feel.

Image via Creative Commons

Word is out that social networking is more popular than email. I've seen a lot of content out there lately touting the power of Twitter as a branding tool. But, the usefulness of the social networking site from a broader marketing perspective was made evident after I listened to a webcast with Guy Kawasaki last week.

Repeatedly referring to Twitter as a "marketing weapon" last Friday, Guy gave an interactive audience his tips for using the popular micro-blogging site as an unbeatable business tool. A on demand version is now available for download. A recap of the webcast and related tweets has been published at Search Engine Watch.

Image by Jamesdale10 via Creative Commons

People are obviously interested in hearing how the next big thing in social media can help them achieve their business goals. Five hundred people registered for the hour-long webcast presented by Incisive Media in partnership with Search Engine Strategies New York. The event was a preview of the opening keynote Guy will be presenting at the Internet marketing conference, taking place March 24-26.

During the webcast, the co-founder of "digital magazine rack" Alltop spoke about his newest book, Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition. Based on years of experience in the venture capital and tech worlds, Guy compared the book to a Chicago Manual of Style for business strategy. But when it came time for Q&A, questioners wanted to know about one thing: Twitter.

Image by Christiaan Briggs via Creative Commons

New statistics were released last week about the growth and user numbers for Twitter. According to Compete, the 33 percent growth in the last month brought the total of Twitter users to more than eight million people. With so many people adopting this young technology, it's easy to see how some questions still remain in the minds of marketers. One attendee of the recent webcast asked: "Other than brand building, what's the point of devoting resources to Twitter activity?"

Sounds like something I might ask. Branding is such a commonly used buzzword that it sometimes seems to be eating up the industry conversation. But Guy's response opened my eyes to the reality of the situation. As he explained, businesses are in the business of building their brand. In other words, branding your business is your business. From your product to your sales pitch to your marketing to your customer service, everything you do, every move you make as a company is in effect building your brand.

Check out Guy's Twitter stream for an example of how the master leverages Twitter. Then listen to the webcast. You'll be trained the art of Twitter weaponry in no time.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 03/ 9/09 at 2:11 PM | Comments (73)
See more entries in Branding

February 19, 2009

True Confessions of a Boring Blogger

Hi, my name's Virginia and I used to be boring.

I'm here today because I get it.

No, I think I finally get it.

Marketing. The science. The art. Its value to humanity. Its relationship building potential. Its place in this whole big world of ours. I get it now.

It started as a directive.

For some time now I've watched the number of comments flat line on the blog. Since I took on the job of BCI's main blogger, page views have been down, comments have been down, and the reputation for being a constant source of search industry insight has all but disappeared. I silently pondered the problem... until Bruce called me out.

Two weeks ago I got an email from the big guy. He had noticed. Where were the comments on the blog? Where were the Sphinns? The social media nods? The community? He asked Susan and I to think of ways to remedy this, to get conversations going, to increase engagement. And there it was. I couldn't ignore the glaring omission any longer. Something had to be done. But first, we had to figure out what had gone wrong.

The problem was actually obvious.

To me, at least. There had been one very big change and it stood as a clear divider between the time people shared and cared about the Bruce Clay, Inc. blog and the time people, well, stopped. Lisa Barone, long the heart and soul of the blog, had left and taken her loyal readers with her. She'd taken her quirky personality, ruthless pursuit of ethics and insatiable appetite for speaking her mind. And of course, that's what people were really after when they stopped by.

Luckily for all of us, Lisa wasn't gone long. I don't think I'm alone in saying that at her new home, Outspoken Media, she's more inspiring than ever. Lisa clearly gets it. No, she lives it. There are no half-schemed attempts to fill blank space. Every word channeled through her keyboard adds meaning or perspective or a new dimension to conversation. The people she connects with become more than colleagues -- they become friends. Although I had set out to carry on her tradition, I was missing this essential understanding. I was doomed from the start.

So I studied the masters.

Scott Polk turned me on to Gary Vaynerchuk after he returned from Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas last month. Gary had delivered the opening keynote of the conference and he shared with me the video that is available online. Man, that is a keynote. Gary, like Lisa, is someone who gets the power and potential of online relationships. The key, he explains, is that successful communication is based on "cool", "real" and "authentic" interactions. The Internet is merely a tool for communication. People love each other, and the reason social media has taken off so fast is because we crave connections.

And then it struck me.

I had spent so much time and energy writing content that I had overlooked the point of sharing it. On my social networks I had continually reaped the benefits of the stories and links and opinions shared while rarely ever contributing to the conversation. After taking so much without giving anything back, it could come as no surprise that apathy started to creep in to people's opinion of the blog -- of me.

Yesterday Tony Adam wrote a blog post about a common issue he's noticed on the social networking front. Too many times he's seen people growing their network at the expense of building quality relationships. When networks become too big, when the content you're pushing pollutes feed readers, when value becomes lost in the noise, the odds of really reaching people diminish. I commented that the opposite holds true, too -- I see these issues as two sides of the same coin. When the give-and-take nature of communication becomes lopsided the message is lost.

And there you have it. My latest adventure in a journey toward marketing enlightenment. It's humbling, and I know I'm still learning, but I think I finally get the big picture. The truth I found is that good marketing occurs when everyone wins. It's not about comments, a paycheck or cleverly crafted prose. It's about you and me and the electricity we feel when we talk to each other -- when we really share.

So let me start. One thing you may not know about me is that I don't like to make the same mistake twice. I don't intend to.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 02/19/09 at 5:06 PM | Comments (22)
See more entries in Blogging, Branding, Social Media

January 12, 2009

The Trust Factor of Internet Marketing

Photo credit Joe Nangle via Creative Commons

The word of the day is "trust". I imagine it was completely by accident that a number of my favorite bloggers wrote about or touched upon the subject in the last several days, leading me to read several different posts on the topic when I opened my feed reader this Monday morning. I chock it up to some trust-centric telekinetic energy surrounding the search marketing community. That, or everyone's talking about trust because it's a really important factor in online communities, sales and education efforts.

Here's what the blogosphere taught me about trust and the Internet today.

Why Trust Matters & How To Earn It

Over at his Small Business SEM blog, Matt McGee details the role of trust in the current Web economy. Trust makes up the top block of Matt's SEO Success Pyramid. To document the nitty-gritty details of why trust matters and how to earn it, Matt turns to the experts to explain how trust plays into search engine rankings, social media and local search, among other things. The story was tweeted and retweeted a whole bunch this morning, in an ironically fitting display of how trusted content is leveraged in online social communities. It's no coincidence that the SEO Success Pyramid shows buzz and community as the means of climbing the ranks.

Affiliate Summit West - Day 1 Recap

Lisa Barone is a guest blogging for Rae Hoffman while at Affiliate Summit this week. I got a chance to see Lisa in Las Vegas the night before the conference started (well-timed, last-minute family vacation FTW!), so I was very interested to hear about the lessons she has gleaned from the new marketing venture she's embarked on. No stranger to the power of trust, Lisa explained in her day one conference coverage that relationship building is an important aspect of affiliate marketing. What better gauge of the quality of a relationship than the trust one party has for another? Also, it's no stretch to see how building relationships, and in turn, trust, aren't only necessary in affiliate marketing. It's important for all marketing and, really, life in general!

7 Reasons Your Social Media Marketing Failed (and how to fix it!)

Likewise, successful social media marketing depends on trust. Todd Malicoat writes on his blog Stuntdubl.com that forgetting to build trust with your audience is one of seven ways to make sure your social media marketing campaign will be unsuccessful. There are lots of ways to get people to lose their trust in you, but all of them lead to failure. Remember that social media marketing depends on your credibility (gained over time) and users' confidence that you provide quality stuff, including genuine relationships.

Top 10 Tips for Green Hat SEM

Guest blogger Falko Luedtke shared his tips for making money with search marketing on the Winning the Web blog this morning. Two of the ten tips revolve around the need for trust. The first is to be trusted and create trust -- straightforward enough. The second is to build a brand and be a brand. A brand brings together all the qualities and messages identified with a company or an individual. Your customers' perceptions of your credibility and trustworthiness are deeply connected to your brand. Be sure to take that aspect of branding into account when building your brand.

As usual, I'm behind on catching up on my feeds. Did you come across any additional insights into the role of trust during your surfing this week? How do you go about building trust with your site's visitors? In your experience, what online platforms hold the most power for building trust? How else can trust be of value?

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 01/12/09 at 5:18 PM | Comments (2)
See more entries in Branding, Social Media

December 29, 2008

Best of Search Conferences 2008: Day 1

Close your eyes. You've just entered a conference hall where voices are mingling and people are milling about. A bag of conference swag is perched over your left shoulder and a cup of coffee is clutched in your right hand. You're navigating your way toward the music, following a hunch it will lead you to the main hall. There you know a keynote address will be kicking off what's sure to be a rocking three-day conference. You spy a table of breakfast pastries on the way. Maybe a blueberry muffin would appease your grumbling belly. Or a croissant?

Okay, so we're not really providing any breakfast, lunch or afternoon snacks, but we do hope you're hungry. The Internet and search marketing conferences of 2008 offered a smorgasbord of information built on a foundation of months of preparation and hard work. We at Bruce Clay, Inc. want to thank all the conference organizers and speakers for providing these invaluable learning experiences and look forward to next year's undoubtedly awesome growth.

In the meantime, there's so much to be gleaned from the ghosts of sessions past, so prepare yourself for the first day of the Best of Search Conferences 2008. It starts right now.

Keynotes

Keynote Kickoff Address - PubCon Las Vegas, Nov. 11-14
Speaker: Shawn Rorick

• There are more marketing channels than ever. Media fragmentation means users are picking where, how and when they consume media.
• The "halo media" approach addresses the multi-faceted marketing environment. Create a "circle of presence" around your company by entering all the logical marketing channels. That way you will be where the consumer is when they're looking for your services.
• Online media spending is currently going to search, display ads, classifieds, videos, rich media and email. Social media, mobile, widgets, desktop applications and RSS are emerging. Remember that new media tactics are not always applicable.

Keynote Roundtable: Technical and Informational Giants - SES San Jose, Aug. 18-21
Speakers: Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan, Tim Westergreen, Robert Scoble, Kirsten Mangers, and Rich LeFurgy

• Google is going to be the dominant search engine for years to come. The best competition anyone can give to Google will be available in incremental stages. The term "Google killer" has been used too lightly in the past.
• Danny Sullivan didn't think 2008 was the year of mobile and it won't be 2009 either. Mobile search will see gradual growth because smart phone technology is not yet cheap enough.
• Internet marketers should continue to look on the horizon. What makes a great search marketer is someone that understands how people look for information. When people start turning toward new ways to search, understand those venues and how to get there but don't get distracted from what you're best at.

Basic/Intermediate Search Engine Optimization

Top Takeaways:

• Representatives from Google, Yahoo and Live Search recommend adding unique content (images, reviews, etc.) to a page containing duplicate content (such as a manufacturer's product description) in order to avoid duplicate filtering in SERPs.
• If you're working with a very tight budget, look for ways to virally spread your unique, quality content.
• Images posted on Flickr can drive traffic as long as the image either captures excellent subject matter or is of excellent quality.
• Get creative with link building. Some ideas include hiring a student intern and getting a link from their student account, participating on services like Yahoo Answers, and utilizing your partners and affiliates for links.
• Personalized, behavioral, intent-based and blended search have changed the way search engine optimizers can measure success. Rather than focusing on rankings, look at traffic and conversions on the site.

Ask the Search Engines - SMX East, Oct. 6-8
Moderator: Danny Sullivan; Panelists: Nathan Buggia, Aaron D'Souza, and Sean Suchter

Mostly Viral Top Traffic Alternatives, or SEO on a Shoestring Budget - PubCon Las Vegas, Nov. 11-14
Moderator: Carolyn Shelby; Panelists: Brett Tabke, Marty Weintraub, Jessie Stricchiola, and Gary Kirk

Give It Up: White Hat Edition - SMX East, Oct. 6-8
Moderator: Danny Sullivan; Panelists: Michael Gray, Kimberly Krause Berg, Kate Morris, Tyler Shears, Stephan Spencer, Rob Kerry, and Shari Thurow

Top Shelf Organic SEO - PubCon Las Vegas, Nov. 11-14
Moderator: Mark Jackson; Panelists: Jill Whalen, Bill Hunt, Ash Nallawalla, and Bruce Clay

Basic/Intermediate Pay Per Click

Top Takeaways:

• When it comes to finding the best keywords, look at your site, your competitors' sites and trade literature, and remember that brands are often the best performing keywords. Don't forget to filter out negative keywords to help maintain your Quality Score.
• Many of the shopping search engines offer paid inclusion programs, and while the clicks may cost more than in the general search engines, the users are usually closer to the conversion stage of the buying cycle.
• To protect your paid search advertising budget, define your goals and metrics for success so that you can then prove the return on investment.
• Testing is of course important to optimizing your search ad campaign, but while testing, don't manage the campaign as a test. You want to have data based on real-world performance.
• Qualified traffic is the key to post-click conversions. Carry the message the visitor was looking for through the segmented path they entered with.

Search Advertising 101 - SES San Jose, Aug. 18-21
Moderator: Rebecca Lieb; Panelists: Dana Todd and Matt Van Wagner

Defending Your Paid Search Budget Against New Ad Fads - SMX West, Feb. 26-28
Moderators: Jeffrey K. Rohrs and Rob Kerry; Panelists: Brian Combs, Adam Jewell, and Kchitiz Regmi

Ad Testing: Research and Findings - SES New York, Mar. 17-20
Panelists: Andrew Goodman, Bill Barnes, and Anton Konikoff

Post-Click Marketing: Converting Search Engine Traffic - SES San Jose, Aug. 18-21
Moderator: Anna Maria Virzi; Panelists: Carrie Hill, Laura Wilson, Scott Brinker, and Tom Leung

Basic/Intermediate Social Media Marketing

Top Takeaways:

• The point of social media marketing is not conversions. Social media is about gaining reach, increasing branding opportunities, generating links and driving traffic.
• Top 10 lists, how-to articles, current events, offbeat or extreme stories and images and videos are major categories of linkbait.
• Getting a community power user to submit your site's content is an advantage that should not be underestimated.
• Micro communities, or niche portals where communities gather, offer high relevance, increased branding opportunities, and the potential to have a loud voice in a small community.
• Social search, or search that relies at least somewhat on human involvement (i.e., collaborative harvesters like Digg and collaborative directories like DMOZ), disrupted search as we know it. However, with social search comes new potential and possibilities to increase influence and gain traffic.

Linkbait - Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites - SMX Social, Apr. 22-23
Moderator: Danny Sullivan; Panelists: Brent Csutoras, Jane Copland, and Cameron Olthuis

Social Media Marketing: What Is It and What Is It Good For? - SES San Jose, Aug. 18-21
Moderator: Pauline Ores; Panelists: Erik Qualman, Brent Csutoras, and Vanina Delobelle

Micro Communities - SMX Social, Apr. 22-23
Moderator: Danny Sullivan; Panelist: Rand Fishkin

Search 4.0: Will the Social Graph Change Search? - SMX West, Feb. 26-28
Moderator: Chris Sherman and Danny Sullivan; Panelists: Aditya Agarwal and Sean Lyndersay

Basic/Intermediate Branding

Top Takeaways:

• Traditional marketing channels make up less than half of the marketing channels available today. Create a consistent customer experience by providing great customer service through new and old media channels alike.
• Proactively protect your brand online; Buy MyBrandSucks.com, buy CEOName.com, register your brand name on social media platforms and quickly respond to negative publicity.
• Match your online and offline marketing message. For example, tests have shown that search volume rises after the start of a print campaign and remains high after the conclusion of a TV campaign.
• Before joining a digital ad network, make sure the network meets your needs. What is the level of quality control? How focused can you get? What is the reach? What is the business relationship like?
• You can measure the success of branding efforts with an engagement index. Involvement is reflected in the number of visits, the time spent and the number of page views. Interaction is measured through comments and reviews. Intimacy is seen in the sentiment and positioning of such comments. Influence is gauged by the user's likelihood to recommend, share or link.

Brand Management - PubCon Las Vegas, Nov. 11-14
Moderator: Joe Laratro; Panelists: Brian Combs, Lauren Vaccarello, Tony Wright, and Jessica L. Bowman

Old Timers - The Impact of Search on Brand Health Metrics - SES New York, Mar. 17-20
Moderator: Kevin Ryan; Panelists: Rob Graham, Kevin Lee, Doron Wesly, and Stephen DiMarco

Digital Ad Networks: Are They Safe for Brands? - ad:Tech San Francisco, Apr. 15-17
Moderator: Brad Berens; Panelists: Jocelyn Griffing, Dave Zinman, Tim Vanderhook, and Sean Cheyney

Reputation Management in a Social Media World and on Your Site - eMetrics Summit San Francisco, May 4-7
Panelists: Katie Delahaye Paine and Steve Bernstein

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 12/29/08 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
See more entries in Best Of Search Cons 2008, Branding, Liveblog, Pay Per Click / Online Ads, SEM Events, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media

December 15, 2008

Welcoming New Social Network Friends

I've been on this thing called Twitter since May. Have you heard of it?

Heh.

So anyway, in all that time I've racked up an impressive -- wait for it -- 330 tweets. Needless to say, I'm still pretty green in the ways of Twitter. [I have 3123 and we're both just babies in the tweet world. --Susan]

Let me start by saying yes, I have a closed account. I'm not comfortable broadcasting my inner monologue to the masses and I don't expect that to change any time soon. However, if you mention SEO or Internet marketing in your bio, I will gladly accept your follow request and I will likely follow you, too. I'm easy to find on social networks, always opting for the obvious, in this case @virginianussey.

One thing I started doing differently is greeting new followers with a personal DM. In the past I've gotten sweet little personalized messages from new followers I've accepted and from people I'm newly following. But a recent message gave me the warm fuzzies:

All this savvy Tweeter had to do was take a look at my bio and everything he or she needed to throw together a quick, easy, and most importantly, personal welcome message was right there. The J. Paul Getty Museum is clearly doing social media marketing right.

In part two of his Twitter Rockstar series, David Brown shares a social media case study on how he welcomed his new followers to his feed. In 38 short seconds, David's welcome video introduces who he is and touches on his social media passions. Not only were followers impressed, but David reaped the benefits of additional subscribers to his YouTube channel and hundreds of new friends on social networking sites. (If you're new like me and not quite in the position to produce a welcome video, check out part one of the series, How to Become A Twitter Rockstar - Sort Of for some great tips on making the most of Twitter.)

At MarketingProfs last week, an article explained how welcome emails can drive customer engagement and ROI. The same holds true within social networks and communities as well. The welcome message performs many vital marketing tasks:

• Confirm that they are now your friend or follower. This can act as an additional branding opportunity.
• Affirm your value proposition. Remind the new friend or follower what great stuff you can offer them.
• Invite new friends or followers to take an action. On Twitter, the most natural opportunity for this is inviting someone to subscribe to a blog or newsletter.

Personal welcome messages don't have to take long. With just a few friendly words, you could be building a foundation for a lasting relationship. Judging from the smile that stretched across my face after reading @GettyMuseum's personalized message to me, I realize that, hey, it really works.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 12/15/08 at 5:24 PM | Comments (1)
See more entries in Branding, Social Media

November 19, 2008

Why Blogger Outreach Can Fail

On Wednesdays, I usually share SEM Synergy Extras with the readers of this blog. And while this week's show covered excellent topics -- thanks, Sage Lewis! -- there is another issue on my mind today: blogging, buzz and community building.

It's a relevant subject in our social media world -- one where bloggers are the big influencers being courted by corporations to hype some new product release or, in the case of Pepsi, logo update.

In her article on Pepsi's latest new media outreach attempt, Jennifer Laycock explains her reaction to the campaign, namely, that corporations are missing the mark by not reaching out to their evangelists. She asks how long it will take before companies stop focusing on marketing to bloggers and start marketing to their customers. This is the difference between hype and buzz.

What Pepsi's doing now will generate hype. There will be numerous blog posts on the subject. I imagine that some will be favorably skewed -- I know I'd want to gush if Pepsi hand-picked me to be one of its 25 influencers. Then others, like those in our industry, are going to write posts deconstructing the campaign, pointing to what it says about the increasing shift to social media marketing. This word-of-mouth will put Pepsi on the radar [As opposed to where they are now? It's Pepsi, for Pete's sake. --Susan] and the new logo will see a flash of interest. But there won't be the aura of trust that occurs when a message comes from a true evangelist. When evangelists share the message out of genuine support for the product, buzz is generated because those listening want to learn more about it and try it themselves. Hype can develop into a bubble just waiting to burst, but buzz is flexible as it builds, grows and spreads.

As I see it, social media isn't about talking to the people that other people listen to. It's about talking to the people who care about what you have to say. Building a community where those people can communicate is key.

The FriendFeed Pepsi room is a good place to start building a community -- creating a place to gather is a fine first step. But it looks like Pepsi hasn't yet shaken off its old media habit of trying to control the conversation. While joined by like interests, no community will agree on everything, including your corporate message.

Pepsi is on the right track and deserves a pat on the back for their embrace of new media marketing channels. The real challenge, though, is getting it right. Remember that the moment your message hits the Web, the conversation isn't yours anymore. Be involved in the communities around you. And, most importantly, focus on talking to the people who care.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 11/19/08 at 5:07 PM | Comments (3)
See more entries in Blogging, Branding, Social Media

November 12, 2008

Brand Management

Somehow, even though we had half an hour between the keynote and the first session, it doesn't feel like any time at all.

Speakers Brian Combs, Senior VP & Chief Futurist, Apogee Search; Lauren Vaccarello, Director of Publishing, Forex Capital Markets LLC; Tony Wright, CEO/Founder, WrightIMC; and Jessica L. Bowman, Founder and President, SEOinhouse.com with moderator Joe Laratro are the entertainment experts for this brand management session. I think Jessica is still writing her presentation. Everyone else is discussing the order in which they want to present.

Joe says that of the four presentations, two are going to be very broad and two are going to be very specific, so we're going to start with the two broads. [He means Lauren and Jessica... Oh, Joe.]

Jessica Bowman steps up.

Yesterday we started talking about the halo effect. You need to create a consistent customer experience. You might have a grip on your customer service line, on your news cycle, or on the real world locations, but you might not have taken into account the SERPs and social media.

Traditional media gives you less than 50 percent of the halo, and that's going to be decreasing over time. It's super easy these days to complain online to a lot of people at once. If you get on the wrong side of a Guy Kawasaki, your complaint goes to the masses.

Last night's packed Zappos party was only advertised on Twitter.

The iPhone makes it even easier to surf and post and review things. It used to be, you'd have to wait to get home and your anger would have time to calm down. Not anymore.

British Airways had employees on Facebook who were commenting and it actually damaged their reputations. Virgin Atlantic fired 13 employees for negative comments. It probably isn't malicious, it's just venting to friends.

You need to train your company:

• Great customer service needs to be company culture.
• Train all customer touch points on how to handle customers -- especially those who WILL go post things online.
• It's too easy for anyone to complain, to thousands of people.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • iPhone

Establish boundaries and rules.

Add guidelines for online commenting and blogging to your employee handbook.

Grant access to social media sites and allow employees to access social media sites to monitor buzz.

Monitor and report what's being said.

Jessica had a problem with her airline so she started dreaming about what she'd do if she had time:

• Comments at Yahoo and Google Local
• Comment on her blog
• Twitter update (which pushes out to Facebook)
• AdWords ad with the complaint
  • Primary purpose: To get the attention of a VP who can instill change
  • If on a budget, she'd geo-target the ad to appear only where the company is headquartered

Complaints need to be addressed before they become complaint sites.

Lauren Vaccarello is up next. She's an SEO mercenary. Like CShel!

Lauren will be sharing tips for maintaining and defending your brand. The best offense is a good defense.

Get the best players:

• Buy domains around your target
• Keywords and brand name
• Make sure to own MyBrandSucks.com
• Own your CEOName.com
• Don't overlook social media
• Register your brand name on social media platforms:
  • Twitter
  • Create a Facebook group
  • Naymz
• Know what your competitors are doing
  • Use SpyFu
• Keep an eye on your key players
  • Create alerts for your name with Google Alerts and Trackur
• Monitor everything (and once you do, be proactive)
  • Tweet Pro is a paid product that helps you monitor Twitter
• Use Twitter to help your reputation.
  • By monitoring brand mentions on Twitter, you can prevent customer loss.
• Be on the offense by empowering your brand loyalists.
• Respond to negative publicity quickly

Brian Combs is up next.

Before you have a problem, dedicate resources to online customer service, monitor online conversations, use consistent naming conventions, and create and propagate multiple sites. Engage your customers.

Upon finding a problem:

• Engage and attempt to diffuse.
  • This may create an online fan.
  • Don't get defensive or attempt to strong arm; you'll make it worse.
  • Don't engage with trolls and Internet tough guys.
  • Take it offline if possible.
• Ask if they'll block with robots.txt.
• If all else fails, attempt to scrub the listing.

How do you scrub the listing? You take up more shelf space. Sub-domains, product sites, international domains, social media profiles, articles on third-party sites, micro-sites to address specific concerns, blended search results. In order for this to work, the content needs to be unique. Sites may require link building before they rank.

Risky techniques include Wikipedia, Pay-Per-Post, ReviewMe (for scrubbing), Google bowling, and deceptive practices.

There are better ways to do rep management than getting into risky behavior. He doesn't recommend any of these ways.

Takeaways:

• Reputations problems are easier to prevent than to fix.
• Customer Service 101: Engage and don't be defensive.
• If you must scrub the listings, take a diversified approach.

Last up is Tony Wright. He's only got ten slides. Yay!

First, story time: Paris, Texas.

The facts:

• Conservative town
• Homosexual elementary school principal
• Vindictive lover
• Hot-headed District Attorney threatening violence
• Small town politics with a very involved audience

Horrible things ensued. Naturally. The Internet is serious business, folks.

This story was posted on Topix. But they couldn't keep it down. The ADA was reprimanded, lost his bid and nearly his job.

The lessons:

• Emotions can ruin an online reputation.
• Sometimes responding makes it worse.
• If you are an employer, you need to have policies in place to keep employees from responding inappropriately
• Threatening violence on the Internet can be dangerous, but most of the time it makes you look like an idiot.

Reputation branding and influence are the not same. Work on reputation first, the others will follow. Don't let good branding get in the way of a good reputation. Logo police are a problem. If a fan is using your logo, don't freak out about it and send a Cease and Desist. Monitor your reputation (Trackur, Google Alerts, etc.) and create a formula for keeping your reputation solid. Deal with snags as they come up.

To create a formula, assign weight to each element below and use that to prioritize response.

Items to consider:

• Reach of the venue
• Influence of the poster
• Tone of the content (get three people to average the tone)
• Follow up on the post (watch for on-topic vs. off-topic)
• Viral effects

Q&A

Have you seen fake complaints on Rip Off Report, etc., by competitors?

Tony: No, not fake complaints. That's dangerous.

Brian: No, there are enough trolls out there who will do it on their own. Fake isn't needed.

Do you have suggestions or ideas around building activity with your loyalists?
Lauren: Starbucks is really good about it on Twitter. Take the opposite approach from cell phone providers. They reward you for switching. Reward people for staying.

Tony: A caveat -- giving away free stuff can backfire. Microsoft sent out Vista to bloggers but it turned into a PR nightmare because it came off as bribery. It's about authenticity in social media. When someone says something nice about you, thank them. If you have their physical address, thank them with a hand-written note. Publically thank them.

Jessica gives a few examples, including Microsoft Ambassadors.

Brian: In many cases, engagement is all that's needed.

Should you be combating negative pay per click ads on brand names?

Tony: Make sure you've filed your proper trademark with Google. Engage them first and find out why they're doing it. If they're really hurting your business and they won't stop, then yes, you might want to sue. But he always advocates taking the high road.

Brian: It depends whether or not it's malicious.

Jessica: If you have multiple domains, throw up ads for those sites on those keywords to create noise.

Brian says that if you take Jessica's approach, you should do it with different Google Accounts.

Tony: Non-response can be a very effective technique.

Why doesn't eBay go after PayPalSucks.com?

Lauren: They can't really do anything about it, because it's not making money. They also have terrible reputation management. Jennifer Convertibles has the same problem. Positions three through six are hate sites, but they don't want to spend the money to push them down.

Brian: If they sued, they'd probably lose. It's free speech.

Tony: They'd have to prove consumer confusion and no one will think PayPalSucks is PayPal. Before you contact your lawyer, you might just want to contact the person. Don't say anything that will get you in trouble, but try talking first.

Lauren: Offer them $500 to $2000. Sometimes that will work.

Who should take ownership of rep management? Should you do it yourself?

Jessica: I'm a fan of doing things yourself, but not in this case.

All agree that you should train brand advocates in-house but you should hire a social media person to help you set it up. You need legal, customer service, product management and IT involved. You need someone with political capital in the company on board or the legal department will try to kill your social media campaign. Keep legal in the loop but out of your planning meetings.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 11/12/08 at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
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PubCon Keynote: George Wright of Blendtec

Day two keynote. I have orange juice, not coffee. I may come to regret this decision later but for right now, I'm going with it. The wireless is incredibly bad, and yet, still miles better than the in-room wireless at Treasure Island. There's a blender on the stage in front of me but no people yet. Some guy is taking a picture of the blender. This is what we've come to.

Oh yay, Brett's here. I can stop babbling. He says the Wi-Fi upstairs will be better than yesterday. Which was still better than Treasure Island's.

George bounds up on stage to jaunty music. He's got a blender and a rake and apparently a talent for confusing the airlines. "I've got a blender and a rake and I'm going to blend the rake... But isn't that dangerous?"

Hee.

He started with Blendtec two or three years ago. It was a small company with a good product but no brand awareness. Very few people had heard of them. We're going to be watching lots of videos.

We're starting, of course, with the iPhone blending video.

The blended iPhone was put up one eBay and someone bought it for $1000. They donated that to a local children's hospital. The winner of the auction did some research and donated more after that. Wow.

Blendtec began in Utah. They have lots of popular commercial products. They also made a home product, which is the one that he has here today.

Great products + weak branding = weak sales

They didn't have money for a brand campaign ($50), so they had to do something cheap. He went into the demo room and discovered a pile of sawdust on the floor. "Don't worry, Tom's just testing the blenders," someone said. He'd blended two by fours to test the blender. Everyone else just accepted it but George saw potential.

Video extreme blending was a common practice in the company, but it was unknown to the rest of the world. So, they decided to distribute the videos on the Web.

He spent his budget on a domain name, a lab coat, a six-pack of coke and some things to blend. Marbles, a rotisserie chicken, a rake, a McDonald's value meal.

They've managed to blend almost everything that they've attempted. The only thing that didn't work was...

Chuck Norris. [Badum cha!]

They sent the blender and the video to Chuck Norris but didn't get any response at the time. A month ago, they got a call from their Dallas office saying that Chuck Norris was on the radio talking about "his" blender commercial. George calls Chuck an A-List celebrity. Let's not get crazy.

What really matters for viral video:

1. It has to be entertaining or worth watching. It doesn't have to be funny. It could be inspirational or thought-provoking. Mostly, it has to be worth passing along.
2. It has to tie-in to the corporate objective. It's not enough just to [censored for animal abuse]. You have to make it tie-in to the corporate objective. They used to try to explain the technical aspects of why the blender was great. Now they can just blend 50 marbles and it's much more convincing.
3. It's okay for it to be sponsored by the manufacturer. Don't try to sneak around and give people a reason to believe it's slippery or non-authentic. It's okay to sponsor your own stuff as long as it's entertaining (see rule 1).
4. It has to be based on real people. Don't force your employees to be someone they're not. Tom from Blendtec is just being himself. It's easy to reproduce.
5. It has to be interactive.
   • Comments: Negative comments are chances for debate.
   • Suggestions of what to blend next: Initially the suggestions all went to his BlackBerry. It pretty much broke his phone. Heh. When they blended the iPhone, the people who had suggested it became brand ambassadors because it was their idea.

The risks of viral video:

• Surrender control of the message upon distribution: You have to be honest and accurate. You don't have control once it's gone. They once said that ceramic magnets were neodymium magnets and got in trouble for it.
• Public scrutiny of content: It's free to put content on the Web but it's also free to put content on the Web that combats it.
• Distribution is global: You cannot limit geographic location. It's the World Wide Web for a reason.

The numbers:

• 65 million YouTube views
• 120 million WillItBlend.com views
• 200 million + subscribers

Blendtec saw a 700 percent increase in retail sales. Not bad for a $50 campaign!

With commercial sales you should pull through impact. "How do I know that your blender is going to make it through the abuse our employees are going to put it through?" If the retail product can do it, the commercial product can.

Media coverage:

National TV

• The Big Idea
• Today Show
• iVillage Live
• Tonight Show
• Food Network
• History Channel
• Discovery Channel

The Food Network had actually turned them down before the Will It Blend campaign. Afterward, the network called and asked for a blender to include in their content.

[Now we're watching a clip from The Big Idea.]

Local TV Coverage

• Magazines and newspapers
• Online blogs and sites
  • WSJ
  • Engadget
  • NYTimes.com
  • Forbes.com
  • AdAge
  • Blendtec even got a mention in Congress!

Success breeds success.

[Now we're watching a clip from OTM in which there is an argument over whether or not the Will It Blend videos are worth it.]

The old school thinking was, "Why not just take out an ad in the local paper? Isn't this a lot of work?"

However, a single page ad in a newspaper can be $83,000 and it has a limited reach.

New school thinking understands, "Now the audience knows that all blenders aren't the same. All this publicity came from a $50 viral campaign so the sky's the limit."

Q&A

You did an ad for Nike. Wasn't that paid content?

Yes, they did. Nike called and said, "Can we do this together?" George said, "Sure, if you pay me." Blendtec has done it with several companies, in fact. Will It Blend actually generates revenue. It's a marketing campaign that generates revenue.

How do you make it take off?

First, if it's awesome, it will take off. Second, leverage your assets. All your employees have address books. Send it to those contacts and say, "If it's awesome and you want to share it, please do." Then, do the same to your customers.

What kind of bonus did you get?

George got a free blender! How do you reward runaway performance like that? It's hard. He had a lot of fun.

How do your Web sales do?

They've done well. But the idea was not to drive sales -- it was to build a brand. Building a brand is sustainable. Promotions are not.

Was the 700 percent growth from the launch of the campaign? With what frequency did you launch the videos?

George says it started two years ago and they started out very vigorously. They've backed way off because they want to make sure the quality is high because unsubscribing is one click away.

Brett wants to know if he's going to blend something. Hee!

Of course!

[Um, I'm going to hide under the table now, okay?]

Posted by Susan Esparza on 11/12/08 at 10:45 AM | Comments (0)
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October 22, 2008

SEM Synergy Extras

Widgets are pretty nifty. My personal faves show you videos, Flickr streams and Twitter updates. Pretty darn cool from a user perspective, if you ask me. And they're pretty darn cool from an advertiser's perspective, too. That said, today's episode of SEM Synergy is all about those fabulous chunks of portable code functionality we call widgets.

The guest was widget strategy expert Patrick Sexton, who shared his best practices for developing and distributing widgets. Pat will be speaking on the Wonderful World of Widgets panel at PubCon next month, so be sure to grab your front row seat. Not that you'll have a choice -- his boyish charms will surely draw you in...

Security Concerns

One of the main user concerns regarding widgets is that they can invite infiltration of the system. Any time cross-site scripting takes place, as it does with widget embedding, the person using the widget leaves themselves vulnerable to malicious attacks. Likewise, not even Google Gadgets home page widgets are immune to attacks, as demonstrated at the Black Hat hacker conference this year. As far as secure widget embedding goes, it's probably best to sanitize foreign JavaScript or create a security sandbox using an iframe.

Smart Branding

During our interview, Patrick made the point that users are less likely share a widget that's main purpose is branding or that screams brand more than function. That's not to say that the branding and advertising opportunity isn't there. Relatively inexpensive and simple to develop, widgets represent an ongoing relationship with consumers, where before it was more difficult to distinguish new prospects from engaged customers. Some research on customer behavior has shown that a customer's memory for brands is best when presented early on. However, the marketing tactic of widgets rests in functionality and entertainment, so widgets can only be successful with the achievement of these goals first. Following that, branding can be applied when the user has already made positive associations -- as Patrick illustrated with his Comedy Central example.

Distribution Options

When it comes to distributing your widget, Patrick recommends a cross-platform strategy. Such a strategy relies on viral installers as well as distribution through individual widget directories. Indeed, getting your widget to the places users are looking is important to the success of widget marketing. I had asked Patrick how he recommends coming up with an idea for a widget that your audience will like, and he explained it as distilling the core functionality of your Web site. The relevance of the widget is the first step of development, because it's that relevance that will help to encourage distribution.

Happy widgeteering, everyone!

(Yes, I made that word up. Yes, I know you love it.)

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/22/08 at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)
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October 17, 2008

Social Media Campaigns: Doing It Right

Over the last couple of days, the launch of a brand new purse site got a lot of buzz in the Twitterverse. Handbag Planet was giving away one purse an hour for 24 hours in order to celebrate their launch -- signing up was super easy, give them your name and email address, then choose the drawing hour that corresponds to the bag you want and hope that no one else has taste as good as yours. Sign up, you'd get one chance to win. Every person you referred to the contest got you one more entry. Add Handbag Planet as a friend on MySpace or Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter to get 10 more chances. Blog about it and get 25 more chances. Even people who claimed not to like purses were all over it.

Unfortunately, I did not win the bag I wanted. What's even worse, when I decided to buy the bag, it was already sold out. It was a great tragedy that meant I couldn't take advantage of the 72-hour long launch promo 20 percent discount (the bag is back in stock on or around the 21st). I twittered my disappointment, not really expecting anything:

A few minutes later I got a DM from @handbagplanet asking which bag I wanted and telling me when they'd be getting back in (read from the bottom up for it to make the most sense):

Naturally, this somehow led to surfing HandbagPlanet.com and checking out the related links at the bottom. Tell me that tote isn't the cutest thing ever?

I got to thinking, hmm, I wonder if my laptop would fit in there. Since I knew from my earlier tweet of sadness that someone over there was listening, I once again turned to Twitter:

Before too long, I got a reply to that one, too.

My dreams were shattered. But after a few DM exchanges and a couple emails with my new friend James, we found a solution. I get my bag (actually two bags. I couldn't choose! Don't judge me!), they get my business and all is right with the world. [I love happily ever afters! --Virginia]

So what did Handbag Planet do right with their approach to social media?

1. Great promotion that took advantage of the way people actually use social media: Handbag Planet got everyone and their mom to do the legwork for them, as everyone told their friends that it was free -- no catch, just a chance to win a purse. They made it seem achievable and they made it conversational. There was no script to follow, no stilted message, no requirement except mentioning their name. How well did it work? How does 5000 backlinks sound to you?
2. Vocal presence: They've been out there, talking it up, answering questions, responding to concerns. It's obvious they're taking feedback into account and seeking to continue their relationships with the people who are now tuned in to their message.
3. Problem Solving: Handbag Planet learned a lesson from Zappos that great customer service is worth its weight in gold. By solving my problem, they're buying brand loyalty. In the future, I'm much more likely to go to them.

Posted by Susan Esparza on 10/17/08 at 12:21 PM | Comments (2)
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October 14, 2008

Personal Brand vs. Reputation

The always-controversial Loren Feldman posted a video last week of a speech he gave at a recent MediaBistro event. In classic Loren fashion, he took the subject of the speech and turned it on its head, resulting in a fascinating take on personal branding.

His main message: There's no such thing as a personal brand. "The minute that you start to think about yourself as a brand you're going to lose a little bit of your humanity" -- the very humanity that appeals to your audience. I have to agree.

Loren says of the term personal branding, "You're a human being. You have a reputation. You have a persona. You have a body. You are not a brand."

At this point, it sounds to me like an argument over semantics. If you are unsettled with the term "personal brand" then let's just go with "reputation", as Loren suggests. Indeed, the concept people are referring to when they talk about a personal brand is about the same as reputation. It's the associations that people make when they think of your personal and professional actions and ethics. You are what you do and what you say, and on the Internet, neither time nor distance can separate you from your history. So let's agree to talk about reputation, and not personal brands.

Later Loren says, "My reputation precedes me. I'm one of the biggest [jerks] on the Internet, obviously. But I make probably the most kick-[butt] videos on the Internet also. And that's what my brand is about."

Wait a second. I thought he decided not to use the term "brand" in relation to a person. Okay, don't get confused -- I'm sure he meant to say "reputation". However, it gets a bit more muddled when he starts to talk about Julia Allison, one of the other presenters on the stage:

"Julia's personal brand -- to just use Julia [as an example] -- Julia's a persona. She's an entertainer of sorts -- journalist, videographer, photo journalist -- whatever she does, she does. It's the Julia show, and that's a very specific personal brand that works for Julia. It's probably not going to work for you. Most of you out here don't have the chops to be a personal brand."

So some people can pull off a personal brand?

Call it what you will, personal brand or reputation. I think they mean the same thing. I'm inclined to call it personal brand since it's a term that's gained traction in the industry. People know what you're talking about when you say "personal brand" -- it rolls reputation, standing, reliability and quality into one.

Whatever you want to call it, I agree with Loren when he explains the danger of relying too heavily on one's own personal brand. There are many individuals on the Web and only a few will be recognized by others. You can either spend a lot of time trying to be one of the recognized few, or you can just excel at what you love to do. If you choose the latter, you'll see that recognition as a natural result of people connecting with your humanity when they see the passion behind your work.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/14/08 at 12:25 PM | Comments (3)
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October 7, 2008

Search & The U.S. Presidential Campaign

So I chose to cover this session out of primarily selfish motives, but I bet there's going to be some broad takeaways that can be applied to company's marketing campaigns. It's a large panel of excellent presenters, so this should be fascinating.

Here's the killer lineup.

Mindy Finn, Partner, former director of e-strategy for Mitt Romney '08, Engage
Eric Frenchman, Chief Internet Strategist, McCain-Palin 2008, Connell Donatelli Inc.
Peter Greenberger, Team Manager, Elections & Issue Advocacy, Google
Justine Lam, Former e-Campaign Director, Ron Paul 2008, Ron Paul for President
Diane Rinaldo, Political Advertising Director, Yahoo
Tracy Russo, Chief Blogger and Deputy Director of Online Communications for the John Edwards for President Campaign, Russo Strategies
Don Steele, Director of Digital & Enterprise Marketing, Comedy Central (and Colbert for President Campaign!)

Moderator Sara Holoubek explains that this panel will cover a timely issue where we're seeing online marketing play a big role. This year seems to be the time that politics "got search." In 2007 it started as politicians started using digital tactics and it's also been seen in the media coverage.

We're at the point where technology and politics are mixing. Which came first?

Peter says politics came first. He'd been working for Democratic campaigns for years, then the opportunity at Google came up it and seemed to be a good way to mix some of his interests.

Diane says politics came first, and she wouldn't recommend getting into it unless you're passionate about it. She was in retail first, but says it's a lot like politics.

Eric was working on the Internet first and fell into his role as a good fit.

Justine says technology came first. This was her first presidential campaign (and maybe her last!).

Mindy says technology and online communications came first.

Tracy says that technology came first, as she started blogging in high school. She eventually got a job in a campaign and it was common sense that technology would make her job easier, while some saw it as strategy.

Don says technology came first and it's a tool used to gain visibility.

What might be different with technology marketing in politics?

Tracy says that politics are four or five years behind corporate America. Political campaigns aren't giving any budget to digital strategy, and when they start trying to adopt it, they're looking for talent in corporate America because political insiders don't usually get it.

You mentioned that there's not a lot of dollars going to digital marketing. Is it changing?

Peter says there's going to be growth and that it's moving in the right direction. He's working hard to convince the decision makers to flow more dollars to the Internet because there's a shift in the audience, who are spending as much time online as watching TV. Diane says that any decision maker wants to know that the advertising is effective. Corporations can decide to put a budget into it and research the ad effectiveness, but in politics, every dollar counts. Tracy says that outside of top-tier campaigns, there's no one to staff those races that know how to do that.

Who's the ultimate check signer?

Eric says it's the campaign manager. They stay very in tune with what's happening on the Internet. He says that they understand it more than the general public gives them credit for. Mindy says that there is education going on to educate the political sphere, but more is needed. Until they understand it they'll turn to what they know. Justine says that she suggested SEM to her campaign manager and he didn't understand it and wasn't willing to try, preferring to stick with traditional tactics.

What about the ability to target locations and demographics, or microtargeting?

Tracy says that being able to explain to decision makers that micro-targets can be reached is the key. People get more comfortable when it can be explained. Peter says that no matter how many times he pitches to political people, the ability to geotarget amazes the crowd. It amazes people that targeting can be done by state, region and direct ads. The challenge is to speak to them in micro-targeting terms that they understand. If we do a good job explaining that they realize there is no more effective or efficient way to target people they'll adopt the strategy. Mindy says that those that are "married to TV" see that people can target a specific audience and that's the selling point. Eric says that during the primary season he made a lot of use of geotargeting and micro-targeting.

To what extent are you tailoring ads or do you have the time?

Eric says that it's very tailored. If you search for McCain in Jersey, you'll see an ad about protecting the shore. If you see a generic campaign ad, it's on purpose. Mindy says that a lot of people that are just trying it aren't going to dedicate a lot of time to it, and they might be afraid to tweak it too much. This is where the education plays out. Peter says that it's similar to corporate markets. There are still instances where corporations are missing out on online opportunities. Presidential campaigns also don't always have the resources to dedicate.

Have you tied together the television and other media with search?

Eric says that the creative and the tactics are integrated. The messaging and the landing pages and video ads are integrated, and on the back end they are measuring to see how people are getting to the site. They know what keywords are driving what traffic and use the information. The test is seeing if it ends up in an election. Mindy says it'll be helpful to get to the point where the TV people do their comparative testing online.

In regards to BT, did any of your campaigns explore that?

Eric says that all candidates are interested in behavioral targeting. Each targeted group has a different strategy and is targeted specifically. Diane says that the most-seen targeting is geotargeting, but there's also other user targeting going on.

How does search tie into email marketing because there's a lot of email marketing going on?

Tracy says that all the pieces have to be integrated and search has to touch all the areas. As the cycle evolves, you'll see a lot more and there's some creative stuff going on in senate races where people have more freedom to try different things. Mindy says that campaigns often know how many emails they want to send, but the subject is often decided as issues come up, so it's not decided beforehand and tied together. Peter says that campaigns are also using search to "correct the record" or do rep management.

Is there going to be RSS integration on the district level?

Diane says that as far as going to the district level, when there's enough demand they may consider it. Peter says he gets this question frequently and their general response is asking what's the cost-benefit analysis and the interest, but it's going to get there.

What are your primary conversion goal metrics, besides the typical more information request?

Mindy says that campaigns have different goals. Grassroots campaigns look at interaction with elements on the site, volunteering, and, of course, donating. The goal is driving eyeballs to video landing pages and driving video views. It's purely about awareness. Peter says that in the last few weeks there's been a shift where we're seeing a lot more persuasion search advertising, not only for campaigns but also from issue groups. They're not looking for the traditional dollars but to persuade. Diane says that she's noticed that people are thinking that politicians can raise a lot of money online, but most can't. Approaching search as though it's an ATM is a mistake and she wants to make sure that campaigns are educated and the right expectations are set. There's a lot of opportunity but the immediate online donations is not something that should be their priority in search marketing.

Are there political and philosophical criteria involved in doing the jobs that you on the campaign level can do? Do you need to be a true believer?

Mindy says that the point that you should be passionate about politics is true because it can be intense. Campaigns do want to feel that you're interested in what they're doing and that's something that's hard to fake. Tracy says that as a consultant there's definitely a blue-red divide that dictate where a person will get hired.

Let's talk about SEO and social media. To blog or not to blog (for a candidate)?

Tracy says that it's hard to come up with something that's worth reading. The Obama campaign hired a blogger that put out compelling, engaging story telling. If you can do that, that's good. But if you're just putting out press release and pictures of kissing babies, it's going to get boring. Working with bloggers is important, not necessarily blogging yourself. Mindy says that content is king, so it can be a very powerful connection tool. Justine says that blogs was a great tool for listening and finding out what could be done better in the campaign. Tracy also feels the community that is developed is priceless and can be extended after the campaign.

How effective is microblogging as a tool?

Mindy says that like all tools it's all about mass, but even though Twitter is small, it's a hyper-active community. They're doing everything and those are the highly-influential hyper media users. If there's something you want to filter out to the community, Twitter is a good way to do that.

Have you ever been in a situation where there's a suggested tactic that's a negative tactic, but you thought that it wouldn't work?

Tracy says that saying no is very important. Not all ideas are equal, they should be debated and in a healthy campaign that can be decided. Now digital strategists are taken more seriously and they will be listened to when they say no. Don says that the decision has to be made at the end of the day that, even though Comedy Central is all about humor, there's still a line that they don't want to cross. He represents a brand and wouldn't want to associate the wrong things with it.

How effective is Facebook for campaigns?

Don says that the Colbert for President Facebook group was started by a high schooler, but it took off as a way to reach out. Justine said she didn't think FB was effective in her campaign. The most effective areas were informal forums, where people were coming together to talk about what they're interested in. FB is not as conducive to collaboration and community. As a badge it's great but it didn't get people as activated.

Sum up the Ron Paul money bomb?

Justine says it was a recipe. There was a unique message. YouTube allowed the message to get out and help with brand awareness. Throughout the summer supporters were taking more active role in creating things for the campaign. On forums, people were talking about what people wanted to do for the campaign. They let go of the reins and the supporters were creating ads. Then the campaign decided to go transparent with the campaign, and were talking about who the donors were. People got excited to see their name on the site when they donated. They would post screenshots to the forums and urged people to donate as well. Then the campaign decided to go fully transparent, which was unheard of. They made a goal of $4 million in a month, which resulted in a graphic that was really hard to see individual names in. The campaign was thinking of ways to fix the graphic, but people in the forums figured something out -- they all decided to donate on the same day so that they'd all show up on the graphic. In a single day they got $4.2 million.

What reputation monitoring tools do you use?

Eric says that he personally uses Google Alerts and Google Trends, while the campaign has an entire war room. There are rooms of researchers keeping up on what's being talked about. Tracy says that some of the tools that are being made available aren't producing good interfaces because they don't understanding how campaigns would actually use it. Peter says that related searches are an indicator of what else is being talked about. Diane says Yahoo Buzz is similar and shows the overlap of what terms are being searched and there's a map of what search terms are hot in what areas.

What are you monitoring?

Peter says the data's only as good as the use you put it to. The question is whether it is affecting the offline mentality of the campaign. Too often, campaigns are flying by the seat of their pants. Mindy says that early in the election cycle, rep monitoring was more of a concern, but now there's so much out there, flooding the zone is the best strategy. If you see a trend you can do search campaigns to head it off.

What does the investment in search, video, and social mean for corporate America going forward?

Tracy says campaigns are learning from social media, but Peter points out that Howard Dean may be credited with making the blog mainstream. He's excited by the attention it's getting and hoping it will trickle down to other candidates. More experimentation and different strategies being tested will be good. Diane says that an ad effectiveness study about display or search advertising in campaigns will be a powerful influencer to corporate marketers. Eric says that rapid communication and not being afraid to turn over the brand will be lessons learned. The paid side will learn to be faster and faster. Corporations can learn to do more regional and local advertising. Peter says that as one of the first Internet elections, it's been fascinating to watch in his space. It will end up coming down to who turns out to vote, but there's a good chance that the Internet will have played an important role and that will probably spur corporate adoption.

Which campaign is doing a better job with online marketing? Or is the blue-red divide just too great to answer this question?

Eric says that he's only going to answer one way, while Diane says she just may not answer the question she was asked (hee!). Don says that he's amazed at how little media companies are using political terms. Media companies have a chance to use it more effectively, say more and use online marketing more. Point goes to InDecision 2008!

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 10/ 7/08 at 11:18 AM | Comments (1)
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