Branding

For months I hear nothing about Ask, from Ask, or regarding Ask. No one reached out. No one made an effort to talk to Ask's loyal brand evangelists who had stuck by Ask through stupid marketing decision after stupid marketing decision. And then when Ask does make its return to the blogosphere, I'm being told that my report was bullshit. Where was the support?

Jim tried to explain was that the reason he hasn't reached out bloggers and brand evangelists sooner was because he was waiting until he had something to say. In March, he was still new and didn't feel like he has much to add to the conversation.

I didn't agree. In March, I needed Jim to step up and explain that the "rumors" were false.
If Jim would have spoken up maybe the conversation regarding Ask.com would be different. Maybe I would have allowed myself to believe him that they were still a true search engine. But he didn't, and as a result, the love and faith that I had in Ask.com left. What if by going silent for all those months you had officially alienated everyone who believed in you? What if it was too late now? What if people had moved on and didn't care?

Jim said that they would be reaching out now and trying to get their fans back.

He had to know I wasn't buying it. I was practically yelling out of frustration. Susan was Skypeing me and cheering me on to not let him off the hook. Robert Esparza, our VP of Operations, came in the room to make sure that I was okay and probably to find out from Susan who in the world I was speaking to like that.

I didn't mean Jim any disrespect, and I think he and Nick both know that the reason I was getting worked up was because of how passionate I was about the brand. The fact is, I don't believe them that Ask is trying to improve its status as a general search engine. They're not focused on core search. They're focused on buying their way into verticals. And that's not good enough.

Just because you're not asking users to pose queries in the form of a question doesn't mean you haven't become a question/answer based search engine. By focusing your energy on research and health and all the Smart Answers instead of improving the algorithm, you're branding yourself as the place to go for clear cut answers. It's not about searching for information. It's about looking things up. That's not search. That's not competing. That's getting away from being a core search engine.

How did the call end?

With Nicholas Graham serenading me with Waiting For a Girl Like You and then Jim purchasing the song for me on iTunes. I'm serious.

Is Ask.com serious about search? I don't know. But at least for now it seems they're serious about reaching out to bloggers. I guess that's a start. I haven't come around and forgiven Ask, but I'll continue to watch what they're doing and where they're going. With any luck, I'll be able to break out my once beloved-Ask.com messenger back once again. Until then, I'm still a broken-hearted former Ask.com evangelist.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/26/08 at 11:57 AM | Comments (1)

June 23, 2008

SEO Weekend Update

Should Google Adopt an Ombudsman?

Barry Welford left a comment on Michael Gray's Google Website Trends wrist slapping that asked if Google would benefit from hiring an ombudsman, or more likely a team of them. It's a novel concept, but I don't think it's particularly realistic.

Barry thinks hiring an ombudsman and bringing in a third-party would allow Google to "ensure equity". I can see his line of thinking here, but what does that even mean? You're going to have a really hard time nailing down what "fairness" and "equality" means on the Internetz and what rights users have vs. the right of Google to run its search engine however the heck it pleases. Is it fair that Google is telling the world what keywords you target, what your traffic is, and who's related to you? Is it fair that Google has established guidelines that you have to adhere to if you want to appear in their index? Is it fair that Google can remove your site from its index for any time and for any reason? Is it fair that Susan's Web site ranks higher than mine even though I'm clearly superior? Probably not, but Google is a business and it has a right to do what's best for its search engine.

Regardless of my displeasure with Google's decision to share your site information for kicks, I don't think Google is out to hurt its users or webmasters. I think they do a pretty good job most of the time of keeping their users in mind and doing what's best for the average Web searcher. Unfortunately for you and me, we're not the average Web surfer, which means we often feel wronged when Google does something to change how sites rank. In my opinion, as much as I love the geek journalism term, hiring an ombudsman would be a bad idea. Giving search marketers a person to complain to won't make them feel more heard or listened to. It's just going to raise their stress levels when they spend the entirety of their day ranting and complaining to that one person. [And slowly remove the will to live from that person. --Susan]

Are Video Conversations Next?

Kim Krause-Berg says that social media as we know it today is on its way out. People crave human contact and what we have today takes that away from us. We're missing the feeling of being with people, being able to look someone in the eye, and form a real connection with them. Kim harks to a new social media system where people can form satisfying connections. Is that why video conversation site Seesmic just earned another $6 million in funding? Is Seemic that environment or can we only develop "real" relationships in person?

I don't know. I don't even understand the appeal of Seesmic. I'm not interested in video blog comments and the idea of meeting strangers and then having conversations with them seems unappealing, if not downright terrifying. And as much as I like the social connections that I've formed on Facebook and Twitter, I realize that part (okay, a big part) of the reason why I love conferences is because I get to hug my friends and gossip with them and be silly with them in person. Maybe a system like Seesmic will be able to help bridge those two relationships.

What do you think the next level of social media is? Is it video conversation among different social groups? Would that help people like Kim get the interaction they've been missing? How do you want to interact with people online?

Question: When's The Best Day To Send An Email?

Answer: There isn't one.

Jeanniey Mullen explains that there is no longer a "best" day to send an email. In case you thought you still had control over your customers' actions, you don't. You can't simply send an email and expect your customers to act. Things must now be done on their terms, which means knowing when they're thinking about your product, what they want from you, and being aware of what they're using to read your emails. This is where checking site logs and looking at Web analytics information is super important because it gives you a clear snap shot of your core audience. If you don't know who your customer is and what they want, you don't even have a chance of getting their attention.

Fun Finds

Marty Weintraub (whose last name I can't spell regardless of how many times I try) offers up 24 different industry recruitment channels. Yowsa. Who knew there were so many SEO job boards? [We should be posting to each and every one of them. --Susan]

The Google Operating System blog gives me the heads up about how I can play my favorite YouTube video on loop by adding a simple parameter. Sweet!

Microsoft says if Yahoo fires Jerry Yang they may bid again. Yikes.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/23/08 at 4:31 PM | Comments (1)

June 18, 2008

Can YouTube Save Itself With Long Video Play?

A report from the Silicon Alley Insider says that YouTube will shift its strategy as it tries to end its monetization woes with long-form video. YouTube is currently running a test with content partners to abolish the 10 minute video maximum and replace it with a maximum file size of 1GB, which equals nearly an entire full-length movie. Well, good luck with that, YouTube.

The reasoning why YouTube is heading to long-form video makes sense from a business perspective. You can only place so many ads in a 30 second video. Creating longer videos means more room for ads. But this is YouTube. By trying to make long-form video the standard on your Web site, you're changing the core of your site. If YouTube now goes the long-form route, they virtually become a brand new site and risk alienating their entire audience. YouTube's about short videos. It's about sleeping cats, skateboarding injuries and the quick stuff. Trying to change that won't be easy.

There's talk that YouTube will try and partner with indie and small-time filmmakers to get them to upload their video to the site and use YouTube as a distribution channel. It's a noble goal but I question their ability to pull it off. First, indie filmmakers are usually pretty concerned about video quality, aren't they? Are they going to spend time mastering a film and then upload it to YouTube? I'd be surprised if they did. Even if they did, how much money will be in independent films? If Google wants to do long-form video they're going to have to start paying for content. The major networks and film studios, the kind of long video viewers would actually watch, aren't going to go for a revenue deal. They're going to want to be paid.

And second, you can't just change your spots because you're trying to figure out how to monetize your Web site. No one goes to YouTube for a 2 hour video. That's not their audience. You can't suddenly be something you're not simply because it may make you more money.

Or maybe they can?

YouTube includes video analytics now, right? It'd be interesting to take a look at some of their 10 minute videos and see what the viewership is. Are people watching? Have they accepted it?

I'd be pretty cautious if I were YouTube not to ruin everything that your audience loves about you. There are a host of video upload sites on the Web and they all serve different niches. YouTube is about short term video. Hulu is about finding television shows and other professionally licensed content. Seesmic is about participating in a video conversation. The reason these sites are successful is because they do one thing really well and stick to it. It'll be interesting to see if YouTube is successful at changing its spots and re-training its audience. People are starting to accept longer videos, so they have a shot. It's just not one I'd bet on.

NewTeeVee says that YouTube is slated to make a big announcement tonight at 6 pm PT in Los Angeles, so maybe we'll get some insight in what they're planning to do.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/18/08 at 3:43 PM | Comments (2)

June 17, 2008

Improve Your Company & Brand Through Listening

Over on the Web Digest For Marketers blog, Larry Chase has a great post about the importance of listening. It's a brief 200ish words, but I'd really ask you all to read it. It's worth it, both to your company, your brand, and really, yourself.

As people, we're not always the best listeners. We hear what we want to, assume we know where the story's going, or think we can't learn from whoever is speaking because we're obviously smarter than they are. It's a shame because that mentality usually means you're going to miss out on a lot of great stuff. It's also detrimental to your company when you assume that your customers or competitors can't help you and to your brand when you assume your way is the right way and no one can prove to you otherwise.

How can listening help your company grow?

Find Content Holes & New Ideas: Your customers are pretty smart. They're on your side and invested in the success of your company. They want you to succeed simply because each time you do it you make them look smarter for trusting in you. So when they offer up a piece of advice, ask a question, enter in a complaint, type something funky into your search box don't just dismiss it. Listen to them and acknowledge their input. If they're asking questions, maybe you need some additional content to address it. If they're talking about a specific line of products you don't offer, maybe it's time to expand your Web site with a new silo. Often the best link bait ideas come from listening to your audience and then giving them exactly what they want in the form of a new application for your site, a resource guide to answer their questions, etc. Listen to your customers. They are your business.

Creates a Better Conversation: The more you listen, the more valuable the conversations you have with others will be. Those who express opinions without listening to everyone else fight and learn nothing. Those who do listen debate and get to see things from an entirely different perspective. Which side would you rather be on?

Increase Your Industry Knowledge: When in you're in a room full of colleagues, shut up. Don't dominate the conversation in an attempt to show everyone how smart you are and sing your own praises. Just shut up and listen. A lot of people are surprised that the Lisa they meet in person is a lot quieter and seemingly more reserved than the Lisa that plays with you on the blog. While I assure you that I'm the same person, the truth is that I often get more out of listening than talking. When I listen, I learn. I pick up on the tidbits and nuggets of knowledge being released better. It helps me take what I'm hearing, add it to what I already know and come away with a stronger grasp on concepts.

Earns You Friends: As cool as you think you are, your company's not an island. In order to grow and increase your own brand, you're going to have to lean on others at some point. Listening is a really great way to make friends and show that you're invested in the community at large. It's also a great way to brand your company as one that cares. Those who don't listen are quickly outed as only caring about their own agenda. That's not the image you want to portray, and it's definitely not the kind of company you want to become.

Gain A Competitive Edge: When you stop talking about yourself, you get to hear about everyone else. By turning your ear to the conversation, you may pick up on some juicy information like what your competition is working on, who's getting cozy with whom, whose product just flopped, which new applications are all the rage, what your customers are talking about, etc. The more you know, the better equipped you are to make informed decisions and propel your company and personal brand forward.

Listening is like driving. We all think we've mastered the skill when usually we're one second away from slamming into the car in front of us and causing a massive pileup. Do yourself a favor. Stop talking and start listening. You never know what you may hear.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/17/08 at 3:38 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2008

The AP Hates The Blogosphere. We Hate Them Back

Over the past few weeks I've come to find that my patience for stupidity is at its lowest in the morning. Combined with the fact that it's Monday, the most sleepy and irritating day of the week, you can imagine my reaction when I opened up my feeds and heard that the AP was going to set guidelines for how bloggers can link to and reference their articles. Oh sweet Jesus. Are you kidding me?

I decided to write them a note:

Dear A.P.,
Get over yourself.
Hugs and Kisses,
The World (minus all the Belgians, of course.)

The A.P.'s display of moral superiority comes after they sent the Drudge Retort (a Drudge Report parody site) a letter demanding that they remove several posts that contained short quotes from various A.P. articles. According to the New York Times, each quote contained between 39-79 words. Not exactly gregarious and definitely falling within fair use. [Even setting aside the protected status of parody --Susan] The blogosphere did not react kindly. Michael Arrington and TechDirt have both decided to ban the A.P., or at least seek out alternative publications to link to when possible. Other grassroots anti-A.P. movements are also in the works.

The A.P. tried to clean up the mess it had created with a comment over at TechDirt that did nothing but offend even more and raise some eyebrows. The comment left by Jim Kennedy makes reference to the "licensing agreements" that many bloggers have with the AP to display their stories in full.

Is that what this is about? The A.P. wants bloggers to have to pay to include a snippet of their text? Good luck getting people to agree to that. The record companies can barely get people to pay for music. You want them to pay for a paragraph? Hee!

Blogger Jeff Jarvis called out the A.P. for leaching off original reporting and not crediting original sources. He was so insulted by the A.P.'s stance that he's launched the FU AP campaign asking bloggers to stop linking to the A.P. until they apologize to the Drudge Retort's founder Rogers Cadenhead.

As frustrating and time warping as this whole scenario is, it's actually kind of humorous for a few reasons.

First, when are people going to realize that bloggers send you traffic? The more often a blogger takes a small quote from your article and links over to you, the more people who are going to follow that link and discover your content. Instead of looking at TechMeme and bloggers as competitors, look to them as partners helping you to push your content. They're not going away. You may as well find a way to work with them.

Second, bloggers don't need your guidelines. We don't care how you want us to link to you or reference you or talk about you. We have our own guidelines. We're not going to acknowledge yours. Perhaps we would have helped if you were smart enough to engage and ask for our input, but you didn't. You assumed you knew better. Now you fail.

When will mainstream media and large corporations realize that angering the blogosphere is not in their best interest? We may seem small and fragmented, but we're not. When you go after one of us, you suffer the wrath of the entire army.

This was a huge fail by the A.P. Forget just looking silly and like they've never heard of the Internet, the A.P. is doing a stellar job of coming off like a bully here, overstepping their bounds, rights and trying to get bloggers to adapt to a set of "rules" and "standards" that the A.P. has yet to create. Sorry, A.P., but we're not interested. We're so not interested that we'll not only boycott linking to you, we're working on removing all your precious TechMeme links.

Consider yourself unlinked from the blogosphere.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/16/08 at 12:40 PM | Comments (2)

June 10, 2008

SEO Headlines

Serving Up YouTube As Punishment

How's this for a poetic justice, a Florida judge has decided that two boys charged with battery and criminal mischief for recording a "prank" and uploading to YouTube must create yet another YouTube video. This time around the video will be them apologizing for their actions. Nothing like some public humiliation to make people change their evil ways. Maybe I should make Susan create an apology video for all the bad things she's done to me? I'll ask Bruce. [You'd have to make one first for all the times you're mean to me. --Susan] I'm never mean. I'm like the darling of SEO.

The video that depicts the two boys performing "the fire in the hole", also known as throwing a cup of soda through a fast food drive-thru window and then speeding off, is still up on YouTube (I'm not linking to it. Find it yourself). The victim of the stupid prank found the video and then used MySpace to friend the boys and figure out their identities.

It's all quite genius and Web 2.0 savvy, really. And I won't even lie; I'm kind of a fan of this punishment. Not only will it show kids that stupid pranks have consequences but if the judge makes the kids tag the video with their name, think all the fun reputation management they're going to have to do in the future! Goodbye, ivy league college. Hello working at the same fast food place that helped derail your adult life.

Does It Matter Why You Blog?

Bob Massa asks what's the point of blogging and whether the reasons that make you do it actually matter? Bob says that they don't as long as you're sharing worthwhile information. I see his point but I'm a bit skeptical. Though I've already been mocked for my wide-eyed belief in the SEO Tooth Fairy, I'm going to bring out the puritan thoughts again and say, yes, it does matter.

I think intent always matters. I don't care if you're talking about blogging or search engine optimization or training for a marathon. The secret reasons you hold for doing something will always affect the outcome. If you're blogging to make a name for yourself and fame chase than that's going to affect what you write, how you write it, what angle you tackle, etc. And it's going to be 100 percent evident. You may still be creating "quality" information based on your audience, but you could be chasing the wrong audience.

I think there's a reason that the most popular blogs on search engine optimization are the ones that don't necessarily blog for fame or position but to share information. Intent matters. That's kind of how I look at the BC blog. We blog for knowledge transfer, not fame. Bruce has already created a name for himself and his company in this industry. No amount of my trivial blogging is going to compete with the success that he's already helped our clients find. So when we blog, we do it to share advice on search engine optimization, to comment on the industry that we're involved in, and to offer our two cents when we see something that should be fixed. It help makes the blog real and authentic and genuine. Those are the blogs I like to read. And it's your intent that's going to set your blog tone and style.

Fun Finds

Our friend Adam Audette issued the Six Principles of Ethical SEO.

Over on YOUmoz, Bhawk988 helps restore everyone's faith in humanity. If only for a day.

Google Blogoscope reveals that Google will now let you skip the intro for all those annoying sites that make you sit through a one minute Flash movie before they let you actually enter. [Google FTW. --Susan]

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/10/08 at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

Avoiding Product Fail

Yesterday Chris Winfield joked that "fail" was probably the most used word on Twitter and wondered what that said about Twitter in general. I think it says that Twitter is teh suck. However, I also think it means that we've finally come to realize how powerful we are as users/consumers/evangelists. We know that our voice counts and we're not afraid to use it.

Over the past week the blatant fails of Twitter and Amazon have left search marketers with some valuable insights about how to avoid their own fails. Let's recap some of what we've learned, eh?

• Avoid Failure By Expecting Success: Even from the earliest stages, you need to plan your product or site around the premise that it's going to be the most successful thing you've ever created, that anyone's ever created! You have to know in your heart that you've done the research, that the audience is there, and that you're about to unleash the most holy of Web applications. If you go in unsure or half invested, your product is going to fail. The founders of Twitter have repeatedly said that the reason Twitter is down 27 hours of every day is because it was never supposed to be successful. It was never supposed to take off.

  Conceptualization Fail.

• Know What You're Creating: Reason #108 why Twitter is always down is because it's designed wrong. Twitter was designed to be an SMS status updater. As a result, it's built off a content management system, not a messaging system. No wonder we're always left watching a flock of birds trying to lift a whale ten times its size. If I had to try and manipulate my content management system into a message system, I'd resort to trying to lift and make friends with large mammals too.

  Make sure you have a clear purpose for what you're designing. What do you want to build? What other uses could it possible have? Users are known for taking your products and doing what they will with them. Anticipate all the ways your product could evolve and account for that. Otherwise, start creating those quirky error pages now. You'll need something to entertain your audience with while they start researching your replacement.

• Always Keep It Up: On Friday, Amazon.com went down in the U.S. Search marketers joked that it was a result of the conditional 301 redirects that were talked about during SMX Advanced last week, but it really wasn't funny. Having your site crash is not an amusing experience. It's how companies go out of business, even big ones. CNET reported that for every minute Amazon.com remained down in North America, they lost $16,000. Had it been a global outage, that number would have skyrocketed to $31,000. And that doesn't even include the money they'd miss out on from users going to competitors or the branding they've suffered. Methinks Amazon's not laughing.

  Forget search engine optimization and building links and writing content. If your site crashes unexpectedly, none of that will help you. Make sure you've taken the steps needed to keep your site up at all times.

• Know When NOT to Launch: Okay. I don't care how sweet your new product or Web site is. There are certain days when you just don't launch. For example, yesterday was the big Steve Jobs Keynote where he announced the release date for the brand new iPhone. If you're Samsung, why in the world would you decide to announce the new cell phone that you're releasing just hours before? You have to know that there isn't a single person out there listening to you. No one cares about your phone. You're sitting over there on the far left street corner while everyone else is attending the Apple parade happening on the right. Save your announcement for another day.

  Your product is going to live and die by its initial momentum. Releasing it on a day when your entire industry is busying celebrating your competition is probably not a good idea. Give it 24 hours, retard.

• Listen to Feedback: No matter how many precautions you take, you're still going to face some degree of product fail. When that happens, be quick to respond. Create a blog to alert people of your outages, explain why your child-friendly product blew up in their hand and scarred them for life, and just open up a friendly door of communication. Just think, when the feedback starts rolling in, you'll be able to create your very own feedback fail blog!

Posted by Lisa Barone on 06/10/08 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

June 3, 2008

Creating Value In Your SEM Business

It's time for our first session in the brand-new Business Track. Moderating this next one is Chris Elwell, President of Third Door Media, Inc. Sean McMahon, President, EngineWorks; Matt Naeger, Executive Vice President, Operations, Impaqt; and our very own Bruce Clay, Bruce Clay, Inc. are speaking.

Before officially beginning, Bruce takes a straw poll of the audience. He wants to know who owns their own business, who's been around for more than three years, who's got more than 10 employees. It's all the same six or so people. Then he asks who's making more than $2 million revenue a year. It drops to like 2. I guess he wants to know who he's speaking to.

Sean McMahon kicks off the presentations. He says that he hopes to give the audience value by seeing what he's done to be successful.

What is value? "Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep." -Ayn Rand. He says this means value requires actions. He'll be giving us insight on the actions he took to build value in his companies.

At his former SEM company, TrafficLeader, the challenge was getting clients' indexed. They decided to go to the search engines and pitch the creation of paid inclusion listings. They met with Inktomi, who was obviously skeptical. Sean proposed to them that paid inclusion could monetize their business. TrafficLeader became the first paid inclusion partner with a search engine, and they followed through with a number of other search engines. By building value for the search engine, they brought value back to their client.

Several years ago, Sean patented a product he invented. It was a water bottle with an attachment for fitness machines. He first went to fitness centers and told them that they could give out the bottles to new customers, and could say, "By the way, the bottles only fit in our machines." This would keep customers coming back to their gym. This was valuable to the fitness businesses.

A client of his current SEM company, Lisa Kline, came to him for search marketing services. They found that the original keyword focus was a little off. Instead of Hollywood fashion, it should have been celebrity fashion. With this change there was a 59 percent increase in search revenue through a 12-month organic campaign. This new model of marketing is now driving all channels of Lisa Kline's marketing mix.

Focus everyday on building value in your client engagements and the value in the marketplace will take care of itself. You can't make someone buy you, but you can position yourself as highly valuable so that someone will want to buy you.

Bruce Clay is up next. Go Bruce! Bruce is going to use the history of BCI to help illustrate the valuation timeline. He started in '96 as a one man show. At 5 people, he had people do things for you. At 10, he had to delegate. At 20, he was able to specialize. At 50, an employer is federally regulated. Over the last five years there has been 40 to 70 percent growth in revenue.

The high-value assets are staff, tools, and training. The philosophy of the company is knowledge transfer. Clients are required to undergo training because an educated client won't fight recommendations and the project goes faster and smoother. The result of high-quality service is consistent growth, a solid reputation, and clients come to us.

If you're looking to set a value for your company, consider what analysts walk in and ask for:

• Client list and a phone number
• Procedure documentation
• Accounting Info (audited 3 years)
• Employee audit with HR interviews, especially top executives and key rmployees
• Business plan
• Sarbanes-Oxley
• Retention / renewal / satisfaction is key

Valuation is commonly 4.3 x Revenue or 11.3 times EBITDA
The value to Bruce: Priceless (awww!)

As the final speaker, Matt Naeger says he's going to follow the earlier speakers by answering the question "What does it all mean?" and by highlighting some of the mistakes he made along the way to building value.

Ask yourself:

• Who do you want to be as an agency? Enterprise, SMB or boutique?
• What are you comfortable managing? Only take on clients that fit the size of your company. Keep your reputation in mind. If you take on the big client that walks in the door, your inability to service them could ruin your agency.
• Don't be afraid to share your knowledge, both with clients and the industry. Post on blogs. Write articles that give real opinions. Tell your clients what you know, even if it isn't related to the project. A whole new line of services could come out of your communication.

In 1999, when Impaqt first began, the client target was anyone that willing to talk about search. The business grew by educating clients in the sales process, not by saying we're the right company for you. As the industry grew, they built their brand through industry events and networking with analysts. He echoes the fact that the people in the company are one of the greatest assets and they have a 90 percent employee retention rate. Along the way, the major challenges were growth for growth's sake and too many clients in too little time. The challenges were the worst and the best thing to happen for the company.

Q&A
You all mentioned the value of employees. How do you keep staff?

Bruce says that early on in the company, they sometimes discovered newly hired SEOs were spammers. Instead, they started bringing in young people, recently out of school, and put them in mentoring environments. What was created was a community of friends that support each other. It also helps that they don't have a vertical, so a variety of projects keeps things interesting.

Sean says that employee skill set is the number one advantage when getting a new company off the ground. Salary isn't going to be the key enticement. Instead, they carved out ownership for employee stock incentives.

Bruce, can you shed some light on the methodology of valuation?

He's seen consistent numbers, like 11.3, in newsletters and articles. He's seen the number go as high as 20. It's going to matter if it's been consistent and how long it's been going on, as well as other factors, but that's the average.

When your name is on the door, how do you address the issue to a potential buyer that you are the star?

Bruce says he's been trying hard to make it less of a one-star organization. Through delegation, he says that the company will be ready to be acquired if he can be out of the office for two weeks every month and still see things running smoothly.

What percent of your time do you spend thinking about valuation in the company?

Bruce says that he does not spend a lot of time thinking about that. Matt's in the same place, saying that he's not looking to get out of the business and so doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about valuation. Instead, it's determining whether they can afford to continue being the company they want to be. He says he thinks about value rather than valuation. And Sean agrees, saying that he spends 90 percent of his time thinking about the value of the company.

Is the demand for SEM reaching a plateau?

All the speakers agree that at least 60 to 70 percent of the potential clients haven't thought about SEM or aren't doing it right. Upcoming growth may be seen in local and mobile.

Posted by Virginia Nussey on 06/ 3/08 at 3:28 PM | Comments (1)

May 28, 2008

SEO Headlines

The Belgians Are Back Bothering Google!

I received quite a treat this morning when I was listening to the DailySearchCast and heard Danny mention that those funny Belgians are back in the spotlight and causing trouble for Google. You may remember that I've been rather vocal about how stupid I find this whole situation to be. If you don't remember, here's the breakdown: A group of Belgian newspapers sued Google for copyright infringement because they (the Belgians) were too lazy to use a robots.txt file, which landed their articles in Google News. They didn't seem to like that. In some crazy universe where fair use does not exist, the Belgians actually won their lawsuit and Google had to place a ridiculous note on their home page and remove the content. And now the Belgians are back!

Since we last heard from them, Google appealed the judgment and tried to negotiate with the Belgian newspapers outside of court. Sadly, the negotiations weren't going as quickly as the newspapers would have liked and Google began referencing the papers again. Now the Belgian newspapers are asking the courts to award them $77 million in damages. Seventy-seven million dollars!

I'm sorry, but I'm still inclined to file this away as the Most Ridiculous Lawsuit Ever. I know we have commenters who like to come and correct me each time I mention the Belgians and their idiocy, but I haven't been swayed. And this new twist to the story just adds to its lunacy. As Danny joked on the SearchCast this morning, I doubt that the Belgian newspapers have made a combined $77 million since Google News was born, so that seems a bit hard to claim that Google has cost them that much. We'll see what happens. All I know is that Google vs. The Crazy Belgians are what good blog entries are made of.

CW: Watch This Show Online, That One Offline

In stupid company news, after taking Gossip Girl offline due to too many viewers, the CW is now looking to create "cwingers". What in God's name is a cwinger? It's an ad-supported video clip that lives half online/half offline. Basically, viewers will get to see a short video inside their favorite CW show, and then they'll have to go online to get the next installment before the conclusion airs on TV. [...huh? --Susan] It's three parts. The first airs on television, the second airs on the Internet and the third airs on television. See how confusing?

Um, hi, as a loyal CW television, you're completely confusing me. What do you want me to do? How do you want me to consume your programming?

The CW is sending a mixed message with the way they're handling online video. You either embrace it or you don't. I don't think you can pull your flagship show offline one week, and then decide to create a whole new "cwinger" format the next. Maybe I'm wrong. The CW has been pretty nonconventional with the way they've done programming in the past, so it may just work.

Horrible name aside (Cwingers? Is this a child porn ring?), I think the CW is going to confuse viewers. You're telling them not to watch X online but to remember to tune into Y and Z so they can see how the story unfolds? Pick a brand message and stick with it.

Yahoo Will Soon Announce A Deal With...Someone

BusinessWeek says that amidst pressure from shareholders, Yahoo will work out a deal with Microsoft...or Google. Yup, the deal is so close that Yahoo doesn't even know who it will be with yet. Either way, BusinessWeek says that "something" will definitely happen soon. Right. Like my head will explode from all the baseless speculation.

Oh, the stupidity headache.

Fun Finds

Andy Beal gives us all a reminder that SEM Scholarship entries will start appearing Marketing Pilgrim today, so make sure you keep your eyes open for the next big SEO/SEM superstar.

Wired's founding editor Louis Rossetto writes a letter to his sons and recalls the dawn of the digital revolution.

Do WiFi allergies exist? [No. --Susan]

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/28/08 at 2:04 PM | Comments (1)

May 22, 2008

Seeking Out Failure

Tamar Weinberg pointed me to a great article from PC World that takes a look at the Top 10 Google flubs, flops and failures, referencing products and ventures like Google X, Google Catalog, Google Web Accelerator and Google Coupons, among others. Basically, it's a collection of some of the best Google failures that you don't remember because you're too busy thinking how awesome and innovative Google is.

The article is a good kick in the pants for stagnate companies too paralyzed by fear to act. Google didn't get to where it is by not innovating, not trying new things, not experimenting, so why are you? Why are you letting your fear of failure stop you from going from "just okay" to "absolutely mind-numbingly amazing"? I think it's time you stop.

I'm not trying to get you to ignite your company in a blaze of fail or hold on to ideas that you'd be better off forgetting, but don't be afraid of these things either. Often companies are so afraid of bad press or losing customers that they allow themselves to continue along the same path into mediocrity. You don't have to run your business that way.

How many times have you NOT been allowed to do something because your boss was afraid of how it would look? You can't run that ad because it's too alarming. You can't write that blog post because no one else would say that. You can't launch that new program because it may backfire. Forget it.

Customers will forgive failure if you show them you're out there innovating, trying new things, and attempting to make yourself even better and more useful than before. It's certainly worked for Google. Look at the products they've thrown out just to see if they'd stick. Plenty of them have failed, but we don't talk about those. We talk about how great their Web search is, how strong their advertising platform is, etc. Why? Because that's the branding they've created. Google is the company that will throw out ten products and only have two of them stick. But the two that stick, will change the landscape forever. That's what you want to be - revolutionary.

Take the Google mindset and run with it.

Are you working to integrate video into your site? Ask yourself WWGD? Don't immediately jump to short 60 second videos just because that's been set as the standard. People gave Shel Israel a hard time when he began creating long video. And yes, that video failed, but it wasn't because of the length, it was because the content and the delivery. Shel failed. But he'll learn from that failure and create stronger videos in the future. [Failure's good so long as you don't let it stop you. All you've got to do is let go of the past and keep moving forward. --Susan] I like you so much more now that you've posted that clip.

Have a great idea for a product that you've been keeping under lock and key because you're not sure how people will react? Launch it! Give it just enough time to sink or swim, and if it sinks, take it away. And when you launch it, stand behind it. Companies are really good at throwing things out there and backing down if the audience shows some opposition. Don't. Take a stand.

Never let the fear of failure stop you from doing something you would have done otherwise. It's okay to fail, as long as you do it all the way and in a spectacular fashion. Stop whining and be daring, with everything.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/22/08 at 5:27 PM | Comments (2)

Google Is Not the Government, Nor My Mother

The sensational outrage over Lyndon Antcliff's fake news story has officially reached a level that can now only be described as Utterly Ridiculous. Sparked by a comment by Matt Cutts over at Sphinn, Search Engine Land and others are now speculating that Google may or may not begin penalizing fake news stories that don't contain any type of disclosure. Oh, goodness.

If you haven't been following the story, here are the important nuggets: Lyndon Antcliff posted a fake news story on his client Money.co.uk's Web site without labeling it as such. The satirical story was then picked up by several mainstream news channels, including Fox News, and received a serious amount of links and about a gazillion diggs. Proud of his accomplishment, Lyndon blogged about what had happened and his success (the post has since been removed).

Cue all hell breaking loose as search marketers come out from corners everywhere throwing rocks at Lyndon for manipulating the Internetz.

I'm going to openly state that I don't agree with link bait at any cost. I don't think that creating a fake news story in an attempt to get links is a smart business decision. I'm not going to get into the ethics of whether it's right or wrong, because really, my opinion on that doesn't matter to anyone but myself. I just don't consider it an effective strategy in that I'd be really fearful of breaking the trust of your audience.

Even so, the idea that Google would suddenly start penalizing those who did is borderline ludicrous. It's not Google's job to be your mother and slap you on the wrist for telling a long tale, and any attempt at doing so would be completely unscalable and mind numbing. Google already has one unscalable nightmare with the paid links debacle. Do they really want to get into the battle of protecting the integrity of the Internet by only ranking "truthful" articles? What the heck is truth on the Internet anyway? Where do you draw that line? A search for [2008 president campaign] would bring up zero results.

Sure, it's Google's index and they have a right to take action against things that are "deceptive", I just question whether or not the line should be drawn this close. I've seen link bait far more "deceptive" than what Lyndon offered up. And is something deceptive just because some people don't pick up on the joke? Maybe we should ban April Fools day or other satirical news sites? Personally, I read Lyndon's story when he Twittered it and giggled. I didn't take the story as fact, but I can see how others may have had they only skimmed it. It's certainly not Lyndon's fault that Fox didn't take the time to validate any of the sources or make an attempt to prove its truthfulness. Just like it's not anyone else's fault when someone reads a fake news story on April Fools Day and then blogs about it later as truth. You should have done your homework.

As someone with a journalism degree, I'm all for journalistic integrity and truth in reporting, but it's not Google's right/job/function to be that guide. If people want to "trick" users, then they'll suffer the consequences on their own. When Google starts getting involved in determining what's fact and what's not, you're just opening the door to a whole new world of problems. People twist the truth online every day. I'd argue that it's what the Internet is based on -- opinion, wild speculation, and gut instincts with no facts to base them on. When Google stops being objective and starts entering that grey area of judge and jury, that's when people start getting nervous and paranoid. Just say no. [I'm going to devil's advocate and say that there is absolutely a place for Google to determine that completely made up stories do not belong in their News results. They're not Digg; lies do not become them.--Susan] Okay. I nominate you to read through Google News as it updates and pick out the fact from the fiction! Enjoy your slope.

Google, you worry about spam. Let the people worry about morality and their eternal souls.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/22/08 at 12:39 PM | Comments (13)

May 21, 2008

SEO Headlines

Google Talks Generically About Search Quality

Search marketers were treated to an Introduction to Google Search Quality by Udi Manber on the Official Google Blog yesterday afternoon that offered a glimpse into the Google's search technology. The post is both long and meaty so I'm going to follow the pack and simply pick out some of my favorite snippets. Here's what I think you should be aware of from Udi's post:

• The reason ranking is hard is because languages are inherently ambiguous, and documents do not follow any set of rules. There are really no standards for how to convey information, so we need to be able to understand all web pages, written by anyone, for any reason.
• Google's ranking algorithm includes different models including:
• • Language models: The ability to handle phrases, synonyms, diacritics, spelling mistakes, and so on.
  • Query models: It's not just the language, it's how people use it today.
  • Time models: Some queries are best answered with a 30-minutes old page, and some are better answered with a page that stood the test of time.
  • Personalized models: Not all people want the same thing.
• Significant changes were made to the PageRank algorithm in January.
• Google is making automated evaluations to its search technology every minute.
• In 2007, Google released "450 new improvements, about 9 per week on the average," to the algorithm alone.

Lots of good nuggets there. Google says they're going to work harder to be transparent, but we'll have to wait and see. I can't see them giving away much more information than what is in this post. In other words, I'm on Team Joe Duck.

Zappos Pays Passionless Employees To Quit

Zappos sure is establishing itself as the company whose success you most want to emulate. Bill Taylor from Harvard Business Publishing decided to spend some time with the company to see if he they had any valuable insight to pass on. And it seems they did. One of the most interesting things Bill learned from his time at Zappos is this:

"[Zappos] provides a four-week training period that immerses [new hires] in the company's strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid their full salary during this period.
After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it's time for what Zappos calls "The Offer." The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: "If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you've worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus." Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!"

Why do they do that? Because if you're the kind of person who would take the money, you're not the kind Zappos wants on their team anyway. Where's the commitment and passion for the job? It's a pretty wise business model. Just think of all the money they're saving by getting rid of the dead weight right from the beginning. Maybe this week you should go around your offices offering your employees a check and see if they're willing to jump. :) Heh. Interesting stuff indeed.

Fun Finds

Jane Copland jumps in on the Lyndoman link bait controversy and almost sways my vote, but fails. :) To be honest, I'm not sure where I stand on the ethics of link bait. As Jane says, people have been lying on the Internet for years, but then again, do we really want to be those people? I don't think so. I vote for setting a higher standard.

VKI Studios posted a great interview with Todd Malicoat on the topic of link bait.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/21/08 at 3:41 PM | Comments (1)

Live Search Cashback: It's Smart, But It Will Fail

Everyone's cringing at the recent announcement that Microsoft will start paying searchers in an attempt to lure them over to their engine and get them out of the clutches of Google. It's pretty much the saddest story you'll hear all day NOT about abandoned or one-armed babies.

I don't have the heart to describe the program myself, so let's hear how Microsoft describes its new Live Search Cashback program:

"You will be able to earn cashback savings based on a percentage of the product price. Your savings will be paid to you via your choice of a deposit to your PayPal account, direct deposit to your bank account, or a check in the mail. It's that simple!"

That simple and that sad. Why is Microsoft offering pay its users? Let's again consult Microsoft:

"We want to earn your loyalty and reward it with cashback savings for your everyday online shopping. We are "The Search That Pays You Back"! "

Isn't your heart breaking just a little bit for them?

The thing is, in theory, it's not even a bad idea. Encourage people to make purchases by searching through your engine and then give them a bit of a cash break (anywhere between 2 percent to more than 30 percent) when they buy from participating retailers. It's a cost per acquisition model designed to get more people searching on Live and to hit Google where it hurts by stealing away valuable advertising dollars. It also gets more eyeballs to adCenter, which is an idea I like very much.

In theory, I get it. However, in practice there's not a single person alive who doesn't know it will totally fail. Why? Because if your search engine isn't up to par, not even "cold hard cash" will get people to use it. Searchers don't reward mediocrity, especially when they're already searching with an engine that doesn't suck.

A note to Microsoft, Yahoo and whoever else is out there reading this: If you're going to beat Google it has to be done through innovation. Not with backdoor bribery. Figure it out.

And someone please figure it out. We don't need any more engines promising to give searchers money or prizes or iPods. Heck, this isn't even the first time Microsoft has tried this approach. We saw it in 2006, as well. All searchers want is an engine that's relevant, trustworthy and that cares about their users.

If you want to read more about Live Search Cashback you can check out the new site or read through the FAQ. I wouldn't bother. It will just depress you and the program probably won't even be around that long. Instead, let's all watch Steve Balmer getting pelted with eggs. After this launch, he almost deserves it.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/21/08 at 11:40 AM | Comments (3)

May 19, 2008

Can You Win Back A Scorned Evangelist?

We all know how important brand evangelists are to the success of our company. An enthused evangelist will defend your brand to the death, talk about you to their friends, support you in blog entries and deep inside comments, and let their excitement for you spill over into everything they do and get others excited by association. But what happens when you lose these people? Can you ever really win them back?

I'm in a bit of an emotional pit this afternoon as I brand that I loved and bid farewell too now wants to make amends. It's been more than two months since we parted ways and the new face running the ship wants to reach out. I'm hearing words like "re-engage", "our history", and "trust" and I'm wondering if it can be done. If it's really possible to win back someone who put all their trust in you and then watched as you threw it away.

To be honest, I'm not sure it's possible, but given the power evangelists hold wise companies will at least try. Here are some tips from a scorned brand evangelist about how to work your way back into the heart of someone who loved you.

• Own Up To Your Mistake: You did something to make that dedicated brand evangelist turn away and denounce your company. What was it? If you don't know, make sure you find out directly from them what it was. Don't insult them by assuming. Once you know, apologize. And mean it. Explain how the situation occurred, how sorry you are that they felt hurt/betrayed/lied to/abandoned and then explain why it will never happen again. If you don't know how to keep similar situations from occurring, recruit them to help you. Show them that they're a valuable part of your organization.
• Create An Honest Dialogue: Sure, the goal is to win the evangelist back but you're only going to be able to accomplish that with complete honesty. This isn't some fair-weather fan you isolated; this was someone who trusted your brand and put their faith in you. This is someone who spoke out on your behalf to others and caused people to give you a second glance. You owe it to them to be completely transparent. If you're not, they'll be able to tell and they'll feel even more insulted and irate than before. They'll probably also be less likely to stop talking about how much they hate you. There's really nothing worse than a pissed off former brand evangelist, is there?
• Calm Their Fears: Now that the initial trust has been broken, you're going to have to work ten times as hard to get it back. It's not going to be accomplished in a single phone call or even through several email strings. It's going to take time and a lot of effort on your part. It's up to you to calm their fears and answer any question they may have. You may find that several heart-to-heart phone calls may do the trick or, if it makes sense, maybe it's a better idea to fly the person out to headquarters and let them get a taste of the brand they loved. Remind them what they were fighting for.
• Get them Excited Again: You need your brand evangelists to support you, but what are you giving them? Why should they take you back and invest their energy in you? Give them a reason to believe. Show them why they'll be proud to be on your team.

Winning back a lost brand evangelist is really about earning their trust and proving that you're still a company worth believing in.

Would you be able to take back a brand that betrayed your trust the first time around? What lengths would they have to go to in order to prove how important you were to them? I don't know if the brand that let me down will ever be able to win me back, but it's something I continue to think about.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/19/08 at 4:52 PM | Comments (2)

SEO Weekend Update

Microsoft, Yahoo Continue To Annoy Me

I didn't really believe that all the MicroHoo chatter was behind us, but part of me really, really hoped. I'm a little tired of talking about nonevents, but here we are again. On Sunday, Microsoft issued another weekend statement saying that they're "continuing to explore and pursue...an alternative that would involve a transaction with Yahoo! but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo!" Er, what does that even mean? Epic Yawn, Microsoft.

No one really knows what Microsoft's cryptic note refer to, but we're all guessing anyway. The most popular theory is that Microsoft is looking to get its hands on some of Yahoo's search share. Sounds viable. Personally, I think the way Yahoo can best help Microsoft is to bring some eyeballs to Microsoft adCenter, which most agree is the best ad serving platform that no one's using. I'd love to see that platform get some actual traffic.

Regardless of what Microsoft's latest sonnet really means, Yahoo appears to be back the bargaining table, which I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that its own stakeholders were revolting. Fun!

Should Brands Buy Back Their Fan Pages On Facebook?

There's a post over on The Unofficial Facebook Guide that tells the sad story of users getting banned for creating branded fan pages. Nick O'Neill writes that ever since Facebook unveiled Fan pages onto the site, enthused brand evangelists have been jumping at the chance to create pages for the brands they love. Sadly, it seems the pages they've created are being taken down and, in some cases the users' accounts are being banned. Yikes.

While banning personal accounts because a user was excited about a feature you offer is 100 percent ludicrous, I do think it's a good idea for brands to take control of their Facebook pages, even if John Battelle doesn't. Sure, it's likely that these brand evangelists are completely well-intentioned but I don't think you should hand over your logo, your message, or your public face to someone simply because they were first to try and register the page. You also don't want a hundred splinter Fan pages sprouting up for your brand, you want one official one where all of your fans can unite and support you. And if your Fan page is going to be in front of that many eyeballs, you want to make sure you're the one in control of it.

Remember our friend Jackie Liebergott from last week? On Thursday I wrote that My College President Kills Kittens and showed how someone had created a false Facebook profile for Jackie Liebergott, the president of my alma mater Emerson College. Well, it turns out they've also created a fake Jackie Liebergott Fan page. Now, if you were Emerson College, wouldn't you want to get control of that page? Poor kitten-killer Liebergott.

Encourage users to engage, to write wall posts, to answer polls, to go out in the real world and evangelize, but you have to hold on to the keys. Otherwise you're just opening yourself up for disaster.

Would Yahoo Be Stronger Without Search?

At Search Engine Journal, Loren Baker asks if Yahoo would be stronger without search. It's an interesting theory but not one I'm inclined to support. Perhaps Loren's right in that Yahoo would become more profitable, but it's still not a direction I want to see them take. They might make more money but would you still respect them in the morning? I wouldn't. It's not a good course for them and it's sure not going to help the industry any.

Personally, I'd rather see someone step in and get Yahoo to start leveraging their many verticals. Yahoo has all the portal strength an engine could ask for, and yet they're not using it. Tapping into all of that is how Yahoo will succeed and grow. I still have faith in Yahoo and I don't want to see them sell out and become completely useless. Someone has to come along and challenge Google. Yahoo's sitting back at a pretty distant second right now, but Google's not going to reign forever. At some point, someone will come up and beat them. That will never be Yahoo if they hang up their gloves before the fight is over.

Hang in there, Yahoo. Don't be so quick to sell out. Even if Microsoft does keep sweet talking you back to the table.

Fun Finds

Copyblogger has launched a Twitter Writing Contest. You write your best 140 character story and the winner receives an iPod Nano 4 GB. Your story has to be exactly 140 characters. Over or under isn't going to cut it. Good luck!

Darren Rowse lists 12 Traits of Successful Bloggers even though the URL says eleven. Don't be fooled.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/19/08 at 4:41 PM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2008

My College President Kills Kittens!

I don't care if you plan to launch a social media campaign or not, stop what you're doing and head over to the top social sites and claim your company name and the names of your high level folks.

No, do it now. Otherwise, prepare to be sorry when someone comes along, snags up your name, and begins using your brand in ways you may not appreciate.

Shockingly, I have an example!

I received a Facebook Friend Request this morning from Jackie Liebergott. Jackie is the president of my alma mater Emerson College. Emerson has always been fairly tech savvy and on the cutting edge of new media types, but even so, when I received the Friend Request I wrinkled my nose and wondered if it was legit. I also remembered that in the four years I attended Emerson, I never once had a conversation with Jackie Liebergott so the chances of her knowing me and trying to connect were...well, slim to none.

Still, maybe Jackie does know me! Or maybe she's decided to create a Facebook profile to build a bridge between her and Emerson students and is adding everyone who lists Emerson College on their profile. How novel! I headed to Jackie's profile to see if it was in fact legit. When I got there I found this:

Heh, yes. A profile picture designed to show Jackie doing her best dinosaur impression and a status message that tells people she's out killing kittens. Excellent. Jackie currently has 68 Facebook friends. She belongs to six groups, has 27 photos uploaded, and has some very interesting activities listed.

This is what happens when you don't claim your name and open up the chance for someone else to do it for you.

Friends, do yourselves a favor and go stake your claim on your name in the social media networks. A few months ago Michael Gray sent me an email reminding me that we should claim our brand on Twitter before someone else does. It was great advice and we jumped to it immediately. We even decided to turn BruceClayInc into our official blog Twitter feed that provides automated updates for readers who prefer to get notifications that way..

But even if we hadn't decided to use the account, just having it is a smart business move. I'm sure to many people, the idea of having to take the time to create profiles on a bunch of sites you don't intend to use sounds like an overwhelming and silly task. However, consider the consequences. Isn't the credibility of your brand worth it? If you're not sure, ask Jackie.

Or Seth Godin. Seth is a perfect example that sometimes fans claim your name with good intentions and end up causing more harm than good. I fully believe that whoever created the SethGodin Twitter account (hint: It's not Seth) did it to because of how passionate they are about the Seth brand. And that's great, but it now gives Seth no way to control how someone is using his name. That's not great. It's even less great when consider that the account has more than 5,000 followers. Right now the person in control of Seth's account is playing by the rules, but what if that changes? What if they start pushing their own content or badmouthing others? What if people didn't realize it wasn't really Seth speaking? Kiss your brand of excellence goodbye and prepare to lose the trust of your customers.

Oddly enough, Seth actually did receive some backlash for his Twitter account, especially from people who were offended that he was collecting followers and not following people back. There were even open letters written to get him to change his ways. All for an account he doesn't even own.

Take a few minutes today to create accounts for your company on the major social media outlets. Be proactive about protecting your brand. Otherwise, prepare to have your best T-Rex impression representing you on the Interwebz.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/15/08 at 3:38 PM | Comments (4)

May 7, 2008

eMetrics Keynote - The Coca-Cola Marketing Metrics Journey, Part Two

Ready for a keynote? Well, good, cause one's about to start. Jim Sterne welcomes Tim Goudie from Coca Cola. This keynote is labeled "part two" because Part One was given about a year and a half ago in Washington DC at the eMetrics event down there. Tim's here to update us on what's been happening over the past 18 months.

Tim has been involved in brand marketing since day one. He knows the importance of metrics and measurements. He's going to talk about the global perspective of digital marketing.

Metrics is about knowing exactly where you are. If you're running a business and you don't know how you're doing, it's because you haven't planned ahead of time to know where you are. The consequence of not knowing where you are results in disaster. He shows some examples of people who ended up in disaster because they didn't know where they are or where they were going. They're historical references and one of them involves cannibalism. It's a bit early for that, isn't it? I haven't even had my coffee yet (though I did have a cupcake!).

In July 2006, Coca Cola started building a Web site called The Coke Show. They were trying to get people to upload videos and share UGC. People wanted to share, create and be recognized. The site got so heavy it could hardly move. Consumers weren't taken to the point where Coke thought they would be. The site kind of flopped but Coke learned a lot.

He also talks about MyCokeRewards.com. It's all about loyalty. You can register and build your profile. It was the first time Coke had used precision marketing. It collects data about your customers and then dishes out particular content that they've either asked for or visited on an ongoing basis. It's powerful, but it's expensive. The impact of the program was that it lifted all the pack sizes. The average lift was 15 points over the average consumer.

DesignTheWorldInCoke is a new site to support the upcoming Olympic Games. They unveiled it in 32 markets at the flip of a switch. They've been able to learn as they go.

Metrics are ridiculously political

People will fight and die over numbers. They don't want their numbers exposed. You can overcome this by creating an even playing field. Find out the top KPIs. If you're going to have a constant set of KPIs, stick them on the dashboard so that everyone can see them. It creates a wall of shame or fame and tugs at people's Type A tendencies to be on top. Publish your metrics widely so that everyone has access to the data. Never ever believe that the metrics are neutral. You have to ask why you want that data and what people are going to do with it. Are you going to use it to improve things or do you just think it's pretty?

You need to make sure the executives know that you can't just turn off the metrics. You have to invest in the system.

What is the business that you're in?

Tim's organization is about selling bottles of a beverage. He doesn't care about how many visitors come to their Web site or how many uniques the new marketing campaign will bring in. He wants to know how many cases of Coke it will help them sell. You have to make sure your metrics go back to the fundamental objective of the business. That's how you're going to get your buy-in. It has to go back to the bottom line and how you're going to promote what the business is about.

You need to be where your consumers are and you need to get your organization to think about where your consumers are spending their time and how they're consuming media.

From Web Metrics to Business Measurement

Coca-Cola created a framework that looks like this:

1. Brand Health: They have a tool that measures Brand Health all day, every day.
2. Brand Advocacy: It's the next level of commitment. Would someone refer your product to their friend? Would they recommend your Web site? They're monitoring that. [Tom opens up a bottle Coke. Heh]
3. Volume
4. Media Value: What's your reach? Your frequency?
5. Marketing Productivity

Our Challenge:

[He takes a swig of his Coke. Product placement, FTW!]

You have to measure offline data with digital behavior. You want to link them together. If you know who your consumer is and how they're spending their time, you can dish back messaging that becomes more and more relevant to them. You can't always measure everything you want to measure.

Listening to your online customers. Not every business is the same. You want the data to build the relationship with the consumer, not just to store it.

Tracking Brand Health Online

Coca-Cola put a brand survey on their Olympics-related Web site to see how/if its helping brand health move in the right direction. They focus on brand health because there's a built in assumption that brand health is a good indicator of future consumption.

Go External: If you don't have the skills internally, find them externally. Find someone who can help you with tagging, optimization and interpretation and dashboards.

There's a whole new set of digital applications that are emerging. Things like mobile marketing, widgets, social networks, etc. Imagine if you could deliver a message to a consumer at lunch time telling them that there was an offer waiting for them at the McDonalds located around the corner. That's useful.

The problem is there's no such thing as a mobile cookie. Have you tagged your widget correctly to map those transactions? That's the type of information you need to know.

Find internal patrons of your will die: Find someone who believes in metrics. Find people who understand how metrics can be used and leveraged. Find an executive whose eyes light up when you talk metrics.

Distributing the data: Having the data is one thing, knowing who to get it to and in what format is another thing. You need to give your executives pretty data. It needs to be in a chart or a graph and use color. Management level people can dig a bit deeper.

Leveraging the data: The most important learning for Coke has been that it's okay to have red dials and switches and data, but if you don't have the people to manage it and determine who gets what data, it doesn't matter what kind of car you've bought. If you don't know how to drive it, you've just wasted it. You need to have the right resources on the ground. You need to map your web behavior back to your users.

Key Learnings

• We are evolving in the digital space.
• Metrics are ridiculously political.
• From metrics to business measures.
• Go external.
• We're learning.
• Find internal patrons.
• Dashboards.
• Distributing the data.
• Leveraging the data.
• Educate yourself.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/ 7/08 at 10:42 AM | Comments (1)

May 6, 2008

Reputation Management in a Social Media World and On Your Site

Hey, hey! Time to talk reputation management and social media with Katie Delahave Paine (KDPaine Partners) and Steve Bernstein (PayPal). Let's do it.

[Or not. We're having some technical difficulties so the session is starting a bit late. Amuse yourselves. I'm cruising Facebook.

Okay, it looks like we're ready. Yey!]

For years the big thing was counting eyeballs. Then it was hits. Now it's engagement. The biggest piece of this is to understand that measurement and engagement mean different things to different people. If you're trying to sell something, engagement means 'did you move someone down the conversion path?' If you're just trying to get some influence out there then its comments and links.

How do you measure the impact of all those various communication efforts?

Six Steps to the Perfect Measurement System

• Define your goals
• Understand your audience and what motivates them
• Define the metrics
• Determine what your benchmark is
• Pick a tool and undertake the research
• Analyze results and glean insight, take action, measure again.

A proposed engagement index:

Output: The activity
Outtake: What do people believe about you
Outcome: What do you want them to accomplish

It's the combination of those three things that define engagement. You can't just do one without the others.

Katie says they're also trying to measure the impact of social media networks. You can see your share of discussion on Technorati and YouTube. But what does this all mean? Is there a connection between YouTube content on the Presidential candidates and their share of votes? Does it impact the outcome?

Katie analyzed the traffic patterns for Obama and John Paul and found that they dominated YouTube. Then she analyzed the amount of videos for each on YouTube and the extent that they were commented on, viewed, etc. She found that there was a direct correlation between the activity on these videos and the voting patterns. [Yes. I am so sure that YouTube is directly influencing people's voting. What?]

Components of an Engagement Index

• Involvement: Web site visits, time spent, page view
• Interaction:: Comments, reviews
• Intimacy: Sentiment, positioning
• Influence: Likelihood to recommend, brand affinity, forwards, links.

You also have to test relationships, taking into account control mutuality, trust, satisfaction, commitment, exchange, and command.

Measuring Facebook

Katie throws out some stats:

Engagement in external blogs = 13 comments
High engaged admissions blogs = 35 comments per post
Good momentum on social bookmarking sites = 1 submitted item every other day
Average positive = 50 percent average, negatives 9 percent

Most of the content shared on Facebook is video. Traditional news media plays a much bigger role in sharing information than people think. Thirty eight percent of people get information from sites like Flickr and YouTube.

If you think you're going to put a video out there and control it, forget it. 86 percent of watched videos come from individuals, not corporations. If you're corporation trying to release video, hide that you're a corporation. Otherwise it will be rejected. [It will also be rejected when people find out you were trying to hide your identity.]

Takeaways

• The reality is if you want to be popular, be video and don't be corporate
• Traditional media is much more important than you think
• If you want o reach incoming Freshman, you have between March and Aug to get your message out
• In terms of tonality, neutral is the norm.

Engaging allows you to join in the conversation and correct bloggers who are saying bad stuff.

ROI: Trying it all back to the bottom line

• Define "R" - what's your mission
• Define how you contribute to that mission
• Define the 'I' - what's the investment

Steve is up next. He's going to talk about qualifying the quantitative. My fingers are crying sweet baby emo tears. Why all the long words?

Why did PayPal start getting site feedback?

They had the "what" but they needed the "why". They could see in their data that there were people going down the same path a few times. Why were they doing that?

If you go to their site and click on "site feedback", a comment card will pop up. The two most important parts of the card are "Would you recommend this site to a friend?" and the abbreviated net promoter score. Whatever that is. Basically they want to force people to make a decision. They're looking for trends over time.

Maximizing the Value

• Data is worse than pointless if you don't use it
• In an ideal world, each comment would be read, and actionable comments would always be acted upon or at least considered for action.
• It's more than just labor-intensive, that's just hard.
• Quantifying the Qualitative: Qualitative research is thought of as focus groups and interviews. They're free-floating and are about discovery. Comment boxes are kind of qualitative because people can right whatever they want, but you can quantify it because you're presenting the exact same experience for everyone.

Comment Categorization: Categorize comments by themes and traffic them to appropriate product management teams. There are many commercial categorization tools available to help you do this. Comments typically categorize well because they're one-dimensional.

He takes every comment and normalizes it using porter stemming. You want to clean it up by taking out stop words and put everything in the same tense. Then they use trigrams - a three word phrase - to move through the content and count all the three word phrases that appear. It gives you a histogram of each comment and lets you "cluster them into galaxies". You can find commonalities.

And that's it. Wow, that was a somewhat confusing session that failed to deliver. Bummer.

Posted by Lisa Barone on 05/ 6/08 at 6:24 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2008

SEO Weekend Update

Hey, friends. We've got a busy week ahead here at Bruce Clay, so let's just jump right into some of the big stories of the day. Grab a cookie or something and let's go!

First, Some Housekeeping!

First things first, did you know that Bruce Clay, Inc. now has its very own Twitter feed where you can easily keep up with our daily blog postings? If not, now you do! If you prefer to get your blog updates via Twitter, start following BruceClayInc and hear all about what TheLisa says. ;) [Even when it's not TheLisa posting, I notice. --Susan] Hey, it's automated, give me a break.

Also, I'll be heading up to eMetrics San Francisco next week for another around of "let's see if we can make Lisa's hands fall off!" as I attempt to liveblog three days of Web analytics sessions. Keep your eyes on the blog to see which sessions I'll be covering. As a special treat, we'll also be featuring interviews on the blog with some of eMetrics familiar faces, including Vanessa Fox, John Marshall and Matt Bailey, so keep an eye out for that!

And our last bit of housekeeping news: The SEO Newsletter will be hitting your inboxes Wednesday afternoon so make sure you're subscribed. This month features dueling articles from Susan and myself as we debate why size matters in SEO conferences.

Yahoo To Help You Find Your "Center"

Danny Sullivan talks about a new Yahoo paper about finding the local "center" of search queries and how it may help the engines decide which pages are more relevant for local interests and which have more of a national audience. There are some interesting tidbits in both Danny's coverage and the actual study itself. Danny lists off a number of ways he thinks mapping search results by their "center" could be useful, though I'm not entirely convinced. Let's let users do the search and sites optimize for how they want to show up. I'm not sure I'm okay with the engines moving around my "center" and skewing results based upon it without my permission. I'm a control freak like that. Or maybe I just like authentic results.

I personally love how we need a study to tell us that it's mostly people in New England searching for [Red Sox] every hour on the hour and how the line of searchers typing in [Hurricane Dean] into their search box matches the path of the actual hurricane. Um, thanks for that totally obvious information.

Protecting Your Job With Common Sense

Andy Beal comments on the Washington Post article about When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web. The Post basically asks if disciplinary action should be taken against teachers with racy MySpace and Facebook profiles. I'm sorry, and this may age me, but I have to go with a resounding "yes" here.

It's not that I think people aren't entitled to a private life; it's that I think if you're going to be working with school-age children and setting yourself up as a role model, I think you should have enough common sense to check the "set to private" on your MySpace profile settings and restrict who can view your Facebook profile.

As Andy points out in his post, the actions and behavior these teachers are being "outed" for is nothing new. People in their 20s, regardless of profession, have been going out to bars, doing stupid things, and then photographing the evidence for as long as the camera has been in existence. The only difference is now these young adults are publishing tracks for their debauchery on the Internetz. And when you're supposed to be setting an example, it's probably worth keeping that stuff behind a locked door. You don't blow up your racy pictures and put them on billboards in front of your house, do you?

You're an adult. Do you want to do, but be responsible about it.

Fun Finds

Four days ago Mack Collier wrote that when it comes to blogging, you can't let the fear win. I've had the window with Mack's post open for four days. It speaks to me.

Over at All Things Digital, Kara Swisher says no one but us tech nerds knows what Twitter is. Well, yes, Kara, but they will! Oh, will they. [And then we'll all leave for the next big thing. --Susan]

Posted by Lisa Barone on 04/28/08 at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

April 23, 2008

Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers & Answer Sharing

Chris Sherman is taking over moderator duties with speakers Lise Broer (Wikipedia), Jonathan Hochman (Hochman Consultants), Matt McGee (Marchex) and Jeff Muendel (Netconcepts).

[This will be the last session we're covering for SMX Social Media. After which I'll be getting back in my little Aveo and heading back to Simi Valley. Hopefully my stomach will make it that long. And I won't die in SoCal traffic. Tune in tomorrow to see what happened! :)]

Up first is Matt McGee. He's my favorite person in search. And like, ever.

Matt's going to talk about Yahoo Answers. He says that there are lots of stupid people in the world, many of them are in Yahoo Answers and he loves it.

What is Yahoo Answers?

It's the number two question and answer site on the Internet, behind Wikipedia. It begins with and revolves around your profile page. You get to put a link to your Web site on your profile page. It's a nofollowed link. Actually, all the links are nofollowed, which means Yahoo Answers is a traffic-building exercise, not a link building one.

Just the Industry Facts:

2008: US traffic to Q&A sites is up 118 percent over 2007.
Traffic to the top five sites: 52 percent are female. 45 percent are 25-44. Time on site up 44 percent. The average user spends more than 9 minutes on the site.

Yahoo Answers has 74 percent of the market share in the question and answer category. It's the #2 site in Reference category. It has a 56 percent year over year growth.

Professionals are welcome. Helpful marketing is okay. Spammers are not.

Benefits of Yahoo Answers

Referral Traffic: For Matt's blog, SmallBusinessSEM.com, Yahoo Answers is the 4th source of referral traffic, provides the highest source of new visitors, and has the lowest bounce rate.

Search Traffic: He wrote about [merchant circle]. His blog posts ranks on the first page and right below it is someone asking a question about Merchant Circle on Yahoo Answers. In the Yahoo Answers post, someone's answer points to Matt's blog post. Google sent 5,000 page views and the Yahoo Answers post sent 4,200 page views to that entry.

Matt shows how well Yahoo Answers pages rank in the search engines. It's also a good way to get long tail search traffic.

Yahoo Answers pages are crawled deeply. Google has crawled 64 million pages. Yahoo has crawled 282 million. MSN has crawled 1.2 million.

How to Use Yahoo Answers

• RSS Feed Rule; Every category and sub-category has a feed. Search results too.
• Sort Wisely: You can sort by date or by the number of answers. Matt likes to sort by date to find the older questions. Find the ones that have the lowest amount of answers and then gives a good answer. That helps to boost your profile when you're voted as having the best answer.
• Sign Your Name
• Don't Spam

Matt ends and then asks if there are any Yahoo people in the room. When no one raises his hand, he says he has an extra slide. Hee!

Easiest 10 Points Ever

Answers are classified as "open" or "in voting" or "resolved'. What you want to do is look for questions in "in voting". Then you look for your answer, click on "vote as best answer" and if no one else bothers to vote, you get the best answer and an easy 10 points. Nice.

Jonathan Hochman is up next to talk about Wikipedia.

He talks about how the History tab provides a lot more transparency than other social media sites. Yeah, whatever, it's still Wikipedia. ;)

Because Wikipedia ranks first for everything in the entire world, their articles have a big influence on public opinion.

Wikipedia and Marketers

Yes: Answering questions. Interacting with editors. Donating images. Reporting problems. Requesting changes.