I’ve been pondering the question in my head ever since I attended SMX East last week. How can a marketer improve their chances of striking viral gold? After all, viral content, by definition, seems not to lend itself to the manufacturing process. I mean, how can you bottle lightning?

So a Mashable post I ran across on Twitter today got my attention, thanks to a catchy title and the promise of a great video: The Fun Theory: Volkswagen Masters the Viral Video.

I figured if “viral” is a skill to be mastered, it must be quantifiable and thus teachable, right? In that spirit, what can a marketer take away from this video?

Now rewind back to last week when another memorable video floated my way. This one, from Disney, takes us on a brief journey to the happiest place on earth. It’s there we find ourselves part of an elite club — witnessing a passing and unexpected moment that only a few will be so lucky to ever experience.

Last week I attended the SMX East panel Pumping Up YouTube, and I’d recommend that liveblog post as required reading for any marketer in the digital space. While the presentations focused on making viral fare of videos, the lessons around what makes content susceptible to sharing on a massive scale pertains to all kinds of content — video, text, image, audio and otherwise.

During the presentations we learned from speaker Ciarán Norris that there are several categories that viral content typically fits into. They are that which:

• is funny
• is unbelievable
• is informative
• poses a question
• or piggybacks.

May I add one more characteristic that often results in viral success?

• Exposing the audience to a rare and fleeting moment.

I suppose there’s nothing on the Web that really falls into the “rare and fleeting” category. It’s all out there for people to call up, whenever and wherever they want. But the essence of rare and fleeting still lives on.

That giant Mickey head painted in water lasts in the real world for less than five minutes. The wiring and speakers of that piano keyboard staircase have long been hauled away. And like the short-lived painting or the temporary keyboard, the human experience lasts but a moment. The memory — and with it, the positive sentiment and the loyalty gained — live on in the heart and mind.

That’s how we end up touching people with our brands, with our products and with our services, and gaining a customer for life. We create a tiny, happy remembrance in a person’s memory with their experience of that brand, product or service. The act itself may be as effortless as a smile or a sweep of a broom. The time it takes could pass others by in the blink of an eye.

But the lasting effect of a brand evangelist who spreads news of her experience through word of mouth to family and friends the world over…

The lasting effect of that rare and fleeting moment multiplies beyond itself and transforms with it a lifetime advocate…

That rare and fleeting moment is the real, enduring viral gold.

Can Viral Marketing Be Manufactured? was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

A little Twitter with your marketing? Gettin’ tweety with it!

Okay, I’m not sure I’ll be leaving New York with my sanity intact, but I know you like it that way. Drum roll please:

Speakers:
Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service
Tamar Weinberg, Author, Owner, Techipedia.com
Chris Winfield, President, 10e20, LLC (also doing double duty as moderator)

Chris Winfield wants this session to be as interactive as possible — because that’s kinda what Twitter is about. It’s not about structure. It’s not about rules. And when he does a presentation about Twitter, he likes to have Twitter do it for him. With Twitter you can tap into so many people and get so much information. And that’s takeaway number one.

You could read lots of books on marketing with Twitter, but the problem is, a tactic on Twitter could work for one company and not for another.

So first he asked on Twitter, “How do you define marketing on Twitter?” Here are some responses:

• It’s about relationship marketing. Long term (months/years) steady return on your efforts. Some spikes not many.
• Marketing on Twitter is reaching out and building relationships and engaging in knowledge sharing.
• Anything that gets users from Twitter to convert without annoying people in the process.
• Don’t do marketing on Twitter. Have a conversation and earn the market’s trust. (Anti-marketing marketing)
• Building a community which you can then interact with; closely monitor effectiveness.
• It’s about giving your brand a personality. Your brand gets personalized and comes alive.

“There’s lots of spam on Twitter. But what’s the worst form of it? Why?”

• Trending topic spam, especially at the local level. It screws up the real-time search feature.
• Want to join my mafia? It comes from random people so it’s hard to block.
• Spam that steals login credentials and mass-spams your followers.
• Porn accounts following you can damage credibility. Be diligent in blocking.
• False tagging and irrelevant links hidden in short URLs.
• DM spam and auto DM after following someone. It’s usually a horrible pitch of some service.

“How are you leveraging Twitter to help get you more links and traffic to your sites/blogs?”

• Spreading the message via useful and interesting stuff and communicating with others.
• Twitter as an RSS feed for interacting with followers and using keyword searches to find related writers to connect with.
• Mixing conversations with links. If you just use an account to push content, people will stop listening.
• Build and engage an audience, then when you have content to promote, they will be willing to.

“Are hashtags important? How do you use them?”

• During events like SMX, they’re helpful for searching and for connecting at the event.
• Seems less useful due to hashtag spam.
• They just show you’re a fluent tweeter.
• Hashtags help in structuring tweet content and making it easier to find. They’re also great for establishing authority.
• For geo-based events and connections.

“Is Twitter’s real time search really a threat to Google?”

• Yup! I rarely Google search for products, tech help or recommendations. I just tweet and get answers.
• People don’t search Twitter unless they’re looking for someone that something said on Twitter.
• A threat indeed. They got the users — they need to nail the indexing and integration.
• Greasemonkey script overlays twitter results with Google.
• No, try explaining complex concepts in 140 characters.
• The real-time convo is a threat — using people to get an instant answer.
• Nope! Overhyped.
• Probably not because Google has so many more resources.
• Yes. Google can’t yet provide info on live/current events. Twitter often becomes the first-try search engine.
• Yes because it takes the convo offline fast, leading to less content creation like blogs.

“How would you convince a company (in 140 characters or less) that Twitter isn’t a waste of time?”

• It’s a tool to stay in touch with clients and colleagues as well as to stay ahead of the curve.
• Find examples of where small issues were diffused.
• Twitter can easily connect you to influencers in any discipline. Unlike Facebook, people see what you tweet @ them.
• Results — analytics and customer engagement.
• I convinced my boss with over 21k followers.
• See the Georgia Aquarium, able to raise $43,000.
• It’s the quickest way to spread info to people who have never heard of your company. And its free.
• Low cost, big potential to grow your brand.
• Show them by querying their brand or company name in Twitter search.

Tamar Weinberg takes the podium next. “Participation in marketing” means marketing yourself by being involved in communities. She’ll be sharing some case studies with us.

Tyson Foods had two initiatives. One was a give away through a comment contest on the blog. For every comment made, they donated food. They also started a blog highlighting those running food pantries. Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse has a blog, a YouTube and Vimeo channel, they’re on LinkedIn, everywhere. Their blog includes lots of instructional videos about preparing food.

Twitter gives you immediate feedback, the ability to easily connect with people, and faster customer service. API applications got Twitter off the ground, enabling developers to make powerful applications that also help marketers.

Generating Sales

Dell made $3 million in 2 years over its Twitter stream. Can small companies do the same? Check out Mimobot’s word of the day contest and Namecheap’s contest.

What about in saturated markets? An Apple app offered a freebie that complemented the product. Twitter gave them access to an older, tech-savvy demographic. One week is all it took to become one of the top 30 paid apps.

Customer Service

JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston helps Tamar all the time and also helps others. ComcastCares is the major case study. It extends to client acquisition, too!

Brand Awareness

Look to Zappos to see an organization that gives users firsthand knowledge of the culture. She doesn’t think Amazon would have acquired the company, at least not for as much as they did, if there wasn’t public awareness around the brand.

Oh Nuts is a small tri-state area candy store. They use Twitter for contests and giveaways. They monitor keywords for the biggest selling products and seek out tweets and respond. They get lots of traffic to their site from Twitter and a higher feeling of connectedness.

What Works Best?

Contests: bring visibility, especially via the use of hashtags.

Customer service: don’t forget people are talking about you, even if you’re not involved in the conversation.

Next, Chris promises us that Michael Gray will have an entertaining presentation. No doubt. This is going to be about commercial accounts, not personal accounts.

What are your goals?

• Commercial accounts have different goals than personal accounts.
• Connect with your customers, advocates, industry leaders, new customers and detractors.
• Make sales and generate leads.
• Promote content.
• Solve customer problems.

How big can you grow your account? You probably won’t get several hundreds of thousands of followers. But you can grow, even with a smaller brand.

Tips to grow your account

• Tweet links to non self serving interesting content.
• Retweet the most self serving links of power users in your vertical.
• Help solve people’s problems.
• Engage with users, especially people who @ you.
• Don’t be a robot. Tweet the occasional boring, off-the-cuff, slice-of-life information.
• Dig through other people’s follower list.
• Use directories like twellow, wefollow, mrtweet to find leaders in your vertical.
• Build a master list of A-, B- and C-level people. Then mine their followers.
• Use auto-follow scripts with CAUTION. Twitter doesn’t like it so if you want to experiment, don’t do it on your most important accounts.

Automate without being a robot

• Look for ways to automate your Twitter activity.
• Have blog post auto-tweet when they publish.
• Schedule tweets in the future with tools.
• Use virtual assistants and “grunt labor.”
• Repeat tweets for multiple time zones.

When it comes to Twitter for traffic, for a lot of the site’s he’s seen, Twitter is among the top five referrers.

Tools of the tweeter:

HootSuite and EasyTweet let you manage multiple accounts and schedule things.
URL shortening should have 301 builder and tracking.
TwitterHawk is a paid service that lets you respond to different keyword mentions.

Retweet tips:

• Make tweets direct and click enticing.
• Keep tweets as short as possible, leaving 15 to 25 characters free for retweeting.
• Jump-start the retweet process with your friends.
• Ask for the retweet — thank people who do retweet.
• If more than 30 minutes has gone by without a retweet, in most cases it’s over.
• Be aware of multiple time zones — tweet multiple times throughout the day.

Twitter Marketing Tactics was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

You come into the office after a long weekend. You know you have lots on your plate, but before jumping head first into your work load, you want to hear some stories, right?

My holiday weekend was filled with college football, lounging around the apartment with Hiccups, and a day with my parents at the tide pools in Malibu. Not a long story, but you can more or less imagine what the last three days were like for me.

Stories entertain. They illuminate. They evoke sentiment. And they stick, both in the heart and the brain.

Every brand has a story. One that quickly comes to mind is Clif Bar & Co., the health food maker whose packaging isn’t complete without the exciting origin story of how a man, a bike ride and two years in a kitchen resulted in an energy bar that tastes really good.

The story of how Clif Bars came to be honestly just popped to the top of my head now. There are other company stories floating around up there, too, but you get the idea. Numbers and statistics can be easily jumbled up. Coupons and discounts have an expiration date. A story reaches both the head and the heart in a memorable way. A story is a great way to make a lasting impression on your customer base.

You may already be sharing your story with your customers, or you may not know how to fit the story in to an already developed brand presence. The latter is no excuse for missing the opportunity to tell the story about your brand.

So, here are three ways to incorporate storytelling in your marketing message. Obviously these three ideas don’t make up an exhaustive list. In the comments, feel free to add your thoughts on how to how to incorporate storytelling with your brand.

1. Your Unique Selling Proposition

A unique selling proposition (or USP) is just a fancy way of talking about the story that makes you stand out from the competition and, hopefully, convinces the audience that your product or service is the better choice.

Consider if your story is a distinctive selling point. Was the product or service born out of need that you experienced personally, showing that you can truly relate to the customer base? Do you provide one of the only environmentally friendly or socially conscious options on the market? It’s a story you already share in elevator rides and with friends and family members. Share it with your potential customers and see if they appreciate seeing that side of the brand, too.

2. Your Blog

At Bruce Clay, Inc., I try to utilize the blog as a storytelling channel — a story of the search marketing industry and the story of Bruce Clay, Inc. Bruce started his search engine optimization company from his kitchen table more than a dozen years ago. Since then, he’s developed into a champion of ethical Internet marketing. I like to think that this blog tells this story of responsible marketing and brand management, and progressive strategies and tactics, backed by the guidance and understanding of an industry authority.

You already know that blogs are good for community building and generating a connection with your audience. Don’t overlook the platform as a way to tell your story over the long term. Your story is actually developing everyday, so as changes happen, take advantage of the blog to keep the story alive.

3. Customer Reviews and Case Studies

Your customers have a story to tell about your business as well. Why not benefit from those stories by sharing them with like-minded potential clients. Stories are an effective way to make concrete examples illustrate broader points. See how ABC worked for them? It will work for the XYZ that’s been plaguing you, too!

Collecting customer reviews comes at a low cost (relevant user generated content!) but has a high ROI potential. Little company-generated marketing is quite as powerful as a recommendation from a friend or positive word of mouth. Pull together reviews and share them with potential clients for an additional story that supports your own.

3 Ways to Tie Stories to Your Brand was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

The advanced SEO roundtable — undoubtedly one of the most packed sessions of the show. People are lining the walls for this one. Should be awesome! Our moderator is Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO of Enquisite. Our distinguished speakers are:

• Matthew Bailey, SES Advisory Board & President, Site Logic Marketing
• Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
• Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair
• Todd Friesen, VP Search, Position Technologies
• Todd Malicoat, Independent Search Engine Marketing Consultant, stuntdubl

Matthew Bailey, Todd Malicoat, Todd Friesen, Mike Grehan, Bruce Clay and Richard Zwicky

Why can big organizations get away with more than little ones?

Mike: User expectations is what it comes down to. A user expects a company like BMW to come up for their search for German automobiles. When they were penalized, they were back fast because of that user expectation.

Matt: He had a good business for a while in cleaning sites up that had been pulled because it was usually caused by amateur mistakes.

Bruce: How many in the audience had a site get pulled? [About five hands go up.] How many knew they were doing something wrong when they did it? [A few raise their hand. Mike calls them naughty!]

When a search engine penalizes a site, is it ever motivated by the engine’s desire to preserve their image?

Todd F: Again, it’s about user expectation. It’s not as much about Google’s brand. It’s what a user wants to find in search results, because if they don’t find it in Google, they’ll go to another engine.

Bruce: There was a session in which Matt Cutts indicated that there are sometimes a large section of an account that will be dropped, and maybe not the whole thing. Part of the penalty that Google can apply is partial blocking of a site.

Todd F: If you’re a really big brand, it may be worth the links to get banned. BMW was getting a lot of links at the time as the story was covered. And when the site came back, they had the positive effect of linking.

Matt: It’s ironic BMW got busted for what they were doing considering they didn’t have to do it in the first place. They were a strong brand.

Can you please discuss buying links? When I buy a press release in PR Web, I’m pretty much buying links.

Todd M: If you buy direct links, only do a small number. Approach it as a partnership, form a relationship. And of course optimize the link.

Mike: At the end of the day, who’s Google to tell you what link you can put on your site? But if you’re thinking of why you need to buy links, maybe there’s a reason you can’t get a natural link. Ask why you built the site in the first place.

Todd: If you’re going to buy links, get professional help on that. You can do it, you just gotta do it right. You have to keep it ant a low percentage. You want to hide it or blend it in.

Bruce: If you’re a local business, get local links. Build in obsolescence in your link program so they rotate through.

How do you manage pages that fall in and out of the index on a daily basis? How do you group keywords into an actionable reporting function?

Matt: Rely heavily on analytics, which he believes is what advanced SEO comes down to. Rather than where am I for this term, ask where you are in the family of the term. And then sub-segment that out. What are the most consistent segments of that word? It’s much more useful to look at slices rather than in aggregate.

Todd F: The total number of unique search queries is obviously very high. That’s a ridiculous number of keywords to manage. So they focused on the front end, the top 1000 that actually drive 99% of the revenue. Also take into account on-site search because if they got to that landing page, that wasn’t what they were looking for.

Should we make a policy for getting links back from charitable donations?

Todd: Don’t make it a policy — that’s kind of… sleazy. But if you ask, nine out of ten times they’ll do it.

What about purchasing links on high-quality sites that don’t actually relate?

Mike: Cross-promotions, sponsorships, joint ventures — links come as a byproduct of doing great business.

Todd F: Google can discount links at the link level. So a lot of what you see as blatant paid linking, probably isn’t’ working anyway.

Matt: If you look at the best link building companies, they’re doing business and adding value. Value propositions through marketing is what it ultimately comes down to.

Mike: Backlink checkers only tell you what’s happening right now.

Todd M: You can stretch relevancy in a lot of ways, but it has to be targeted at a page level. The stretches should happen deeper in the site.

Todd F: If you do start getting links on a viral article or video, be careful of the fact you’re going to dilute your site theme. Stretching relevancy is fine, but be careful how far you stretch it because you don’t want to dilute the topic of the site.

If you combine Bing and Yahoo!’s best algorithms, will it matter? What is the effect of the partnership on SEO?

Mike: I think it’s great. Why do SEOs talk about the next Google killer? The difference is a huge change in Bing’s results once they get access to Yahoo!’s historical data. You’re going to see much more relevant results.

Todd F: If Bing results just went over to Yahoo!, that’d be a disaster. Bing is a mess. But it would be nice to dust off our old tools from 2002 because those would start working again. Also, he hopes to see paid inclusion stay around.

Matt: Search is going to become more of an experience, and that could be good competition.

Mike: It’s the end of an era. Crawling the Web as far as search is concerned has reached its limits. That’s why he talks about new signals. Everyone’s looking to get data in real time. It gives Microsoft that one step up in hanging on to the current phase of search.

Todd M: Again, analytics is what advanced SEO is about. But the difference between Bing and Yahoo! is a different kind of user than Google. Ecommerce sites convert better. 200 visitors from Yahoo/Bing could be better than 2,000 from Google. The volume might not be high, but when Windows 7 comes out, he predicts more people will be using the engine because it’s the default.

Bruce: Traffic will likely go up if relevancy goes up. Yahoo! has a lot of technology. They bought a lot of algorithm heavy weights. They have a better algorithm than Bing. Combine the algorithms with the Yahoo! data, and you could end up with a power player.

Todd F: He honestly sees the Bing algorithm go “boop!”

Is there any benefit from reciprocal links?

Todd F: It’s heavily discounted.

Mike: If you’re linking all your sites together, what’s the value?

What about search suggest? How can we get there?

Matt: There are a lot of angry, bitter suggestions. The question is raised, how often is something searched on to show up in search suggest. By typing in “how 2″ you’ll find things like “how 2 buy drugs.” If you look for “how does one” you’ll find “how does one split an atom.” It’s an insight into the searcher mind.

Does siloing still matter? What about siloing in pyramid form?

Bruce: Theme-aligned content structure. It’s not about nofollow. It’s about keeping content from bleeding across all parts of the site. It’s about lining up content to the way people search. He’s been doing the practice for six years, with minimal nofollow usage. The use of nofollow was brought up when Matt Cutts commented about nofollow for PR sculpting. But he believes the nofollow issue is not exactly understood and probably doesn’t work the way people think it works.

Mike: Nofollow is bunk. The three engines came together for this protocol. But why have it there if you don’t want it followed.

Todd F: The conspiracy theory over nofollow is that search engines will know what sites are being SEO’d based on the occurrence of nofollow. But to back up to siloing, he looks it as proper architecture for your Web site. Keep it focused all the way through.

I’m spending a ton of time and money creating unique content and distributing it across a network. How can I do this without duplicate penalties?

Todd F: Google’s really good at detecting duplicate content. Where you can, try rewriting, re-titling, and so on, but at some point there’s a diminishing return. You have to pick with publication is going to take the lead at certain times.

Matt: Rely on local properties to localize the content. It’s a tough model, and he’s seeing a huge rethinking of strategy in the publishing industry.

Bruce: If it’s duplicate, one will be filtered, and if it’s syndicated by a higher authority site, they could rank instead of the original creator. There are also instances where there are words dynamically replaced. That’s more considered spam.

Mike: There has to be some kind of white listing. He asked someone at an engine if duplicate filtering was on all the time. Every university has this manual on their site, so does that mean every university is going to be filtered? There’s got to be analysis on when it should be filtered and when not.

Todd M: It’s hard to argue against duplication consolidation when you consider site quality scoring — if there is such a thing. Even the publishing industry will need to consider this.

The best analytics tracking package is blank.

Todd F: His favorite is Core Metrics. Omniture is a beast to set up. Google is free. Enquisite has a free trial period. Look at what you need to do and what package will meet those needs.

Mike: He agrees with Todd. A hammer to crack a nut might be too much technology for you.

What do you recommend when a term gets localized and ten spots pop up at the top of the results?

Everyone: First get into the local results if you can.

Todd F: Localization is getting so broad now. Local results show up for queries that don’t even have a city name now. And you can’t use a P.O. box. There are places that are re-mailers that will forward your mail to wherever.

Mike: Get a paid listing.

Todd M: You can do re-mailing for your top offices and locations. Include those office addresses on your contact page. You won’t be across the board anymore.

What are your thoughts on Caffeine?

Todd F: Everything he’s checked on it is relatively at the same position as it was before. It’s less an algo shift as it is an infrastructure shift.

Bruce: Some of the spammier sites have dropped.

Mike: The end user expects the freshest results. Crawling the Web has always been about lateral results. So the intention is to speed up the process within the HTTP protocol we’re working with.

Todd M: When there are significant changes, it can take up to six months to find out how it will affect the search industry.

We’ve invested heavily in PR and the links have done nothing for our rankings.

Mike: You probably won’t. The notion of a press release isn’t to get the links. You want the guy at the Wall Street Journal to write about your press release and get one big link.

Todd F: Be judicious with the topics of your press release.

Matt: Are your targets those newspapers that after 30 days the article is in archive and then it’s behind a registration wall? Target publications with longer lasting links.

I thought login pages were a good place to use nofollow, but Matt Cutts told me take them all off. And my observation has been that Google hasn’t taken all their nofollows off. What’s going on?

Todd F: He’s seeing that nofollow is just evaporating PageRank, not consolidating it. He doesn’t see a reason to use it

Mike: He never gave nofollow a second thought — never bothered with it. Use robots.txt if there’s something you don’t want in the index.

Do you still think all press is good press?

Todd F: Yeah, even bad press gets links. But it depends on what the business goals are. If you can avoid bad news, avoid it. There are sites out there like RipOffReport that can take control of your SERPs.

What are the most obvious questions that customers don’t ask when engaging an SEO program that they should be aware of and plan for?

Matt: There’s still a focus on rankings and not business model and revenue. That’s an old mentality and it’s not necessarily the case.

Todd F: Clients don’t understand the space. If you ask, “who are your competitors for your shoe store?” they say Nike, Adidas, etc. But really it’s Zappos. They can’t get their head around who their online competition is. The other big issue is that they want certain major traffic keywords, when those words don’t convert.

Bruce: They often don’t know what their key performance indicators are. A lot of people have been flying blind and don’t have a sense of how to measure the success of an SEO program.

Matt: There’s no concept of what it takes to compete in certain spaces. The days of the little guy competing against the big guy are long gone in many verticals.

Mike: And look at the whole marketing strategy of competitors — not just online. If a competitor is spending money on TV ads and other channels too, then are you prepared to do the same?

Advanced SEO Roundtable: What Is It Really? And Where Is It Going? was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Oh, the final day of a rocking conference. The flamenco music has just faded out and Liana Evans is now on the stage. She says that every time she hears our speaker talk she always has awesome takeaways. Li’s speaking of Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell and founder of Altimeter Group. Charlene steps up to the podium.

Think of how far search has come in the last 10 years. Search results are much richer today. Imagine how much more things will evolve. She shows a screenshot of Bing and highlights the left-hand table of contents. Search is much more sophisticated than before.

The Groundswell is where social technologies enable people to get what they need from each other. You can watch videos, listen to audio, connect on Facebook, check what people are saying in real time. In search, the Groundswell has had an effect, and she points to United Breaks Guitars as an example.

After a year of fighting with an airline, a man got fed up and put a video up that told his story. If you do a search for United today, the music video is the fourth result. United doesn’t own their brand as a keyword anymore. Social is out there and it’s being picked up, including by search engines.

People must be at the center of your search strategy — not keywords. So how do you do that? Look at content meaning and advertising through the lens of people. If you think of relevancy as where content meaning, advertiser intent and user intent come together.

Content Meaning

Search engines today can’t make much sense of social sites. Partly because there’s a registration wall and partly because it’s not link based. Take a look at Starbucks’s Facebook fan page. They have 3.7 million fans. Starbucks recently posted on their wall about their Red Foundation pledge campaign. This post had more than 600 comments and more than 7,000 “likes”. And these likes and comments don’t only stay on this page — they’re shared with those users’ friends.

The Facebook search feature lets you know what other people in your network have said about things. And there’s no capability for search engines to tap into this.

The real-time Web presents new challenges for search engines. What’s the value of retweets, replies and short URLs? If you search for the same word in Twitter Search and in Google, the sense you’ll get of the conversation will be totally different

User Intent

Social networks will be like air. It will be all around you, at your fingertips, not just on your desktop computer. User intent becomes clearer with geographic, time and social context. Now you can use your smart phone to search nearby, search on route, search by time of day, find places with friends’ reviews or even friends nearby. How does that change the parameters of what search actually requires. User intent becomes more than the words, it becomes the context.

What if you could read reviews from people you know? If there’s a way to filter by friend reviews first, or friend reviews from only foodies if you’re looking at restaurants. Check out what Earthwatch is doing with trip reviews shared between friends.

There are new ways of targeting marketing:

• Demographic
• Geographic
• Psychographic
• Behavioral
• Social-graphic

What could you do if you could understand user intent better? Media6 identifies who is closest to you — your network neighbor. The idea is that friends have something in common. Friends, more than anything, is the most reliable indicator of interests.

Media6 maps network neighbors based on visits to profile sites via browser cookies (no PII involved). If Jane buys shoes on NineWest, NineWest ads may be shown to Lisa’s friends, without identifying or involving Jane. The key is tapping into the social graphics, creating profiles, which advertisers can use to target.

If you do a Google search, the ads don’t take into account who you are. What if the CPC/CPM could be augmented by social data like:

• Influence
• Number of friends
• Influence among friends
• Number of influential friends

This information can inform the advertiser how valuable a person is to you as an influencer.

How will social CRM work with search?

So how does a business prepare?

1. Focus on the people not the keywords.

It’s about the long-term relationships. Let that inform your interactions with your audience. Focus on relationships, not technologies. What kind of relationship do you want? Do they look transactional, occasional, impersonal and short-term? Or passionate, constant, intimate and loyal?

Goals define your strategy. The first goal should be to learn. This happens through listening to customers first. Then engage them in a dialog, help and support them, and/or innovate with them.

Learn with monitoring tools. Search for free with Twitter and Delicious to see how people are describing and using a product. A paid tool is Radian6, which gives you all kinds of information about product/brand mentions. You’ll see where the conversations are taking place and who is influential in the conversation. Along with listening, encourage feedback.

The Engagement Pyramid

The first level is the watchers. The level after is sharing, and that actually involves engagement. Then come commenters. These people actually create content through their shared opinion. Next is producers — people who create content for a specific audience.

Charlene is a blogger and she has a very clear idea about who her audience is. She’s not going to share a post with them about her family vacation, but they will care about her thoughts on technology. At the top of the pyramid is curators. These people can’t function without the permission of the rest of the community.

So where should a business be? The top? Nope! Pay attention to the bottom of the pyramid. You need to start from the beginning where you’ll draw the movement. Think of where sharing and commenting can be integrated in you site — where they’ll make the most sense and where they’ll be the most utilized. When the right tools are available, anyone can be a marketer on behalf of the company in the future.

This scares companies. But the time of fear is past. You have to find the people in your organization who can speak on your behalf and give them the right tools and training. Look at Dell’s Twitter account. It’s not push marketing — it’s dialog and conversation and customer support.

Or look at the @comcastcares account. Someone doesn’t even have to contact Comcast. A mention of a bad experience elicits the company proactively reaching out. More innovation can be seen in Starbucks’s automatic ordering via swipe card idea. Starbucks has been thinking of how to make it work for the last year. They weren’t able to make the idea happen, so they posted that the technology is an issue and explained their decision making process. That gives customers validation.

2. Get your backend data in order.

• Single sign-on and identity record.
• Integrate off-site behavior and data.
• Know influence of key people.

Integrate social into your site. Facebook Connect is an easy way to do this. People will bring their social network into the site. LinkedIn also has this ability. Think of where your audience connects with their friends.

Prepare to tap into “chain of intent”. If you search for “family vacation” and then “cruise” and then “family vacation again” — the third search will show ads that account for cruises. How good is your ability to analyze this information on the fly and return information based on that?

3. Be ready to give up control.

The biggest barrier companies have in adopting these technologies is not wanting to give up control. How many of your personal relationships do you control? You don’t. You build up trust over time. And if you think of what control you’re giving up, you realize control is a fallacy.

Summary

• Social networks will be like air. Your social network will go everywhere with a user.
• People must be at the center of your search strategy — not keywords.
• Deepen relationships with social technologies.
• Be ready to give up control — you have no choice.

For slides, send an email to slides@altimetergroup.com
Find her on Twitter @charleneli and read her blog at blog.altimetergroup.com.

How to Prepare for the Future of Search: Keynote with Charlene Li was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

Greg Jarboe is our moderator for this session focused on ways to unlock your prospect’s mind with consumer psychology and neuromarketing. Our speakers are Graeme McLaughlin, Manager Digital Marketing, British Columbia Automobile Association, and Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks.

Heather’s up first and she says that she pitched this session topic because she’s found that writers are only thinking about keywords. But content marketing is more than just writing words on a page. When people are making buying decisions, at the end of the day it’s all about how people feel, not logic.

The show Mad Men does a good job talking about the motivators behind content. Humans are very ritual based. We have the same steps we do when we get up in the morning. Learn how to tap into a prospect’s head, what they’re thinking. Then transfer those motivating factors into the page. That’s the difference between good copy and great copy.

On the screen is a slide of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If people aren’t getting their physiological needs met, they’re not going to care about a cool car. This is especially important in today’s economy. This concept of ordered needs relates to content and marketing.

Take a home loan modification site, for example. This site needs to speak to physiological needs — keeping a roof over one’s head. A site about home security needs to speak to the safety needs. A furniture site needs to speak to social needs. A site that sells vacation homes speaks to esteem needs.

Psychology in SEO copy writing is incredibly important. When you understand what makes your target market tick, you can create and structure copy towards them based on emotions.

The Bandwagon Approach

Heather Lloyd Martin

We like to feel like we’re one of the crowd. No matter how different we feel we are, we want to do what other people like us are doing. Mirror neurons shows this effect. Crocs are not attractive but they became popular because people saw them in the crowd. Acquiring these things makes us feel like we’re the same as everyone else.

We also see this on Twitter. We look at things like followers to determine self worth.

How to leverage this:

• Include logos/names of current/past clients.
• PR/content marketing campaign to build brand.
• If you have a service-oriented site, consider adding a blog (for comments) or testimonials.
• Twitter for personal branding.

There are things to remember when you work with testimonials. It’s not just getting testimonials. It’s matching the testimonial with the offer, target audience and where someone is in the purchasing decision. When matching the testimonial to the audience, think about verticals as well as the size of the company/brand.

When’s the best time to ask for a testimonial? When you do someone a favor, they are initially thrilled by your service. Three months later, the perceived importance of that work starts going down. The best time to ask for a testimonial is right after you’ve done something for them.

The Need to Differentiate

People are inundated with information. We have a hard time filtering information. One of the ways you can increase conversion rates is to decrease the choices. Head and Shoulders had 26 kinds of shampoo and reduced it to 15. They actually saw a 10 percent increase in sales. Simplicity is a good thing.

How to leverage this:

• Don’t let your customers overwhelm — reduce choices, test and consider reducing again.
• Know that there is power in simple. Too many choices can confuse.

When Free is Not Good

Sometimes “free” signifies a lack of value.

How to leverage this:

• If you’re providing an incentive gift, include the value of the gift in the text.
• If you’re offering a “discount,” consider including the retail price.
• If you’re offering a “savings,” tell them how much.

This is especially important in the recession economy.

Compromise Choices

People compromise between a low-priced product and a higher-priced product by opting for the less expensive version. If there are three choices, the middle choice is often chosen.

Pricing structures should be tested. Boost sales by changing the order in which you make your request.

How to leverage this:

• Slice choices to three (differentiation).
• Place the most expensive option first — everything else looks like a bargain.

Decoy Marketing

Offer one so-so choice so it makes the other choices seem better.

Takeaways

A better understanding of psychological processes results in more effective online sales. How you structure and strategize your writing is more than just keywords. It’s also understanding your prospects’ underlying motivations.

Graeme McLaughlin

Graeme is next to talk about the brain science BCAA never knew they had. The British Columbia Automobile Association is part of the AAA/CAA group. One in three households in British Columbia has a BCAA membership. They ran an ad that said:

1 in 3 households carry our membership. Are you a member? 763,000 people are members. Join today.

They were testing ad copy for PPC. The click through rate increased for an ad that said that they were highly rated by customers versus an ad that just talked about the low cost.

Social Proof: Life Stage Testimonials

• Make it about the customer.
• Use images of real customers.
• Geo-target ads to match landing pages.
• Staff name mentioned in testimonial.
• Testimonials above the call to action.

Selling Option B

They have a table of membership types with a description and the fee. One of the choices is selected by default. When they changed the default to a higher package, there was a lift in those sales.

Too much information can be avoided by asking customers what features are the most important. They ended up with a much simpler table. They originally highlighted the mid-level package they wanted to sell most of. Then they tried highlighting the top option, and it had the effect of driving more sales of the mid-option, the option they wanted to sell most.

Next Steps

• Work with your product groups and customers.
• Find the low hanging fruit (like product defaults).
• Use campaign traffic to test application changes.
• Build a social marketing concept cheat sheet.

Turn Brain Science into Bucks: Incorporating Persuasive Messaging into Your Content Strategy was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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.

Microsoft the Underdog was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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.

Can Bing Build a Brand? was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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.

Colorful Musings on Customer Loyalty was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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.

Online Reputation Management – SEM Synergy Extras was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.