“Inkbait”: A Case Study In Linkability
In the world of search engine optimization (seo), the tactic known as “linkbait” is one of the few link building tactics the search engines embrace, encourage and algorithmically reward. The reason for this is simple, linkbait generates editorial links which the search engines love. Knowing this and understanding the influence of universal search, the bounty placed on paid [...]
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Social Media: More Than Meets the Eye?
Social media is gaining greater acceptance across all levels of business from the SMB to the multi-national enterprise. No surprise there. What is beginning to play out though is the fact that the space is new and evolving. As a result, some of the techniques or tactics that seem to be the ‘norm’ are now being seen a bit differently. Why? Because there may be other things that just work better. That’s where the evolving part comes in.
eMarketer reports on a Marketing Profs survey (this link is for a synopsis of survey that is for sale and we are not in any way associated with that sale) from earlier in September 2009 that shows what is usually done on some social media outlets isn’t what is driving results.
The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers.
But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than one-quarter of total respondents.
The chart below tells the rest of the story:
Now that’s for Facebook. Apparently the same rules apply for Twitter.
Like those on Facebook, marketers using Twitter were also most interested in increasing traffic. Driving traffic by linking to marketing Webpages was the most common activity on the microblogging site, followed by driving sales by linking to promotional pages. But again, the most effective tactics were different.
So what was Twitter most effective at for companies? Online reputation monitoring and management. Sure you can drive traffic to your site but there is always the question of the quality of the traffic you drive. As for responding to a negative comment or seeing your brand get trashed? That’s easy and obvious to spot and there is no real wiggle room. It is what it is. As a result companies need to respond and there is a ‘measurable’ result. Here is how the rest of the uses panned out.
So where are you on this one? Do you use social media in ways that may not be talked about in the mainstream but have yielded success for you? Remember, it’s OK to share because it’s about social media. No secrets here 
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Customer Engagement Survey Shows Twitter is King of ROI
I’ve been a contributing analyst for the eConsultancy/cScape Customer Engagement Survey over the past few years. The 2010 edition has just landed and I thought I would share with you the data that jumped out at me.
Email Newsletters Fading?
The 2nd Customer Engagement Survey saw businesses focusing their efforts on using email newsletters to improve customer engagement. An incredible 69% of companies stated that they had measured a tangible improvement through their e-newsletter campaigns so it was not a surprise that 59% planned to invest heavily in email marketing by the time we came to the third survey. By contrast, investment in social networks – such as Facebook – was down on the list of priorities with only 36% of companies planning to increase their investment in that area.
Social Networks See Huge Investment
So, what happened now we are on survey four and looking at 2010? Those that took a chance and invested in social networks saw a big return on investment. For companies, email newsletters still rated as the tactic offering the highest tangible improvement (67%) but a whopping 44% – almost double the percentage from 2009 – have discovered that social networks helped increase their online customer engagement. That return on investment has clearly caught the attention of both companies and their agencies. In 2010, the survey predicts that 61% of company executives will be increasing their focus on social networks, while agencies are even more bullish, expecting their clients to spend more on social networking (66%) than even email newsletters (41%).
Twitter’s King of Engagement
Perhaps the most stunning statistic is the percentage of companies that plan to invest in Twitter as a channel for customer engagement. In last year’s report, Twitter barely registered with survey participants with just 7% of companies realizing improved customer engagement from Twitter, hence only 13% planned to invest in Twitter in 2009. What a difference a year makes! Twitter has seen massive growth and companies are scrambling to make the micro-blogging channel a key part of their customer engagement efforts. In fact, with 35% of companies seeing an improvement in their customer engagement from Twitter in 2009, almost 44% of companies plan to increase their investment in Twitter in 2010. That’s a three-fold improvement over last year!
Engagement = Conversations
What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, it’s apparent that companies are realizing that customers expect engagement to be a two-way dialogue. Email newsletters are a great way to keep customers updated but they don’t really engage them. Instead, companies are seeing measurable benefits of actually having a conversation with their customers be it via Facebook, Twitter or whatever, making them willing to invest more of their marketing/PR budgets to reap the fruits of that engagement.
Want to get your hands on all the data? Get your copy of the cScape/Econsultancy report!
Dayparting: Profitable Tactic Or Waste Of Time?
Hour of day bidding, or dayparting, has been the topic of much discussion of late. Advertisers want to leverage every possible trend to maximize their profits, and one way to do this is to take advantage of search engines providing advertisers with the flexibility to run their campaigns with bidding by hour of day. With [...]
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Cup of Joe: The Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet, is in Las Vegas – Part 2
This is part two of Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet, series. If you haven’t read part one, you probably should do that first. 
So if you are reading this you probably read last week’s post, where I promised that I would reveal a secret tactic that can make you rich on the internet. Before i do that, I want to talk about secrets in general for a moment. Quite honestly, most “secrets”on the internet are BS. This is because oftentimes they are bits of knowledge and advice that seem obvious to many, but practiced by few. This is generally because the best tactics are the ones that don’t show their true value until you have years of experience trying them out. Many of the most valuable “secret” tactics (including the one below) are things that many of us do everyday but are not aware of it.
And the secret is…
Building strong relationships with the people that matter most. Building strong relationships has historically been the cornerstone of success. Sometimes the internet and social media fools us into thinking that we can do anything we want without anyone’s help. If you think that, you are dead wrong. No one lives on an island–we all work and play in the same cyberspace. Building strong relationships can be a powerful tactic in advancing your personal and professional life because it enables other people to feel empowered when you succeed.
The only downside to this tactic is, to do it effectively, you have to focus on the people that matter most. People that matter most?? Don’t all people matter? Unfortunately if you are going to use relationship building as a tactic you have to segment people effectively in order to get the most out of your effort. In short, you can’t be friends with everyone!
So who matters and who doesn’t? For each person this may be different, but I like to break people down into two groups.
People that are excited about what you are doing should be your first target for building relationships. When people are excited about something they generally tend to talk about it early on, and then as their interest passes they find something else. If you can effectively build a solid relationship with that person then you will be at the forefront of their thoughts as long as you keep the relationship alive. They will then turn into your strongest brand advocates because they want to see you succeed.
People that you want to be excited about what you are doing should be your second target. These are the folks that are maybe influential in your industry. They are the ones that can help spread your vision into other networks that you aren’t a part of yet. Or they might just be the person that you know would truly benefit in what you are doing.
So now we know which types of folks to target, the real question is how do we actually build these strong relationships? Well, I think that’s a topic for another post, but one way to start learning how to develop strong relationships is to follow a few folks, that I saw in Vegas, that are amazing relationship builders.
Relationship Building Gurus:
Local Newspapers Need To Embrace SEO To Survive
It’s no secret that newspapers have been struggling with the disruptive innovations introduced by Google, and this has resulted in some level of resistance and a circling-of-the-wagons mentality by the industry. But, what if they were to go in the opposite direction, with full engagement? Search engine optimization could really help newspapers, and here’s one tactic for how to do it.
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Cup of Joe: The Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet, is in Las Vegas – Part 1
It seems that around every corner on the web there is some one selling a get rich quick scheme or program. There’s always someone talking about a magic formula, or amazing tactic, that will make money fall from heaven. The truth is, there isn’t really one program or set of rules that are guaranteed to make anyone rich. The truth is, that some programs work for some and not for others. Some programs work for many and some don’t work for any at all. However, after a few years of building a business online, I have discovered that there is one tactic that most successful entrepreneurs use everyday.
This one tactic has helped millions of business leaders, public figures and even whole corporations see unprecedented wealth. It’s the same tactic that gets politicians elected and drives entire social movements. You can use this tactic to get a raise at work, or completely start your own empire. Sounds exciting doesn’t it?
Now don’t get me wrong this tactic can’t be practiced alone, you still have to work hard and produce good content, but if you can master this tactic it makes everything else so much easier.
So what the heck is this secret tactic??
Well, if I told you it wouldn’t be a secret would it? I hate when people say that! But, seriously this is the type of tactic that you can’t learn from a blog post. To truly understand how this works you have to experience it for yourself. To truly master this tactic you have to see it in action and try it out on your own. A silly blog post won’t do this lesson justice.
So I am going to offer you the opportunity to learn this tactic from me in person! You see, this coming week I will be in Las Vegas attending one of the most well known Internet Marketing events ever, Pubcon. If you can find me in Las Vegas, and ask me about this post, I will share with you everything I know about this tactic. I will point out people that use this tactic everyday, and I will give you tips on how you can get started using this gem instantly. And, for the rest of you that aren’t going, I will do my best to share with you my secret tactic next week in part 2 of this post. Then, I will point out examples of folks from Pubcon that used this tactic. So until then, have a great week, and I hope to see you in Vegas!
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New Twitter Notifications Save Index Finger Blisters
If you’ve ever suffered a blister on your index finger, from constantly clicking the “home” or “refresh” button on Twitter.com, I have good news for you!
This:
Is coming to your Twitter homepage. According to Twitter:
We’re starting a limited test of notifications on twitter.com for when you have new tweets. So if one of the folks you follow has tweeted since you loaded your homepage, you’ll get a little notice saying “1 new tweet” that, when clicked, will display the new content.
Along with the recent launch of Twitter Lists, this seems to be yet another tactic to get Twitter users to stay engaged. Something that others have suggested is starting to drop off:
I’m not seeing the new feature–are you?–but I’m glad to give my index finger a little break. 
Turkey Suing Google for $47M in Back Taxes
Dear World:
Google is advertising in your countries.
Duh.
Turkey has recently determined that Google owes them $47M US (71M Turkish lira) in back taxes on advertising sold in Turkey. The government maintains that because Google sells advertising in Turkey and maintains an office and registered subsidiary in the country.
Google, on the other hand, points out that “it runs its ad network operations from Ireland and thus is not obliged to pay taxes in Turkey merely because it owns a subsidiary there.” The suit recognizes that bills and checks (or should I say cheques?) for such advertising are addressed from/to the company’s European headquarters in Dublin.
Says TechCrunch:
In a statement, Google said it is acting in accordance with the tax laws of every country in which it operates, including Turkish laws, and that its negotiations with the government on this issue are ongoing. . . .
We’ve also been in touch with a Turkish lawyer, who tells us the government is making a valid claim, pointing out that Google has set up a full-fledged company called Google Reklamcılık ve Pazarlama Ltd. Şti. (which means Google Advertising and Marketing Ltd.) in Turkey rather than what he refers to as a ‘liaison’ branch. Had it done the latter, says the lawyer, the company would have had to pay very little or no taxes at all.
Personally, I’m a little skeptical of the Turkish government’s claim, mostly because if Google has really been taxable all this time (and since Google is the #1 online and search ad company in Turkey), they (the government or Google) would have figured this out a lot sooner. Did the Turkish government just figure out they could tax Google? Or is this, as TechCrunch points out, just a bargaining tactic tor force Google’s negotiations to go faster?
(Note: the Turkish government says they’ve determined this after a year of investigating. Again, a year? It doesn’t take a year to figure out that someone should be paying you taxes, especially not if a Turkish lawyer can figure it out in one email. If they really wanted the taxes, they could have indicated that Google should be paying taxes at the beginning of the investigation instead of stalling a year while Google racked up more income that they could penalize. I think being dishonest like that should be reason enough to lose the suit.)
Here’s what I think: if you really want to tax Google, countries of the world, then do it—but pass a new law that they can’t get out of. Don’t try to cobble together a legal argument, backform your present laws that may or may not fit the situation, or stall an entire year to try to squeeze more out of them. Because, after all, taxing Internet companies for selling stuff in your jurisdiction has worked really well in New York, North Carolina, etc.
What do you think? Will Turkey get their cash, will the case get thrown out, or are they really just hoping for Google to settle for any amount? Will this make Google reluctant to operate in that country in the future?
Warning! That Political Ad on Google Could Cost You a $250 Fine!
There’s a problem brewing that involves Google and election mud-slinging.
Ooh, I just heard a collective "I knew it" from political conspiracy theorists around the country, but it’s not quite what you think. The problem involves the mandated disclaimer often needed for any kind of political ad.
You know the kind: "This ad was paid for by the party to elect Michael Scott mayor of Scranton."
The issue under discussion is, how do you fit such a long disclaimer on a Google AdWords ad? In his recent campaign for mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., Scott Wagman bought such an ad and was fined for lack of disclaimer.
He was hardly the first to employ the tactic, which didn’t stop a rival campaign from complaining the ad did not have a "paid for by" disclaimer. The Florida Elections Commission ordered Wagman to remove it and pay a $250 fine, even though the required disclaimer was longer than the 68 characters allowed in the text of the ad, which wasn’t "paid for" until someone clicked on it.
Now political eggheads and pencil pushers around the country are trying to figure out if Google ads need such a disclaimer, or do they fall within the realm of buttons and bumper-stickers–which require no such wording.
I’d say they have about 2 years left to figure this out. Search spending showed improved usage numbers during the 2008 presidential election, and I suspect that trend will continue as we get closer to the 2012.
My solution?
Simply ensure the landing page has the disclaimer. After all, the ad hasn’t technically been "paid for" by anyone, until you click the ad and visit the landing page. But that might just be too simple of a solution for politicians. 
