Social Media Articles by SEO Speedwagon

April 28, 2010

Facebook: To Like & Unlike

The “Like” button has already started appearing on pages across the web, making it ever so easy to share articles and sites with your Facebook pals.

What happens when you decide you really didn’t like that article? Or you didn’t want it shared with all of your connections? Maybe you were signed in to your work-friendly Facebook account and liked an article that was highly inappropriate for work. Some may think you’re stuck with the gaffe. Sure, you can delete the story from your News Feed, but that “like” will still be on the page where you clicked that oh-so-powerful little “like” button.

Fear not!

Simply return to the page you “liked” and click that “like” (or “recommend” or whatever the text may be) button again. There! You have unliked the story in one quick click. It will also be removed from your Facebook feed almost instantly. If the button is a solid shade, this indicates that you “like” this page. If it is white, this means you have yet to like it or have since unliked it.

Here is a screenshot of what a page looks like after you have “liked” it:

And after clicking it again (note the color change of the button):

And to make it even easier:

Liked:

Unliked:

Whether or not your “liking” of the page will remain archived somewhere deep in the trenches of Facebook is yet to be seen.

I wonder why Facebook isn’t really making this information widely known. I know several people who are hesitant to click that “Like” button because they don’t know how to get rid of it. One would think that giving people the option to change their minds might make them more inclined to click the like button, feeling secure that they can later undo it.

Facebook: To Like & Unlike
Posted by crystal at 3:27 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBacks (0)
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January 13, 2010

Can Linkedin Be Used As A Social Media Marketing Tool?

I firmly believe it can be used as an effective social media marketing tool if the correct strategy is implemented. I have been an avid user of Linkedin for the last 4 plus years and know that great things can happen when connecting properly with other users of this platform. What I like most about Linkedin is that I can make great connections with people I already know from a business perspective, as well as potential clients looking to get connected via their platform.

The key to fully utilizing their system is the way in which you approach users; always maintain an extremely professional manner in communicating with potential contacts. But, first you need to ensure that your profile is professional looking so that when other business people look at you in their system they get the best depiction of "who you are" and "what you can do for them". Once this is complete, your next step is to identify "what you want to achieve" in Linkedin regarding business development and then look at "who you will need to go after". Conducting these activities is paramount to being successful in Linkedin and can make or break your entire strategy.

Now its time to conduct some research regarding reaching your target market and Linkedin's new search feature called "Faceted Search" will enable you to reach further into it's database to find just the right people. Linkedin has added some impressive features in their latest update from December 2009 and describes the benefits as:

"Faceted Search offers the following benefits to your search experience on LinkedIn:
* Enables True Guided Navigation: A list of filters are generated dynamically for every search in order to guide you through the optimal path to find the most relevant people
* Provides Intuitive Interface: Refining your search is easier than ever with an intuitive user interface that allows you to slice and dice search results by 8 facets
* Improves Precision: As LinkedIn continues to grow by the millions, increasing search space requires increased precision to help you find exactly the right people
* Increases Efficiency: Find talent, business partners, customers or a former colleague faster than ever before.
* Reduces Need for Complex Queries: It significantly reduces the need for complex Boolean queries. This was a particular need we heard from many of our power users."

Here's a video that Linkedin recommends to users to get a better feel for how the search functionality works:

After you have collected a wide variety of people to contact it is a good idea to save their profiles, which is also a new feature Linkedin rolled out recently. This will give you the ability to go back and grab any needed information about your potential connections when making contact with them.

Now is the time to start reaching out to people you found while conducting your research and once again you must remember to be professional in your communication efforts. I always make myself available as a resource first to my potential contacts because I would rather help out where possible than be a pushy salesman. I know that by giving my time to all of my contacts, whether current or potential, I can be viewed as a positive influence to their business. This kind of attitude will pay off greater dividends in the long run as it relates to gaining referrals from my network. Also, you need to be transparent to everyone all the time because people are very smart and can read between the lines, and will know if you are trying to pull one over on them.

Today's Lesson: Research, Respect, Reach, Reward!

If you follow these simple words when connecting with people in Linkedin I promise you will make more connections and create wonderful business relationships in the process!

Can Linkedin Be Used As A Social Media Marketing Tool?
Posted by brett at 6:27 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (0)
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January 12, 2010

eCommerce 2.0: Let Your Products Have a Voice Online Via Social Media Marketing

If you have an eCommerce business and you want to gain extra traction for your products you need to be utilizing a platform that enables users to spread the word about your products online. I am not talking about social sharing services like AddThis, but a service that lets users send your product information to their friends and family via a customized widget (TAF4Commerce). A solution like this is currently being offered by Te!! A Friend, A Social Twist Service - http://bit.ly/6oec14. Businesses have the ability to create product-specific buzz with a context-enriched specialty word of mouth marketing solution by utilizing their customized widgets.

Their system allows users to send a referral email that includes product-specific content including images, descriptions, pricing, offers, reviews-even links to related products. I have seen many page sharing solutions but have yet to find a better product sharing widget than that offered by Te!! A Friend. Such functionality is particularly helpful for e-commerce sites that have product catalog pages dynamically constructed from database information. This means that large businesses can implement their product sharing widget with ease and give consumers the ability to share thousands of products with their friends in a few steps.

TAF4Commerce Email Example

How it works described by Te!! A Friend:

"Sign up for TAF4Commerce, then access SocialTwist’s Easy Set-up Wizard to quickly customize your button, widget and email templates. Next insert the Javascript code from the wizard on your product pages. The end result is a highly customized, word-of-mouth marketing tool that requires no additional oversight and that drives targeted, interested buyers back to your site."

Once again, if you are running a large eCommerce based Website I highly recommend utilizing a product sharing solution like Te!! A Friend to help give your products a voice!

eCommerce 2.0: Let Your Products Have a Voice Online Via Social Media Marketing
Posted by brett at 12:10 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)
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January 11, 2010

Creative Ways to Utilize YouTube as a Marketing Channel

There are a variety of ways to utilize YouTube as a marketing channel and I've seen some very creative videos take social media marketing to the next level. A great example is Blendtec, they have been promoting their products on YouTube for quite some time now. The most memorable instance I can recall was them placing an iPhone 3G into a blender and it taking about 8 seconds to be completely pulverized. The thing that got me most about this video was I was expecting to see them chop up some kind of food item and instead saw them annihilate a brand-new iPhone 3G. Talk about surprising. Another crazy thing about this video is that it has only taken a little over a year to generate over 4 million views. To put it in plain English, this brand has been able to give its company 4 million pairs of eyeballs looking at its products in a new market online. If they had decided to utilize some other form of marketing medium I can guarantee it would've cost them a tremendous amount of money to generate 4 million impressions to any of their products.

The trick in their case seemed to be their creative usage as it relates to their brand since no one is expecting to see the types of things they are blending with their product. It seems primarily with Websites like YouTube that to get a users attention off the wall or crazy videos must be submitted to go viral. Not all brands have the luxury of creating wild videos to be placed on YouTube, but every company has the opportunity to make creative videos that showcase their brands doing something in a unique manner. The key thing to remember here is that if you are trying to promote a video on YouTube you have to be able to showcase your products and/or services in a way that grabs the attention of users interacting within this space. Here's where marketers make a major mistake, they try to create bland videos and showcase them to users who are really not interested in seeing every day product and service promotions. As long as you keep this in mind when creating videos to be placed within YouTube you have a much better chance of having your videos go viral. Blendtec is a great example of a company that was willing to take a risk in the social media space and that risk totally paid off.

Creative Ways to Utilize YouTube as a Marketing Channel
Posted by brett at 7:07 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBacks (1)
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December 30, 2009

Facebook Privacy Settings

When was the last time you checked your Facebook privacy settings? Do you know what your profile and activity look like to the rest of the world? Is Google indexing your personal information?

Follow along as Social Media Strategist Jen Grant walks us through the most recent and perplexing privacy changes.

Facebook Privacy Settings
Posted by jen at 2:02 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
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November 11, 2009

Is Social Media a Fad?

In an ever changing industry sometimes people wonder if what we are doing will make an impact on our clients businesses for the long run. After watching this video I think its safe to say that social media isn't going anywhere. The numbers used in it are staggering in that technology has taken our communication efforts and put them into hyper drive. Reaching critical mass via our marketing efforts is a reality because of technology and I feel things will only move faster in the near future!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Is Social Media a Fad?
Posted by brett at 10:04 AM | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)
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November 6, 2009

Social Media URL Duplication and the Canonical Link Element

When most people discuss the canonical link element, they describe its usage in the context of duplicate content mitigation, such as www vs non-www content, print-friendly pages, and so on. This is entirely appropriate. But the ways that we're all creating duplicate content are constantly growing and changing, which means that even if you think you don't need to canonicalize your pages, you might be wrong.

This post discusses how using the canonical link element might help you even if you don't think you need it.

Quick question: Should you use the canonical tag on your pages even if you're not sending out multiple versions of them?
Absolutely.

Why?
Because someone else might be creating versions of your pages that you don't even know about.

Here's an example: When I share something in my Google Reader, here's what happens:

1. Twitterfeed grabs my Google Reader "public" RSS feed, which is how my shared items are dispersed.
   
2. Twitterfeed takes the URL I'm sharing and appends two UTM tags to it -- "source" and "campaign".
   
3. Via Twitterfeed, Bit.ly shortens the long URL (including UTM tags) that I'm sharing.
   
4. Twitterfeed shoots the title of the post and shortened URL out over the @intrapromote Twitter stream.
   

In other words, I might read this URL:

http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115

But when I share and tweet it, it ends up looking like this:

http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115?utm_campaign=ipshare&utm_source=reader

Basically, I've created a duplicate URL for Search Engine Land, which they didn't ask for and probably don't know about. But the crew over there has anticipated this, because when you look at the source code for the page I created, you see this code:

link rel="canonical" href="http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115" /

This tag tells engines that no matter what tags I (or anyone else, including SEL) puts on those pages, this one is the authority.

UTM tags, of course, are primarily for measuring the effectiveness of your own social media endeavors on your own content, but the idea of someone appending tags to your content isn't far-fetched. Don't rule out people wanting to measure everything -- including their effect on other sites' traffic. Agencies use it to measure their efforts to a variety of client sites, and ad-selling sites use it for case study purposes to illustrate their reach.

Search Engine Land likely uses the canonical tags to consolidate authority because of their own tracking tags. But in this case, I've shown how someone on the outside can splinter your authority. It's pretty easy to add this tag to your pages (despite the obvious fact that I haven't done it on this blog yet), and the more ways you distribute your content, the more sense it makes to find the time to do it.

Social Media URL Duplication and the Canonical Link Element
Posted by erik at 7:33 AM | Comments (84) | TrackBacks (0)
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November 4, 2009

Utilize Micro-blog Technology to Find Talent or a Job

This morning I had the opportunity to review a site that enables recruiters and job hunters to connect with one another with greater ease utilizing micro-blog technology. Tweet-A-Job, which is currently in Beta, describes its services as such, "We provide recruiters the fastest way to connect with qualified candidates - online or on-the-go." Recruiters have the ability to Tweet jobs posts via their network and job candidates can receive updates via the Tweet-A-Job platform or from directly within their existing Twitter account. The thought of receiving job information via the Twittersphere isn't new, but providing recruiters with a platform to better connect with passive job candidates is still a good idea. All you need to do is sign up for a free account, write a job tweet and pay five dollars to post the information via their system which will connect your message with a large number of recruiters. If you make multiple posts per week then you'll be eligible for a per post discount. It will be interesting to see how many recruiters interact with this new platform in the up coming months!

Utilize Micro-blog Technology to Find Talent or a Job
Posted by brett at 12:58 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)
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October 6, 2009

Why Social Media Marketing is Expected of Big Brands

As we continue to move our resources to a “soft” platform, we realize that the flexibility of social media makes it a great culture to display the branded message. This very same identifying quality of pliability creates havoc in the minds of Big Brand marketers because of the difficulty in applying metrics and of defining the space. From a distance, social media seems volatile and unreliable. You can’t hold it, hand it out, or scan the barcode to provide “reliable” metrics. Unlike a billboard, you don’t even know if it’s still there most of the time!

Everyone understands the hesitation- but we also understand it as a gut reaction. Human nature often dictates that we fear what we do not understand. When it comes to my personal pocketbook, I feel the same hesitation until I understand the how and the why of the situation. These questions are valid, and I cannot fault the hesitant person when it comes to a marketing budget. However, most don’t fully understand the how and why of electrical power in our lives, but we constantly flip the switch.

What I intend to do is shed some light on the dark side of the marketing budget. The “new” line item (ten years ago) that has consistently grown in girth and weight: Internet Marketing. Careful marketing execs have been hesitant to pull the trigger on such a volatile strategy such as Internet Marketing, let alone Social Media Marketing. For those in the game 10+ years ago, this probably stems from the dot com crash. For others, it may be shear ignorance of the Web 2.0 platforms. I think it has more to do with measuring ROI.

The evolution of communication (discussed at length here) has sped up exponentially over the three decades since the basic packet-switching system was developed. As we observe the basic evolutionary principles play out with platforms that survive (Google, AOL Instant Messaging, etc.), we begin to realize that social media is gaining a very solid foothold as a by-product of the evolution.

We could debate the merits of the survivors all day, digging into the minutia of what has worked and what hasn’t. That debate would not express why Social Media Marketing is a necessity to big brands today. The point is that the history and evolution has created precedent. Big brands do not have to blaze the trail. There is now a decade of experience at your fingertips for Internet Marketing Strategy (namely through Intrapromote’s team of aficionados) and, yes, it has been 5 years since you set up your Gmail account.

So why do Big Brands need to pull the trigger?

• With the announcement of Google Public Sector, the adaptation of Google’s standard applications for use within the US Federal Government, it becomes clear to those behind the ball that Web 2.0 is a real thing, and mandatory. As a veteran, I know firsthand that this did not happen overnight…or even a fortnight.

• Facebook and Twitter have become the leading internal and external communications tools within the United Methodist Church. This move has aligned itself with the dawn of the 10thousanddoors advertising campaign, primarily being carried out by social networks and various media outlets.

• Best Buy has pioneered usefulness on Twitter by replying directly to customers and non-customers alike regarding technical and consumer support questions via Twelpforce. In fact, @Twelpforce has been cited in over 800 individual tweets in the last seven days. These are astonishing numbers when applied to the purposefulness of this service, namely to push consumers to your brand.

Even though big brands are not usually evangelists for new concepts in marketing strategy, they all jump on board once the numbers show value (as shown in this video). It would be very disappointing to search for Coca-Cola on Facebook and not find a presence there, or search YouTube for the funniest Bud Light commercials, only to be met with a 404 message.

In conclusion, I pose two questions. First, have you been able to directly influence 800 consumers in one week’s time with a branded message guiding them to your products? Secondly, would that amount of influence represent a positive ROI for your company?

Why Social Media Marketing is Expected of Big Brands
Posted by dylan at 7:43 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)
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October 2, 2009

Sales & Recruiting Tool for Linkedin: People Toucher

I had the chance to review a sales and recruiting tool with a funny name offered by People Toucher this morning. The layout and functionality for finding sales and recruiting opportunities is pretty professional and easy to utilize. You have the ability to use multiple search criteria when finding individuals via Linkedin's network; which makes finding the right person much easier. The only drawback to People Toucher's system is that it takes you away from their site instead of integrating the search results within its own site. This is probably something they will be integrating into their site in the distant future to keep users within their portal. This would be one of the few ways they can make money in the future. I am going to put this system to the test next week and let everyone know if it will become a part of my sales and recruiting arsenal!

Sales & Recruiting Tool for Linkedin: People Toucher
Posted by brett at 11:24 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)
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September 2, 2009

It's Time for Twitter to Take URL Structure Seriously

About three months ago, I mentioned in a ClickZ article that Twitter should consider tightening up its structure to avoid some of the duplication it's creating in its URLs.

Back then, for example, Twitter had about 1.4 million URLs indexed on its secure (HTTPS) server. Today, that number has tripled to about 3.5 million. That latter number is just a shadow of the total number of URLs indexed that aren't on the HTTPS protocol, which is about 314 million.

Cap style -- the way URLs appear in your browser (upper or lowercase) -- is just as bad a problem. This link shows the tip of the duplication iceberg using @CNNbrk as an example. A smart server issues URLs in only one cap style and accepts only those same URLs, while redirecting any variations that get requested.

The following image, taken from that link, shows six different cap styles for the single account:

And don't forget the mobile site, m.twitter.com, which gets indexed right alongside the full-bodied version.

About the only canonicalization that Twitter is getting right is the www/non-www issue. Other than that, chaos rules.

The index size wars are over. Lean is the new fat. It's time for Twitter to make a few small tweaks and consolidate some of its splintered authority. All they need to do is agree on a case and protocol style, then either redirect non-conformers or issue canonical tags, and the problem will dry up relatively painlessly.

I also need to acknowledge the work of my industry colleague Edward Lewis, a vocal proponent of what he calls proper "Pascal casing." I make this acknowledgment despite the fact that he didn't appreciate my joke about the way he's "Blaising a trail" for proper Pascal case.

It's Time for Twitter to Take URL Structure Seriously
Posted by erik at 8:00 AM | Comments (85) | TrackBacks (0)
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May 27, 2009

Dafforn First to Discover Google Changes Profile Hop from 302 to 301

I am happy to report I am not the only one so oddly obsessed; money quote:

About three weeks ago, [John Lustina] noted that Google numerical-based URLs were redirecting to custom profiles, but they were using a 302 instead of a preferable 301. Today, however, I'm happy to note that's changed. As of this writing, the 302 has changed to 301.

Mark the time, SEO Friends; Google is listening to our Social World.

And with the step toward doing what they tell us to do, me Google Profile hops another steep up, to 5:

Is this why they wanted to 302 Hop[e], originally?

Dafforn First to Discover Google Changes Profile Hop from 302 to 301
Posted by john at 8:19 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)
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May 18, 2009

Google Profiles Now Above the Fold?

In spite of that odd numerical URL that persists and 302 hops, my Google Profile has proven to indeed be a climber, for the first time breaking above the fold for the vanity search I have been vainly keeping my own eye on from day one:

Now, as is normally the case with a non-temporary 302--THE problem with a non-temporary 302 you might conclude--I don't know whether to link to http://www.google.com/profiles/John.Lustina or http://www.google.com/profiles/116187582762783426547 when I am referring to it.

Google?

Google Profiles Now Above the Fold?
Posted by john at 10:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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May 4, 2009

Google Profiles Doing the 302 Hop?

Continuing in my vainglory of days past, I was surprised today while exploring below the fold to see my Google Profile suddenly appear as a tenth result along with the standard extra bottom result (with smiling picture) for a vanity search:

Even more surprising, if you look at the yellow highlighted rectangle, is that Google choose to show www.google.com/profiles/116187582762783426547 as the URL for the result, rather than the www.google.com/profiles/John.Lustina vanity URL that I selected as my preference, when offered, in the initial setup of my Profile.

Now, I was happy to see that it redirected to http://www.google.com/profiles/John.Lustina when clicked, yet wondered why the numerical URL would yet list if the redirect were a 301. My SEO senses tingling, I went to Rex The Answer Man to find this:

Why a 302 temporary redirect? Why not just keep them numerical rather than vain if they are not going to implement a proper 301?

Isn't that what they would have us counsel our clients in a similar scenario?

Google Profiles Doing the 302 Hop?
Posted by john at 9:10 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)
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May 2, 2009

Twitter Bookmarklets: Frame of Reference or Obloquy?

In my recent search for the perfect Twitter bookmarklet, one that would let me post from page without leaving nasty tracks in my Tweets, I noted a trend that all but BigTweet seemed to sow, in one shade or another; namely, the urge to take over and remake, to rendite, Cheney-like, beyond home:

The blue line above, spanning the horizon, demarcates the framing (or stealing) of the site URL Tweeted. True it is traded for providing the clicking Twit convenience, yet what does the site Tweeted get but a pageview in stats?

A RT, perhaps, but we know from usability that last in line isn't exactly the best place to be. Placement is illustrative in the above, as is color: anyone think the fading is an oversight?

Twitter Bookmarklets: Frame of Reference or Obloquy?
Posted by john at 2:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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April 28, 2009

Bonfire of the Vanity Search Revisited

Not three days later, the Google Profile influence now has ordered the top six:

Note to self: the right column space is pretty important:

Bonfire of the Vanity Search Revisited
Posted by john at 8:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
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April 25, 2009

Bonfire of the Vanity Search

Although unveiled in the innocuous position last--always, mind you--of the first page for your name, it seems more likely ever-prescient Google has a larger share in mind than the 10th result on a page; namely, a cover page for Socially skitzophrenic above-the-fold situations like the following:

Are they actually after, rather, One Profile to rule them all?

Bonfire of the Vanity Search
Posted by john at 10:23 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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November 20, 2008

Google SERPs Showing MySpace + other Videos

I'm surely not the first to notice this, but I saw MySpace video thumbnails in Google SERPs for the first time today:

Looking around, G is pulling from multiple sources, including MetaCafe, CollegeHumor, and this example from Spike:

A couple months ago, AccuraCast noticed two video results in a horizontal line, but in that sample, both videos were from Google-owned YouTube.

This is the next logical step in the universality of Universal Search, so to speak. Is it also the beginning of the end of big corporate presence on shared video sites?

Google SERPs Showing MySpace + other Videos
Posted by erik at 6:32 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)
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November 7, 2008

Social Media Reality Check: Facebook vs. MySpace

Submitted without comment:

Social Media Reality Check: Facebook vs. MySpace
Posted by erik at 9:26 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)
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Dropping Balls On Facebook

A die-hard Cleveland Browns fan my entire life, I sat through yet another disappointing game Thursday night. Having watched hundreds of these games since my childhood, now I just laugh and turn off the TV.

So far, this season has been a season of watching Browns receivers drop balls. It's so hard to watch a receiver have a ball go right through their hands or catch a ball and then drop it. I'm not sure who leads the league in dropped balls this season, but I would bet a dollar that it's the Browns.

I have a hard time watching TV without my notebook computer in my lap. As I sat through the familiar misery of another Brown's loss Thursday night, I found someone else dropping balls on Facebook - big time. In fact, let's call this a dropped touchdown pass to win the game.

I have a tip for professional recruiters using Facebook to find job seeking candidates. If you really want to appear professional and find good talent, you should be careful what Groups you join on Facebook. Yes, your potential candidates can see them and I'm certain that most quality job seekers open to being contacted on Facebook by a professional recruiter would be turned off by a recruiter who's a member of several groups that include the name "Whores".

Now that's a dropped ball.

Dropping Balls On Facebook
Posted by doug at 9:19 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)
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October 28, 2008

Follow Intrapromote on Twitter

We've been using Twitter as an internal communications tool for a while as a "protected" feed. In the spirit of TwitterGlasnost, however (and because we were surprised that several people found the feed and requested to follow it), we want to open it up.

What's in the stream?

• Links to posts from this blog
  
• Links to other SEO-related posts and articles from Intrapromote staffers
  
• SEO/M "required reading" -- a list of important SEO/SEM-related articles from around the web that our staff members have shared with one another
  
• Any upcoming speaking gigs or seminars we'll be attending
  
• The obligatory, enigmatic "and anything else we can think of..." items
  

So you are cordially invited to follow @intrapromote. No RSVP required.

Follow Intrapromote on Twitter
Posted by erik at 8:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
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September 30, 2008

5 Things to Consider When Hiring a Social Media Consultant and/or Company

Here's my take regarding the 5 things a company should look for when trying to hire a social media consultant and/or company:

1 - Company Credibility

How long has the company and/or consultant you are looking at been around? Are they new to this industry or do they have a significant, quality experience under their belts? Who are their current clients? Do they have a list of referrals for clients that have utilized their social media services in the past?

In addition to asking these important questions, you should also get acclimated to what is being said about that consultant within the social media realm to see if there are any negative connotations associated with their name. You will want to ensure you are working with a social media consultant who has a credible name online since his or her reputation will affect yours once he or she begins working on behalf of your company.

2 - Past Projects

Can you view some of their past work? This will give you a good idea as to whether or not they have the creative experience necessary to help you achieve your goals. Seeing what one has done for others will give you a very good understanding of what is possible regarding your endeavors. Has this consultant worked with small, medium, or large clientele? The answer to that question can sway your thinking because your brand may be larger and need someone who has dealt with major companies to truly create synergy for your social media objectives. Lastly, ask questions related to if this consultant has worked with other clients in your particular vertical market? Utilizing a consultant who already has knowledge about your industry can save your social media campaigns an enormous amount of time because a good deal of the learning curve on their end will already have been established.

3 - Strategy Best Practices

Have them define their strategy without asking them to give away the bank. A reputable social media consultant should have no problems letting you know how they conduct business and what they think are the best practices within the social media industry.

Additionally, you should consider the following: How will they interact with community members among social media hubs online? What approach will they take to get community members excited about your brand without looking like he or she is trying to utilize marketing tactics? How many hours will they spend in the “trenches” on your behalf each month? How are they going to measure the buzz being generated about your brand online? What are their SOP’s regarding making their clients aware of reputation management issues surrounding their brands online? Lastly, how have they handled reputation management issues for clients in the past?

4 - Guidance

A company should have the consultant they are looking at hiring give them feedback as to what type of social media campaign can be conducted with their current multi-media resources. It is also imperative to have the consultant give you a taste of what you will get from having them conduct social media consulting on your behalf. They don’t have to create a major social media strategy before starting the relationship, but it is good to see what’s under the hood before you embark on a business relationship with this person. Have them take a look at your current social media assets and walk you through a micro-strategy that could be used to enhance a small area of your business. This will give you the chance to see how this consultant thinks and really how creative they can be with your brand. It also shows that this consultant is willing to invest some energy to get your business--both parties win in this type of relationship!

5 - Like-ability

It all comes down to the amount of trust the social media consultant has created for you up to this point. Your questions have been answered and you have seen their work, now what? Do a gut check and review all of the facts that have been presented by the potential social media consultant. Generally you will have a feeling one way or the other and it’s your responsibility to ensure your company works with a consultant that can be trusted. If you have questions about the information that has been presented to you, then bring them up to the consultant for further clarification. After receiving his or her feedback you should present this information to other members of your company to see if they have questions to be answered. The main point here is to seek insight from others to be sure you are making the right decision by creating a strategic business alliance with this consultant.
Finding the right social media consultant to work with does not have to be a daunting task.

By conducting all of the activities mentioned above, you will be ready to make an educated decision as to whether or not it will benefit your company to work with this potential social media consultant.

5 Things to Consider When Hiring a Social Media Consultant and/or Company
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September 12, 2008

Video Social Network Recruiting: uBoast

For job seekers looking for work on the East Coast who have exhausted all normal online job sites there is a new recruiting platform offered by uBoast. This new recruiting platform allows account holders to create video resumes to showcase their skills to a new breed of recruiters willing to use cutting edge technology to find job candidates. uBoast is able to partner with local Universities to help students excel their careers by providing them with interview tips and best practices in order to develop confidence that will develop compelling video resumes. They reach out to recruiting agencies and employers to find out what they are looking for in an employee to better help their candidates align themselves with the right employers. uBoast also offers services related to video creation coaching, filming & editing, and hosting of account users video resumes from within their professional Web site.

uBoast describes their video resume services as a means of allowing job seekers to "show off their mannerism, energy, confidence, professionalism, and communication abilities." The company also makes its services available to recruiters and describes those services as "helping employers establish a more complete overall impression of the applicant (Applicant's personal page will include their video resume, paper resume, answers to interview questions, endorsements, references, Google links, and portfolio docs) all on one screen."

This type of service will make it easier for employees to provide a better impression to hiring companies as well as give recruiters the best depiction of each candidate looking for work. The site and services are pretty new but should look promising to individuals seeking to use technology to the fullest extent when trying to find employment. Social media is now changing the way everyone looks at finding jobs as well as candidates online. I have a feeling more sites like this will be hitting the market to meet the needs of social media adopters looking for work online.

Video Social Network Recruiting: uBoast
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September 8, 2008

iWidgets Soon to Syndicate Full CBS Episodes Online

iWidgets, a Social Syndication Platform has announced that it will soon be distributing its first major client's (CBS Interactive) video content tomorrow September 9th, 2008 at 3pm PST at the Sheraton Hotel in San Diego, CA. The demo will showcase iWidgets Social Syndication Platform that will enable CBS’ audience to watch full episodes of television programming directly within popular social networks, and to socially engage the viewers with engaging such features as sharing, polls, ratings, and contests. iWidgets Social Syndication Platform makes it easy for widget creators to build and syndicate their applications with ease in a user friendly widget environment. There are plenty of widget building Web sites (Sprout Builder) that offer site users a general ability to build widgets but rarely offer the customization features of iWidgets. Now that iWidgets has a large client like CBS Interactive to showcase its widget syndication services I wouldn't be surprised to see other major content providers take their system for a test drive.

iWidgets Soon to Syndicate Full CBS Episodes Online
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September 5, 2008

Micro-blogging Tracker with Eye Candy

I had the opportunity to check out a neat micro-blogging tracker site today called Dipity. It offers users a pretty cool way to keep track of what's being said about many topics, as well as what others are following via the Social Media space in a very nice visual layout. There are many ways to follow others in their system whether you use RSS, Twitter, Flickr, and a host of other ways to integrate mainstream Social Media platforms into their system. The main premise behind Dipity is to present information about users of multiple Social Media applications from a visually stunning platform. The concept of bringing together many Social Media sources into one location isn't new but the idea of enhancing the visual display of such content in the manner they have chosen is pretty impressive.

Micro-blogging Tracker with Eye Candy
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August 18, 2008

Twitter and the "Black Box" of Reputation Management

I keep reading stories about social media sites like Twitter and how they're revolutionizing customer service. Comcast. H&R Block. Southwest Airlines. On and on. (The organic tie-in here is that for many companies, pages like Twitter profiles -- as well as the news stories that discuss them -- are already showing up on SERPs for company names, and that's going to continue for a while.)

All this is great, of course. But at the same time, it reminds me of an old joke I'm sure you've heard. If an airplane's "black box" is the single, indestructible element of the plane that is nearly always recoverable after a crash, why don't they just make the whole plane out of black box?

Silly, I know. But similarly, if using something like Twitter is the perfect, efficacious form of customer service we've all been waiting for, why is it the exception instead of the rule? Why do companies frequently use social media to apologize for more traditional forms of customer service that garner complaints, instead of propagating these rapid-response techniques across their traditional customer service and support environments? It's a cynical perspective, but I think one reason that Twitter users get quick reaction and kid-glove treatment is that their complaints "have legs." In other words, they're being broadcast to the world, not just to the company. If a company doesn't respond to your forum post or answer your email, yet they respond to your Tweet in 12 minutes, part of you should be happy, and part of you should be angry. You're being addressed because your method of complaint has the most potential to harm them.

If a company had a queue set up so that any 800 call or support forum post that languished unanswered for 24 hours was re-broadcast as a press release, now THAT would be some accountability.

Twitter and the "Black Box" of Reputation Management
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July 29, 2008

What We're Reading: Summer 2008

Here at Intrapromote, we are constantly reading industry articles and books and discussing them as a team.

Here are a handful of books (plus one) we are currently reading:

• Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
• The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold
• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
• Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media
• The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media
• Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online

Stay tuned for staff book reviews!

What We're Reading: Summer 2008
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July 18, 2008

Reputation Management Tool: Omgili



Another cool tool (Omgili) to aid reputation management specialists in finding a plethora of sites that are potentially influencing their clients brands online. I took the site for a test drive today and found a good number of sites that represented one of my clients. You can now monitor a large number of discussion/review sites in one fail swoop and look like a champ to your clients. Omgili describes itself as "a way to find "subjective information". As opposed to traditional search engines, which search for sites and pages, Omgili finds consumer opinions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, answers and solutions." This site looks very promising and could be a major player in relation to its quasi competitors Twing, BoardTracker, BoardReader, and Twingly.

Reputation Management Tool: Omgili
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July 14, 2008

Track Corporate Blog Activities Online



There are a variety of paid tools available to marketers regarding what bloggers are saying about their clients. For people looking for a free alternative to seeing what's being said about their clients in the blogging world I would recommend checking out Trendpedia. It is currently in Beta but offers some basic information to help marketers create a benchmark before they conduct social media marketing activities. Trendpedia is a good starting point if you don't have a large amount of money to put into social media monitoring services and need basic data related to your campaigns.



The only major downside to this site is that users can't download the data that's presented when search queries are conducted. Other than that I think this site can be a good resource for people who looking for a snapshot regarding their social media monitoring campaigns. This can be a good to tool to use initially while you are looking for a professional social media monitoring solution.

Track Corporate Blog Activities Online
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July 1, 2008

Micro-blogging Submission Tool: Brabblr.com


Trying to keep up with friends across the myriad of micro-blogging communities can be quite difficult if you have many profiles created in this space. Rather than trying to go to each one on a daily basis to keep your followers updated wouldn't it be cool if you could log into one location and zip your messages to all of them. Well, Brabblr is now making that possible through its "Alpha" platform, where users can make submissions to the following micro-blogging communities with one submission:

- Twitter
- Pownce
- Jaiku
- tumblr
- Jabber
- Frazr
- Wamadu
- Mambler
- Boomloop
- Wevent
- gmail
- Roundhousekick

Brabblr calls itself a mashUp for the micro-services and looks like a promising solution for people who are on the go and have little time to keep their friends up to date with the changes taking place in their lives. Here's another interesting way to make sense of our busy lives!

Micro-blogging Submission Tool: Brabblr.com
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June 9, 2008

Monitoring Viral Videos Across Multiple Platforms Online



Over the past few months there have been many video submission sites popping up like weeds across the Web. One of the major challenges as a social media marketer is to keep track of where viral videos are appearing online. No longer does this have to be a major pain in the neck. A site called VideoFetcher is making it easy to search for videos across 100 video submission sites. Go here to download their tool bar to search for videos from your browser at anytime. Hopefully this new search tool will help some of you video junkies out there. Happy hunting!

Monitoring Viral Videos Across Multiple Platforms Online
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May 22, 2008

Tumblr and SEO: A Case Study in Rapid Response

Here's a quick case study in how social media sites (more important, the conversations going on at social media sites) are enabling companies to interact with and respond to their users.

Here's the rough chronology. I may have missed some letters in the middle, but points A and Z are pretty accurate.

1. Melissa Chang runs a blog on her own domain, using the Tumblr platform. (For the uninitiated, Tumblr is roughly similar to Blogger or Wordpress, although many people seem to use "Tumblogs" as a middle ground between article-length posts and Twitter-like microblog posts.) She is unhappy with her search traffic and writes a post saying so.
2. Steve Rubel reads the post and bookmarks it at Del.icio.us.
3. Steve's bookmark shows up at FriendFeed, where he aggregates his various social media endeavors.
4. A conversation begins at FriendFeed about whether, and to what extent, the Tumblr platform is or is not search-friendly. A somewhat lively and mostly constructive discussion takes place.
5. Others lend various perspectives at their own blogs.
6. Tumblr reps follow -- and join -- the FriendFeed conversation(s).
7. Tumblr responds on its official blog, saying it has already made many of the changes that came from the discussion on FriendFeed and elsewhere.
8. Many are happy with the changes; some are not. My personal opinion is that Tumblr may have entered the egg-breaking stage of omelet-making. The site will be better off in the long run.

So a logical question is, how is a "conversation" like the one at FriendFeed different from Tumblr users merely writing to the Tumblr staff and making the same recommendations -- which some users claim they've been doing for a while? I don't know the answer to that. But I think the interest in and productivity resulting from the FriendFeed conversation had a lot to do with it.

Back in the day, big brands used to respond to customer letters. I mean respond. Like type up a reply and send it. This is because they realized that for each person who took the time to write or type a letter, stamp it, and walk it down to the mailbox (later known as the "barrier to entry"), there must be about 10,000 people who feel exactly the same way.

Today, you can send an email as easily as you can cook a Hot Pocket. Anyone can do it. So the 10,000:1 ratio or yore is more like 1:1 today. The FriendFeed conversation shows that not only is more than one person affected, but that actual recommendations can be spat out the back end. I think that's why the response was more rapid.

Very soon, this will be the norm in customer relations, at least for progressive, consumer-focused companies.

Tumblr and SEO: A Case Study in Rapid Response
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May 7, 2008

Social Media News: Socially-networked Friend Requests Via SMS



There's a new company online who is looking to make it easier for mobile users to create connections via their Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin profiles. rmbrME is an innovative solution helping people connect via mobile phone on the fly. With our busy lifestyles we need to be able to make connections easily as well as keep our social network profiles updated from day to day. rmbrME describes itself by stating the following: rmbrME gives you the power to send a socially-networked friend request to anyone you meet in real life using just SMS. Simply text their phone number or email address to RMBRME (762763) and we’ll send along a convenient link that unlocks your Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin or other profile. In a couple of clicks, they add you as a friend, and you stay connected. We even keep track of when and where you meet people so that you can remember them more easily than ever.



This system has the potential to make it easier to bridge the gap between mobile phones and social network connections by helping end users stay connected from one platform.


Social Media News: Socially-networked Friend Requests Via SMS
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April 4, 2008

Social Media News: Sprout Review



Here's a site for those of you looking to create widgets that combine many forms of multi-media content: Sprout. They describe their site as "a quick and easy way for beginner and pro users to create living content including websites, banners, videos, music, photos, RSS feeds, calendars and more."

Here are a few examples of recently created Sprouts:



Sprouts can be promotional, personal, or informational and allow creators to integrate RSS, videos, images, podcasts, etc. into their widgets to make them come alive. Sprouts have also been described as "interactive and portable chunks of web content, widgets, mashups or mini-sites."

Sprouts are a great way to get your interactive content into the hands consumers looking for multimedia to consume. Sprouts have many cool features including:

Pre-built Templates-


Easy Asset Management-


Flexible Components-


Functional Publishing Platform-


Advanced Tracking Options-


I have a feeling this site will make major headway in the coming months as corporations and consumers get word of their highly functional widget offering.

Social Media News: Sprout Review
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March 19, 2008

Consumers Spread the Brand Gospel

Introducing brands today is much the same as it has always been: Advertisers give people what they want. People want to talk about their brand experiences, and share and compare their experiences with peers. This desire has given birth to myriad branded social networks, such as the new PepsiUniverse, the Toyota Hybrid Community and Adidas Teamsugar.

Consumer generated brand buzz is an extension of what people do naturally: Tell stories to their friends. They trust their friends and like-minded peers to help them make buying decisions. The difference is with the Internet we create a huge content repository that we can access with a click. So while Uncle George may not welcome a call from me at 2:00 a.m. asking what he thinks of his new Toyota hybrid, I can read his review online whenever I want. And I can add my experiences to any number of online stories (consumer reviews).

An April 2007 Nielsen Global Survey identified word of mouth as the most influential selling tool. The twice-a-year survey that polls 26,486 Internet users from around the globe found that 78% of respondents trusted consumer recommendations over all other mediums that influenced purchasing decisions. 61% said that they were most influenced by consumer opinions posted online, while 60% were most influenced by brand websites.

Recently Pepsi introduced its new Tava flavored and vitamin-filled sparkling beverages by creating a brand-focused site, placing banner ads, and giving away the drink to various people in its target demographic (35-49 year olds). The idea is that they will cultivate "brand ambassadors" that sing the praises of the trendy drinks.

Immersing customers in your brand is here to stay - customers are the new brand builders. There's a certain amount of comfort and trust, and maybe egoism in being able to share stories with others. I mean, who wouldn't want to have a Tide Virtual Escape Experience and be the envy of their friends?

Consumers Spread the Brand Gospel
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March 7, 2008

Social Media: Why Some AD/PR Agencies Don't Get It



I have seen a tremendous amount of hoopla online over the last couple of months related to social media marketing strategies being implemented by AD and PR agencies. Unfortunately, many of these types of agencies seem to be trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Rather than spending time researching for portals to have their clients generate buzz related to their products and/or services, they are taking a shotgun approach to social media marketing.

At the beginning of each social media campaign there should be a great deal of research conducted to find a needle in a hay stack; being a niche marketing opportunity. After a good deal of social media portal candidates are selected then the next step in the process is finding out what type of content the active users will find interesting. This way you can be sure that the most active members within these portals will positively interact with your clients brands, products, services, etc. Building a presence within each social media portal will take time and should be looked at as one of the most important activities one can conduct on behalf of a client.

If you are actively engaged in social media portals and constantly creating content that users can find meaningful, then you will ensure your clients have the greatest impact when they introduce new material to active bloggers, and social media participants. Then your biggest challenge will be monitoring how much buzz you are generating for your clients and not whether or not you are reaching the right target market.

Social Media: Why Some AD/PR Agencies Don't Get It
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March 4, 2008

Mobile Phones & Social Media Integration: Yahoo's oneConnect

In Q2 of 2008 Yahoo expects to introduce a platform called "oneConnect" that will allow users to integrate many forms of communication into their mobile phones. Yahoo describes this new platform as as way to "use all your favorite communications tools and services to connect with anyone, at anytime. From IM or text, email or social networks; Yahoo! oneConnect intends to integrate all the ways you communicate into a unique, mobile experience."

Yahoo's oneConnect mobile platform will allow users to view new postings on Facebook®, photos on MySpace or a connection on LinkedIn®. This mobile platform will support a good number of social media sites and make it easier for people to stay connected to their friends. Yahoo! oneConnect describes its new service as a way of keeping a pulse on its users networks and delivering the most current action right to their phones.

Mobile Phones & Social Media Integration: Yahoo's oneConnect
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February 27, 2008

A Global Perspective of Social Networking Usage

A newspaper in France called "Le Monde" recently published a pretty sweet map that describes the usage of social networking portals across the globe, which was originally created by the research firm Datamonitor. The social networking usage graph depicts the number of hours (in millions) users spend at major portals across 5 world wide regions and sheds some light on the diversity of social networking participants around the globe.



In North America it shows that MySpace has a slight lead on FaceBook regarding social networking usage within the states. The users in Brazil and India seem to migrate towards Orkut, whereas in Asia-Pacific Cyworld and Mixi are the top dogs chosen by users. Africa social networking users gravitate towards sites like Netlog, Yonja, and Skyblog, while users in Latin America and Mongolia prefer to use hi5 to get their social networking fulfillment each day.

Considering Myspace and FaceBook has spent a considerable amount of time in the last few months working on expanding into other markets, its only a matter of time until these US focused giants gain proportional existence in other foreign regions. It will be interesting to to see who dominates the foreign social networking landscape in the near future. Time to place your bets folks....

A Global Perspective of Social Networking Usage
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February 20, 2008

When Ecommerce Sites Become Destination Sites

Remember the days when "surfing the Web" was all the rage? Normally today people have a set of "trusted sites" they visit often, with occasional forays into unknown territory. While the headlines remind us about Facebook's popularity, a number of retail sites are building strong communities of their own. Perceptions are changing. Is Netflix.com a place to sign up for DVD deliveries, or is it a place to get movie reviews written by people who like what I like? Is Zappos.com a place to buy shoes, or a fun site, where even if you don't care much about shoes, you want to read their wild and crazy blogs? And even though I have never ordered anything from this site, I have to say that I'm fascinated with the neat things you can do on the Republic of Tea's site. Try getting your fortune from Madame Oolong here.

So have these sites failed if, after I've visited their communities and tried their cool tools, I don't end up buying anything? Not at all. Word of mouth is still a very powerful thing. According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, people have a natural desire to share their experiences with friends and family. They may choose to do that offline; like how I'm going to tell my friend to go check out that funny guy in the pink gorilla suit over on the Zappos blog. So maybe I won't buy shoes from Zappos, but my friend might. And we both get to contemplate why a guy would want to ride in a golf cart in a pink gorilla suit anyway...

When Ecommerce Sites Become Destination Sites
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February 19, 2008

Social Media News Aggregator: newspond



Newspond is a clean news site that is now being described as a tireless electronic brain that is an ultimate hub for the latest news stories related to technology, science, and gaming. It has a clean look and is matched by the sites ability to parse stories across news sites and blog hubs online. Once a story starts showing up online Newspond notes all details about the story such as the rate at which people click on or bookmark the article and the size of each of the sites reporting that story. It utilizes a rating system called "Rating Buoyancy" which is described by Newspond as a "measure of the exact upward force exerted on a news story by the internet, in real-time."



I have a feeling we are going to see some really cool things coming from Newspond in the near future.

Social Media News Aggregator: newspond
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February 18, 2008

comScore and Media Contacts Study Depicts Variances Among Online Video Viewer Segments

A study by comScore and Media Contacts was conducted to understand the consumption habits and mindsets of Internet video users as they relate to online video, TV, and advertising plus content across both media. The findings were very interesting in that the top 20% of viewers averaged 841 minutes of online viewing per month, moderate viewers (next 30%) spent 77 minutes, and the bottom 50% spent just 6 minutes a month conducting the same activities online.



The heaviest users spent most of their time online visiting niche video sites that catered to individual topics with less general videos being displayed.



Moderate viewers sent most of their time visiting specific video content on broadcast TV sites, including WorldNow (ABC), CBS TV Local, ABC Daytime, Scripps TV, and CMT, rather than frequenting more general video-sharing sites.



The study found that light online video viewers are actually heavier TV consumers, with 46 percent of this group indicating they watch more than 13 hours of TV per week. In comparison, 39 percent of moderate video viewers and 30 percent of heavy video viewers watched the same amount of TV.

Although there is a great deal of variance between the types of videos, content, and media sources being accessed online it is imperative to gain a better understanding of what consumers are actively watching to better meet their needs from a marketing perspective. This type of research will lay the foundation for how search marketing companies target online video consumers from a strategy standpoint.

comScore and Media Contacts Study Depicts Variances Among Online Video Viewer Segments
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February 8, 2008

FaceBook Now Targeting Spanish Users

FaceBook is now targeting users outside the US by unveiling a Spanish-language version of its popular online social network, in an attempt to catch up with its rival MySpace. This new platform has been created because FaceBook currently has about 60% of its users reside outside of the US. Facebook plans to add French and German versions before April, according to Matt Cohler, the Palo Alto-based company's vice president of strategy and operations. Out of its 64 million active users, 2.8 million are in Latin America and Spain, which is a great incentive for FaceBook to cater to this Spanish speaking population. As of next week, anyone accessing FaceBook from a Spanish speaking country will be routed to the Spanish version of their Web site. There were 1,500 FaceBook users who translated the sites vernacular and applications into Spanish using tools provided by the company. The same approach is currently being used to translate the site into French and German versions of this popular social networking platform.

FaceBook Now Targeting Spanish Users
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February 5, 2008

Reputation Management: How to Track Corporate Buzz Online

Tracking corporate buzz can be easy if you know the right Web sites to monitor online. Companies wishing to track their corporate buzz online should utilize blog and social media Web sites that have active users who are engaged on a daily basis with a variety of brands from companies across the Web. In an attempt to make this easier for you marketing professionals out there I have compiled a list of the sites you should monitor along with brief descriptions about each site.

Serph - A search engine that crawls online social media sites to find the latest buzz about a company, product, etc.

Technorati - Allows users to search for user-generated media (including weblogs) by tag or keyword.

Digg - A great place to monitor if your clients are in the technology industry.

Reddit - A social news site that was launched in June 2005 and is a competitor to Digg.

ShoutWire - Provides discussion of news, entertainment and videos every day, as well as a provides a free blogging platform with image and video hosting.

Propellor - Owned and operated by AOL LLC, a Time-Warner company and provides news and video online.

NewsVine - Site built with the purpose of allowing users an efficient way to read, write, and interact with the news.

A great way to monitor these types of sites is to set up Google Alerts that use your company name, products and services, or corporate professionals plus the name of the social media/blog news sites as your search query. This way you will be notified via email if Google's search results are displaying any information about your brand at any of the sites mentioned above.




Reputation Management: How to Track Corporate Buzz Online
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December 6, 2007

Old Media Quote of the Day

I just love it when Old Media can't adapt to Web 2.0 and tries to pass the buck while hubris prevents them from admitting they are passing the buck:


...the Motion Picture Association of America has asked ISPs to act as monitors of movie piracy. MPAA head Dan Glickman says ISPs need to take on that role if they are hoping for any sort of future support from Hollywood.


Actual buck-passing-disguised-as-responsible-parenting quote from Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA:


The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected.




Old Media Quote of the Day
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November 15, 2007

Tagging The Site Organic

We spend a great deal of time on site structural issues with our clients, and one of the first things we usually do with a new client is try and transition them from thinking of SEO as a page-level concern to more of a holistic, organic discipline, one where we must try and understand the site architecture in its interdependent relationship between the whole and its parts. After all, organic is ultimately the moniker that won the day.

Almost invariably the large sites that we recognize are not living up to their potential are what we call top-heavy architecturally, in that the TLD so dominates all things search that even the main folder levels are all but invisible, let alone deeper, longer-tail-rich pages. As we explain the phenomenon we often find ourselves referring to blog structure, and how we might borrow some of the structural characteristics of a blog in discovering how to flatten out the top-heavy site. There are reasons blogs are so eminently crawlable.

One of those reasons is tagging, and I was pleased this morning to find a fellow tag-appreciator in Stephan Spencer, explaining his tag appreciation more eloquently than I have yet seen done to date:


Tagging isn't just a tool for usability (even though it's typically mostly thought of in those terms), it's also a powerful weapon for search engine optimization. That's because tagging allows you to rejig your internal hierarchical linking structure, flowing the link juice more strategically throughout your site. And because those links are textual and keyword-rich, a tag cloud is far superior in terms of SEO to the traditional graphical navigation bar.

Bravo, Stephan. Long live tag conjunction!

Tagging The Site Organic
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November 9, 2007

Web 2.0.1: Introspection and Backlash

It's hard to toss a drunken twenty-something across a room these days without him or her landing on a "social media expert" (who, coincidentally, happens to be another drunken twenty-something), but here's a collection of fogies (people over 30) who have a nice sense of history and perspective:

• Rich Skrenta, Network Effect Entrepreneurs. New technology is fine, but many recent successes came from using old technology in a new way -- and being the first one to capitalize on it.

  Ebay was like this too. You could write a clone of ebay in a weekend. It's printf's and a database. But there's no point, because the trick would be how you would get everyone from over there onto your site.

• Nicholas Carr, The Social Graft. A live vivisection of Facebook's advertising announcement, with a light dose of snark.

  There is no intimacy that is not a branding opportunity, no friendship that can't be monetized, no kiss that doesn't carry an exchange of value. The cluetrain has reached its last stop, its terminus, the end of the line.

• Jill Whalen, Social Media Marketing: The New SEO? A really good take on what social media really is -- and isn't.

  My fear with all the hype about social media marketing is that people new to search marketing will believe it's what SEO demands and what SEO is all about.

  It isn't. Not by a long shot.

  
  

Web 2.0.1: Introspection and Backlash
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October 13, 2007

Web 2.0 and Social Media Optimization Trends: Memetrackers

I have been scoring the Internet the last few days trying to find resources related to Web 2.0 and/or Social Media Optimization and I came across the idea of “Memetracker Web Sites.” From a Web 2.0 perspective these sites are geared towards collecting information about “hot topics” or things that create a “buzz” in the news or Blogging communities and make this information readily available to the masses. Wikipedia defines the word “Memetracker” as “a tool for studying the migration of memes across a group of people. The term is typically used to describe Web sites that either: A) Analyze blog posts to determine what Web pages are being discussed or cited most often on the World Wide Web, or B) Allow users to vote for links to Web pages that they find of interest.”

The first Memetracker site was most likely Gabe Rivera’s news and politics site called “Memeorandum.com,” which used an algorithm to collect top stories from a plethora of news Web sites and Blogs.

Here’s a list of the top old school Memetracker sites online:

1) Blogniscient
2) BlogRovr
3) Blogrunner
4) Blogsnow
5) Buzzfeed
6) Chuquet
7) Daily Rotation
8) Feedable
9) Megite
10) Newroo
11) Slashdot
12) StrategicBoard
13) Tailrank
14) Techmeme
15) Technorati Kitchen
16) Tinfinger
17) Topix.net
18) TruthLaidBear

How do I benefit from visiting these sites?

Although these sites are viewed as old school Blog news aggregators, they can still be utilized from a “Reputation Management” standpoint. These Blog sites will enable you to see exactly what is being said about your company products, services, complaints, etc. Use these sites as monitoring resources and be proactive in terms of reputation management – don’t get caught being reactive!

Web 2.0 and Social Media Optimization Trends: Memetrackers
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October 9, 2007

Online Video Social Bookmarking Anyone?

Online video submission sites have been popping up everywhere online for the last year or so. Due to this increase, online marketers are utilizing this form of marketing to get their clients’ Web sites greater exposure in the search engines. Video marketing is becoming a power force for companies seeking to distribute branding content online in a viral fashion. Syndicating video content through social bookmarking sites is a great opportunity to aid a company’s Universal Search Engine Optimization efforts. As we know, Google has changed the way it is displaying its search results (Universal Search) to give users more content options in one interface.

There are many types of video submission Web sites that exist online, the primary difference being the quality of the videos being displayed on these sites. If you have clients who are creating videos to describe their products, services, etc., then I would recommend creating a video submission strategy to get this type of media found in various places online. By utilizing social bookmarking sites you can ensure that your clients’ videos will be displayed in Google’s search results as well as other media hubs online.

Here are 55 video sharing Web sites I would recommend as a starting point for creating a viral video submission strategy:

AOL Uncut, Blip, Blinkz, Break, Brightcove, Clesh, Cuts, Dabble, Daily Motion, Dave.tv, DivX Stage 6, eefoof, Eyeka, Eyespot, Fliqz, FlixYa, Forscene, Google Video, Gotuit, Grouper, iFilm, JayCut, Jumpcut, Kewego, LiveVideo, Lycos Mix, Metacafe, Mojiti, MotionBox, MyHeavy, MyNumo, MySpaceTV, Ning, OneTrueMedia, Photobucket, Revver, SevenLoad, Soapbox, StashSpace, Sumo, Twango, Veoh, Viddler, Vidilife, Vimeo, Vmix, VodPod, Vsocial, Webshots, Yahoo Video, YouAreTV, YouTube, Yurth, Zeec and Ziddio.

Video submission and/or social bookmarking Web sites have a variety of guidelines for making submissions, so play by the rules and you will see your videos show up all over the place online. You don’t have to go overboard when making submissions, as long as you can get your video to show up on the top video submissions sites like Google and Yahoo video, Metacafe, Blinkz, etc., you will be fine from a distribution standpoint.


Online Video Social Bookmarking Anyone?
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October 4, 2007

Someone's Been Playing with Wikipedia's Google Coop Feed

I won't even bother trying to figure out what "Hannah is a silly billy" means (other than the obvious), but it's worth noting that Wikipedia's Google Co-op feed has been compromised. Or, at a minimum, poorly maintained, as the following shot shows:



For no particular reason, I subscribe to Wikipedia's Google Co-op feed, which means that if Wikipedia has built a custom query result around a particular query -- and I search for that exact query -- then Wikipedia's result will show up first on my SERP -- above all organic results (but not above paid listings).

For the record, here's how it's supposed to work. Following is a "real" Wikipedia Co-op entry, this time for [hank aaron].



The text on the Co-op entry isn't pulled from the actual Wikipedia entry for Hank Aaron. Typically, they're custom written and uploaded through Google Co-op and delivered only to Google account holders who have subscribed to a specific organization's feed.

Someone's Been Playing with Wikipedia's Google Coop Feed
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October 1, 2007

Google Search Results Already Finding Columnist Articles

Frank and Maureen and Thomas, oh my!

The chipped cement still has yet to be cleaned up fully from the wall being torn down at that historical error known as TimesSelect, and already we are seeing NY Times columnists able to commune with readers freely at point of search, at least at the Frank and Maureen level:


As internet titan Alan Meckler noted in his posting of the Times e-mail to subscribers, search results like these were the driving force:


Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion - as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it.

Sharing it, linking to it, and commenting on it are the currency of being able to find it in search, and that might be important to a newspaper if, as the latest surveys indicate, 91% of adults use a search engine to find information and 72% get news therefrom.

Ya think?

LATE UPDATE: We just noticed that similar to 1989, another Eastern Block Web Site is about to topple...

Google Search Results Already Finding Columnist Articles
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Descriptive Snippets for News Sites

On the heels of Google noting the importance of a strong meta description, I felt compelled to remind you that while I agree with that in theory for most sites, not all Google properties are using it the way publishers would like. Old media is a big enough ship to turn around, and it has finally swung around to see that search is important (see John's post about Times Select), so while they're feeling nimble, I want to offer them some additional advice on click-throughs from news sites such as Google News.

Descriptive snippets on news sites have a tough job. Newspapers need their descriptions to be the "hook" that entices readers like me to click through. They need to be written to fully reside in the confined character quarters that news SERPs allow them. They need to short enough to tease and convince me that I won't get the full story by skimming headlines, but they need to be long enough that I believe THIS SPECIFIC SITE has the full story.

But the problem is that Google News doesn't consistently pull descriptive data from the meta description. Instead, it tends to pull characters from the byline, wire data (if applicable), graphics captions (if applicable), and the first paragraph of the story.

Take the Houston Chronicle as a site that just doesn't get it. In looking through my customized home page of Google News, the algo determined I might be interested in the articles shown here:



The Chronicle messes up because the first text the engine sees after the author's byline is the error text belched out by the Flash sniffer. Not exactly your article's best foot forward.

In a situation like this (an algo-generated list of stories I might like), the Chronicle has the only article about Franchione (the Texas A&M football coach). So the headline itself might be enough to convince me to click through. But if I'd searched Google News for [Franchione], the Chronicle's article would be one of many, and due to the lack of description, my click would almost certainly go elsewhere.

So what's a poor paper to do, beyond making sure its no-Flash error text gets buried out of the way? Is the rest of the article set up to give your description maximum exposure? Take a look at the following headlines and descriptions and see who really gets it:





In the shot above, the green text is descriptive text about the story itself, while the yellow text is author/byline/wire information. The LA Times gets it because they bury the byline AFTER the story's lede, as shown in the shot at the left. Only the Times gets its WHOLE abstract on the SERP. The other papers' abstracts get cut off because they lead with author bylines. On the actual article page (shown at left), notice how the Times' placement of the intro paragraph followed by the byline is mirrored on the actual Google News SERP above.

Unless your story's author IS PART OF the story itself or is part of the brand (think Dowd, Ebert, Buckley, etc.), you'll need to experiment to ensure that your byline doesn't distract readers and keep them from getting the full benefit of the description you've written. Test, test, test, and make sure your readers get the most tempting view of the story you can manage.




Descriptive Snippets for News Sites
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September 28, 2007

The Emergence of Universal Search Engine Optimization

In May of this year, Google announced its new Universal Search System which blended traditional search results with news, video, music, images, local and book search engine portals, as well as Blogs on a single page to help users find information with greater ease. Universal Search, a new platform which represents a major shift in information display and retrieval, is causing search engine optimization companies to rethink how they conduct service offerings. So what does this mean for SEO professionals?

For those who conduct Search Engine Optimization services for clients, “Universal Search” is yet another marketing opportunity worth considering. Our industry is already known for dealing with extreme change on a monthly basis, and as a result of being able to adapt to this ever-changing market, this has enabled us to thrive in the industry. With these changes, we must re-invent or enhance our offering to meet the growing changes presented by Google in order to stay ahead of the curve. The emergence of Google’s Universal Search now forces SEO professionals to look outside the box for providing their customers with bleeding edge Internet marketing solutions.

To be able to help our clients rank in the top Google search results, we now have to look towards creating effective SEO strategies that involve RSS, news, videos, audio files, images, local and book search engine portals, and Blogs. With so many new things being displayed in Google’s search results it will be much harder to attain a top ten search engine listings for clients. However, this doesn’t mean that the world is coming to an end for SEO’ers. Nevertheless, it means that we must look towards existing Google search platforms and integrate them into a new strategy called “Universal Search Engine Optimization.”

Universal Search Engine Optimization encompasses traditional SEO (on-site & off-site) methodologies as well as combines Web 2.0 marketing tactics, i.e., RSS, Online Optimized Press Releases, Podcasts, Vodcasts, Blogs, Social Bookmarking, Social News sites, Image and Book listing optimization, as well as Local Search, that aids clients in gaining a greater market share within Google’s Universal Search results.

The following Internet marketing activities make up a large part of Universal SEO:

"Definitions in parenthesis taken from Wikipedia"

RSS -- “RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.”

Online Optimized Press Releases -- Tailoring a company’s news in such a manner to gain greater visibility online through optimizing elements within the press release.

Podcasts -- “A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.”

Vodcasts -- "Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vidcast or vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand or video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures.”

Blogs -- “Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.”

Social Bookmarking -- “A way for Internet users to store, organize, share, and search bookmarks of web pages. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share.”

Social News Sites -- News aggregation (social network) sites that gain stories from community members online.

Image Optimization -- Effectively optimizing image file names, alternate text, and the utilization of photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, etc.

Book Listing Optimization -- Optimize Book company Web site pages to enhance placement in search engines for the titles of books for sale.

Local Search Listings -- Create local business listings and optimize Web sites to better perform amongst local search engine (Google Local, Yahoo Local, etc) listings.

To stay competitive in the ever-changing SEO industry, we need to create strategies for our clients that focus on all aspects of Universal Search. I believe this new form of search results presented by Google will open many doors for companies seeking to embrace the evolution of search.


The Emergence of Universal Search Engine Optimization
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April 10, 2007

Del.icio.us Cloaking Update, More on Google Link Data

Last August, I wrote about how Del.icio.us was cloaking its robots.txt file, showing engines one version (which gave them full access) and showing users another (which appeared to restrict crawling and indexing). In addition, it was showing a set of robots meta tags to users, but not showing them to regular users.

Here's an example of what Del.icio.us was doing back then, at the page meta tag level:

Following is the famous meta tag from the Del.icio.us "SEO" tag page - the meta tag that makes everyone think the page won't be crawled:



But if you set your user-agent to Googlebot, here's what you see:



Since then, Del.icio.us has stopped one of these two techniques. The site still cloaks at the page level -- showing the robots meta tags above to users, but not to engines. But the robots.txt issue (discussed in the first paragraph above) has been changed. Now everyone sees the same version, with all major engines given these crawling parameters:

Allow: /
Disallow: /inbox
Disallow: /subscriptions
Disallow: /network
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /post
Disallow: /login
Disallow: /rss

The /subscriptions and /rss lines above, for those keeping score, are new since August.

Also note that Del.icio.us has used the "nofollow" link attribute for quite a while -- possibly since its inception. As a result, the cloaking matter is moot to many people, because to them, who cares if a page is crawled or indexed if the OBL aren't given any weight anyway?

The other reason I'm writing about Del.icio.us today is due to a comment on a recent post about Google Webmaster linking data. Offhandedly, I mentioned to "remember that Google reports nofollowed links" in its reports of incoming links to specific URLs, and I'm not sure a lot of people realize this.

(Important: Now, the "nofollow" I'm talking about is the link attribute, not the robots meta tag.)

So let me rephrase:

Just because Google sees and reports a link coming into your site does not mean that link does you any good.

As an example, I've looked through many Google link reports and gone to the specific page linking in to our site or our clients' sites. Links such as the following will show up in Google link reports, but according to everything Google has said over the past two years, the links aren't helping you:

• Del.icio.us
• Stumbleupon
• Links from comments and signatures from any blog/forum site that utilizes "nofollow"
• etc.

So again, don't take those linking reports at face value, at least to the point of making an assumption that all links are beneficial, even when the site they come from is highly respected and authoritative. Certainly, they're important for the potential traffic, but not for building your site's link popularity.

Del.icio.us Cloaking Update, More on Google Link Data
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March 23, 2007

NBC to Give Internet Domination a Second Try

Search Engine Land has the story about NBC and News Corp. (aka Fox) and their joint plans to create "the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film" (their words, not mine).

In addition,

AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! will be the new site’s initial distribution partners. Their users, who represent 96 percent of the monthly U.S. unique users on the Internet, will have unlimited access to the site’s vast library of content.

Notice anyone missing from the list of initial distribution partners?

At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios' vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis.

You might think that NBC and Fox are crazy to go after YouTube, but then you realize that Jeff Foxworthy is the secret weapon. I'm no online video expert, but is the popularity of YouTube due to its ability to show things like copyrighted clips of the Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Isn't it more due to showing things like the guy who takes a picture of himself each day for 6 years, or would-be Norwegian beatboxers with too much time (and electronic equipment) on their hands?



At any rate, I'm glad NBC is giving it another shot. You might recall NBC's "other" venture into online dominance. In late 1999, the media giant launched NBCi, the, ahem, "Yahoo killer" of the day -- a portal/search engine that quickly shot out of the gate and in less than a year accrued exactly 0.0% of search engine market share.

One wonders whether the new NBC/Fox video site will offer all episodes of Emeril's short-lived NBC sitcom for free, or whether those will reside in the premium section. Regardless, those with a diet heavy in schadenfreude will be watching the launch closely.



NBC to Give Internet Domination a Second Try
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