Society Needs to Catch Up to Social Media, Part 1

Every so often an article or story comes up about how social media sites have affected real lives. We’ve all seen them. There’s the “MySpace Mayor” ousted by her Oregon town for posting racy photos on her MySpace page. HR departments look at Facebook profiles before making job offers.

Sure, dressing in lingerie and taking pictures straddling a fire truck probably isn’t the brightest move for those with political aspirations. Then again, the pictures were taken before she became mayor, and were only available to her friends. I’m also pretty sure the firefighters didn’t mind.

Not offering a job because a college kid has a picture with a beer on their Facebook page? Or because a photo was labeled “drunk pirate” even though there is no alcohol in the photo? I don’t know about that. I think it’s a bit of an overreaction. Again, it’s not the best idea to publish those pictures, but what percentage of college kids don’t have a drink at least once in four years of college?

I’m not going to say these people are totally blameless. However, there is a societal shift going on. More and more people are broadcasting their lives for the world to see, whether it be MySpace, Facebook, blogs, Twitter. Once that content is out, it can never be completely reclaimed.

Maybe I’m ahead of the curve here because I deal with the applications of social media every day, but I think society has to adjust its perception of these transgressions. Who hasn’t done something silly or stupid in their life? I don’t believe posing for a picture at a Halloween party affects anyone’s ability to do a job one way or another. It really shouldn’t be a factor.

The waters get even murkier as we move into microblogging tools like Twitter. In my opinion, the best users have a strong mix of both professional and personal Tweets. I think this is the wave of the future, and we’re going to continue to see a blurring of the lines between personal and professional applications of social media. It’s time for society at large to acknowledge that.

This is the first of an ongoing series of blogs about the effects of social media in corporate culture. Part 2 will explore the business applications of social media and discuss why IT departments need to be less restrictive with those tools.

SMX East Retrospective By The Letters

Finally managed to review my notes and gather my thoughts about being a part of the inaugural SMX East conference held in NYC two weeks ago. Using the letters S-M-X as triggers/associations:

• S is for – Search, of course. Speaking on Reporting and Scorecarding for Management (see segments of my speech and Niki’s spotlights on proactive Search Reputation Management, too). Supporting SEMPO by stinting at the booth and talking with Katie Donovan about the future direction of the SEMPO Institute. And seeing the emergence of Social Search as a significant subject above and below the surface through the three days of sessions.
  
  
• M is for – Marketing, naturally. Meeting many peers and sharing matters on our minds. Hearing mentions of media (not just Social Media) but also in context and comparison with mainstream metrics like reach and frequency that CMO’s understand. Also, much was made of the missed opportunities from not integrating search with the offline marketing mix along with mounting evidence of the impact of search on brand measures like awareness and thought leadership.
  
  
• X is for – Expo(sition), an appropriate name for the wide range of exploring and examining of our industry’s challenges and opportunities with fellow experts. All in all, an excellent event.

You Are Not Alone—Not by a Long-Shot

Everywhere I go, and I’ve been out and about quite a bit lately, people are talking about social media and what it means to marketers.

One thing is clear: most marketers are still trying to get their heads around social media. While business people have varying degrees of familiarity with social media from the personal side of their lives, few have experience with it on behalf of the brands they support. And while most marketing executives are familiar with the headline grabbing blunders, few can point to examples of companies that are using social media in new, engaging, brand-building ways.

From what I can see, marketers tend to fall into a few categories on the subject of using social media to market their brands:

1. Don’t get it and aren’t going to try—this crowd is passively making themselves obsolete. You won’t have to worry about them in a few years, they’ve raised their hands and said “count me out”.

2. Trying to get it—This is the sophomore group, our friends who know there’s something to all of this, they’re just not sure how much time and energy they need to, or should, invest in getting their heads around it. It’s not that they don’t want to Digg in (I couldn’t resist J), they’re just not sure where/how to start.

3. Get it, trying it, not sure what to make of it yet—frankly, these are the people you can count on to start leveraging social media for their brands, but my biggest worry for them is they’re going to try to take on too much too fast, have embarrassments, not measure, and then call the whole thing a failure. My best advice, which I have heard again and again from others “in the know,” is to take it slow, listen 100x more than you talk, and never engage in deceptive practices. Just as you lead by example so should you participate in the communities that affect and drive your brand.

4. Whiz kids—these are the people who were out there early, made some mistakes, learned from them, and are pioneering onward and upward. They don’t preach to their brands’ communities, they participate with them. Learn from these marketers--they’re the ones who really, really get it.

And while you may think that only the small companies with nothing to lose are the ones guerilla marketing their way into the hearts and minds of their customers, you may be surprised to learn that some of the best efforts are coming from household names. Take a look at Dunkin’ Donuts on Facebook. Sign up to follow The Home Depot on Twitter. Look at Johnson & Johnson’s YouTube Channel. Dell Computers has been engaging with their fans for a while now on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other properties. Many other brands are out there as well.

And here’s another surprising entrant to this space… major pharma.

Case in point—on Tuesday, I attended the first day of the Digital Pharma Conference here in Princeton and sat in on the session conducted by Sam Trujillo, Director of Consumer Marketing in Bayer’s women’s’ health group. He said some really smart things and I like his advice to his fellow pharma marketers, (after he of course cautioned about adverse effects considerations): “You have to put it out there and accept what comes back” and “The power of online [is] you have to let things go where they’re going to go.” Sam shared information about how his company is integrating various media and leveraging celebrity relationships into the online channel. I was encouraged to see the willingness to experiment and learn from this new channel.

Colleen Riley from Pfizer and I had a great conversation, picking up off what was discussed in my and other sessions last week at Search Marketing Expo in NYC—that the conversation is going on with or without your brand’s participation. So don’t you want to at least sit in on the conversation, even if you’re not ready to start conversing? Because guess what—your competitors very likely are doing at least that much, and why should they get to know what your “fans” are thinking while you turn a blind eye and deaf ear?

So while you might not be alone wondering what to about social media, you will be alone if you don’t do anything. That’s why our clients recently received a proactive announcement from us detailing the need to get engaged and our proprietary methodology for ensuring their ventures into the social media space are careful, considered, and brand-aligned.

If you’d like to learn more about how we’re helping our clients navigate this channel to their best advantage, reach out and let’s talk.

DBE Review of Google Chrome

Last month marked the launch of Google Chrome. The open-source Web browser features a minimalist design and is intended to be faster, safer and more stable than existing browsers. It even comes with its own comic book, which explains Chrome’s features in detail.

After letting the DBE team play with Chrome for a month, here are our thoughts on the browser:

Likes:

Chrome displays your frequently visited pages when you open up a new tab or window.

Typing into the “Omnibox” address bar automatically generates a drop-down menu with predictive text for search queries and suggestions for which site you may be looking for. After typing just one or two letters, you usually find the site you want.

The warnings when you enter porn mode, the private browsing feature, are funny. (The official name for the private browsing feature is “incognito mode”.) This mode is applicable to what the user's computer remembers (what sites user visited, what are the search queries user entered, etc.) that are remembered by the computer.

When you hit CTRL+F and search for a keyword on a page, Chrome automatically gives you the count for how many times the keyword appears and highlights the term throughout the page.

“View source” brings up a separate tab with line numbers and different color coding for the source code. Nifty!

Dislikes:

Some of us miss the traditional search box. Even though you can use the Omnibox address bar to send queries to your default search engine, we miss the convenience of being able to switch between multiple search engines (this feature is available in both IE and Firefox).

Other thoughts on searching with Chrome:
1. To search for keyword in Yahoo, MSN, or any other search engine, type the search engine name and the keyword in the Omnibox address bar. This will give you the option to “Search [Search Engine] for [keyword]?”
2. If you use the Google Toolbar a lot, you’ll need to be patient with Chrome. Google says it has plans to develop some type of generic API for Chrome first, and then it plans to bring another toolbar out.
3. Regarding your privacy, Google engineer Matt Cutts reassures Chrome users that, “If you’re just surfing around the web and clicking on links, that information does not go to google.com.”

Bookmarking could be better. Bookmarks do appear on the start page, but aren’t accessible from an active tab, unless you toggle the bookmark bar on (CTRL+B). A small drop-down option might be nice. (We did find an option in the settings to add a “home” button to the toolbar, which helps a bit with this.)

Those of us with a lot of bookmarks weren’t able to transfer all of them to Chrome.

There are some bugs to be worked out, which is natural since Chrome is still in beta testing. One of our team members noticed that the touchpad scroll on his laptop was not functioning properly. It would very quickly move to the bottom of the page and would not scroll up. We’ve seen similar feedback from other users, so it’s not an isolated problem.

When trying to stream music (Internet radio), one of us noticed that it gets hung up and repeats several times during songs – this never happened before installing Chrome. Can’t say it’s related for sure, but there is a Google Groups posting about video and flash hanging up in Chrome.

Our thoughts from an SEO’s perspective:

Since there is no Google toolbar for Chrome, we’re unable to see a site’s PageRank. In order to perform other toolbar functions, you have to use shortcuts.

Chrome’s Incognito browsing will only affect Webtrends analytics tracking in terms of counting unique visitors to a site. (Since Webtrends and other analytics programs can't set the permanent cookie when the visitor is using the "inprivate" mode visits the site, they won't count the visitor as repeat visitor when the visitor visits the site next time. Since inprivate mode accepts session cookies, Webtrends/any other stats software will be able to track the user's session (what path user took thru' the site, etc.) However, users using this mode will still be counted as organic search visitors. Demographic data/SEA geo-targeting won't be affected either.

You usually can’t see the entire title tag, as the tab is too small.  True, all you have to do is mouse over it to see the whole text, but it’s not as easy as just looking at it in IE or Firefox.

Overall, Chrome is a bit rough around the edges, but we like what we see and encourage others to give Chrome a test drive.

Niki Fielding Presents at SMX East 2008

Veronica “Niki” Fielding, president and CEO of Digital Brand Expressions, gave a presentation at the SMX East conference in New York City on October 6. As part of the Search & Reputation Management panel on Day One of the conference, Niki spoke about how companies can use proactive search engine reputation management to protect their brand.

To read a summary of her presentation, visit SearchEngineRoundtable.com.

Marc Engelsman, VP of Client Programs & Services, will also speak at SMX East on Wednesday, October 8. Marc will be participating in the Reporting and Scorecarding for Management session on Day Three of the conference.

Search Engine Recap for September 2008

Here is a summary of search marketing industry news for September 2008:

Chrome

Google launched Chrome, its open source web browser. While it carries some bugs to be worked out, we like some of the features that Chrome has brought up. We will be posting our take on Chrome very soon.

Adwords Geographic Report

Adwords has added geographic report – This report provides us with an approximate account the geographic distribution of impressions, clicks, and conversions.

You can use this report to find out how well the ads are performing/not performing in certain geographic locations.

Google Search for Mobile

Last November, Google introduced its My Location feature in Google Maps for Mobile. It uses cell tower IDs to triangulate the location of the phone and then identifies that location on the Google Maps interface. With a bit less precision, it essentially does the same thing that GPS does: eliminate the need to enter a geomodifier to find things nearby.

Google has now taken that same cell tower triangulation approach and brought it directly into Google Search for mobile. Users need to install Google Gears on their mobile phones first before it will work.

What is in it for Advertisers?

1. Google Maps for Mobile currently has no ad inventory - opportunity for advertisers to take advantage.

2. Google Mobile Search has ads, though typically they're well "below the fold." As Google introduces more search ads in mobile and makes them more prominent Search with My Location becomes a potential boon to search marketers.

Search with My Location will initially be available in the US and UK and on Windows Mobile phones.

Yahoo Mobile

Yahoo announced oneConnect and Blueprint for the iPhone.


The oneConnect application is something like a smart address book and communications management tool -- allowing users to see IM, SMS and emails in one mobile environment. It also allows users to integrate social networking apps along the same lines.


Blueprint is a mobile development platform and rendering engine that is supposed to be much easier to use and write for than other tools. Publishers, developers and advertisers can use it to build mobile sites and landing pages.

Android

T-Mobile announced availability of the first Android phone. Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications -- all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.


The objective of Android is to move the entire mobile industry forward by opening it up. If Google succeeds, on the shoulders of the iPhone's early success, it will benefit consumers and, ultimately, Google. Our SEA specialist has blogged his take on Android.

Putting the “Marketing” Into “Search Marketing”

I read an article in an ad agency’s newsletter yesterday that talked about how optimization often compromises the integrity of the writing for a web site. Here’s an excerpt from Mint Advertising’s Blue Briefs newsletter:

“That said, I wanted to share a recent real world experience with web copy that has, ostensibly, been ‘optimized’....Here is actual copy from a page on that site:

‘This TV stand, also known as an LCD stand and a screen stand, is made from rust proof aluminum. Great for high traffic areas, this aluminum has a satin silver finish to coordinate beautifully with a variety of décors. The monitor display stand, TV stand has an optional tilting bracket available for purchase. By tilting your television, you give customers a better view of the screen. The TV stand has a wide base to offer great stability to the display. A plasma stand is a perfect TV stand to advertise in an exciting manner that is sure to earn you new customers!’

...At the risk of upsetting our SEO partner and other SEO-centric readers, I want to say that this is the sort of writing I would take a junior copywriter to task for. And it strengthens my belief that while there are all sorts of "tricks" that can be pulled for SEO (and direct mail, and virtually every other measured marketing tactic), to actually deploy these tricks in force compromises the integrity of the writing. As a brand-conscious advertising agency, Mint would never recommend writing copy this way. It's simply not English. Even ‘advertising’ English.”

Contrary to what the writer expected, I was not upset in the least by this article. In fact, this is precisely the kind of example that we would use to highlight what sets us apart from lesser quality SEO companies. At DBE, our focus is on integrating search as part of our clients’ overall marketing strategy, combining search expertise with overarching marketing know-how (after all, most of us here are marketers at heart). A well optimized site is not just about following the rules and repeating keywords X number of times, but about incorporating time-tested search elements while still maintaining the messaging and voice. A good search marketing company will be flexible and understand that sometimes compromise is necessary – if a search recommendation will harm the integrity of the copy, then we’ll revise our approach. Because at the end of the day, we know that it’s about connecting with your site’s visitors and getting them to take action.

And trust me, it is possible to write good copy that is also optimized – if anything, the example provided in the newsletter is more a sample of poor copywriting skills than of optimization gone wrong. Rather than viewing optimization as an obstacle to writing great copy, we encourage writers (including our own in-house team of content specialists) to approach it as a challenge and an opportunity to broaden the exposure of your message. Are there examples of optimization gone wrong? Yes. But there are many more stories of optimization gone right that have increased brand visibility and improved the bottom line, without harming the brand’s integrity.

Helpful Hint: YouTube Video Analytics

Did you know that when you upload videos to Youtube, you can see how often your videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time? You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos. For example, you can see how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks. Using these metrics, companies can refine their online video marketing strategy and create content that really speaks to their target audiences.

You can find these metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Video.

Also, this week Google launched Hot Spots for YouTube. The new analytics tool tells which specific parts of those videos are "hotter" than others, exactly when viewers tend to leave your videos and which scenes within a video they watch again and again. You can find this new feature under the Hot Spots tab within the Insight Dashboard.

For more online marketing tips, please visit DBE's YouTube Guru Channel.