The study of the month goes to: Tapping into the Super Influencer: What You Need to Know to Engage the Elusive Young Customer(PDF), found via: Some 13-34s Show High Brand Loyalty: “CNET and Starcom questioned more than 10,000 young people through ethnographies, followed by online surveys and conversations. A small but significant portion of the respondents–between 15 and 20 percent–fell into a category dubbed “Brand Sirens.” Those sirens have a profound network effect on marketing through their ability to influence friends and family via word-of-mouth, viral video and applications such as instant messaging and Blogs, among other media.”

Lots of good stuff in the study, including: How To Insert YOUR Brand Into THEIR Conversations:

• Recognize that word of mouth driven by technology has greater impact than ever before
• Pitch the niche
• Follow the content that they are passionate about
• Give them control
• Connect with honesty, humor and social responsibility
• Rethink Reach: The New Reach and Frequency: Audience (influencers/sirens) X Number of conversations generated by them

Side Note: Some this did remind me of the Leveraging Social Media session from Search Engine Strategies. Such as what Gary Stein said about Marketing to Cliques (You can download his presentation at that link):

• Tightly define your group - What do these people think about
• Don’t be afraid to show features - Let the group come to their own conclusion about what they want to use – more features better
• Support the community
• Clone the tactic with like groups when you know what works

As well as what Scott Meyer of About.com gave as the definition of Success in Social Media: Engagement + Authenticity * Target Audience Reach

See also:

• BuzzLogic Platform Maps Top Online Influencers: “The Web-based application joins other ‘listening’ platforms now offered by companies like Cymfony, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Waggener Edstrom and Umbria. BuzzLogic hopes to differentiate itself from those offerings by focusing on identifying the top handful of influencers — not merely the most popular, in terms of traffic or inbound links — within customer-specified ‘conversations’.”
• Call for Comment: Social Media Disclosure: “Most consumers believe that content in environments like MySpace or YouTube has been created by non-marketers (Do they?). WOMMA’s goal is to establish actionable guidelines and best practices for marketers working in this media. Join us Wednesday, Sept. 27, at noon EST for a full telephone briefing on the issues surrounding social media disclosure. Call 1-512-225-3050 and enter code 495675# to participate.”

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Verizon Plans No-Holds-Barred Blog To Engage Consumers : “DeVard acknowledged that Verizon is playing catch-up in the fields of online and social networking. ‘We were asleep at the wheel a bit.’ Verizon will spend 15 percent of its marketing budget online this year, and she said that may not be enough. DeVard said it is critical to allocate a percentage of the marketing budget to experiment with innovative tactics so you can understand how they work for your brand. See also: Blog Ads Must Get Buzz To Work: “New clues about online ads suggest we ‘don’t tell the audience what they should believe, or give them a question that they can answer themselves.’”
• Creative that Makes Friends with Social Networks: “Social Media is a Hungry Mouth, and if you get the audience on your side, you have to feed it. …The notion that the Internet is no longer about creating destination points, but is increasingly about creating content for circulation.” See also: Rules of Engagement – How Brands Join Conversations: “Question from the audience: How do you jumpstart a conversation when it doesn’t exist? Answer from panelists: Send bloggers samples to get them talking about your brands, create widgets that people can interact with on the site, know your influencers.’ Reprise Media, Thank you for Blogging the Online Media, Marketing & Advertising Conference!!! BTW: Make sure to check out this oldie but goodie:User-generated content uncovered: Power to the people
• A Viral Campaign Done Right Ain’t Cheap, Easy : “Here’s the bottom line: mounting a viral campaign requires not only social media, which provides remarkable new tools, but also integration with offline marketing, from street teams and guerilla marketing, to billboards, TV, radio, and print. New media marketing is simply not a substitute for all others. It’s a tool: one of the best ever created. But doing it right ain’t cheap, or easy.” See also: Advertisers Seek Safe Havens on User Sites

The I Also Glanced Over Reading List

• SEOmoz’s Day with Andy Beal: A SEO Consulting firm gets consulting – This is a great read for anyone running an SEO business and many will especially be able to relate to the following: “Transitioning from consulting-based services into a true SEO-product company. It took me several hours to wrap my head around the concept that, as valuable as my consulting can be, it will always be a trade of time for dollars and a system that can’t scale. Building SEO products that can be managed by our team (with my oversight), however, is something we can grow.”
• An SEOs Guide to Proxies - FAQ : After reading about proxies in the SEM 2 .0 discussion on ShoeMoney’s Competitive Adwords Tool recently, I find this timely.
• Sneaker Play- OK fellas, start snapping pictures of your classic Jordans for uploading…it’s a social networking site for sneaker freaks (via: AdRants)
• Does Google Maps have a sandbox? (via: SEO by the SEA )
• Second Life’s Fashion Economy

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

Normally I would have filed this under Too Cool, but it deserves top billing.

Much like today, in Middle School and High School I spent 2 hrs a day on the train. Had Blogs been around then, I’m certain I would have been Blogging and/or Blog hopping, as I do today. But since they weren’t, I filled the hours on the train with Spy Magazine. It is the only magazine I loved other than Mad Magazine (the only magazine I’ve loved since is Radar… sometimes). I’ve always wondered why they never brought it back and why they never did a book. I wonder no more: My Coffee Table prayers have been answered because, coming soon is Spy: The Funny Years via: Vanity Fair.

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Brands could be creating things that are actually useful “For the most part, big brands and agencies are still trying to apply old-school formulas to the Web. Even though brand and agencies claim to understand the social power of the Web, at the end of the day they’re still only creating one thing: entertainment. You can spend millions on a flashy ‘interactive’ campaign that people try to ignore or you can put that money towards building something that could actually improve their lives; something that they could use and interact with every single day; something that they’d actually seek out. At a time when people are constantly asking ‘what’s in it for me?’, isn’t it blatantly obvious that the best way to engage someone is to be useful to them?” Thanks Jack! (via: Marktd)
• Web Analytics Toolkit (via Attuned) “Intended for Web Analytics professionals at beginner and intermediate levels, the toolkit provides a simple framework to set up an Web Analytics initiative and informs the readers about how to put the steps of the framework into action.” Great read. What I like most about this into to Web Analytics is the links to additional resources. Actually it reminds me of IBM’s Search Engine Optimization Basics Series
• Future of the Internet – (via: MediaPost – what is up with their linking policy – I can’t be the only one who hates reading things there only to have to search for the source.) Pew interviews analysts on predictions for the internet in 2020. You may laugh as much as I did if you repeat, “In the Year 2000” a’la Late Night with Conan O’Brien as you read the PDF.

The I Also Glanced Over Reading List:

• How Software Platforms Revolutionize Business “The broad lesson here is that ingenious product design can take you very far; however I am willing to take a bet that in any multi-sided market, sooner or later, even the best product design will end up subordinated to the best multi-sided platform in town.” See also: Why they don’t upgrade (and what to do about it)
• Newsweek to Team Up With Kaplan to Offer Online M.B.A. See also: DMA Certification Program in Search Engine Marketing
• Video 2.0 - Second Life Machinima + Youtube. See also: IBM holds Alumni meeting on SecondLife
• Study: Teens Use Web for News

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

Are Microsites the Brochure sites of yesteryear? Like a new toy for Christmas, we wait with anticipation for it to arrive, someone pays a lot of money for it, and once it arrives we play with it, show it to all our friends, they “ohh” and “ahh” over it and then soon all the shine is gone and we move ont the next one… and someone wonders why they paid so much for a toy that no one longer plays with. Of course, at less than 100k companies can afford to build and burn microsites (I’ll save my thoughts on how companies can build and burn sites, yet balk at the price of SEO services for another date.).

When I think of the microsites that will have a long shelf life, I think of Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty and Converse’s ConverseGallery.com. What do these microsites have in common? They have moved from simply being glorified brochures to giving people a way to interact. Is the point where I mention Consumer Generated Content or Social Media Optimization (SMO post count:2)?

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Consumers exposed to both display and search ads convert at higher rates – “Consumers exposed to both display and search advertising converted at a 22% higher rate than those using search alone, according to a study from the Atlas Institute. Atlas also found that search-click-only users converted at a rate 3.3 times higher than the display-click-only group. Combined display and search clicks converted at a rate 4 times higher than display click only.” See the full PDF: The Combined Impact of Search and Display Advertising
• Gender Marketing Web Design Differences – “If your target is men, make them happy now because they’ll probably forget you before the next page loads or they leave the store. …Women want to know more up front than a man does; men are more willing to gamble a bit in the hopes of a greater reward. Women will gather together but will make their individualized decisions in the end. Men, on the other hand, will make ‘individual’ decision based on following the herd” See also: The Power of Personas
• Top 21 Signs You Need a Break from SEO – (via the Daily Searchcast - And yes Danny, you have gotten funnier) “The S, E, and O keys on your keyboard are broken. When your son tells you he wants to go play in the sandbox, you fear you won’t see him again for eight months. And this one is actually a great idea. …your brilliant idea for 2007 is to create an alter-ego for yourself called ‘SEO Shaft.’ Your blog’s tagline will be ‘Can ya Digg it?’” I’ll add my own: You need a break from SEO when you read a post about an SEO idea and then buy the domain. See also: You Know You’re Working Too Hard…

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Viral Ads: It’s an Epidemic (via: Church of the Customer Blog)
  
• Estée Lauder Launches 1st Online Campaign – Welcome to 1999, I mean 2006.
• Scripps Network Opens Online Marketplace

The Too Cool: Goes to Graffiti Research Lab. I have a love of Graffiti and Street Art - my previous logo for this site should have given a hint (I need to find a way to incorporate that here) - so this is too cool. From the website: “The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, artists and protestors with open source tools for urban communication. The goal of the G.R.L. is to technologically empower individuals to creatively alter and reclaim their surroundings from commercial and corporate culture. G.R.L. agents are currently working in the lab and in the field to develop and test a range of experimental technologies for the state-of-the-art graffiti writer. This site documents those efforts with video documentation and DIY instructions for each project.” WHAT!!! How cool is that?! (via: PSFK)

“They say I should be more focused / and be more patient /and find a better way to let off my fustrations” - Doin Me - Little Brother

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

AKA: Why, in spite of my better judgement, I will use the term Social Media Optimization in every post for the next month…

What is Social Media Optimization(SMO)? Well it is the new term dujour in online marketing. When I read the first article mentioning SMO a month or so ago, I thought “Cool, I like the concept”. Then I began seeing it everywhere.

And now I cringe when I read about SMO…everywhere! I cringe because here we go again, with yet another acronym with a nebulous definition in the online marketing industry. I cringe because I know it will be a topic of a panel at whatever is the next Online Marketing Conference. I cringe because I will be forced to read it everywhere. And, I cringe because of all the bandwagoneers who rush to use the term because it is the term dujour. And I especially cringe because… well if ya can’t beat ‘em….

The Online Marketing industry especially Search Engine Marketers suffer from Next Big Thing Syndrome. How many times have we read: “(insert tool, technology or new marketing term) is the Next Big Thing.” I believe it was not that long ago that I read that RSS was the Next Big Thing and Blogs were the Next Big Thing and Social Networks are the next Big Thing and SEOPR and Linkbaiting and so forth and so on.

But here’s my issue: while I have read articles on what Social Media Optimization is, and why you should implement social media optimization, I have yet to read an article on how a company allocates budget to include Social Media Optimization in their next campaign. Anyone? And don’t even get me started on the question that we all know a client will eventually ask, “So how many visitors do I get for that?”

And on that , I’ll leave you to ponder a quote from the article: Viral Smoke n’ Mirrors: Comparing Stunts vs. Buzz in a Viral Marketing Campaign:

“Many clients and agencies are missing the point – mistaking the means for the ends. The means are a well thought-out marketing program that might include a viral component. The end is the ever-elusive and often ill-defined buzz. Good viral campaigns make you stop and look. They sneak up on you. You have an ‘aha’ moment of realization. Stunts make you look, but you quickly forget. Viral campaigns make you wonder who’s behind them. Stunts often have nothing at all to do with the company paying for them. Smart viral campaigns take advantage of the intimate connection between a brand and the community.”

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Should B2B Marketers blog? - “Of the marketers who told us that they use these emerging tactics today, over 70% said they planned to boost their spending on social computing tactics during the next 12 months. Successful blogs have two interconnected ingredients, a community that finds reading the blog -– and contributing to it — valuable. From our own experience at Forrester, blogs are a bit like children –- they demand constant attention and nurturing to grow up properly –- so deciding to initiate a blog is not a decision taken lightly. Questions marketers should answer are: What is the purpose of the blog? Who is the audience? Will the blog encourage participation? And, who should own the blog’s content?” See also: These lists of Corporate Blogs: Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki, A List of Business Blogs & Corporate Blogs in Europe
• Benchmark Study on the Internet’s Influence on Consumer Moviegoing: “The study found that these moviegoers recall television advertising, trailers and word-of-mouth as the most important sources of what MarketCast called “first awareness”–essentially the first introduction of a movie to a potential consumer. However, in between first awareness and the point of sale–during the critical period in which consumers learn more about movies, winnow their choices, and look up showtimes and theater locations–the Internet’s influence is vast. MarketCast found that 49% of moviegoers surveyed actively research a movie after first hearing about it; and of these, seven in ten go the Internet. “(via Marketing Pilgrim). See also: Google’s Treasure Trove of Industry Market Research

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Adidas Opens Second Life Store
• If You Want Visitors To Come Back, Send Them Away
• Social Networking Can Work For Businesses - (via media 2.0 blog)
• A look inside the Monitor110 research suite
• Game publishers need to better understand how to exploit market research

“In the real world, these just people with ideas/ they just like me and you /when the smoke and cameras dissappear”. Hip Hop - Dead Prez

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

As you can see, I finally got off my lazy toukis and moved this blog off of that social networking, blogging, err…. thing called Yahoo! 360. Now I love Yahoo, but what is the deal with that, are they even still developing it? No way to edit the code, no way to add a real tracking system, no way to make real post titles without Yahoo branding, and those ugly URLs…. I’m just sorry that the site I created on it to test the platform, became one that I used on a regular basis. I still love ya Yahoo… but I’m loving Wordpress, all this functionality for free, I honestly can’t believe it…. and I need to make a donation.

So a few “shout outs” are necessary: To Stuntdubl, for sending me the email, that eventually got me to follow through with the move to Wordpress and to Graywolf for the awesome SEO Plugins for Wordpress post, which includes so many great plugins…. now just to finish moving all of my posts over… and find a better template… any suggestions?

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Losing Their Cool: The Downside of Expanding Hot Social Networking Sites- “It’s debatable whether broadly expanding is a good idea. A lot of businesses start small and expand, but when you are dealing with affinity groups that hope to foster a sense of community, [the decision] is more complicated. Is it better to focus on a successful niche or make a play for world domination?” – See also: Yahoo! Said in Facebook Talks
• UK User Generated Content Sites Growing Fast, Engaging More – “A recent analysis, by comScore World Metrix, of UK Internet users’ activity at user-generated content sites (UGC) showed significant traffic growth. Wikipedia was up 253 percent versus year ago, MySpace.com, up 467 percent, and Piczo.com, up 393 percent. Collectively, the leading UGC sites draw more frequent visits than non-UGC sites (4.2 vs. 3.5 average usage days per month), longer periods of engagement (79.9 vs. 33.2 average minutes per visitor), and more pages viewed (217 vs. 52 average pages per visitor). Users of the top social networking sites demonstrate particularly high levels of engagement, with visitors to MySpace.com and Bebo.com averaging at least 5 usage days, 2 hours of use, and 300 pages viewed per visitor during July.” See also: User-Generated Content is This Year’s Product Placement

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• Zappos, the SEO/SEM Business
• Bully Marketing
• Have Your Company Listed Free in Google Maps
• How To Create Your Own Wikipedia Page See also: Search Wikipedia Weblinks

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

Not everyone needs a MySpace page, but everyone should have a MySpace page.” I said this at a recent conference and I could see the confused looks on faces. How could I in one breath tell the audience that they do not need a MySpace profile page, but tell them to get a MySpace profile?

Well in less than three years MySpace has now grown to the point where it is sending more traffic to ecommerce sites than MSN - I’m surprised that MSN didn’t issue it’s own press release the same way that Yahoo did when numbers said that it was being beaten in traffic by MySpace. (See: Yahoo - How dare you say MySpace has more Traffic) My point, who knows where MySpace will be in another 2 years…

In the same way that people squatted on domains of major brands, people are signing up for profile names of major brands (this may not be on purpose, as a person’s nickname may be the same as a brand name). People out there can easily sign up for www.MySpace.com/YourBrand in a jiff…. and if they did, boy could they go to town on your brand.

While I think that URLs for MySpace promotions should be named by the campaign, you may want to do some due diligence and secure your MySpace Brand URLs to ensure that the URL doesn’t get taken. Even if you never use it, better to have it in your name than have someone else using your brand URL.

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• AOL Launches Developer Program for AOL Video Search Engine - “Through its new AOL Video Search developer program , AOL has made available a set of open video search APIs (application programming interfaces) as well as implemented a system for video content owners to submit feeds to the AOL Video Search index through new AOL Director Accounts. For content owners looking to broaden the distribution of their video content, the AOL(R) Director Account program is a free, first-of-its-kind offering for site owners and content publishers to submit feeds to AOL Video Search. Unlike other video search engines, this fully self-service online sign-up and feed management system enables users to make their self-hosted videos easily searchable across the AOL Video Search network within minutes of being submitted.” SEOs start your engines…. I see new articles on Video SEO in the near future - lol. See also: Sponsored Video OK For Three-Fourths of Users: “71% of U.S. Internet users who watch online video prefer to watch and download videos for free, sponsored by pre-roll advertising.”
• B-to-B Web Sales Outnumber B-to-C Web Sales. “This year’s Abacus Business-to-Business Industry Insights Report shows that 40 percent of B-to-B sales occurred via the Web in 2005, a 16 percent increase year over year. These results indicate that B-to-B customers purchase online nearly 10 percent more than B-to-C consumers, who chose to purchase over the Web 31 percent of the time in 2005. The differences between business and consumer purchasing habits support what most marketers have long recognized: business purchases exhibit a different dynamic than consumer purchases.” Ok, does anyone have the actual report, I can’t find it on their website… and I have to see these numbers for myself. See also: Business Searching Beats Sex Queries & Who’s Handing Out The Query Data?
• And speaking of Flex and Search Engine Marketing… Making SEM Work in an RIA (Rich Internet Application) - “Budget for the additional work: You will need to display the content in two different formats, one for search engines and one for your users (of course, without cloaking). Based on how much of the content is in RIA and needs to be indexed, the incremental could be anywhere from 5 to 20 percent of your original budget/effort. Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate: Creative departments and agencies can create great engaging experiences but if SEM goals are not embedded from the start of the project and the site is not coded in a structured format, then you will have issues with SEM.”
• On the Rebound - AKA: The Jump Ship Syndrome of Search Marketing Professionals: “Soul searching is a common theme for SEM rebound survivors. Anne stresses ‘you have to know what gets you excited about this business and motivates you to do good work.’ I think we’re seeing big paychecks being offered, but the offering companies are not providing a role or work environment that keeps the employee motivated. ‘One must like what he does. If the job causes lost sleep, loathing Mondays and ethical compromise then the money cannot offset that.’” Truer words…. See also: SEM industry staffing data

The I Also Glanced Over Reading list:

• The ROI on PPC vs. Affiliate Marketing - (via Biz Report) “If companies invest sufficient time and effort to develop strong affiliate programs, can affiliates deliver a better ROI than PPC advertising? Please note that the purpose of this brief is not to encourage marketers to abandon their PPC advertising in favor of affiliate marketing. Instead we are suggesting that a strong affiliate program can deliver additional revenues with a very favorable ROI.”
• More auto dealers embrace natural and paid search- “Currently 75% of auto dealers use search engine optimization, J.D. Power and Associates says. While only 33% of dealers currently use paid search engine marketing, more than 80% of those dealers say they believe that it improves web site visitation, as it takes vehicle shoppers directly to the dealer web site as opposed to shopping through an online buying service.”
• B-to-B Blogging — Prelaunch Checklist and How to Build Interest. See also: Companies wake up to blogs’ barking (via Modern Marketing )
• Are You Listening? See also: The Social Bookmarking Faceoff

BTW: Make sure to check out Logic + Emotion’s Working Class Blogger Diagram. If it’s possible to fall in love with a blog, I think I’ve fallen in love with this one. Sorry Three Minds, I have a new love.

The Too Cool: Real Simple Furniture. The first week I moved to San Francisco, I bought a table from IKEA and I have literally rearranged it 3 times… ie: rearranged the IKEA box and the tools necessary to put it together… but I have yet to put it together. Finally ready assemble furniture that is actually ready to assemble. (via Springwise) “Real Simple Furniture lives up to its name: their flat-pack furniture can be assembled and disassembled with absolutely no tools, other than a pair of hands. The pieces simply click together using lips and grooves.”

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

This past week the company I work for threw an excellent educational event called Interplay. The great thing about the event, is that staffers got to share some of the knowledge in our respective specialties (I discussed SEO and Social Media) with a small group of Brand Marketers. I especially loved the sessions on Usability which introduced me to Flex (of course the SEO in me was like, “Is that Search Engine Friendly?”).

What I enjoyed the most though, was getting to “nerd out” about some of my areas of interest with the attendees. Such as the discussion I had with an interaction designer from Apple who helped me to better understand Interaction Design (A topic I became interested in after coming across the term on a Blog I have fallen in love with: Logic + Emotion), discussing the power of Blogs in an online marketing strategy with a marketer from QLogic, getting to discuss all thing SEO with an online marketer from Micron (finally, I have met someone who agrees that the circus around Matt Cutts’ Blog is ridiculous. Did we really need so many posts about his vacation, people? It is really creepy how much we have in common.), having a web strategy specialist from Broadcom, explain the power of China in the future of the internet to me, and getting to see the cool things that Surfline is doing with Google Earth (finally some practical usage for Google Earth), as well as speaking about brand opportunities in Second Life. But the best part of all, was watching and singing along to Journey songs on a bus while vineyard hopping. I wish we had a video of that one - lol!

Below, you will find a list of some of the topics I discussed in my presentation:

• The role of Blogs and RSS on technology purchasing decisions
• Wikipedia Dominates Brand Search Results
• Does MySpace Have Any Link Juice Power?
• Harvard Business Review on Avatar-based Marketing
• Ford Bold Moves Blog
• Purina Pet Feeds

And FYI – I have decided to take CalTrain, so I will finally get a chance to update this blog on a regular basis. Spending two hours in traffic a day sure took the blogging spirit out of me. Please expect a full blog post this evening.

“Working hard to get my fill, everybody wants a thrill“ Don’t Stop Believin’ - Journey

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson