As much as I would love to attend The SF New Tech November Meetup I am feeling beat, I have emails to respond to and ANTM to watch (ok, so I kid about needing to respond to emails…).

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• HP: Social networking not marketer friendly: “For Mary Bermel, Director Interactive, HP, the new pull paradigm means HP must create content of value to users so they want to engage with the brand and take the effort to ‘pull’ information from HP. Bermel is not convinced, however, that HP should be engaging in “pull” marketing at social networking properties such as MySpace and Facebook.” (Via Media 2.0) The interesting thing is that other than business with HP, the only “personal relationship” that I would even have with HP is via Social Media a’la: Erik Kintz’s (VP of Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence for HP) Blog. So I do see the value in “being there”; as I consider the HP blogs a way of HP “being there” in social media. Update: I’m currently listening to the Web Seminar: Using New Media Tools for Marketing to IT Professionals: Blogs, Podcasts, Video, RSS and Social Networking – and Mary tells us that contrary to what she has been quoted as saying, HP is not afraid of social networks. See also: Social Media: A Splash of Cold Water and User-Generated Revolution
• How to Write a Social Media Press Release, Why, and What It All Means - “New technology and poor writing, still equal a bad press release. Social Media Press Releases do not replace traditional releases, they complement them - much in the same way that Social Media activities and campaigns work best in concert with traditional PR initiatives.” See also: The Ten-Bullet Objective for Social Media News Releases
• Optimizing PDFs for SEO: Ok Matt, I’m going to need you to create an RSS feed that I can automatically download to my brain, so I can just mindmeld your Blog posts. BTW: In regards to PDF optimization, I would also: Add relevant info to both the Document Properties and Document Metadata.

The I Also Glanced Over Reading List:

• Optimizing Paid Search Campaigns via Keyword Insertions, Keyword Expansion and Targeted URLs pays off for Advertising.com
• Optimizing Sitemaps Feeds for Yahoo (via Search Engine Watch)
• On, On To Social Marketing

“Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you / Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you” – Dream a Little Dream of Me – Louis Armstrong

Posted by: Natasha “That Girl From Marketing” Robinson

Note to self regarding Caltrain: Do not put your coffee lid down in order to add sugar to your coffee. You may get really sick and be out of work for nearly a week. Ok, that may not have made me sick, but that is what I’m going with.

 Note to others regarding Caltrain: If you are riding Caltrain, do not do work. Especially if you ride between all the tech stops from San Francisco to San Jose. This means you Yahoo Guy; completing your Powerpoint presentation on the train, bad idea. And you too Quicken Girl; reading your corporate email on the train, not a good idea. 

And speaking of riding the train: So I’m going through my normal morning blog reading ritual on the train on the way to work, when I click over to the post CSS History Stealing Applied to Black Hat SEO. I see that he’s having a contest: Whoever creates a funny description for his site that incorporates his key target phases in 300 charaters or less wins $250.00. So following the process I usually use for Meta Description Copywriting I created the winning description. $250 for 5 minutes of work, can’t beat that. My Shoe Closet The City of San Francisco Traffic Court, thanks you.

BTW: You know you need a break from Search Engine Optimization when you win a contest and they ask you what Anchor text you want for the link back to your site and you ask for the text surronding the link as well! SEOs gotta love’em. And speaking of SEOs, see also: Thanks for the Game: It’s Been Fun Beating You.

The What Have I Been Reading Reading List:

• Forrester has been on a roll lately. From: How Consumers Find Web Sites In 2006. Generations’ Media Habits Shape Their Site-Finding Behavior: “To plan effective integrated campaigns, marketers must start with search and layer on site messaging in the media that resonate with target consumers: buzz, blogs, and banners for Gen Yers, deep search and word of mouth for Gen Xers, print and product packaging for Boomers, and the written word for Seniors.On “How consumers have found websites that they have visited in the past month”: 71% from general search engines (Why Search Engine Marketing is important), 46% from a link on another website (Why link building is important), 41% word of mouth.” (Emphasis is mine). Forrester Recomends that Marketers should:

1. Use search engine optimization as the backbone. All consumers favor search as the best way to find Web sites. Smart marketers will prioritize their search optimization efforts to ensure high relevance and ranking.
2. Orchestrate media channels by generation. Search is an essential part of the marketing mix, but marketers must leverage generational IQ to make smart choices about what other channels to include and how to portion the dollars.
3. Design creative to bridge cross-channel gaps. To capitalize on an optimal media mix, marketers must ensure that their creative goes the extra mile to help consumers bridge the gap between channels with which they’re engaged and the Web site itself.

• Also from Forrester: Profiling Social Network Users In Europe: “Social network sites are used by 17% of the European online population: In the UK, 34% of online consumers are members, making them Europe’s biggest users of social network sites. Users are young, Net-centric, and have bought into the social computing vision — they are heavy users of RSS, blogs, and podcasts in addition to being members of social networks. Almost 70% of social network users go online daily — compared with 52% of all Internet users in Europe. Around 19% of social network users have listened to podcasts and 10% subscribe to RSS feeds. MSN was one of the top three players in all the countries we surveyed — building its social networking presence on the back of its successful Web portals.”
• The 3 corners of radical trust: “But this media [the internet] requires a level of interaction where all other mediums have not required before. Most of the time, some sort of front end, basic interaction with a “flash toy”, game or otherwise seemed enough to keep the consumers coming to a site. But in reality, these offered little to no true communication with the client. In the end, the interest dissolves and the flash bit is used less and less. The sites that have offered true forms of consumer dialogue are the ones that are winning.” I’m currently on an online marketing mental tanget: What makes a site useful? Good to see others are pondering this. See also: Listening to the Pulse of the Internet
• Public Relations Social Link Invasion: “But what can happen is in our zeal to make it easy for people to share content (or in this case, press releases) we encourage social media spam in the form of “illogical submissions” to venues that aren’t really appropriate. Thus embedding quick submission links to certain venues can create a stream of inappropriate submissions.” Thanks Eric. See also: Vote for ChangeThis Manifesto on Social Media Optimization.

The I Also Glanced Over Reading List:

• 18 Questions Your CEO Forgot to Ask When Building Your Website. This post highlights why Internet marketing Consultant, Todd Malicoat is on everyone’s Blogroll (he’d be on mine if I ever got around to adding one): he creates resource posts that you bookmark and comeback to over and over. If I were a business, especially one with limited resouces, I would bookmark this post.
• Cool Tools: Ning - “A platform for creating and sharing Social Web Apps… you have the power to create your very own Social Web App in a few easy steps.” (via: Conversation blog). See also: Slideshare: “A kick-ass! new way to share slideshows on the web.” (via SEOmoz). BTW: : I love that that is the description that they write on their slideshare blog!
• Web 2.0: Problems of Measurement

The Too Cool: Goes to Big Spaceship’s Flash Effects Engine (via: Three Minds@Organic). From the Three Minds Blog, “Originally created for the Nike Air ‘Lift-off Experience‘, our friends at Big Spaceship have now opened up the source code for public consumption. It is an engine that allows you to experiment with Flash effects ranging from blend modes to bitmap filters. You then have the ability to take your creation and implement it on your own site or project. The latest release allows the integration of video and your own background images.”

“My heart is like a marching band / I’m a fan in the stands / Yes I am ”- Morris Brown - Outkast

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