Your SEO mantra

Posted on October 17, 2008 by marc meyer

I read the blog post the Yin Yang of PR and SEO by Lee Odden and I’m going to sum it up right here:

If a digital asset (text, image, video, audio) can be searched on, then it can be optimized.

No go forth and prosper

My Twinfluence

Posted on October 15, 2008 by marc meyer

Came across this post about Twinfluence from Beth Kanter via Social Media Today. What is your Twinfluence? Mine make sense to a certain degree, but check it out.

Quit talking about Social Media and Go Make Some Money!

Posted on October 14, 2008 by marc meyer

Ok so by now we all know the hows and whats of social media and social media marketing. At least, we better. Hell, I’ve written a books worth of articles myself on the subject. And lately we’re all writing about how to use social media in a down economy. Or whether social media can survive the meltdown. Or how to use social media to deal with the crappy economy. It seems everyone has their take on what to do. Scoble says we should listen.

The Buzz Bin says keep a cool head and keep morale up. We can even go to extremes and ask Will the Recession Spell the End of Web 2.0? or we can go to the opposite end of the spectrum and be forthright and ask whether you would tell your employees and customers how bad it is? Don’t get me wrong, those all are great and relevant posts, but we gotta move on. So let’s take this to the next level.

Seriously, you do not have to look far to read another article about how one can use social media to improve their marketing, or how bad it is out there. Between the two, We get it. It’s in our face all day every day. But now, it’s time to get serious.

Scenario one: I’m a big company and I don’t have time to be pitched and I don’t have time for social media marketing initiatives to ramp up, but I’m willing to try them. What can your social media marketing campaign, Mr. Agency/Marketer/In house CMO do for me right now? What can we roll out that will show immediate results?

Scenario two: I’m a marketer/agency. I now do not have the luxury of educating you Mr. Big Company on what social media is and how it can benefit your company- I now have to show you direct ROI with a timeline that is reasonable and cost effective. What’s your plan? And do you trust me? Because my ass is now on the line.

So wutcha gonna do? Do you have a plan? Playtime is over.

Even our “friends” over at Forrester have said, “quit dippin the toes and invest only in programs that can deliver on measurable metrics.”

So what are the programs? Do you even know? You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Page views and traffic aint gonna pay the bills. Talk to me. Do you have a plan? Which of these below can make you or your client money?

5 huge tech trends that you can’t ignore.

Posted on October 9, 2008 by marc meyer

That’s it. Just 5. But why just 5? Because these 5 are rockin’ our world now and will continue to do so for the next 10 years. Do you remember the Gartner Hype Cycle? I blogged about it awhile back in regards to certain things we can be excited about over the next 5 years. Take a look at it real quick.

Ok Now look at this next slide real quick:

Ok, one more and I will let you off the hook.

So the hype cycle pretty much lets you know where certain “things” are in their growth development. It’s a great point of reference and doesn’t take a long time to figure out. Samw with the next slide, what does it tell you? It tells you that music is important to us. Always has, always will be. Here’s a quick 1 question quiz: What does the MySpace business model revolve around? Music and social networking. Ok So there’s 2 trends that will not be dipping anytime soon. Awhile back I wrote a blog post about the top 44 music related social networks and to this day it still pulls traffic. I recently tweeted a question as to what brick and mortar industry has completely dried up but thrived online-answer: music

Trend #1 Music will continue to thrive online and you cannot ignore it.

According to Comscore In August 2008, Americans conducted 11.7 billion core searches, virtually unchanged from July, as Google Sites extended its lead in core search market share by 1.1 percentage points.

Search is, the gateway to everything that we do online. You may see some play in regards to trying to refine search into more of a niche based environment, but the bottom line is search will alway be the mainstay of any internet based activity.

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in July with 63 percent of the searches conducted, up from 61.9 percent in July, followed by Yahoo! Sites (19.6 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.3 percent), Ask Network (4.8 percent), and AOL LLC (4.3 percent).

Americans conducted 11.7 billion searches at the core search engines, nearly identical to the number of core searches conducted in July. Google Sites handled 7.4 billion core searches (up 2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.3 billion and Microsoft Sites with 977 million.

In the comScore August 2008 analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 10.2 billion searches, a 2-percent increase versus July. That’s billion! Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 2.4 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites with 1 billion and AOL LLC with 839 million.

Trend #2 Search ain’t going nowhere.

According to Hitwise, MySpace.com received 67.54 percent of the market share of U.S. visits in August 2008 among a custom category of 56 of the leading social networking websites. The market share of U.S. visits to the social networking site decreased 2 percent in August 2008 to 6.40 percent of all U.S. visits compared to July 2008. Visits to the category decreased 17 percent year-over-year. But check out the chart below:

What do those numbers mean to you? It means that MySpace had 66 million visits in one month and Facebook had 28 million. The fact of the matter is that social media and social networks are interwoven into the daily fabric of our lives. I know, it’s not like it’s earth shattering, it’s just not a fad anymore. It’s legit. It will continue to evolve and the potential will always be there for someone to do something different and exciting and unique with the social media application. Could that be you? I hope so.

Trend #3 Social networks will continue to evolve and grow larger and gain in importance.

A recently released UN study indicates that by the end of 2008 mobile phone use worldwide will reach 50% of the earth’s population for the first time in history. Although the percentage of mobile phones in North America, Western Europe and most of Asia is much higher than 50%, in developing countries, a mobile phone is still considered a luxury.

Mobile phone ownership rates have been rising significantly, almost at an exponential rate. Countries like India, Brazil, and China are seeing crazy growth in the number of people owning a cell phone. In fact, China had an estimated one billion cell phone subscribers in 2007. At the current rate of growth, there will be over 3.3 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide by the end of 2008.

So there’s no escaping the fact that cell phones are now-another essential part of our daily lives. Grab the keys, grab the wallet, the purse, the backpack and the cell phone. Ok so we get that. But now, pay attention.

According to a recent online survey conducted by ABI Research, nearly half (46%) of those who use social networks have also visited a social network through a mobile phone. Of these, nearly 70% have visited MySpace and another 67% had visited Facebook. No other social networking site reached 15% adoption mobile adoption.

So what are these consumers doing when they access their mobile social network? They’re checking for comments and messages from their friends, with both of these features registering above 50% for mobile social network users. Posting status updates also has proven popular, with over 45% of mobile social users letting others what they are up to via their phone.

What we are seeing is a melding of 2 functions into one via the hub of the cell phone. Or is it the hub of the social network? There’s no doubt that a social network is increasingly becoming a central hub for communication across online and mobile domains for a lot of people. Because it’s allowing them to consolidate activities or processes. From text, to email, to chat, to phone calls, to exchanging of data, uploading images and downloading songs. The phone and the social net. allow thesee things to occur almost seamlessly. As a trend, the centralization of a consumer’s cell phone activities combined with their increased social network usage is only going to make adoption of mobile social networking more inevitable as we move forward.

Trend #4 The growth of the mobile social network will be steady and exponential.

Here is trend 4a for you as well: comScore M:Metrics reports that in June 2008, 20.8 million U.S. mobile subscribers and 4.5 million European mobile phone subscribers accessed search during the month, an increase of 68 and 38 percent from June 2007, respectively. The U.K. had the highest penetration of mobile subscribers using search at 9.5 percent, followed closely by the U.S. at 9.2 percent. That’s right, Mobile Search.

Ok last one-And it’s a no-brainer. Check out the slide below. It’s from December 2007, but the message is loud and clear.

Google Sites ranked as the top U.S. video property in December with 3.3 billion videos viewed (32.6 percent share of videos), gaining 1.3 share points versus the previous month. YouTube.com accounted for more than 97 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 358 million (3.5 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 340 million (3.4 percent) and Viacom Digital with 238 million (2.3 percent).

In total, nearly 141 million Americans viewed online video in December. Google Sites also captured the largest online video audience with 79 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 43.9 million and Yahoo! Sites with 38.2 million. So if you don’t already know it online video consumption is growing at a sick-ass rate.

Trend #5 Online video consumption will evolve into an acceptable replacement for a TV.

In conclusion, here’s the most interesting aspect of them all. The hub for all of the above trends can and will be centered on one thing, Your cell phone.

SEO and SMO are conversation starters.

Posted on October 6, 2008 by marc meyer

Last year Jason Calacanis wrote a blog post how he thought that SEO and SMO were bullshit. Now I know in some parts Calacanis is approaching demi-god status and in other parts he’s villified to no end. Hell, he has 35,000 followers on Twitter, which is a fairly significant number of people who put a lot of stock in what he says. I’m one of those followers too. But that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says.

I had been thinking about the role of SEO and SMO in internet marketing lately and decided to do a cursory search and that’s when I found Jason’s article. It’s not the driving force behind this post but it does give it some legs since Jason and others have deemed some of what is done on the level within SEO and SMO circles as unacceptable.

Over the last year and half and even before that, I have engaged in some pretty healthy SEO as well as SMO for clients. And it has worked. I utilized what was available and knew what I was doing. According to Calacanis that would make me a snake oil salesman. Talking SMO then, Calacanis said the following:

Anyone who hires an SMO firm is an idiot. The whole point of social media is TO BE REAL NOT FAKE!!! Just be yourself and participate… that’s all it takes (and note, participation is not just putting in your own links, it’s voting/commenting on/submitting other people’s content too!).

To which I have to say that “SMO is the process of realizing that being authentic and strategic within a social media marketing context or environment can be beneficial.

Here’s a generic example. I have a demographic of women smokers in their mid 30’s for instance. They happen to use Facebook. So I create a widget that provides them a way to maybe quit smoking and track the results and share them, which in turn drives them to a blogsite, a branded microsite and a branded community. To get this ball rolling, I’ve also seeded/posted articles related to all of these sites and the product and the campaign on Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Technorati, Propeller and say Reddit. All of these linked together creates a tremendous opportunity and buzz for these users to not only meet, but also to share, and perhaps learn more about a product dedicated to them. Does this mean that what I have done is black-hat or disingenuous? No. Does it mean that I have taken certain elements, linked them together and have enjoyed the linky-goodness via SMO and SEO? Yes. Am I bad? Am I evil? Am I hiding? Am I not being “transparent enough”? Why can’t I let these social bookmarking sites know about a product launch?

Want a good example? Buddy Media created the Check your Dudeness app for Facebook-Couldn’t this be construed as some element of SMO? They’re taking a product, a branded one and using social media to promote it. Is that gaming the system? No.

We need to get away from the fact that what the system allows us to do, does not neccessarily mean that we are up to no good, or that we’re not being transparent enough. Ok I get it. I don’t need to be told over and over and over again to be transparent and authentic. Yes there is a difference between black hat seo and white hat seo as well as black hat smo, no doubt about it. Just check akismet for aspects of that. But.. most of your brand marketers are only using the tools that are available. I can show you at least 130 examples where companies used certain aspects of social media to promote or further their brand exposure using some of the above mentioned sites and tactics. This doesn’t mean that they are operating behind a cloak of deceit.

Listen, there is a big big difference between gaming the system and utilizing what is provided to promote your product, your brand, and your company. It truly boils down to how you use it. I’m all for engaging in conversations but someone has to start the conversation. The better you are at starting a conversation, the better your chances are of someone listening and responding back. Maybe we should be looking at not how to be transparent and authentic, but more on the proper way to enagage and start the conversation.

On your radar: 6 People from Web 2.0 expo NYC.

Posted on September 22, 2008 by marc meyer

I’ve now had a few days since I left New York and the Web 2.0 expo, to think. My last post was a quick shot at the highlites, and this post will focus on the specifics of what I thought were memorable moments and people. Keep in mind that I was focused more on the media and marketing tracks of the expo.

Jonah Peretti

One of the funnier and more informative sessions belonged to Jonah Peretti. Peretti co-founded The HuffingtonPost. During Peretti’s session he cited some of his viral media experiments including the Nike sweatshop email, which was hilarious, as well as BlackPeopleLoveUs and the New York City Rejection Line. According to Peretti, all of these projects started small but spread through word-of-mouth to millions, illustrating the practical application of 6-degrees of separation and tipping points, though the tipping point was not the end game. To sum it up, you should add, test, tweak and optimize.

Words to live by in more than just this setting I think. Don’t you?

Brian Solis

One of the sessions that I thought would deliver more just based on the quality of his blog and other writings was from Brian Solis. For some reason, and there can always be some that can prevent someone from knocking the ball out of the ballpark all the time, this one did not deliver. Though it did provide some nuggets, it mostly was Brian reading slides. I’m going to give Brian a free pass this time though, because his blog “over-delivers”. With that being said, I still suggest that everyone take the time to read and then add Brian’s blog to their reader list.

Avanish Kaushik

If you are into web analytics, as I am, and you don’t know who Avanish Kaushik is, then I would suggest you check out his blog, Occam’s Razor. His session was informative, funny, entertaining and passionate, and it was about fricken web analytics. With that being said, he topped off his session by giving away his book, Web Analytics-An hour a day. He even autographed it too, if you wanted to wait! Thanks Avanish!

Michael Lazerow

Michael Lazerow is the CEO of company called Buddy Media and he delivered probably one of the more intriguing and informative sessions on Why Brand Advertisers Will Be the Biggest Beneficiaries of Social Media and How You Can Participate. He started slow and I was thinking, “uh-oh” here comes more of the same. I had sat in on a few other sessions in which it was pointless to take notes since the speakers were re-hashing what we read and write every day. But Lazerow didn’t disappoint. He provided case studies and metrics to validate how brands can essentially use a company such as his (which he did not pimp) to promote and leverage a brand or product using social media.

While search dominated the last 5 years of advertising, Lazerow is dead on when he says that social will emerge as the leading way for major brands to reach and engage consumers. As such, the social media application is both the new ad unit and the new media property all in one. I was very impressed.

Stephan Spencer

Stephan Spencer had a session titled, Best-kept Secrets to Search Engine Optimization Success: the Art and the Science, and to a certain degree it was. Throughout his talk he peppered the audience with the question, “How many of you knew this”? To which there were very few hands being raised, which in essence validated the whole theme of this session. He provided not only real world examples and strategies, but also a follow up email of content and links that certainly speak to the space of SEO. If you would like the email forwarded to you, let me know. I’m sure he would not mind.

David Armano

David Armano’s session was titled Micro-Interactions: How Brands Can Influence Consumer Behavior in a 2.0 World. I was fairly familiar with this since I am a big reader of David’s blog and his thoughts on micro-interactions. David focuses on new thinking in the web 2.0 world and his session did just that. Unlike some of the other echo sessions that prevailed at Web 2.0, David focuses on the little things that matter. To quote David:

We live in a world where the little things really do matter. Each encounter no matter how brief is a micro-interaction that makes a deposit or withdrawal from our rational and emotional subconscious. The sum of these interactions and encounters adds up to how we feel about a particular product, brand, or service. Little things. Feelings. They influence our everyday behaviors more than we realize.

You can access a lot of these presentation Decks at the Web 2.0 expo site, but it won’t be the same without the audio. Overall, I’d like to see a little less echo going forward with these conferences, but I don’t think that can be avoidable. With the above people I have mentioned, they have stuck to what they know, and what they know works and they have run with it. For that, I’m thankfull. It was, in the end, a good gig that some should plan on attending.

10 quick hits of September levity

Posted on September 5, 2008 by marc meyer

So the stock market takes another hit. But you have your emotional health don’t you?
Shotguns and Chris Brogan hmmm.
We get to watch Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike, and Tina coming ashore in various states, but the government has finally realized that you can’t mess around with these things. Keep this link close by The 2008 Hurricane Info Center
Google jumped into the browser wars with Chrome, and some feel it’s just another way to mine the data that is us.
NBC made over a Billion dollars in ad revenue from the Beijing Olympics. A billion.
There is so much that requires our attention. Where the hell are we supposed to look? Do not discount social networking fatigue
We talk about social media a lot. Check out these social media trends
The US currently has 263 million mobile phone users
Of the top 10 web brands, AOL is #1 for time spent by the average US user. They average almost 4 hours per month.
China and Spongebob make for an interesting combination

Signal Patterns

Posted on September 3, 2008 by marc meyer

Here is my Signal Patterns personality survey result; I’d say it was pretty accurate. BTW, you can link this with your Facebook page and then compare them with your friends to see how accurate it is or how screwed up your friends are. Later, I am going to take the music survey which should be pretty interesting.

My Social Media Morning

Posted on September 3, 2008 by marc meyer

Here’s the drill and it varies, but I’m curious what you’re social media mornings are like. Let me preface that this particular morning I have a headache from 2 glasses of red wine coupled with my inability to go back to sleep at 4:30 this morning. Thus, you lay in bed and you “fake-sleep” until 6 which at that point you do fall asleep and wake up a half hour later and you’re ultimately tired beyond belief.

Fire up the machine (this particular morning we’re trying out Google Chrome) While this is occurring I try to read either DM news, electronic retailer or the latest book.
While it’s booting up I’m usually also thinking about a blog post. This morning, I’m thinking of a post in which I can compare bars to social networks-not sure there is something there though. what do you think? We all love to go to our favorite bar but why? What keeps us coming back? The beers and the drinks are no different at another establishment right?
Staring at a product that a potential client gave me yesterday wondering whether it has legs for a social media campaign let alone a marketing campaign. This happens a lot.
I have to put together a marketing matrix for another client in which I Identify the decision makers and their buying habits and then try to tie it back into social media. In this case, it’s a supply chain software company, wondering aloud if that’s possible?
Knowing we have to do a site redesign for the corporate site, I pull up some photoshop files to stare at the latest iterations. Initial thoughts: It’s not Web 2.0 enough. I’ll talk to the designer later.
Rereading an article by Aaron Kahlow in which he writes about the 5 deadly sins of social media and thinking “I’m reading this after I wrote about social media marketings 7 deadly sins” and after a quick search I realize that there is a lot of sinning going on in social media based on this 7 deadly sin post and half a dozen others. It’s at this point that I think I’m very predictable.
While chewing on that, I pull up Social Media Today, which is an incredible resource and provides lots of talking points on what’s going on in social media and I gravitate to post titled Social Media, what about the risks? by Amber Naslund. I’d suggest reading it, it brought back some not so fond memories of a rogue social networker who terrorized all of our networks and efforts and made the experience very enriching. NOT!
Thinking that Chrome is ok. For now.
I have to call a recruiter in Chicago about an SMO/SEO strategist position. Not sure what I’m going to tell him, but it’s nice to be wanted. Couple that with the fact I’m in Naples, Florida. Never hurts to listen. right?
Logging into LinkedIn, I like checking it everyday. Periodically, I like to read the answers section or ask questions. I usually have a request or two to respond to as well since I started a LinkedIn group called the “Digital Response Marketing Group”. It has a great name and has a world of potential to be developed into something larger, but hey, I gotta eat and sleep. I’m willing to partner on this, so hit me up.
Time to fire up Twitter. I’ve been digging Tweetdeck more than Twhirl of late, but sometimes Tweetdeck just freaks out. yesterday i wasn’t in a very Twitterlike mood.
I have to do a proposal for a client with a business (product) they’re getting ready to launch. I tried to counsel the CEO on the merits of social media and it’s potential. She didn’t want to hear it. She wants a DRTV proposal and that’s it. Ouch.
Starting to read some various tweets.
Need to do some related SEO/SMO stuff for another product we are marketing. Not sexy but needs done. Some people do not realize that social media marketing is hard work.
It’s only 9:36 in the morning and I’m thinking of about 3-4 different social media strategies for a few of the products that we market. But the problem is, not every user or audience is a perfect fit for social media.
Just decided to scan through Outlook mail. Also opening Hotmail as well. I dread both activities.
Have to talk to a client about creating a blogsite for his skin care line and forthcoming book. I’ll call him later this morning.
Just got an invite email from Signalpatterns.
Going to now fire up Pandora, it helps me work, though I’m worried about them lately. Logging into Facebook too. Thinking I might as well open up Ning. During Gustav I joined a Ning group devoted to the 2008 hurricane season, it is very well done.
Now firing up Google Reader, throughout the day I’ll read over a 150 blogs, or I should say scan, since some don’t update everyday. Though there are a few that are a must read, and I would suggest you create that short list as well. If you want my short list let me know.
Sitting here wondering what the next big thing is going to be in social media. I have my ideas, and to that end my thoughts are that as the number of social sites continues to grow exponentially, our usage habits might become more diluted. We may have to pick a few and leave the rest behind. But if there is a better way to aggregate them, then maybe not. I’m just sayin…
Ok, I’m done with Chrome. it’s dragging too much.

Hey, is my nose bleeding?

Posted on August 28, 2008 by marc meyer

Humility tends to be in short suppply these days. I suppose after reading and writing about the importance of relationships, ego traps and hero worshipping yesterday that I might have at least learned something or had taken my own advice to heart. Something. Anything. It’s as if I just tuned out.

Yep, in the course of ohhh say 24 hours, I have been knocked down to size and humbled by one client. I was told I was not assertive enough by another would be client that I had been working with, who in hind sight wanted me to be more agressive and forcefull. And lastly, I had another potential client essentially tell me to give them what they had asked for and not what I suggested they need. All in less than 24 hours!

Hell, I even wrote a blog post titled, “Serve me what I want, not what you think I need”. Talk about doubting yourself! What has this taught me? Alot. Below are 10 points with associated posts that I need to always keep in mind and maybe you should too!