Marketing

I will let you in on my new system for posts. If the post title has a question mark there is good reason to suspect that it will fall in the realm of rumor. In this case, the source of the information, The Wall Street Journal, tends to report on things that are as “real” as they can be. On this one, however, there was enough evidence that while Google may be up to something it’s not ready or prime time.

What gave it away? This line in the WSJ article

A Google spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation.

That was easy. OK, now that we have that out of the way let’s talk about what Google may or may not be doing with TV search. The Business Insider tells us a little more as well

Google is testing a new TV search service with Dish Network, the no. 2 U.S. satellite TV provider, the WSJ reports.

The service lets you search TV shows and Web video, including YouTube videos
, the WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro reports. The service runs on set-top boxes “using elements of Google’s Android operating system,” and is currently being tested by Google employees and their families, according to the WSJ.

Google TV search makes sense of course because if anything can be searched then it can be better managed. Also, Dish Network is the perfect candidate for this kind of service because their battle with DirecTV is heating up. Dish has troubles because DirecTV owns the sports side of the ledger so if Dish could create a more compelling experience overall then it has something to battle with.

So what’s the net-net of this? Well, it’s apparently that Google is doing what it always does which is to expand its horizons and to get into more areas to make money. You gotta figure that not all of the 20,000 employees at the Goog are working on search right? Something is always brewing. I guess the lesson to learn here is that if you can be friends with the right Google employees you may get to be part of their informal product tests.

If you can believe it, we are rapidly approaching the 1 ½ year “anniversary” of the election of Barack Obama as the President of the United States. This event was historic and monumental on many different levels and not the least of which is how candidate Obama utilized social media to get into office.

Now, before I get started here please relax and understand that this is not a political post. It is more about a lesson about how social media can be a real double-edged sword. Why? Well, I have heard more than one social media “expert” express disappointment in the President’s relative abandonment of the medium after he was elected. I have postulated elsewhere that he may have actually set back the usage of social media for political advantage. Why? It’s a matter of trust and many feel it was violated to some degree. If you feel the urge to argue this please leave me out. I am just parroting what I have heard more than once. So you know where I stand personally, I am not a trusting sort of any politician at any time of any party.

Fox News reports on the uptick in social media usage by the White House

Blending behind-the-scenes nuggets with a defense of President Barack Obama’s record, White House and administration officials increasingly are communicating through Twitter.

Forget press releases. White House press secretary Gibbs and his deputy, Bill Burton, are now sharing news in Twitter messages. So far 33,000 people have signed up to follow Gibbs and more than 6,000 are tracking Burton. Those two officials have a ways to go to catch actor Ashton Kutcher and his 4.6 million followers.

Ok, let’s stop here for a second. Maybe the bigger question is why in the world 4.6 million people are following Ashton Kutcher? Anyway, as the White House now becomes more aggressive in its social media efforts how do those who have been left feeling a little jilted after the run up to the election react?

I suspect this is more a matter of opinion than a measurable event because there is little hard data on any of this other than number of followers of any political figure. So the question to you is do you feel that Twitter is a political messaging force to be reckoned with or a potential land mine for those in public office? It works both ways in business but is it potentially more dangerous in the political arena? God only knows it doesn’t take a politician from either side of the aisle too long to say something that makes the rest of us scratch our heads. Do you trust 140 character versions of messages from any politician from any party at any time?

Go ahead and let’er rip. Let’s face it, whether we want it or not this technique / tactic is likely to increase exponentially as we here in the states approach an important political season this fall. Could its use be as much of a referendum on social media as it is on the potential political impact of social media? Do tell.

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I’m often asked how business-to-business (B2B) marketing is different than business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. Although you are still selling a product or a service to a person the marketing is difference for B2B and B2C. The purchase motivation is different and they have different needs when it comes to the information that they need in order to make the decision to purchase. The differences between these markets run deep and they are important.

When we take time to understand what is needed we have a better chance of closing the deal with a B2B or a B2C market. It’s when we ignore the differences that we fail to provide the information and the support to turn a prospective consumer into a customer.

A consumer purchases on emotion and a business purchases on logic. Let me show you the difference in marketing to a B2C market vs. a B2B market.

Understanding the Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 22:30:19.

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So you want to be a famous SEO?

You want to be a Social Media guru?

Want to rock the socks off of affiliate marketers?

Awesome! Want a little tip on how to start?? Don’t start blogging! So you might be thinking What? Don’t blog? Are you crazy? (I am not sure) But, here’s the truth. Almost every “famous” or well respected person in their industry got to where they are by doing good work, not talking about it.

Nathan Hangen tells us that all you have to do is squelch your fear and step into your role. Sorry, Nathan but honestly there are a lot confident people that give bad information and lack real substance. As a result their confident facade looks fake and untrustworthy. You have to produce a good product and be confident in its delivery.

Blogging is good for many reasons. It can help build your personal brand. It can facilitate communication with your community. It can help you develop your ideas and become more well rounded. It can build relationships and partnerships that can have lasting impact.

But none of the above will happen if you don’t know what you are talking about. If you start blogging today about SEO and you have never ranked a web site in search engines, then the industry elite will be able to tell by reading your blog. If you start blogging today about affiliate marketing and you have never made a dime, skilled affiliate marketers will read that in your words and not give you a second thought. You can’t get recognition from inexperience.

Inexperience stands out like a sore thumb. Inexperienced bloggers are unoriginal. They oftentimes spread inaccurate information. Their writing doesn’t fill a void in their niche. It becomes obvious that they are just talking for the sake of talking.

Experienced people write original content based on what they have done. Experienced people have developed intuition from having a firm grasp on a subject. Such intuition can help them predict trends and see the “big picture.” Experienced people are the ones that other industry gurus recommend (and link to).

Joe’s Power Plan For Becoming A Guru

1. Setup a blog and leave it blank.
2. Read blogs from industry gurus.
3. Get out in the field and start applying what you have learned.
4. Keep moving forward.
5. Keep an offline journal and jot down everything that you are learning while in the field. Make notes of what works and what doesn’t.
6. Research the ideas in your notes to see if others are experiencing the same thing.
7. Compare other’s experiences with your own.
8. Write your first post about your experiences. In the post compare other peoples experiences and highlight whats different about yours.
9. Repeat steps 2 through 8 for your next post.

OK, so I know that there are a lot of steps above and all you want to do is get yourself out there and make a name for yourself. However, it’s a lot easier to make a name for yourself when you are providing top quality content and steps above will insure you do that. Bonus tip: Don’t rush into all of this. The longer you take to work in the field, gain experience, and develop an understanding of your subject, the better your content and exposure will be when you finally begin to blog!

Until next time, get to work and start becoming a guru today!

With all the talk this week about Facebook valuations and the money that they are making (OK so it’s a guesstimate but what the heck……it’s the Internet!) it makes one think about just how Facebook plans to continue to grow top line revenue. One way was revealed as the ability to target Facebook ads locally increased considerably. Inside Facebook explains further

In its latest move to expand its performance advertising program, Facebook is offering what it tells us is “thousands” of new cities in its self-serve advertising tool, meaning advertisers can more narrowly target users across the United States and around the world. From social game developers to the various large and small businesses already using the service, the information could help them boost their returns on investment.

Well, it sure looks like local is the new black. It makes sense but the degree to which local online advertising seems to be expanding is still surprising. It’s not like the concept is new but the varied ways to reach the local consumer have emerged, developed and grown so rapidly that the sector is poised to really kick into gear.

For the SMB’s of the world there is now a better source to reach very segmented groups who are only in their backyard. Oh and it’s cheaper than other options. For now.

What is your experience with running local ads on Facebook? While traffic may be a good thing has the traffic converted?

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You’d think that with all the SEO conferences Google sponsors and speaks at, it would have at least some grasp of basic search engine optimization techniques, right?

Yeah….no.

According to a self-examination, Google is about as bad at SEO as any multi-billion company. In fact, you might argue that Google’s SEO efforts are worse than most. After all, pretty much everyone knows that a well structured Title tag format is key to good rankings, right?

Well, apparently not all of us:

OK, let’s stop it right here. I grew up in England, so maybe things are different in the US, but 10/100 only merits a "Needs Improvement"?? If I achieved a 10% on anything in school, it would warrant a smacked bottom and no dessert! Needs Improvement is a little understated, don’t you think?

OK, back to the report. It’s worth taking a look, not just because its fun to snicker at where Google failed, but it includes a lot of practical SEO advice.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this opened can of worms. If Google’s SEO is so bad, how are any of its 100 products able to rank in its own index, without a little manual intervention?

(via)

Toyota is now turning to Twitter to help stem the tide of negativity that has been heaped upon it during the “Recall Free For All” (that one’s mine). I guess someone at Toyota HQ has been studying up on this Twitter thing and decided that it was the way to go. Of course, just going headlong into a potentially hostile environment would be foolish so they have found a way to “manage” just what is being seen and heard in this attempt to make things better again with the top selling automaker in the world.

TechCrunch reports

The Japanese auto giant has launched a branded channel on TweetMeme, in partnership with Federated Media, which aggregates and organize Twitter conversations regarding Toyota.

Called Toyota Conversations the site brings together the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, from news articles to press releases. The site also shows visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter. And the channel includes a Featured Tweets from Toyota’s Twitter account and press room as well as AdTweets, which are Tweetmeme’s retweetable ads for Toyota.

Risky business for sure unless, of course, you can somehow “manage” just what is shown in the tweets that are part of this effort.

You may notice after taking a look at all of the top stories that are being aggregated on the site, that most of the news is positive. That doesn’t seem to match the general tone of the media writing about Toyota, which has been quick to criticize the car company for its manufacturing mistakes. If you take a look at Twitter sentiment app Tweetfeel, the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Toyota lean more negative. Tweetmeme channels can be set up to pick up only certain news sources. It looks like Toyota picked the friendlier ones.

Well, when I took a look this morning at the Toyota Conversations Tweetmeme site they may have not caught everything.

Take note of the logo used in Toyota’s tweets as well. It makes the company look like some kind of evil empire. Using black as your primary color to help people warm up to you again is not very effective but hey, what do I know?

So will this effort by Toyota help the cause? Jeremiah Owyang is quoted in the LA Times blog about this very subject as saying

“In the social sphere, it’s often best to be proactive during a crisis, to let the market know you’re listening, and centralize the discussion around your brand, giving the brand more opportunity to guide the conversation,” Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang said. “Yet don’t be fooled, on the social sphere the illusion of power is quickly dispelled, as everyone can have a say.”

Is this the right time for Toyota to do this? Wouldn’t it have been more genuine if this was underway from the very start because now it appears to be a contrived effort to stop the flow of negative press rather than a sincere attempt to “make nice” with a buying public that may not ever trust this brand like it used to.

When you read headlines like this it sometimes feels like the rich just keep getting richer. That is until you learn that it was a trek that started six years ago and it’s serendipitous timing is a bonus. One would think that Google is rubbing their hands together and giving their best “Boo ha ha ha ha!” mad scientist laughs in Mountain View because it seems like there is just a little interest these days in targeting ads by location and the money that it could represent.

Digital Beat reports

While the blogosphere was buzzing over the patent Facebook won for its news feed last week, Google earned a killer one too. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded the search giant a patent for using location in an advertising system last Tuesday, which is the emerging business model for most consumer-facing location startups today.

Filed six years ago, the patent is fairly broad. It covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad.

This is the kind of news that on the surface looks like it could bring up more of that dirty anti-trust-monopoly talk but it’s far too early to see just how this patent will play out in the market. How Google wields this power is certainly something that remains to be seen but the folks at Digital Beat take a look at what might be brewing.

However, the location-based ad patent may give Google a nice big stick as it goes head-to-head with Apple in the world of mobile advertising. Both companies have acquired or agreed to acquire a mobile ad network in the last three months; Google agreed to buy Admob for $750 million in November, while Apple bought Quattro Wireless in January. Google actually bucked a patent Apple owns last month, when it added multi-touch functionality to its Android operating system. Perhaps this is the card the search giant had up its sleeve.

So as with anything else these days it seems like the battle lines are being drawn in every area of the online space. “Google v. Apple” and “Google v. the Rest of the World and Its Regulatory Bodies” is going to be a common theme for the foreseeable future. I suspect that Google is armed and ready but so is everyone else. It’s starting to feel like the WWE in the Internet space. Maybe there will be a pay-per-view event with Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs in a steel cage death match. I’d pay for that.

If you are into these kinds of things here is the abstract for the patent

The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. Location information is determined (or simply accepted) and used. For example, location information may be used in a relevancy determination of an ad. As another example, location information may be used in an attribute (e.g., position) arbitration. Such location information may be associated with price information, such as a maximum price bid. Such location information may be associated with ad performance information. Ad performance information may be tracked on the basis of location information. The content of an ad creative, and/or of a landing page may be selected and/or modified using location information. Finally, tools, such as user interfaces, may be provided to allow a business to enter and/or modify location information, such as location information used for targeting and location-dependent price information. The location information used to target and/or score ads may be, include, or define an area. The area may be defined by at least one geographic reference point (e.g., defined by latitude and longitude coordinates) and perhaps additional information. Thus, the area may be a circle defined by a geographic reference point and a radius, an ellipse defined by two geographic reference points and a distance sum, or a polygon defined by three or more geographic reference points, for example.

So here we go. Patents and lawsuits and egos…..oh my.

Google recently made search improvements as your roam around by adding the My Location option to mobile search. The idea is to help everyone find things that can be visited, used or accessed right then and there based on your location. While there is plenty of concentration on the mobile side of search they have not let the local aspect of search from the desktop get stale either.

Last year Google started to give Google map results even if there was no local qualifier in the search which moved local search to the next level. The latest enhancement allows you to look for things that are nearby but with a slightly different twist.

The Google blog tells us

Starting today, we’ve added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding “Minneapolis” to your query and missing webpages that only say “St. Paul” or “Twin Cities.” Check it out by doing a search, clicking on “show options” and selecting “Nearby.”

This can come in handy in planning trips or a variety of ways. By creating more options on the geography that are not anchored to specific keywords this certainly adds more power to the local search capabilities of the search giant.

Here’s my question though. How many people does Google think will adopt this option? Most users of search are so unsophisticated that they will have no clue that this option exists. How many times have you seen someone type in a full URL into a Google search rather than into the browser?

I suppose these things are good to have as more people get educated regarding search but most people just type in their basic needs and either refine from there or get frustrated and move on. If I were Google I would work to educate the true masses about what they can actually do with Google. Right now I think that they feel that by telling the “industry” that it’s enough. Trouble is it’s not. If the ‘regular’ searcher doesn’t even know these things exist is Google missing the full value of these offerings? Just a thought.

Recently I shared with you a search engine marketing secret – how to gain market share in Google within your local area. This doesn’t take months to do and often can be achieved within a couple of days, if not hours. One reader found themselves struggling with getting a high ranking, because of the competition within their location and industry.

There are ways that you can improve your Google Local Map listing and I wanted to share a few steps that can help in improving your ranking on Google Local.

• Step 1: Claim your Google Local Map listing if you haven’t already.
• Step 2: Login to Google Local online.
• Step 3: Verify your information and make sure your description is specific with keywords. Use keywords to describe your location and what your business is by as well as search keywords that customers will use to find you.
  
  
• Step 4: Use keywords in your company and organization name. For example in my Google Local Map listing I used the following as my company and organization name (Keywords are in bold) - Laura Lake Consulting – Small Business Marketing and Social Media Strategy Consulting
• Step 5: Don’t forget to categorize your listing and make sure that you complete all 5 categories. The 1st category is the most important, but the next 4 follow in at a close second when it comes to ranking importance. Try to use Google’s suggested categories.
• Step 6: Customer reviews will also help in improving your Google local listing rank. Don’t write your own review, but ask your customers for a recommendation.

The secret is that Google focuses rank mostly on the businesses closes to the center of the city. If you are not near the center of the city the prior steps are vital to improving the rank of your Google Local Map listing in order to compete with the businesses that are closer to the center of the city than you.

6 Steps to Improving the Rank of Your Google Local Map Listing originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 17:39:11.

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