
The box outlined in red is the Quick Preview for the first search result. One can see this preview by simply scrolling the mouse over the yellow quick glance button. (more…)

The box outlined in red is the Quick Preview for the first search result. One can see this preview by simply scrolling the mouse over the yellow quick glance button. (more…)
Tags: ad predictor, bing, google, landing page, microsoft, Pay-per-click, search engine, sponsored links
Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | 6 Comments »
Why do people travel? Besides practical reasons like visiting friends and family or traveling for business, people travel because it fulfills our inner desires. We yearn to connect with one another. We want to find people that we can connect with, perhaps even our soul mate. This inner desire to connect with others is so strong that it even causes many of us to develop what’s known as the “Travel Bug”. Ultimately, learning about others and different cultures through traveling may actually help us understand ourselves and our purpose in life better. Social Media operates on these same principles.

The secret to understanding Social Media networking is to understand people and their needs.
For instance if someone says they want to be wealthy, perhaps the underlying desire is actually security. Similarly, if a business’ goal is to increase sales, the underlying desire is to engage more people. By understanding the fundamental values behind our goals, we can begin to use Social Media to fulfill our inner desires and those of our audience. And just as easy as it is to develop (more…)
Tags: Social Media, Social Media tourism, Social Media travel, Tourism and Travel Social Media ideas
Posted in Social Networking Media | 2 Comments »
Always rebellious, plus just not geeky enough, I did not have a cool iphone or a cute apple laptop (my laptop is now embarrassing) to tweet from, so I went old school and took real written notes. I thought they all made sense at the time, but combing through, not so much. Nevertheless, I could easily enough pull out my 140 words of wisdom and observations that were worth writing down and now typing out in a list. Actually, it almost follows the overall wisdom of Twitter; if you can say something worthwhile in 140 characters then it’s just not worth saying. It had to be really worth it for me to write it down by hand!
I should add: some are direct quotes, some are my jumbled version of quotes, some are my observations and some are just notes to me! I don’t claim to know anymore where the grand wisdom can be quoted from as I mangled too many names!
They are, of course, all under 140 characters!
And the one hundred and fortieth thing I learned at the Twitter Conference:
Tags: #140conf, 140 characters, Twitter, twitter conference in NYC
Posted in Search Marketing Industry, Social Media Marketing/Optimization Related, Social Networking Media | 2 Comments »
I should be tired from two whirlwind days in NYC at the 140 Character Conference on Twitter, but so much is running through my head, I am all fired up. I have pages and pages of notes, but half of what I wanted to write, I don’t have to! You could literally follow the whole thing on Twitter by searching for #140conf !
Overall, it was really really good. While I am a self proclaimed adoption conference junkie, I have not done a Tech conference yet. Oddly enough, I head back to New York for the OMMA Social conference in NY in less than a week! So I might be more of an expert next week, for a Tech conf, this time, I was a newbie.. though NOT a newbie on Twitter! I did find it kind of interesting that some of the folks who were on panels really, based on my timeline, were; though I am not holding that against anyone at all! This is the year that Twitter has exploded.
The morning of the first day was very energizing.
I was personally blown away by Journalist Ann Curry who had just a great manner and her philosophy of ethical Tweeting was to be commended. She is way more than “just a pretty face” and had the patience of a saint as some other newscasters were in the habit of speaking over her. The discussion on the CNN failings of covering the situation in Tehran was very powerful. Unfortunately, she was gone before I could personally tell her, but I loved that she believed in the Truth, with a capital T. I really resonated with that.
Some of the discussing, I did find myself conflicted about however. There was great emphasis on being real, making connections and building communities, all things, for the records, I do strongly believe in, but as a marketer, who manages like 30 separate and branded Twitter accounts, the general feeling I got was that the business end was sort of looked down on. In fact, by the end of the two days, I was proudly calling myself a professional Twanker, a name coined there by JeffreyHayzlett of Kodak. It was basically a funny term for the people who DO Tweet badly: spam, stupid stuff, etc. While, I took the name on, I don’t think it fits at all, because I did begin this all as part of a very strong online community, the adoption community. Plus personally I am a very ethical blogger, so I take all the internet etiquette I know and bring it to our work here with our clients. What seemed to be missing sometimes was that one could be authentic and ethical and real and still be very branded for a client with the purpose of driving traffic and making sales. I m proud of the work we do and while I personally did not feel dismissed, the concept of our social media work at DragonSearch did in theory.
Other things were sort of odd at times:
I guess maybe Twitter has made it easier for many people, but that is something I have been mulling about for sometime previously. To me, the beauty of the internet in general has always been that it lets you find and reach out to people who you might never have known about previously. Back in the day, there was too that true anonymity online. People recreated themselves and their internet personality was far removed from who they were in real life and there was a freedom to say whatever, to be whomever, to not have to be accountable. I think that help create so much interaction at first, but things have changed. Now we really ARE who we are online and we are totally accountable and traceable and it is part of our real life. Way before I knew what I was really doing and way before “social media” I was actually branding myself and making sure that who I was online in adoptionland was connectable because I wanted to be found. It was always part of my internal workings to never write anything that I felt I had to hide and to be 100% real and truthful and never to delete anything.
What I have seen in the “tech” areas, as people online have become real, are the rise of the internet GODS.. who people have worshiped from afar and almost built walls around. There gets to be that weird fear that puts other people on pedestals and then one becomes afraid to reach out to them as if we forget that they are people too and our own self esteem takes a weird nose dive and we things: “They don’t care about little old me, he is so much more important!”. I think I felt that way a long, long time ago with adoption people, but I have been over that for so long.
I never unconnected, so I found it hard to relate to as if Twitter was this thing that changed it all. Not for me. It’s a great tool, but it did not reinvent my wheel and since it has always been like that for me, I carry that over to DragonSearch which is supported by the company’s belief in best practices ALWAYS! For me, that amazement was a hard bandwagon to jump onto. I feel real and authentic when I am twittering for a client. Maybe it is a belief in what we do, maybe it is a belief in the power of the internet overall, maybe it is that I am a closet actress, but when I comment and tweet as DivaDiscount, I AM Diva Discount and she is me.
Again, that was nothing new. My overall feeling was that no one in the land of tech knew anything about the adoption community! You want to talk about reveling and being vulnerable? Most adoption folks I know online, including myself, are so open that I think we would have blown the whole conference away! What was missing, especially I though from the Mommy Blogger panel, was the discussion of validation. I know I am open and share so much to both process my own feelings, but also because it does validate the same feelings for other people. I know because I frequently get either comments or emails based on my personal blog posts thanking me for helping other moms like me feel “normal”. Yes, being a stay at home mommy is boring and mentally draining. Yes, you want to make money have friends you can relate to, but blogging can be really much deeper than that.
The ideal was put forth that Twitter, alone, made every voice count and every person could be heard. Again, I have to say, no, it isn’t just Twitter. I found that power online a long time ago. Comments allow that to happen on news sites. Forums let those discussions evolve. Blogs have made everyone who has something to say relevant. I KNOW that the internet has the power to change the world because I have seen it, I have felt it, I have been part of it. And yes, it is incredible, but it’s not just Twitter..it’s the WHOLE THING. Yes, I agree that sometimes the most powerful changes happen on a true one to one level as we allow ourselves to truly touch another human being and be connected and I am not putting down a tool like Twitter that obviously helps others do that in a new and easier way, but it’s the same wheel, it’s the same connection, it’s the same changes.
Sometimes, there was still a small nagging feeling that the “right” way to Tweet was not as free as I feel it is. With so many different accounts to manage, and with so many different industries and client needs, I know that what works for one client and their market is different than what works for another. Some of the things that were seemingly ”bad” at #140conf, I know work for certain markets and are desired Tweets by the people who choose to follow that brand! In the end I feel that the work we do in Social Media and on Twitter was validated by hearing what other folks do and I am full of new ideas.
There was some odd paradoxes and sometimes I did feel overlooked and frustrated, but the whole experience was great and defiantly time well spent. I do have to say though, for the price, I wish I had gotten a T-shirt included or one of those cute string bags. There were no goodies, though the food was great and I applaud that they didn’t kill trees with printed programs.
I have to make sense still of my notes so there will be way more to come; some great new facts and terms for sure! Plus new apps and tools and the very valuable real physical people connections. So stay tuned!
I guess the “Call for Characters” for London and Los Angeles was just announced. I wonder if they would fly a professional, yet authentically ethical and very reveling Twanker out to one of those? I love LA and have never been across the pond, plus I have stuff to say and I do know how to Tweet with the best of them! I know that for sure!
Tags: #140conf, 140 character conference, NYC, Social Media, tweeting, Twitter
Posted in Search Marketing Industry, Social Media Marketing/Optimization Related, Social Networking Media | 2 Comments »
After a recent project, I converted a spreadsheet I’d created into a web-based Social Media ROI Calculator, thinking it would be a good start, and that I might elicit some feedback. Feedback has poured in, both positive and negative. Obviously, I failed to emphasize the notion that I was posting something that was not meant to be definitive, but as a starting point. Out of this, though, a few thoughts come to mind.
I’m frequently asked if I think Social Media is a worthwhile endeavor for an organization. And I’m always discovering just how beneficial it is for some, while not for others. So, how we measure the Return on Investment is going to be different for each organization. At the end of the day, the details of your ROI calculations are going to rest on what assumptions are acceptable by the stakeholders – thus, the calculations need to be based on the organization’s culture, and how the organization defines itself.
I like to use preexisting costs in my ROI calculations, as they are hard and fast numbers that we can use - that is, if social media actually fulfills the same outcome. But in using them, we are not validating the value (or ROI) of those costs. We assume that the organization has accepted those costs. True, it is an assumption – and if it’s OK with the stakeholders that we make that assumption, I don’t see why it isn’t valid. It isn’t necessarily my job to evaluate an organization’s spending outside of my domain.
There is a lot of praise-singing being done about the benefits of Social Media, but little attention is being paid to the risks. They are real. If an organization doesn’t do it whole-heartedly, it could lead to a negative backlash. It could lead to shouting matches. Risks should be considered and discussed. I haven’t found a case yet where the risks out the potential benefits, but any thoughtful discussion should include them.
The concept of “Social Capital” is rich territory, and while the concept shares the word “Social” with social media, I haven’t read too much aligning the two. But aligned they should be! (Francis Fuyukama and Robert Putnam are both good authors to start with). Consider the notion that in a community with better schools; the houses may sell for more. The investment into the schools is realized by homeowners as hard cash. Even a neighborhood where people are friendly may experience greater resell value – that is a type of social capital. And while social capital is difficult to measure, if we look to some of those people in economics and sociology, we might find that they have developed measurements that can be adapted in Social Media.
So, the whole notion of an ROI Calculator is probably flawed. It just isn’t going to do everything for everyone. Olivier Blanchard thinks that using the value of PR stories is hokum. For others, it might be quite valuable. I’m of the mind that what I’d like is an even larger list of costs, real benefits, and intangible benefits. Then, on a case-by-case basis, I could use the items that were appropriate. Stakeholders could then accept or reject assumptions as they see fit.
Tags: Social Capital, social media roi calculator
Posted in Social Networking Media | 1 Comment »
The first song MTV ever played was “Video killed the radio star.” Well, depending on who you talk to, video might just be ready to kill again.
Internet, online, or web video marketing…whatever you want to call it, it’s banging on the door. The thing is, it seems like no has figured out which key opens that door.
When it comes to viral online video marketing, YouTube is a radical game changer, but can it survive with what amounts to a choose-your-own-adventure business plan? Quality video cameras are so cheap to make now, even your crappiest of crappy cell phones shoot decent footage. But do people respond to more polished, produced video or lower-quality, grittier footage? Traditional organic SEO techniques prove quite effective when it comes to optimizing web pages through text-based meta-data and page content, but will search engine optimization for video actually work? Video SEO tips
Tags: internet video marketing, online video advertising, video seo
Posted in Video Marketing / SEO | 4 Comments »
In the PPC business you learn something new every day. Whether that new knowledge just rolled off the production floor or has been out there some time with you just finding out about it now, every tool and piece of data can ultimately help a client.
Something that has likely been around for awhile is the “Days to Purchase” report in the Ecommerce section of Google Analytics. I first heard about this report the other day while listening to a webinar discussion lead by Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik and have become fascinated by its potential ever since. (more…)
Tags: AdWords, avinash kaushik, Ecommerce, google advertising, google analytics, Web Analytics
Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | 1 Comment »
I will admit that I haven’t finished actually reading “Groundswell” yet, but I do understand the ideals behind it.
I will admit that reading things about the power the internet has given to people and to see that rising up as one makes me a wee bit teary eyed.
And sometimes, when you see it in action it is an incredibly moving force that can trully make changes.. and then ..sometimes.. you just got to scratch your head in wonderment, sit back and enjoy a big laugh. (more…)
Tags: amazon, Groundswell, Technical SEO, threewolf moon shirt, viral marketing
Posted in Social Media Marketing/Optimization Related, Social Networking Media | No Comments »
