Author Archive - claudia

OBC’s, Sealed Records, Walled Gardens, and Traffic

So the other day when I was examining the results and metrics from an installed Google Analytics on a Facebook Fan page, I could not help but to be stuck by a certain analogy if you will.

There is No Web Traffic Outside of Facebook

I was, and still am, feeling rather frustrated because it seems, even with Google Analytics installed, that one cannot see where traffic comes from before it hits Facebook. It seems like Facebook, by whatever internal mechanism that they have, cares about nothing outside the web except Facebook and traffic, no matter where it was before one lands on a Facebook Fan page, simply did not exist until it got to Facebook.

Was it Twitter that sent one to a Facebook page? Who knows! Was it an email that said “come be our Fan on Facebook? Maybe.  Did they use the Fan box that has been installed on a blog to quickly get over to the Fan page?  I have no idea. Not even Google analytics can coax this information out of the great walled garden.  >Poof!< traffic magically begins at Facebook’s doors! (more…)

Measuring the ROI of Social Media Traffic to Facebook

The bane of Social Media is a constant state of developing metrics.  While still the industries favorite buzzword, social media must constantly prove its value and worth by climbing the slippery slope of ROI.

It’s a hard enough task, but many clients are spoiled by the relatively clean value of PPC and even the measurable results of SERP rankings that SEO can provide. They want the same kinds of proven value from social media, but like a rebellious teen, social media isn’t fitting so nicely into that prescribed ROI box.

Developing Social Media Metrics with Google Analytics

A few weeks ago, I went on a quest for a new Holy Grail of Social Media. Overheard at a webinar that was being used for training at the DragonSearch offices, my ears perked up when one of the participants mentioned “Google analytics on a Facebook Fan page”. Could I finially have a clear method of measuring true Social Media ROI? . (more…)

Is Search Dead?

Did you hear? Facebook traffic Beat Google!  Yes, I am a day late and a dollar short, but as much as this is all the rage in geek news, and a great piece of link juice; I didn’t really feel like getting up on the band wagon.

I have rolling it over in my head and wondering.. ok, ok, Facebook has beaten out Google..well, what does it all mean?

So we’ll start with reporting some facts that, if you had read anything in the past week, you already knew:

• HitWise reports that Facebook recently trumped Google as the top US visited website racking up a whopping total of 7.07% of all US visits on the entire internet for the week ending March 13, 2010.
• Facebook currently boasts 400 million users on its social network, which is more people than the entire US.
• The two sites accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visits last week with Facebook’s home page recording 7.07 per cent of traffic and Google’s home page 7.03 per cent.
• In another recent report conducted by the research firm Nielsen, the results indicated internet users worldwide spent over five and a half hours per month on social networking websites during December 2009, an 82 per cent increase from December 2008.

I think it’s fair to say that Social Networking is more than a flash in the pan. (more…)

Taking theRadian6 Webinar Training and Appling it to Real Search

One of the questions we get often and something we fiercely recommend to everyone whether they become our clients or not, is that they must monitor the social media sphere to see what people are saying.

Now at Dragon Search are we pretty uniquely blessed, that we can still assign a real person to every account and because we are so hands on, we can have a human based monitoring in place. It’s not perfect, but it does allow us to not only keep an eye on everything, but gives us those unique opportunities to respond and engage in the conversations for a complete online marketing social strategy .

Still, we know that as both DSM and the medium of social media grows, that our human touch will not be able to keep up with real time and so we have spent considerable time looking at the various monitoring tools. Generally, the industry has declared the proven winner: Radian6 as the most comprehensive monitoring tool about.

Radian 6 Webinars for Training

Now, I have usually prided myself in being able to figure out most programs through simple trial and error. I like being self taught. However, despite being the best monitoring tool on the market, I had to admit and realize that whoever worked on the programming and usability of Radain6 does not share the same logic as myself. That’s not to say that they are wrong, but I could not figure out how to navigate the inner workings on my own, so I have registered and sat through a training webinar today.

Hence, before I forget what my notes mean, I am determined to play within the dashboard that confuses me and get a handle on this tool.  As with all things I test, I use my very familiar “litmus” and return to the world that I know best; adoption issues on the web. (more…)

Of Online Love and Lust

It must be in the air with Valentine’s Day right around the corner. Danielle Hearts Wordpress and I am infatuated with Foursquare.  Maybe we are just freely admitting ou true Geekiness, but I will confess too.

Girly Geek Internet Love

Foursquare has gotten under my skin. Even if I don’t quite “get” him yet. I think that is a part of the intrigue. Foursquare and I are just at the beginning of our relationship and I am not sure where it will go. It’s kind of nerve racking really. Foursquare is playing hard to get, making me wonder and keeping me on my toes.

Like so many of my internet infatuations, Foursquare gave me that special tingle right from the get go.  I can’t even recall when I first heard about him whether it was some blog, or at the office. I t doesn’t matter anymore. I know I sought him out to see what the buzz was about. While I was curious, once I did meet him, I wasn’t sure what to do next.

He was on my desk top, out of his element, looking like little more than some cute Twitter like directory.  I joined anyway. I had to know. And before I knew it, he had my profile.

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Choosing between SEO and SMM? Don’t!

Social Media is either the bane of a company’s marketing plans because they know they have to get into it and they have no idea how or social media is the new apple of their eye and said company cannot wait to jump all over it.

Business Should NOT Ignore Social Media

I’m really and truly glad to see that more and more companies are realizing that social media is not just a new fad and probably something that they should be considering. After all, not only is it job security, but I honestly know that anyone who is trying to ignore Social networking with the hope that it will fade out is going to really be hurting their business.  While it was only last week that traffic analyst firm Hitwise shows a clear graph demonstrating what was heard last year at the #140Ctitter Conference in NYC that  social networking sites have surpassed the traffic search engines receive. (more…)

What the Discovery Channel Won’t Tell You During Armageddon Week

Back in simpler times, people turned to God and religion to answer their questions. Whether it was spiritual advisement, or personal direction or the bigger philosophical questions of “what does it all mean”; the churches and their leaders had the answers.

Personally, I had thought that Freud and modern counseling took a lot of that power of people away from the churches and religions. Instead of going to traditional confession to make people feel better about their lives or their supposed “sins”, they went to lie down on a therapists couch and have the counselor tell them either what to do, or give them direction or inform folk that they were “normal.” In a way, absolve them of their sins and a new direction for those acts of contrition.

Keyword Research Shows that Goggle is the New God

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Sara Lee and the Perfect Cake Story

I’m going to completely contradict myself.

I am not at all a violent person and don’t ever really intend on pushing ill will towards anyone, but I do believe in venting as a healthy release of emotions.  Maybe you have noticed that when I get annoyed with particular brands that fail to live up to my expectations, I do what I do best which is research them online, abet sometimes in a stalking kind of way, and demand that they right their current injustices.

Social Media Flaws

Yes, I do tend to be more critical of companies that are trying their hand at various social media outreaches and fail (cough:cough:best:buy:fail:twelp:force:cough), but I also use that research to look at them from both the perspectives of a SMM consultant and specialist and then also, from a user experience, since I am both. Usually, it is an attempt by a brand to approach social media in a way that shows huge fault lines and mistakes, which I like to learn from. Better their mistakes than mine!

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ROI & Social Insecurity

Measuring the worth of social media continues to be a quandary. I’m not a super analytical person by nature, so the concept is not something I find fascinating. In general, I tend to value things that cannot have price tags placed upon them. I like the fluidity of social media; how one can follow a media trail and get lost or when the connections one makes today become even more valuable, suddenly, within the breath of a week. I don’t really want to put a monetary price tag on the value of a re-tweet, but sometimes, we must.

Measuring and Quantifying

What I do is hard to measure. (more…)

Ripping into Those Who Practice Bad SEO!

I have had it with people who are obviously attempting to do the same sort of job we do here at DragonSearch with one huge exception; they really suck at it!

Badly Done SEO Morally Offends Me

Maybe I take it too personally, but I am not a marketer, nor a public relations guru, or an advertiser. I am  a blogger, and before I was a blogger I was an internet message board junkie and forum addict. I don’t just need the internet for my job, I love the internet for the ability that it gives to people to find each other, connect and speak our truths.  I believe in the higher power of the world wide web to really change the world.

Anyway, I had just about had enough with watching other people intent on some get rich scheme abuse the power of the web for their own crass causes.  I will not sit by and allow them to go forth and commit mad acts of spam and not be held accountable for it. Every bad spammy comment on a blog makes it so much harder for anyone to trust our  hand crafted relevant comments.  Every link farm based blog wheel makes cheapens the connections of a real blog niche community. Every lousy blog pitch makes it so much harder to build a real connection and grow a relationship.

I Call Spam War!

Last week I emailed a music website to inform them that they have a lousy SEO campaign. If they are spending their budget making repetitive bad attempts at back linking a MP3 site to a wine review blog I manage, then it’s time to rethink because I deleted every one of those comments. They actually replied, but claimed that had no one doing SEO work. Really? Ok, then turn off your bots because they suck too. (more…)