photo credit: jamestruepenny photo credit: jamestruepenny

I engaged in a debate with a friend yesterday regarding commercials for “The Big Game”. (sub note: I find it infuriating that “Superbowl” is copyrighted and marketers are not allowed to use it in advertising anymore but instead use “The Big Game”, especially considering “The Big Game” is actually the name of a college game played annually since 1892 as well as also a name of a high stakes poker game played annually). Superbowl Big Game commercials have taken on a whole new life with social media in the past few years.

We’ve seen usage of the #hashtag in the commercial; Facebook pages created specifically for the commercials; and this year will see apps created specifically to be played during the game itself. GoDaddy.com, possibly considered pioneers, even created an entire section of the business website dedicated to the commercials that aired (sometimes for “unrated” content) and were one of the first online companies to advertise during this game in order to drive traffic to their website. Heck, last year even saw Google produce a commercial (which were a rare commodity to begin with prior to the SB commercial).

These commercials create a lot of buzz. For one, this timeslot is gernally the highest watched timeslot of the year and thus their are more eyeballs than most other times. Second, advertising companies have deemed the “Big Game” as the beginning of the year for advertising, and thus typically all new commercials come out during this game. Finally, it is expensive to purchase advertising time for this game, thus there is a general thought that “the best” commercials are put forth during this time.

I for one am a big fan of the commercials aired during the game. Most of the time. I tend to be a bigger critic of these commercials. Further, I remember going home after the game or maybe the day after and “Googling” to try to find a re-run of the commercial because I couldn’t wait until I saw it again. More recently, I became a fan of websites that would compile the commercials and / or rate the commercials and allow users to give their own ratings. In the last 2-3 years though, the new trend is to “leak” the commercial before the day of the game, typically in the 2 weeks leading up to the actual game.

Not all advertisers do this, but plenty do (there are about a dozen commercials available for viewing already). So does this diminish the value of the ad? This is where my argument began (of sorts). Non-sports fans used to turn on the “Big Game” in order to watch the commericals, so will they still do this now that “the best” commercials can be viewed beforehand? I’m guessing that they still will, because “the best” is an opinionated word as well, people always want to see everything, and further, they want to see it live and experience it like everyone else. On top of this, the number of views generated on YouTube and other portals, is already tremendous, which is probably the main reason for leaking these commercials - Quantification.

Last year some of “the best” commercials had tens of millions of views on YouTube AFTER the game ended. So by releasing the commercials earlier, advertisers will want to see if they can beat the numbers from last year (and in theory this should be fairly easy to do). In my opinion, Nielsen Ratings is a “soft” metric. Sure they can say that 13.5 million people “watched’ the game, based on their machine sampling and extrapolation. But there’s no way to really know how many people watched the game, since there are typically more than the average household number watching the game. Further, there’s no guarantee that just because the TV is on that people are actually paying attention. Thus my “beef” with Nielson Ratings as a measurement tool.

YouTube views are a much more concrete metric. You have to click a button in order to view. Sure there’s a small percent who may begin the video but not finish it, but typically when a user clicks something they are engaged with it, at least for a few seconds. Much more so, than standing around with a plate of meatballs anguishing over a missed fieldgoal with a friend. Further, the video will probably include a link to a website and the viewer can more easily navigate to that site. Thus you also get a “visit”, if not more!

A second and almost as equally important reason for “leaking” is the viral marketing that this does. When someone says, “You have to see this”, you watch. It annoys me that, the full commercial has been leaked because I think you can achieve the same or at least similar viral success by just leaking a part of the commercial. But for those who have seen the full length commercial they can give a fully credited review of the commercial and recommend it (or not recommend it).

The purist in me hates all of this. “It’s ruined the game!” Technically, the ads themselves have ruined the game, as the game has become more about the glam and the glitz and less about crowning a champion of the NFL season. But similarly to how websites such as TripAdvisor have taken a lot of the surprise and adventure out of “trying something out” by giving testimonies and personal recommendations, I think leaking the commercials ruins the surprise of what commercial will come out next.

The marketer and analyst in me loves all of the integration and progress that has been made! I look forward to the apps and use of mobile with this year’s commercials. Although I’ve seen several commercials, I look forward to watching them with others. Finally, I get it from an advertising perspective. The buzz and viral marketing that is generated is worth every cent spent.

My only question is, why pay the $3-4 million for the timeslot? Why not just create a commercial and put it up on YouTube, market it through the major media channels and then not actually have a commercial that is aired? Sure they would come out and state that this commercial is not airing but that will just create more buzz for the commercial. Not very ethical, I guess…
photo credit: JohnSeb

Keyword Referrals

Today Google announced that the default login behavior for users will be secure and encrypted. They also announced that query data for logged in users will no longer be passed to Google Analytics unless the user clicks a paid link. I think that default to secure is fine and good, but not passing the query data unless you are paying is shady. Knowing what people are searching for is very helpful for businesses in choosing what they change about their site. Not just for optimizing for traffic, but also optimizing for online experience and usability of the site in general. The people that are most likely to be hurt by this are the small and medium sized business that are dependent on Google products, and industries that are heavily skewed toward users of Google products. As an example:

• People who use Gchat
• People who keep Gmail open
• People that use Google Analytics
• People that us Adwords
• People that use Google+
• People that connect to Google Labs Products
• People that comment on Blogger
• People that comment on YouTube

Many of the changes that Google has made over the last few years have been working toward making ”Google” a more embedded experience on the web and more individualized. The trend is toward more people being logged in, which means we will see a continuing degradation of data. This is particularly worrisome for countries where Google has over a 90% share and for business that have fewer than 100 search visits in a day. For small businesses making smart data-driven decisions was already hard, now it will be harder.

Search Engine Rank Page (SERP) Results

Search is becoming an amorphous term. Some people argue that Facebook and Twitter are search portals. Even if we restrict the conversation to just Google there are multiple separate, but interconnected, search channels: Web, Mobile, Local, News, Blogs, Image, etc. Many people are very focused on tracking rank. The problem with tracking rank is that it is not entirely connected to traffic. There are vast difference in traffic between phrases in the same conceptual space and a very different position in the buying cycle between search channels. For some people traffic is the only thing being monetized, so all visits are equal, but most people have a conversion to consider. In many competitive cases you are also triggering universal search that pulls in multiple search channels, which means #1 Organic result can be visually the 11th result.

(Click to see full size)

No Organic results show up above the fold for that search: Locksmith. Who is getting those clicks? Rank is NOT a performance indicator. Traffic is a performance indicator, money is a performance indicator, phone calls are a performance indicator. Rank is an interesting bauble that has interesting information at the beginning of a campaign to see your competition and a very steep curve once you are in the top ten. There is often much more to gain from focusing on getting traffic from phrases that aren’t getting traffic yet, particularly because of partial match links. Applying strategies that value diversity and monetization of traffic over SERP rank will win in the long term.

We are having a book release party at Belltown Pub on 10/6 from 6-9 pm. If you can make it out we’d love to see you and will have new and old books on hand to autograph. We’ll also raffle of a book or two for free. There will be a free food spread and beverages available for purchase.  Please click one of the links below to RSVP:

If you have a Twitter account:

http://twtvite.com/2gy8te

If you have a Facebook account only:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180906625317307

Or if you have neither, just contact us and we’ll send you all the details!

Thanks,

Jeff and Carlos

Ok, maybe it’s not tested, which could be a part of the reason why there is pushback when redesigns happen and become more annoying than helpful. Then again, when Facebook went through a major redesign several months ago, the users pushed back initially, then accepted. Now they push back again with their most recent redesign, but my guess is that it will be widely accepted within a few weeks.

What’s more interesting is how quickly things are merging together. These new media are learning how a shared space is better than a separate space. Mobile and Geo-location almost always go hand in hand, but being able to add in the social aspect really starts to pay dividends for companies. In our latest book “A Strategic Framework for Emerging Media”, we provide some ideas for improvement between social, mobile and geo location media. Many of the ideas are things that co-mingle these technologies. Unsurprisingly, some of these ideas must have been common ideas because they’ve been mentioned or have been put into place by these technologies before our book was put into publication or is being released just weeks after our book publication.

I discovered an example of the types of ideas that we talk about in our book while checking in on Foursquare last night. Upon check-in I noticed that I had unlocked a deal. When I opened the deal, I was informed that there was a ‘Groupon Now’ deal for the restaurant that I was at. I was able to save $5 off my meal, just by checking in! Had I not checked in, I would not have known about this deal. I probably could have checked Groupon and possibly would have seen the deal without going to Foursquare (geo-location app). I could have even checked Groupon from home and possibly would have seen the deal without using my mobile device. But in this perfect storm, I checked into a geo location app, using my mobile device, and made a purchase through a social site.

I talked to the manager of the restaurant about this and told her how cool it was that all of this transpired. She mentioned that in a month I could repeat the process. This is where there is still a step missing which we talk about in our strategy section of our book. You most likely have my info through Groupon, so why not either email me in a month, or start serving retargeting ads with a new Groupon deal for repeat business? Most likely the people that use these three technologies are going to be comfortable with a company targeting them.

Find out more about these types of strategies in our book!

After a long wait and a slight re-write A Strategic Framework for Emerging Media is finally out and available on Amazon!

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This tweet entered me to win a copy of “A Strategic Framework for Emerging Media” http://bit.ly/nWbrfj via @userdriven #measure #socialmedia

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On Tuesday September 6th we will randomly choose a 3 winners.

Your web analytics data will also give you some clues as to where your current visitor base is arriving from, but be aware that there are opportunities here that you won’t see, because you aren’t represented or linked to from that platform yet. You might find that organically, your users visit Facebook prior to visiting your website. Or you might find that while Twitter draws a much lower amount of traffic, these visitors are viewing product and converting at a higher rate than some other type of traffic. These insights will be useful for finding new opportunities and identifying what success will look like on new platforms.

Data on web usage, upstream and downstream traffic flow, and demographics can reliably be found from organizations like Pew Research, Nielsen Group, Google Trends, ComScore, and Quantcast. If you are working with a consultant or agency this is where they will be finding their data. All of these providers regularly update their data on time scales ranging from monthly to yearly cycles. Each has an area where they are fairly reliable or offer a unique perspective; you should take advantage of all of their free content. Regardless of your findings it will likely be advantageous to engage multiple platforms.

Some demographics about the major platforms[1]:

• Twitter – 55% female; 45% 18-34; 69% Caucasian; 60% make greater than $60,000/yr
• Facebook – 55% female; 42% 18-34; 75% Caucasian; 62% make greater than $60,000/yr
• LinkedIN – 52% male; 38% 35-49; 83% Caucasian; 69% make greater than $60,000/yr

Bringing this type of data together with consideration of how people access these portals results in Targeted Social Engagement. Once you know who you are talking to you need to consider how they like to be approached. If you enter a new social media platform in a way that breaks their rules of etiquette you will be in for some rough times.

credit: Nina Matthews Photography

After Barcamp Seattle and the Privacy Identity Innovation Conference (pii) I am struck by one painful truth about business and technology: All economic incentives favor inefficiency.

I gave a rant-style presentation at Barcamp titled “Your Product Sucks.” The central premise of the talk was that you have a single value to any given customer; either you fulfill it, or you suck. No matter how you strive you will not fulfill every customer need. The customer doesn’t care if you fail; they only care if you fail them.

pii focused on how we protect, legislate, and value personally identifiable information. There was an ongoing current of how people self-report and transport personal information through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The introduction of Facebook Places has created an interesting problem: in order to differentiate from the existing self-report location services, Facebook has introduced other-report location.

During a screaming match passionate discussion I realized that Facebook Places is the continuation of a regular cycle. There are countless businesses that hemorrhage value. Every missing feature means money, every loose piece of data means money, and every support system means visibility.

“Broken” products and services create secondary and tertiary economies that become sustaining for the cycle and the starting product.  Think of tracking programs, cell-phone cases, and demographic data.

Two of the major secondary economies online are the protection of personal data and the reclamation of reputation space.  PayPal and Google Checkout both provide “security protection” by creating an intermediary between your bank instruments and online sellers. This comes at the expense of your credit data and personal data being centralized, the intermediary charges you for the transaction, and they keep a log of your transactions.

Think about that. Logging is a cost. The frightening truth is that there are very few laws about your information. Once people have the information there are few ways that they can’t use it. People can’t charge things to your credit card, but they can sell your e-mail address, home address, and what you like to purchase.

Every time you see information about who buys what, who uses a specific service, or any other identification of a demographic, is in an indication that information has been sold.

Facebook is a prime example of a business that takes advantage of the broken cycle they offer a clear function, connecting your online presence with your friends, but at the cost of sucking at privacy and security. They leave companies like Reputation Defender to clean up after the mess that Facebook “privacy settings” leave in their wake.

Read this infographic to see more data on how Facebook, Google and Apple use your data.

I strongly suggest that you visit the privacy settings at your free products and remember that your personal data is part of what these companies make money from.

Over the last three weeks I’ve seen a rather stupid rash of posts claiming that social media experts are a myth. Most recently an article at ereleases went popular on Sphinn.

Many of these articles are ridiculous, duplicitous, and unhelpful. They make claims like:

1. Social media is new and constantly evolving
2. There is no right way to use social media
3. What works for one may not work for another

Social Media is NOT New

First, social media is not new. The name is new but the content is not. The modern social media platforms started wide scale use in 2002, more or less, with Friendster and Myspace. Blogs, and their communities, predate that (1997). Before that there were already forums, user groups, and Bulletin Board Systems! The Internet has been a social medium for a very long time. All the way back to the 1970s the back-bone concept of Twitter has been available, but without the character limit. People have been using written telecommunication interactions to pass information and have conversation for more than 30 years.

While social media is evolving it isn’t really moving forward; platforms like Facebook and Twitter are actually taking retrograde action into behavior that is more like forums (Hashtags, Groups, and Fan Pages).

There IS a Wrong Way to Use Social Media

Second, there is a wrong way to use every platform. Reddit has different etiquette than Digg, Facebook has different etiquette than Myspace, and every platform has a different group that are their power users. The background and important issue for the power user group creates a clear set of negative actions on the platform; Dan Zarrella just shared why you don’t bash Twitter on Facebook.

What Works for One May Not Work for Another

This is a truism. Every time you use a truism to make an argument Socrates shoots a kitten from a cannon.

Defining Experts

Experts are people who know considerably more than the general populace about a given subject. It doesn’t matter the number of hours (though 10,000 is a popular distinction), even after a year in a profession you will know more about the job than most people. There are countless people that have been working on the web who have been actively engaged in multiple social platforms, forums, or blogging reaching back for 5 to 10 years. There are thousands of people who understand marketing strategy, web analytics, blogging, etc. and also spend thousands of hours on multiple platforms and communities to understand the etiquette of the most popular sites. These people can easily describe the communities and their norms, in addition to offering other value to your web presence.

If you are worried about the expertise of the person you are talking to ask, “Yes, and how does that support your other work?” If they don’t have some way of leveraging the knowledge, they can’t really help you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know the landscape in and out. A social media expert is not really useful unless they have some additional skill to connect to their knowledge.

</end rant>

So, here are the terms the way I use them.

Search Engine Optimization = Actions taken to improve position within organic search placement
PPC = Pay Per Click
CPM = Cost Per Thousand
CPA = Cost Per Action/Acquisition
Paid Inclusion = Search placements that are bought but not attributed as sponsored
Paid Search = Paid placements in search engines (includes PPC, CPM and Paid Inclusion)
Social Media Optimization = Actions taken to improve results from social media platforms (paid or organic)

Search Engine Marketing = All actions taken to drive traffic, money or impressions through search platforms. This term is currently evolving through the debate over whether Facebook and Twitter should be classified as person to person search platforms.

Search Engine Optimization + Paid Search = Search Engine Marketing