Marketing Pilgrim Published: "Bullying Site Owner Faces 6 1/2 Years in Jail" plus 4 more
- Bullying Site Owner Faces 6 1/2 Years in Jail
- Study Shows Companies Plan to Increase Online Spend Across the Board
- Facebook Now Features Photo Tagging for Pages
- It's Easy to Influence the Influence-Her
- Facebook Doesn't Care If You Like How They Do Business, Period
Remember all the commotion about the owner of the DecorMyEyes website back in November? The man, Vitaly Borker, had built his business on negative reviews, mistreating customers and, to his ultimate demise, threatening to kill them if they didn't stop complaining because he knew where they lived.
Sick stuff for sure but the New York Times' exposed this character for what he is (which shows how incredibly stupid he is vs. being crafty like he thought he was, since he told the NYT how he operated and how he was using the negativity to gain favor in Google's rankings).
Well, yesterday Vitaly was found guilty on several charges and now faces up to six and a half years in jail for his antics. We'll give the New York Times the honors since they brought this creep to the light of day.
The online eyeglasses seller who terrified customers in the hopes of creating buzz about his Web site, and raising its profile in Google searches, pleaded guilty on Thursday to two counts of sending threatening communications, one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud.The original NYT article from November of 2010 caused quite a stir in search circles and led to Google addressing the concern directly.
Mr. Borker achieved something close to instant notoriety in late November after The New York Times published an article in which he discussed his habit of menacing customers who had complained to him about products bought through DecorMyEyes. Using several aliases, he threatened to kill or sexually assault customers, going so far in one instance that he e-mailed an image of the customer's home, which had been obtained from Google maps. In addition, he sent warnings like, "P.S. don't forget that I know where you live."
A few days after the article was published, Google announced that it had convened a team to look at this issue and had already changed its search algorithm so that no company could use negative feedback to positive effect. The company declined to disclose details but wrote on its official blog, "We can say with reasonable confidence that being bad to customers is bad for business on Google."Basically, this story is about a sick human being who was simply not concerned about anything other than maintaining his cash flow at all costs. But as any good criminal will eventually get to, he had his reasons and excuses.
Borker admitted in court that he had lied to and frightened his customers, suggesting that business pressures explained his behavior.While Borker's lawyer is expecting his client to do more like 18 months of time (he is to be sentenced September 16th) this is the right ending for a person like this. There is plenty of attention being given these days to bullying and, in the end, that's all Borker was doing. He was bullying unhappy customers into walking away from their complaints. Not exactly Better Business Bureau tactics.
"I was answering personally about 100 e-mails a day and lost control of what I was saying at times," he said, reading a prepared statement before Judge Richard J. Sullivan in Federal District Court in Manhattan. He closed by saying, "I want to apologize to everyone I hurt in connection with my actions, especially those people I threatened."
So here's to Vitaly Borker who may need more than his share of his own sunglasses to cover up what prison time bullying can do to a person.
One of the most interesting things to see each year is the differences that occur between how agencies view things versus companies do. Rather than get into all of that though, I think the following three charts are what tell the best story for the industry as a whole. These charts are only the company (or client side) view of whether they will increase budgets. In the end, it's the only view that matters because they are the ones spending either directly in the industry or through agencies.
SEO
PPC
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
The report can be purchased (with no monetary benefit to Marketing Pilgrim) here.
Of course, this begs the question "Where is this money coming from?" Most companies are not tapping into an endless supply of marketing budget dollars so something has to give. Is there more room for traditional media to be squeezed even more than it has over the past 5 or so years? If so we may not have seen the last of the "sky is falling" reports about newspapers and other traditional media offerings.
Guess it sucks to be them, huh?
Facebook's new photo-tagging feature allows anyone to tag a photo with any Facebook Brand & Product or People page. Here's a visual example:
When the tagger clicks the photo you get a drop down of your own pages to choose from, or you can type in the page you want. Right now, only the specified categories are available, so not everything you type in will return a result.
The best part for marketers is that you don't have to wait for a customer to tag a photo. If the photo is public, you can tag it and it will show up in the photo area of your page. If a photo is private, then it can only be tagged by the user and will not show up in the public space even if tagged with the brand.
As you can imagine, one day in, and there are already plenty of complaints on the Facebook blog. Many people are asking for an option to disable photo tagging as they see it as another mode of spreading spam.
The caveat here is tag gently. Tag photos that legitimately showcase your products and if there are a lot, let a few go. This is a nice feature that could help drive some traffic to your brand page, but right now, it's kind of a "why not."
Tag! You're it.
Take a look at the women in your life, (go ahead, they'll appreciate it) and notice who it is they all turn to when they need advice about anything from movies to make-up.
If you're living in a typical world, you'll find that a few women in the circle stand out as influencers. They're the ones who always seem to know the latest trend, where to find the hottest deal and what's coming out later this month.
Marina Maher Communications (MMC), refers to these women as the "Influence-Hers" and to marketers, they're like finding a golden ticket to the Wonka factory. The bad news is that, like Wonka tickets, there are only a few of them. According to MMC's recent survey of over 2,000 women, only 12% of women fall into this category. The good news is, they're open to listening to your message and if they like you, they like you a lot.
So how do you influence the Influence-Her? MMC has a few pointers.
Choose the right endorsers to reach her.
You would think that this strongly opinionated women would shy away from marketing hype, but according to the survey, that's not so. It turns out they are highly susceptible to celebrity endorsements and the media. The trick is picking the right endorser for your product. Getting Taylor Swift to promote your line of prom gowns would be a go but Ellen DeGeneres, not so much.
Provide her with relevant, share-able information.
Says MMC, "Did you know" are three of the Influence-Her's favorite words. Fill your website and Facebook page with facts and tips that will make her life better. Then offer her the tools to make sharing easy. This could be a share button, an embedded video or a widget. The survey shows that this powerful woman will not only "like" you, she'll write a review, so give her a place to do that.
Show her you care.
Once you have her attention, take the time to find out what she really wants. You may find that all it takes is a slight change of positioning to turn a so-so seller into a hot item. Listen and reward. Here's where a complimentary sample box will go a long, long way.
The Influence-Her is a rare and wondrous lady, so once you find one, you'll want to do whatever you can to keep her on your side.
If you'd like more details from this study, visit the MMC blog. You'll find a link to request the document at the bottom of the page.
Thanks to AdAge for the head's on the survey.
Pilgrim's Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
A post today by Andy Beal outlines the efforts by Facebook to create a smear campaign against Google by hiring PR giant Burson-Marsteller to carry out the dirty work.
First, while I know it's naïve to think that large respected PR firms like Burson-Marsteller wouldn't take on a project that is an active smear campaign, they are just as much to blame in taking Facebook's money to pull a stunt like this but I digress.
I think it's very important to remember several things about this whole deal.
1. No one outside of Silicon Valley and the 'industry' will even know this is going on.
2. Facebook, at the end of the day, shouldn't be trusted by anyone who is really paying attention but that still doesn't mean people won't still need and use the service
3. Positive stories about Facebook should be taken with as many grains of salt as anything else because, let's face it, it's not how they roll on most days
4. The company was founded by a person who brought the world this assessment of his Harvard classmates and their willingness to hand over their personal information to him
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb f**ks.
I don't believe Facebook truly cares what we in the industry thinks about it because they realize that any rants are just part of the circle jerk that is the insular tech / social media community that doesn't impact their actual business one iota.
So the question really is why would you expect anything less than the type of campaign that Facebook apparently has contracted for? Should we ever really be stunned by anything the company does?
The truth is that Facebook is somewhat bulletproof and they are well aware of it. Of the 600 million users of Facebook, I would wager that if 1/2 of 1 percent of that group (3,000,000) people know about this (for real as in more than just heard about it) and even were completely disgusted by it, the whole thing would still be a huge "So what?!" to Facebook and its most important metric: the bottom line.
Look, if people haven't already been discouraged and disgusted by Facebook's privacy antics, their "ask for forgiveness rather than permission" approach to account data usage and their sometimes seeming disdain for their users' 'rights' then they never will be.
Industry heavies like Michael Arrington have always been soft on Facebook and cleared a wide swath for the company since all of this is new. They've taken the "they will figure it out eventually" stance. Even that has changed a bit in the wake of this revelation. Arrington on TechCrunch writes
I've been patient with Facebook over the years as they've had their privacy stumbles. They're forging new ground, and it's not an exaggeration to say they're changing the world's notions on what privacy is. Give them time. They'll figure it out eventually.But even this coming from Arrington equals a big nothing in the overall business of Facebook. Sure, some 'important' people might get upset but once the IPO rolls around and these folks suddenly find themselves gaining some benefit from their industry position (insider track on the IPO if you didn't get it yet) they will 'forgive and forget' quite readily.
But secretly paying a PR firm to pitch bloggers on stories going after Google, even offering to help write those stories and then get them published elsewhere, is not just offensive, dishonest and cowardly. It's also really, really dumb. I have no idea how the Facebook PR team thought that they'd avoid being caught doing this.
In the end, the masses will never know about it and thus they will never care. They are too busy looking at baby pictures and sharing stupid human tricks. Oh, and by the way, they are the ones that click on Facebook ads so they are really the folks that matter to Facebook. And if you think marketers will take the high road and not work with a company like Facebook because of principle? Well, then I have some oceanfront property in Kansas in you need to buy ASAP.
So, we will all yell and scream and point our fingers at Facebook saying they are evil etc, etc and the company will laugh all the way to the IPO bank (eventually) and no one amongst the remaining 597,000,000 account holders will know any of this ever even happened. And the 3,000,000 referred to earlier? They'll update their Facebook page with rants about this stuff for years to come.
Killerwebs Web Design Studio based in Bradford West Yorkshire
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