Posted: 16 Sep 2011 10:49 PM PDT

Let me start off today's COJ with a little disclaimer: A lot of what you read in today's column might be wrong. Because today I am talking about football! And the truth is, I know crap about football. I mean I understand the basics, but beyond that I am kind of useless. For example, today I learned what a onside kick is, thanks to, Coach Kevin Kelley, from Pulaski Academy in Little Rock Arkansas.

That's because Coach Kelley used the onside kick as part of an odd strategy to score 29 points before their opponents even touched the ball. Apparently, the team was able to use onside kick's to push the ball down the field, recover them, and then score. They did this 4 times in a row. Allowing for complete control of the football, touchdown, after touchdown. Granted, on their 5th try they failed, but this was an astounding feat for a team that was ranked nearly last and ended up winning big, 64-34.

Is Kelly the best high school football coach ever? Probably not. Are his players the best players ever? Again probably not. Does Coach Kelly understand the power of thinking outside the box, and developing his own strategy on the fundamentals of the game? You bet he does!

In 1984 Ben & Jerr'ys Ice Cream wanted to raise investment funds to build a new manufacturing plant. At the time they were already on their way to building a strong brand that was shipping across New England. Because of this, venture capitalists were keen to put money into their success. But both Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield had different ideas about building a business.

They wanted to continue to support the economy of Vermont. So, they established a Vermont-only public stock offering. This meant that anyone in the state of Vermont could easily invest in the company. That same year profits grew 120% and Ben & Jerry's started to become a serious competitor to ice cream heavy weight Häagen-Dazs.

So how do you start thinking outside the box? First, pull yourself out of the box you're in! If you want to learn more about marketing, stop reading blogs and get back to the fundamentals (story telling, design, and imagination). Want to think outside the box of SEO? Then how about start learning more about the field of Information Retrieval, natural language processing, and heuristic computation.

Writing this post was fun! I am still not an expert on football, but I learned a bit by writing about it. And let's face it, I wouldn't have learned anything at all, if I didn't step out of my box and try something new!

[photo credit]

Twitter Sends Few Conversions, but When They Spend, They Spend!

Posted: 16 Sep 2011 12:38 PM PDT

No matter what numbers we put out there, marketers continue to believe that Twitter and Facebook are worth the effort. So here's another set that's loaded with good news and bad news for those who hang their ledgers on social media.

A new report from RichRelevance states that online retail shoppers who clickthrough from Facebook only convert 1.2% of the time. If you think that's bad, Twitter's number is only 0.5%.

But don't delete your Twitter account just yet, because in a strange twist of fate, these shoppers actually spend more money when they do order.

Take a look at the chart on the right. The conversion rates skew from AOL's 2.9 down to Twitter's barely there numbers. Now look at the Average Order Value in the last column. Twitter is wiping the floor with Google, Bing and the rest.

I'm sure there's some deep-seated, psychological reason why this is true, but I don't know what it is. Maybe it has something to do with Twitter's chief demographics. People with more disposable income? People who can't resist a bargain? People who just love to spend, spend, spend?

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Again, not math girl here, so can someone tell me if what Twitter loses in conversion rates, they make up for in AOV? Because the bottom line is the bottom line. We all want to make X number of dollars so it doesn't matter if we have twenty small sales or two big ones, does it? As long as we come out on top in the end.

Diane Kegley, CMO of RichRelevance has this piece of advice:

"This data is a wake-up call for brands who want to reach holiday shoppers who are congregating in the online shopping channel. This is the time to focus on new ways to reach and influence consumers directly on retail sites, at the point of purchase, when they are ready to buy."

She's got a point there. Getting shoppers into your online store is only half the battle. Once they're there, you've got to sell, sell, sell and hope they spend, spend, spend.

Facebook Offers Ad Credit to Small Businesses

Posted: 16 Sep 2011 11:51 AM PDT

Facebook has a terrific new idea. They're going to offer a $50 ad credit to small business owners to help them increase sales. Isn't that nice of them?

Of course, it does sound vaguely familiar. . . like maybe I've seen the same offer but with a Google Adwords logo attached? Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's current COO used to cash paychecks from Google, but I'm sure that's a coincidence.

Speaking to USA Today, Sandberg said,

"My dream is really simple. I think every small business should … be using Facebook. We're not going to stop until all of them are using it to grow their business."

Not that there's anything in it for Facebook, mind you. It's a purely humanitarian gesture.

Sandberg goes on to discuss how far $50 can go and how Facebook makes it easy for every business to have a website and how it's the ultimate communication tool. She also talks about how Facebook is responsible for creating 250,000 jobs. She makes Facebook sound like a non-profit organization, dedicated to the survival of the American economy. Or am I being too cynical?

A credit is a credit and if someone can use it to bring in a new customer or two, that's nice for everyone involved. What I object to, is the way Sandberg is making this sound like a one-way street. We all know this is business, so why not be upfront about it? We help small business owners get started and hopefully, they continue to buy ads from us in the future. Everybody wins.

My question is, what will $50 actually get you? I'm bad with numbers, especially those with a dollar sign in front of them, so I won't even attempt a guess. Is it enough clicks to get a feel for the site? We know that categories do better on Facebook than others, so maybe this would be a good test? Or not?

What do you think? Is Facebook's credit offer something to cheer about or just another example of two elephants battling for dominance with the little guys getting crushed under their feet? Let loose, people. Tell us how you really feel.