Marketing Pilgrim Published: "Two Very Different Online Takes on One Day" plus 4 more

Two Very Different Online Takes on One Day
Social Media: You Can't Pretend It's Not Happening
More Teens Twitter but Facebook Still Rules
Klout Caught in Kerfuffle Over Harvested Facebook Data
ShopCity Opts for FTC Over SEO

Two Very Different Online Takes on One Day

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 03:21 AM PST

Last Friday was 11.11.11. It was a rare occurrence indeed and it brought out everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. I took a look back at how two of the major players in online world, Twitter and Google, looked at the day. Twitter, of course looked at the trending of who was talking about the date and when. This video gives a quick visualization from their blog post entitled "Once in a Lifetime".

Cute, I suppose. Looking at the novelty of the day is certainly is one online take and fits Twitter perfectly. It's a world of fleeting trends that come and go like waves hitting the shoreline. They keep coming and we now just expect it to be that way. Whether we pay attention or not is more about our mood than our beliefs.

The flip side of looking at a day came from Google. This day was a rare opportunity to show what was truly important. In this case, a numerical oddity or the other celebration of the day which in the United State was Veterans Day, a holiday that is slowly trying to regain its stature in a society that at times has all but forgotten what sacrifice means.

Google used its capabilities to show another type of trip around the world. Using a tool called tour builder veterans could create a picture of their time in service to their country and where that service took them.

I know which take on 11.11.11 was more significant to me. I also know that it will not be the same for everyone but that's cool because, at its core, social media has something for everyone. What did become apparent in this little exercise, however, was just how limited some tools are in expressing something bigger than a trend. It's not a knock on Twitter at all. It's not built to be deep and reflective and to have a lot of extra capabilities. Google, on the other hand, can have too much information about any subject.

How do you look at the day's events in the new online all the time world that is starting to develop at a rapid pace? Are you looking for a fleeting trend, a meaningful interaction or both? Where do you turn to get what you need? It's actually an important question to answer because what lens you choose to view the world will determine what you see and what you don't see.

Social Media: You Can't Pretend It's Not Happening

Posted: 15 Nov 2011 02:37 AM PST

In a series of posts beginning today, we are excited to have Chris Lorence, the CMO of the Independent Community Bankers of America, an association serving 5,000 members, to share his experience in bringing social media to an industry that has proven reluctant to get involved even in the face of increased scrutiny of banking as a whole. With his members facing the possibility of being targets for any online reputation trouble makers, Chris has been working to help bring his members into the social media age. This series will help you follow this journey and its many ups and downs. it's not unlike many stories our readers have to tell about their own social media quests.

Almost two years ago, our company began the process of integrating social media into our marketing and communication plans. As the Chief Marketing Officer of the largest national trade association for community banks, I heard daily from the membership that we over communicated and sent too much email. Many reported they were deleting without reading the material after the third or fourth email of the day.

Our staff on the other hand was irritated that responses were low; coming to the conclusion that our members were not getting the message. Surely with all the important stuff we've got to say, they were missing the message; turn up the volume and send it again. Stuck in the middle I came to only one conclusion: Let people come and get what they want, save emails for the really important stuff and open a two way dialogue with our membership so we could hear their thoughts. One problem, this meant change.

After attending several conferences on social media, reading countless articles, books, blogs and connecting with many thought leaders on introducing a communication shift that included social media, I introduced the subject to the organization. To say I heard crickets is an understatement. The subject referred to as "that stuff the young people do" by my peers and superiors sounded trendy and fun but would have no traction with our membership. Our members were traditional they explained, they didn't get into all the fancy Internet driven hype. They conducted their business face-to-face with customers who weren't using these things called Twitter or Facebook, much less Yelp and FourSquare. Umm, yeah, I had my work cut out for me that's for sure.

We started by first developing a social media policy for our organization and staff. We slowly began to evaluate the opportunities and determine how social media outlets would enhance and augment our existing communication strategy. The trick was to not get too far ahead of our membership, who were definitely not looking for more ways to communicate with us in their already over burdened and as bankers, over regulated lives.

Our process was calculated and deliberately slow but we were moving forward, leading by example. Consistency and persistence were keys to our success. At every executive staff meeting when asked to give a marketing update I mentioned the increasing numbers of Twitter followers to our corporate account and the multiple "likes" we were seeing from our members on our Facebook page. After months of reporting I took the next bold step: strategizing the reduction of emails via a new push/pull communication strategy. We would now encourage our members to subscribe to things they wanted via social media channels and specialized websites with RSS feed subscriptions instead of forcing anyone with an email address to get everything when we decided.

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Over time our members have begun to become more engaged and see social media as something they can no longer ignore. A poll taken in July 2010 indicated that 74% of respondents interacted with a social media outlet in their personal or professional lives. Proof positive that while traditional, our members were not unlike the rest of the world's citizens. Sadly, a subsequent poll in December 2010 indicated that while social media was making inroads, it still had no place in the business of community banking. A full 87% of respondents used firewalls to prevent employee from gaining access to social media websites.

The ice is however starting to thaw as community banks realize that their reputation risk is fully affected by the very outlet they choose to block in their bank. Fear of the unknown and a propensity to focus on the potential for negative feedback from a disgruntled customer weigh heavy on the minds of the community banker. With millions accessed at a moments notice via a mobile device through social media channels, who wouldn't be fearful. Glass half empty? Only if you're the one who's being complained about we tell our members. Dissatisfied customers make the best advocates and evangelists when they find a new bank that meets their needs. I think they're starting to get it after all this Occupy Wall Street, Move Your Money business….now what to do about my own organization?

Look for the next installment in this series to learn more about how an organization and an industry are taking steps to ensure that they are not left behind as the world of marketing, and business in general, becomes more digital while still maintaining connections to those methods that have worked in the past and still work today.

About the author

Chris Lorence is Executive Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer for the Independent Community Bankers of America, headquartered in Washington, DC. His duties include oversight and management of the organizations marketing & communications department, which includes political advocacy, social media integration, press relations, and brand management. Chris is also responsible for the organizations flagship award winning national magazine, Independent Banker® and 4 other strategically aligned membership and industry publications. As a member of the senior executive team, Chris works with management and staff to both create and bring to life the organizations strategic vision and initiatives. The ICBA enterprise consists of both a non-profit trade association with nearly 5000 members and five for-profit subsidiaries, one of which is a national bank. Before coming to ICBA, Chris was Chief Operating Officer of a community based financial organization and has over 15 years of senior management experience within the financial community

More Teens Twitter but Facebook Still Rules

Posted: 14 Nov 2011 02:53 PM PST

The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 16% of online teens used Twitter in the month of July. Not a very big number, but it's doubled since 2009.

Much of the rise is due to the fact that kids are now growing up with social media. I'd bet that there are more birth announcements on Facebook than in every hometown newspaper combined.

The other reason for the jump, is the ease of access. 75% of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 have mobile phones and one in three sends more than 100 text messages a day. Since a Tweet is nothing more than a public text message, it's no wonder Twitter is on the rise.

In addition to age, gender is a big factor in Twitter usage. According to eMarketer, teen girls are twice as likely to Tweet as their male counterparts. This goes along with the Pew study numbers that show girls getting and sending an average of 80 text messages a day while boys land around 30.

Still, it's Facebook that rules for teens and tweens. eMarketer says that 59% of teens only have one social media account and 89% of them go with Facebook. Ah, remember the day when that number would have been Myspace?

Overall, 81% of tweens are using some kind of social media. The number pops up to 90% when you go up to the 18 to 24 bracket. Older teens are also more active in every social media area except one – gaming.

Even for young teens, gaming isn't the powerhouse you'd expect it to be.

As you can see from the chart, teens mostly use social media to stay connected with friends.

Marketers Beware

If your company markets a product of interest to teens, this may sound like great news. But marketing to teens through social media can be tricky. Security and privacy are primary concerns, ones a marketer should take seriously even though networks often break the rules.

The bigger issue is that tweens and teens are more perceptive than people think. They can spot a phony in a second and they won't hesitate to call you on it. Don't lie to them. Don't tell them what's popular and don't ever assume you know more than they do. It's their world and they'll kick you out in a second if you don't play by their rules.

Klout Caught in Kerfuffle Over Harvested Facebook Data

Posted: 14 Nov 2011 12:29 PM PST

Not all of us are social media mavens. Some people visit Facebook on the rare occasion when they have a photo to share or big news to tell. But to Klout and other networks, one visit is as good as an addiction because one visit is all it takes to leave a footprint behind.

The New York Times has a feature story up about Maggie McGary, a mom who makes her living as a social media manager. She was upset when she discovered a Klout profile for her under-aged son. Klout built the profile because the boy was Facebook friends with his mom, which made him fair game. Klout pulled his info and set up a profile without asking for permission and with no regard to the fact that he was a young teen.

Caught, Klout has discontinued that practice but that doesn't mean the social media world is now safe. It's not. It turns out that social media is like a giant game of Crack the Whip. Friending or following a person is like grabbing hold of the person in front of you. then your friends grab on to you and their friends to them and so on. Now, where the head goes, the body and tail go, too, like it or not.

I saw this process first hand over the weekend thanks to my husband. He's a novice social media player with a Facebook account and nothing more. On Sunday, I woke up to him pounding away on his keyboard in frustration. He had forgotten his LinkedIn login information and so he couldn't accept his friend's link request.

Huh. Why do you have a LinkedIn account, I asked. Because people I know keep sending email invites asking me to follow them, he responded. Why do they do that?

Good question. The way people throw around social media invites, you'd think there was a prize for reaching your quota by month's end. A lot of these interactions occur because of that old "suggestibility" gene. They suggest you invite a friend based on your Facebook interactions and so you do. The only "gain" is a hike in your social media worth. More friends and followers on Klout means a higher Klout score. And since some companies use Klout scores to determine the power of a blogger or potential employee, it could be a number worth fighting for.

The moral of this story is that it's not just what you put online, but who you follow that could get you in trouble. We are now in an age where a consumer may or may not decide to hire you based on who and what they see on your social media pages.

If your Uncle Rupert is posting inflammatory remarks on a daily basis, it's time to cut the family ties before his remarks come back to haunt you.

ShopCity Opts for FTC Over SEO

Posted: 14 Nov 2011 09:02 AM PST

Remember over the summer when we asked you, the SEO expert, to be the judge and jury on ShopCity and its complaints regarding Google's alleged mistreatment of the sites? It was one of our most spirited post interactions in quite some time (we love how intense SEO's get when given a challenge).

Essentially the readers of Marketing Pilgrim gave ShopCity A LOT of free SEO advice. It was even a place where ShopCity's CEO, Colin Pape got into the mix. To his credit, he soaked up all the free offerings readily while trying to defend his tenuous position regarding Google's apparent lack of respect for his some 8,000 domains.

At the time his cause was being represented by an antitrust lawyer who made his mark fighting Microsoft. This lawyer now is chasing Silicon Valley ambulances that lead to anyone who has a complaint against Google so ShopCity is his complainer du jour. But don't worry he's probably doing it for the good of us all ;-) . Bloomberg reports

As the owner of the world's most popular search engine, Google unfairly used its control of search results to damage ShopCity.com, a website that helps local businesses sell products, and favored its own competing service, according to a complaint ShopCity made Nov. 11 to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

"From the day ShopCity launched its network, the upstart competitor faced the full measure of Google's anticompetitive tactics," Gary Reback, an antitrust lawyer at Carr & Ferrell LLP in Menlo Park, California, wrote to Richard Feinstein, director of the agency's Bureau of Competition.

Gary, Gary, Gary. Don't you read Marketing Pilgrim? Didn't our SEO experts already point out how ShopCity.com and its many sites didn't understand the rules that are known by anyone who is paying attention in SEO like those relating to duplicate content and having the basics, like title tags, up to snuff? Even ShopCity's CEO responded back in July regarding the state of his sites when it came to the basics

I don't think we're stuffing keywords, but we could definitely work to make them more succinct. Thanks for focusing some attention on it.

The merchants themselves enter the product descriptions, so we don't have as much control over it as we would if we were publishing the content. We will try to provide better guidelines for them to follow – what length would you say is optimum?

Just wanted to thank you again for focusing our attention on the title tags, etc. We have updated our title schema for categories to make it more succinct.

Colin

Ahem, you're welcome, Colin.

Now, just about 3 1/2 months later ShopCity has decided that their best way to get Internet riches is not through the hard work and discipline that is SEO but rather by taking their case to the federal government. Heck, 3 1/2 months is plenty of times to rise to the top of the SERP's isn't it (for those missing the sarcasm there that last piece was oozing it).

It's not like Google has simply turned a blind eye or deaf ear or mute algorithm to them either. My source at Google stated

ShopCity twice asked for help on Google's Webmaster Forums – and a Google manager told them how to fix their problems. In February 2011, Google manager John Mueller advised ShopCity to:

Additionally, If you have auto-generated content on the sites (such as imported content from other sites or directories), or pseudo-404 pages ("There are no X listed in this category." or similar pages), then those are things that we'd recommend blocking from indexing (using a noindex robots meta tag for example). Searching for the texts that you use on those pages, it seems that many pages like that are currently indexed from many of your sites.

Finally, as Squibble mentioned, having over thousands of sites targeted to different cities will likely make it hard for our algorithms to get a bigger picture properly. In general, it's probably better to use subdomains or subdirectories – it makes it clearer for our algorithms to determine how the sites are related (and from a marketing point of view, makes it easier for your users to recognize your "brand" of sites).

So once again SEO community, I turn ShopCity and their plight over to you. Have they done anything to make themselves look better in the eyes of Google? What has Google done TO them that you can see? What can they do other than get a lawyer and complain to the government that would improve their situation? Or did you give them enough free advice and maybe they need to do it the old fashioned way and either learn SEO or pay for the services you give to your existing clients?

In your estimation, how much, if any, is Google bending the rules in their own favor? Should we see the government or legal channels as the best resource to get positions in the SERP's?

What's your take on all of this. You are the experts. We ask you, again, to be judge and jury. What say ye?

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