Social Media Marketing Systems Agency Blog - Social Media Website and Video Marketing

On April 24th-26th 2007 we attended the ad:tech convention at Moscone Center in San Francisco; we did some great video interviews which will be featured here (3net Search Engine Marketing Blog by Social Media Systems) highlighting many of the booths and contributing companies.

New this year are several companies who seem to have an identity crisis: they say they are everything from PPC and PPA to organic SEO; the lines are blurry between TV, Internet, PR, advertising, technology and website design and development.

We interviewed several company officials on camera (the videos will appear in streaming video format on our blog here within a week or two).

I found it surprising, even for me, how many of the presenters really could not explain their product offerings; the advantages and features so that even I could understand why or how anybody would buy them: even with my technical background I was confused (with a few notable exceptions).

It struck me how broad and deep the playing field has become: according to this article about Google’s aquisition of DoubleClick:

After peaking at US$8.2 billion in 2000, US on-line ad spending fell in 2001 and 2002, but it began regaining lost ground in 2003. In 2004 the market finally broke the 2000 record, ending with US$9.6 billion in on-line ad spending. Growth rates in recent years have been in the 30% to 40% range. On-line ad spending in the US reached an estimated US$16.8 billion in 2006, a growth of 34% compared with 2005, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

With all this growth, there are alot of players at this years ad:tech that I do not expect to see again next year (yup, that bad!) and many who will have already sold out for big bucks by next year.

I have been following this story for a while, besides it’s comedic nature, it really shows the power of social media and bookmarking sites. Through social media, high profile bloggers and news portal links, Google now ranks, Stephen Colbert and colbertnation.com, number #1 for the Google search “greatest living american“. He has done this before by saying he wanted to be ranked #1 on Google for “giant brass balls“, which he does, but how?

Looking at the results in Google Blog Search, which I believe is still in beta (like all their other app’s besides their core search product), you can glean some insight into how sites are ranked. Some of the criteria are listed below along with links to the patent submitted by Google. There are a total of 9 that I indicated here as well as other resources you can review that also play a par, if anyone has anymore insight and adept at reading legalese, let me know.

How often do you click a sponsored link?  Rarely? Never?!

If you do not click them, who does?

If these are confusing questions, consider that according to Marketwatch.com and Google itself, Google alone pocketed $4 BILLION+ of over $16 BILLION that was spent on Internet advertising in 2006: and the only kind of advertising they (and the other search engines) sold any relevant amount of was pay-per-click:

$16 Billion for those links to the right of and above and below the relevant stuff: that 80% of us do not click on!
So how much is it worth to appear on the first page, “organic” search results on all of the search engines for your targeted key word searches?

In order to maintain our rankings at our old site (rothmanmarketing.com) (which now is a 301 redirect to this one) without losing our first page search engine recognition for:

• advertising consultant blog – Google
• internet advertising consultant
• Social Media Placement

…and many others too numerous to count: we had some considerations: we really should have taken the time to manufacture a special redirect for each of about 200 seperate articles which are syndicated at Webpro News, Real Estate magazine and others; but we already have significant placement at our 90 day old re-branded website (this one) because it has over 5000 incoming authority links and growing (due to our syndication as one of the most read blogs in the world): so we used a 301 (permanent) redirect instead: we used the Wordpress rewrite modual:

1. Make sure a new visitor can discern the who, what, where and why of your blog within three seconds
2. Write original content
3. Make your posts scan-able
4. Use pictures and other visual content
5. Use a custom theme
6. Have easy and multiple subscribe options
7. Include blog author information
8. Don’t use too many categories
9. Reference old posts and topic history
10. Use spell check
11. Link out to other relevant material
12. Have an opinion
13. Use humor
14. Write lists
15. Make sure your blog’s top post has content that will appeal to a first time visitor
16. Use categories and keywords that actually describe your posts
17. Identify the look for your blog, e.g. whether you want a corporate or informal look
18. Market your blog content
19. Encourage community building with third party services
20. Respond to comments in the comments section of your blog
21. Give links to other interesting blogs and articles
22. Don’t overload the site with ads
23. Have a blogging strategy
24. Use a unique domain name
25. Brand your blog
26. Don’t steal or duplicate other people’s content
27. Organize your categories
28. Cite your sources
29. Join conversations on other blogs and continue them with follow up posts on your blog
30. Be controversial, but courteous
31. Use a personal voice
32. Write with passion
33. Tell stories
34. When writing about tips, show examples
35. Try to merge advice with examples and stories whenever possible
36. Write series of posts
37. Write consistently
38. Don’t apologize for your opinion
39. Provide resources to on topic sites
40. Update your old posts and pages if possible
41. Post updates to old posts and pages in new “update” posts
42. Join on-topic communities and get involved in other conversations
43. Be friendly
44. Moderate spam comments
45. Moderate overly negative or flaming comments if it’s a business blog
46. Don’t go off on religion (unless it’s a religious or strictly personal blog)
47. Don’t go off on politics (unless it’s a political or strictly personal blog)
48. Talk to your readers in second person occasionally, e.g. “what do YOU think?”
49. Use humor to liven up dull material
50. Use personal anecdotes to liven up dull material
51. Get the audience involved
52. Ask for contributions
53. Listen when you get contributions
54. Encourage user generated content
55. Always have comments turned on
56. Check your anti-spam software for false positives (everyone hates it when they spend time to comment and it disappears)
57. Link to direct sources
58. Give credit when you reiterate other people’s ideas
59. Recognize other quality bloggers and sites
60. Don’t be afraid to critique low-quality competing blogs or companies; the Blogosphere thrives on conflict
61. Use catchy titles and keyword strings so you have sexy content as well as posts that can be found via a keyword search
62. Use bulleted and numbered lists
63. Use the bold and italic styles, but only one sentence or less at a time
64. Use offbeat sources as well as the MSM (it’s the Blogosphere; talk about other people’s opinions)
65. Write about what you know
66. Write about what you’re learning (just make sure to disclose that you’re still learning to avoid backlashes if you misrepresent something)
67. Write about where you think things are going.
68. Write about where you think things have been
69. Simplify complicated concepts, use easy language
70. Cut the fluff
71. Enable full feed
72. Write content that isn’t completely disposable
73. Don’t Overdo the sensationalism
74. Provide easy social bookmarking options
75. Provide easy social media voting options (e.g. digg, reddit, netscape)
76. Manage your blogroll
77. Change things up once in a while
78. Leverage new technologies
79. Change your blog’s look and theme at least every few years ( web design trends change )
80. Keep the same naming conventions
81. Have consistent navigation
82. Use sub-navigation when appropriate to break general categories and pages down into more specific ones (categories pages, etc.)
83. Use breadcrumb navigation
84. Comment on press, links and awards the blog has received (let the readers know how you’re doing)
85. Disclose sponsorship or paid advertisements
86. If you provide top ten lists or link lists please include why you found those resources valuable compared to the infinite other sources online
87. Put sources, posts, and other information in context for new users / visitors
88. Don’t assume readers or visitors understand every acronym and neologism. Link niche words to Wikipedia or other references.
89. Make your links stand out so they’re easy to find
90. Make your call to action stand out
91. If you don’t have a call to action, then make the blog’s purpose very apparent.
92. Monitor the Blogosphere for news and info on your blog’s topic; information moves faster through blogs than in the MSM.
93. Avoid sweeping generalizations
94. Check facts; they’re online and easy to find.
95. Don’t blog pissed off; remember your words are permanent, so least attempt to calm down or be rational
96. If you need to rant (we all need that sometimes) label it a rant so visitors know what to expect.
97. Bait people when appropriate to encourage discussion and conversation
98. Promote yourself (hey, it’s your blog) but don’t over do it.
99. Don’t be overly commercial unless that’s what you want your blog to be.
100. 100. Appeal to multiple audiences (customers, other industry professionals, other bloggers etc
101. 101.Disclose potential conflicts of interest when you write about a product or service to which you’re connected
102. 102.Be social and have fun!

Have anymore that you would like to share? Please leave them in the comments! And make sure to leave a name and url and I’ll add the best ones to this list and cite the source!

[tagsblogging tips, blog tips, blog search engine marketing[/tags

1. Always make sure the top post on your blog has unique content that is attractive to a first time visitor. Bloggers write a lot of different things, including personal rants, news, link lists and lots of content that directs visitors to other resources and sites. While this is great, it can have massive effects on new visitors who stumble onto your blog; after all, the first thing they get to look at is the top post. The main homepage of your blog will be the strongest page for rankings and branding, as well as offering the best opportunity to win new subscribers and visitors.

Many people do not know this, but the latest version of WordPress, combined with our optimized themes (this website is one) can fully automate a website, even  for someone who knows absolutely no HTML at all, with limited computer savvy:

1. As many static pages as desired can be built by simply posting, just like a blog post – the pages are automatically built from a stylesheet
2. The programming itself can build a Google sitemap daily, and META tags completley eliminating on-site SEO
3. When submitted and syndicated properly, each post pings the whole world to tell everybody the new data is there
4. Coveted key words for targeted searches can be built into the title and descriptionto be re-printed linking back to the site
5. The ever-increasing number of optimized pages and link-popularity resulting from such an effort creates search engine traffic and rankings
6. The knowledge base form regular postings becomes a searchable internet resource for visitors, increasing page rank
7. Many wonderful features like voting and author profiles make the site more sticky, increasing conversion rates
8. Widgets from MyBlogLog and others can further enhance the experience by showing and tracking the visitors, and more
9. Entire inventories can be easily uploaded without graphics expertise, and shopping cart technology can be built in in an SEO friendly way
10. Because the information originates at the root URL (not on an outside blog) first page search placement is achieved on Google and others!

This is why we say that brochure sites are dead:  http://socialmediasystems.com/02/21/death-of-the-brochure-site/

I know many professionals use LinkedIn to connect with colleagues, partners, suppliers and pretty much anyone they wish to partner or do business with. Considering there are over 9 million users, this is a pretty powerful online business network.

But what happens when you are short contacts and want a passive way to generate more? I have some answers for you. I will also offer some tips on how to add contacts and also how to search for people you know. According to LinkedIn, people with over 30 contacts show up 75% more than others. This means, the more contacts, the more exposure and leads you can generate. Here is a good passive way to get people to contact you.

What will advertising look like in 2008?  Much different!   Let us project trend results of the forces that are now now in motion:

• Nobody; not the Associated Press, Hollywood; nobody controls who gets published or heard but the majority of the audience!
• Anybody can get opinion and or product to market if it is popular: regardless of quality or accuracy!
• With the advent of blogging, WEB 2.0, user-generated content, user-filtered content, and niche marketing, the media centralization tide is ebbing.
• Nobody can reach everybody, but they do not need to: the targeted market can find them, easily, efficiently.
• The media and big business have lost control.
• The consumers and innovators are gaining power.
• Communication is almost free: and it is global.

Millions of Web 2.0 Applications Will Launch This Year to Capture Significant Portions of Over 1,000,000 Niche Markets

Redmond, WA March 29, 2007  Social Media Systems Online Marketing Company, internationally known specialists in internet advertising and online marketing services, maximizes the power of Web 2.0 technology to achieve what they call “Human Marketing,” based on expert tracking and research. By understanding how online audiences wander across the Web and look for services, Social Media Systems uses a variety of tools to identify where potential clients are looking for a company’s services, and then use that information to help businesses shape their message to accommodate the needs of potential customers.

Customers are becoming blind or less susceptible to most forms of internet advertising! Content is being commoditized as both companies and individuals scramble to put more and more information online for free in an attempt to build authority and gain traffic. Traditional editorial print magazines (industry and trade magazines especially) are fighting to make a profit and increase their market share as the print medium moves into new media (blogs, social media etc).

So to rephrase the above in terms of goals:

1. Industry magazines are trying to move online and increase profits and market share while competing with lots of little blogs and other individuals fighting to gain trust or authority which leads to rankings / traffic.
2. Companies and individuals are buying advertising on authority sites and creating more and more content to distribute themselves in an attempt to gain traffic, build authority, and start conversations with their customers.

Even in lieu of this, most print industry publications are attempting to make all their online revenue selling ads and sponsored spots that are only converting a small percentage of their visitors and at the same time, directly competing with an ever increasing number of quality bloggers trying to carve out profitable niches (we set up a lot of blogs like this).

A solution that turns the content production model on its HEAD!!!

It is time to officially announce RISMedia Local Real Estate News | regional news and listings Beta project rollout: a bundled service making local real estate brokers into regional reporter/editors under by a strategic alliance between a time honered, nearly thirty year old print magazine (Real Estate Magazine) and Social Media Systems: to provide authority and search engine placement for Real Estate brokers, and access to local MLS listings, local news, and local services to consumers for real estate at a regional section of the social media roll out being prepared for Real Estate magazine (RISMedia.com) now: consumers and real estate brokers will join and intereact at a social media platform sorted by city and state..

 The brokers get a credit for 100% of the down payment in print advertising, and the SEO services, exlcusive regional traffic (only one broker/sponsor per town) at RISMedia.com/local/state/city/   social media section being launched as of this week: first come first serve: visit RISMedia.info for more information about this beta launch.

People have been suing Google for years over competitors bidding on their trademarked terms, but not until now has one maverick state decided to do something about it. Say hello to the 45th state in our union, the great state of Utah? Huh? Not to worry though, the Trademark Protection Act will probably be deemed unconstitutional due to the burden it places on interstate commerce.

Okay… Apparently Rand Fishkin of SeoMoz.org had to ask this question.

38? Maybe 39? Aha… 37. The magic number.

Rand’s team put together a series of questions regarding search engine ranking with the expert opinion of 37 “leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization”, it came down to the slew of opinions, strange ideas, and sometimes relevant commentary (and some humorous commentary too.)

“This document represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google’s ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). The result is a resource of incredible value – although not every one of the estimated 200+ ranking elements are included, it is my opinion that 90-95% of the knowledge required about Google’s algorithm is contained below.”

I know at some point in time conferences held something interesting for me.

But lately, I’ve been perplexed by SEO conferences. In a short while there will be a Seattle SMX conference on June 4th & 5th. I’m sure they will have some interesting information presented, but the costs related to them as a whole seems to be increasing… while specific agenda items decrease.

This conference will be $1195 for an attendee. That is a fair amount of change for the regular consultant. I would assume that for most small and medium shops- that $1200 in conference fees, plus another $300 in airfare and another $300 to $500 in room charges ads up pretty quick. $2000 in total costs probably eats up the majority of profit on a few client deals for them.

The thing that gets me is the information presented. Almost all of the sessions seem to be panel based and do not have any specific industry experts attached to them. No VP’s from Google or Yahoo speaking about the way things work, no one from Wikipedia talking about how social search impacts the site, or even a few Fortune 50 company marketing folk talking about how they plan search campaigns. I know there are some talented folks in our profession… but where are the names?

The blog post from March 20th makes me think there is a lack of speakers signed up, or at least a lack of qualified speakers. In other industries I am used to seeing a list of brand names talking about specific niches and having credentials that inspire me to listen to them. Yet after reading the agenda and the speaker invite, I’m not really inspired to pony up $2000.

The second item that derails my marketing brain is the cost of sponsorship and exhibit space. There are five premium sponsors paying $25k to be there. I scratch my head at that; because the five exhibitors are Yahoo, Marchex, Microsoft, Google, and BruceClay

Why is that strange? Because the sponsorship space and dollar amount basically limits the spotlight to the providers of very massive search services. I don’t know how relevant that is for the attendees, when there may be many other sponsors that service search engine marketers, rather than search engines.

Am I supposed to be motivated to spend $4 to $10k of my companies revenue to send some of our employees to listen to a group of people without names? or to get marketing materials from one of the “big boys of search” that I’m pretty sure everyone on my staff is familiar with?

I cannot believe that one of our newest clients is (was!) paying over $7 per click for their trademarked, proper name which they already own the organic results for!  This fool actually recomends it: http://www.semfire.com.au/blog/?p=38

I am so disgusted with people who will do anything to make a sale I could puke!  These guys not only are making sure that they pay over $7 for clicks they would otherwise get for free, who already know their proper name; they can sue anybody else for buying the words, and one of their biggest competitors is (was).

Make all the excuses you want: all the justifications will not sway me; THIS IS ABOUT ETHICS! IT IS WRONG TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PEOPLE’S IGNORANCE!

For the record:

Since I wrote a blog post critical of marketer Seth Godin’s SEO Advice, there been a number of responses from the blogosphere. The most critical came from the Chief Interactive Officer of a company called HitTail: Mike Levin. According to his company bio he was

“inspired by the notion that Search Engine Optimization and Public Relations are founded on the same underlying principles…”

Hey that sounds great, so why would this guy’s recent posts embody all the misunderstandings people have for what quality search engine optimizers actually do? Well let’s look at what Mike thinks they do:

In his words:

“… that’s why HitTail recommends getting started with BLOGGING SOFTWARE. And in Seth’s case, he uses TypePad from SixApart, so he doesn’t need to worry about SEO. What he says is absolutely true. TypePad does enough things correctly enough that you don’t even need to customize. If you just start a TypePad blog and follow Seth’s advice, it’s going to work for you.”

So Mike says you don’t need to worry about SEO? You just sign up for a TypePad blog, start typing away and like magic links and exposure will start pouring in, right? Not so fast!

First of all there are over 45 million blogs, most of which go unread. What makes the good ones stand out? SEO isn’t just about manipulating keywords and website structure. This can be done with software (although this method is usually done incorrectly especially if you factor in usability and being able to leverage new technology and features that encourage user generated content and community building).

SEO is about understanding how to use an ever-changing set of methodologies based on internet technology in combination with general marketing savvy to promote one website above it’s competitors. It’s about looking at the internet and understanding how various technologies work together, how markets can be approached, how communities work and how to influence them. It’s a strange cross-discipline involving marketing savvy and extreme technical competence born out of the confusion that arose as businesses moved online.

Some of what SEO is involves low level tasks, but that is not the core of getting a site to rank, getting more traffic and making that website work when other similar sites fail. It’s not about one thing, it’s about everything. It’s about how I spend 12 hours online and track the latest trends, about how I read countless marketing blogs each week and how I continually adapt to emerging technologies while refining my work to meet my website user’s needs. There is no replacement for what I do, it takes a human being. It’s about understanding how the whole picture of the online community comes together and how visitors stumble across the vast internet landscape and find sites. It’s also about what makes them stay there, what influences them to share what they found and how to make a site that outperforms others that do the same thing.

Search Marketing (I currently use this word instead of SEO because it encompasses more elements and avoids the negative associations of SEO) is not becoming less important, as Mike and Seth seem to think; it’s becoming more important. Technology is moving ahead at a blistering speed. Businesses and individuals need good, qualified advice and help on how to use that technology for maximum impact online.

Go ahead, don’t pay attention to SEO, but don’t be surprised when you get crushed online by someone who does. Someone who isn’t leaving that up to chance, but actively and aggressively using creativity and technical savvy to open new markets and drive traffic to their website. I sure as hell wouldn’t try to launch a website without a serious Search Marketing strategy, because your website’s life or death depends on it. Remember good blogs go unread, many great sites fail and the purists oversimplify everything. The internet landscape is a jungle and search engine optimizers work hard to straighten out the confusion to help businesses leverage new technology, to gain readers, to gain traffic and ultimately, to be more successful online and off.

Mike Levin went even further with a follow up post containing an experiment where he’s signing up for a default TypePad installation and tracking the results. Wow, what a way to compete online – with a default blog with nothing particular setting it apart from any other blog, complete with a domain slapped with typepad.com at the end. Good luck getting that site to rank for anything competitive, good luck getting traffic. In fact Mike blogs every day (that’s a lot of writing) his blog (company blog with a forum and lots of users / customers) has been going for a long time and in all that time it’s drawn less links than this blog has in the last 2 months (we’re new).

I think I’ll do a series soon where I’ll go into detail about what I actually do for my clients. Maybe then people will better understand the importance of the cross-discipline of SEO. Although, because of statements like those from Mike, Seth and other individuals, I’ve stopped calling what I do SEO; instead I use search marketing or online marketing and web development. It’s about perspective and branding, but remember a search engine optimizer is not just someone who spams for links or adjusts pages for keywords. A quality SEO is someone who understands the methodologies for promoting a site online and uses this knowledge to help their clients stand out and be more successful.

[tagsMike Levin, Hittail, SEO[/tags

I have been consulting on internet marketing for over a decade. In my career I have seen many unethical things, from Fortune 500 companies performing many questionable actions, to observing sales agents selling on a fundamentally wrong foundation. When doing consulting I like to debate and examine very complex issues regarding the marketing and sales cycle. When debating these issues, I always make sure that “ethical” and “legal” are clearly defined as separate things. In fact, I often see companies doing things that are unethical- yet legal (in this case, the legal issues are being argued).

Last week I was giving a consultation to a new client of ours that is a business with a national presence. We covered the basics of what they were doing for internet marketing, which included a variety of search terms and pay-per-click campaigns.

(SIDE NOTE: I endorse a variety of PPC campaigns depending on the needs of a specific client. Like any advertising there is usually a good foundation for specific and applied use of different marketing tools.)

In this case, the keyword being purchased was the trademarked name of the business itself. The organization has such authority and brand recognition that the average CPC of the keyword was $7.53. According to the Google Keyword Estimator Tool, a daily average of 45-60 clicks per day or an average daily budget of $550 was required to have the keyword.

One of the primary reasons I *love* being in the social media arena is due to how technology is changing different industries that have existed for decades.

Due to that idea, one of the most basic questions is “what is social media?”

Social Media is a lot of things: For M&Ms candy, social media is about taking a family tradition and merging it with new printing technology to make custom sayings on your M&Ms. How cool is that? Online ordering and print on demand technology that allows individuals and companies to include custom phrases and slogans on one of the most well-known candies in the world.

Eventually everything will be print on demand, from custom vinyl car wrappers to the casing on your cell phone. In the next few years social media is going to revolutionize how we can personalize details of our life at every turn. Don’t be surprised if one day you are reading a can of soda with your name on it, or even wearing clothing that has your personalized message on it the second you swipe your credit card at the check-out stand.