Moe Tamani's Internet Marketing and SEO Blog, Articles and Search Engine Optimization Tips

Facebook Creates Individual Pages About You and Your Friends

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:01:56 +0000

Facebook Creates Individual Pages About You and Your Friends

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

Facebook announced the launch of new "Friendship Pages". These contain the public Wall posts and commetns between two friends, photos in which they’re both tagged, events they’ve both RSVP’d for, etc.

These pages will be visible to others if they are friends with one of the people, and have permission to view both people’s profiles.

"When it’s between two people who share a lot, the page really starts to reflect their friendship," says Facebook engineer Wayne Kao. "You can find a friendship page from links under relevant Wall posts, under relationship stories and under the main photo on a friend’s profile page."

"For those of us who have worked on it, the best part is the human side of these pages," adds Kao. "They can bring back memories, conversations and times spent together. Browsing just a few friendship pages, I was reminded of a long Saturday when a friend and I made a pie together, a memorable trip to Disneyland where I got dizzy riding a teacup, and the elaborate birthday party my friend threw for his dog–streamers, candles and all."

While a lot of people will no doubt be happy about the feature, it is already drawing some criticism from users. Here are a few sample comments under the announcement:

Leigh Ann Dillon says, "Facebook: making it easier to stalk people since 2004."

Arizona Dennizen says, "So I’m a crank… will block this as soon as i get it… how do we block?"

Ef Rodriguez says, "My friend George is going to flip his wig over this mess! Yay!"

I guess if nothing else, it will be a good way to see which friends you’re neglecting. If you don’t have that much content on your "Friendship page", just how good of friends are you?

Your Social Strategy May Lack Key Elements for Increasing Conversions

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:01:49 +0000

Your Social Strategy May Lack Key Elements for Increasing Conversions

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

More WebProNews Videos

As a business, it’s great to get out there and engage with customers. It’s great to use a variety of social media channels to open up communication and spread your marketing message, but what a lot of business decision makers might not realize is that it can be the combination of tactics that work much better than any one strategy.

Social media marketing can be broken down into three categories: earned media, paid media, and owned media. This is how Maggie Fox, CEO of Social Media Group presents it. Social Media Group, by the way, counts brands like SAP, Ford, Yamaha, ING Direct, CNN, and Thomson Reuters (to name a few) among its clients.

Do you you use a combination of earned, paid, and owned media? Let us know.

"In the simplest possible words, earned media is when someone says something about you rather than you saying it yourself," Fox tells WebProNews. "Paid media is when you then pay to place your content on a third-party channel, and then owned media would be your own channel, so when we’re talking about social, there are social components to all of these things, that would be something like Twitter or Facebook, or you know, your own social website."

"You can take earned media, for example, it’s very expensive to generate, particularly when we’re talking social, it doesn’t have a huge reach," she says. "If you do, say, a blogger outreach program, you know, perhaps you might reach a couple hundred thousand people. They might consume your content, and realistically for a big brand, that’s not enough to move the needle. You need hundreds of millions of impressions, but you’re just not going to get it through earned social, so then what you can do is take it and amplify it through paid, so there are paid opportunities on places like Digg, Outbrain, StumbleUpon…things like that, where you can actually amplify that content to a much larger audience and get the benefit of it."

"And then you can also syndicate it through your own channels, so there are…most companies have multiple channels, so you might have something on Facebook, you might have Twitter, you might have YouTube, you might have Flickr," she continues. "You have all these different places you can publish content and work them together in a very concerted, sort of orchestrated fashion to get a lot of people consuming content that’s very favorable to you. So it’s really about orchestration. How do they all work together?"

Orchestration That Increases Clickthroughs and Conversions

Finding the right mix of these three types of media may just net you a significant increase in conversions. The way Fox describes it, it almost seems like it should be automatic.

"We certainly see with paid social that we typically will see a clickthrough or conversion rate of about half a percent against…a program we recently did for a large publishing company…we saw a conversion rate of .55%, so when you compare that to typical display, which is (being very generous) often around .09%, the results are obvious," she says. "There’s an obvious reason why you would choose to leverage some of these platforms, so what we often see people doing is rather than using marketing materials and these paid places again…you take that earned media and take people saying good things about you, as opposed to you saying good things about yourself, and get it to a broader audience."

Still, a lot of businesses don’t seem to be latching onto the three-prong approach Fox describes. Many are just after the earned media, which can be great, but it’s not necessarily going to maximize a campaign’s effectiveness.

"I think there are a couple of reasons. I think the primary reason is that they’re unaware of it," says Fox. "That’s changing though, because we certainly see large advertising networks establishing groups to kind of crack the nuts of emerging paid platforms. They recognize that the effectiveness of existing platforms largely is starting to diminish…that advertisers are demanding more results, and so there are emerging places and ways to get the .55% instead of the .09%, so they’ve gotta figure it out."

"In terms of the ways people aren’t using it, it’s largely that knowledge," she adds. "It’s the knowledge of ‘how do I do this? What do I do?’ and then the other part of it is, interestingly, services. We see the ratio of media to services to do this properly – to get those results – actually being quite high compared to what you would see from traditional creative, but the results are so much better, so for example, just to…give some data points, we recently did a project for a client where we saw four and a half times the clickthrough rates of what you would see from a display campaign using the same amount of media in the same time frame."

On using social media in general, Fox says, "At the end of the day, it all comes back to a simple thing, and that’s fishing where the fish are. The primary business reason is 70% of people who are online spend time on social platforms, so go where they are."

There’s an interesting study making the rounds today, looking at when Facebook users are most active. It may also help to go where they are, when they are there.

Nielsen Wants to Take the Mystery out of Measuring Online Advertising

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 06:00:50 +0000

Nielsen Wants to Take the Mystery out of Measuring Online Advertising

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

What do you say when someone asks how your online
advertising is performing? It’s a good question, but the answer can be nebulous
because measuring ad results online is a difficult proposition. It’s
difficult to decipher what the metrics really mean and it’s difficult to
compare your results with another media. And then there’s the accuracy issue.

No wonder businesses that utilize the internet and social
media avenues often complain that online isn’t getting its fair share of the
advertising dollar. That’s partly due to the fact that many advertisers — and
especially brand advertisers — are reluctant to spend online because of faulty
measuring tools. Metrics are at the heart of assessing how your online
advertising is performing. And the current practice of gathering information
and slicing and dicing the data is neither accurate nor timely.

Enter Nielsen, the company that’s been following audience and advertising metrics since the 1920s. These are the same folks who brought us the famous Nielsen Ratings, a method of measuring just exactly who is watching television and what are they watching.

Last month, Nielsen announced that it has developed a new online advertising measurement system it calls the Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings. The company claims this tool can provide audience information measurements for the Web that are comparable to its better-known television ratings. And the company says it can deliver this information with greater accuracy, faster reporting and wider coverage than what’s currently available.

Impressively, Nielsen has recruited some industry big hitters to help test the system, including Facebook, Procter & Gamble, Verizon Wireless and Starcom MediaVest. To turn this metric into an acceptable industry standard by next year, Nielsen is urging other online publishers and advertisers to participate in the program.

Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings is said to provide marketers with a more accurate look at their return on investment and give media companies a way to prove the value of their audience. And both will have an easier method of measuring the combined “reach” of television, the internet and mobile advertising. (Reach is the number of homes or people exposed to an advertising schedule over a specified period of time — without duplication.)

And since reach doesn’t tell the whole story, Nielsen combines the ratings with cross-platform advertising effectiveness metrics to get a complete picture. The system combines Nielsen’s tried-and-true TV and online panel data with demographic information that is gathered from volunteer online data contributors (who remain anonymous). In that way, Nielsen says it can provide reach, frequency (the number of times a household is exposed to the schedule in a given period of time), and Gross Rating Point (the aggregate total of the ratings).

Here’s how the program measures the audience makeup of a particular advertisement. Nielsen requests a pixel whenever a particular advertisement is displayed in a browser. These pixels travel to Nielsen as well as to approved data contributors. These data contributors provide reports with reach and frequency information in age and gender brackets — again, anonymously. Nielsen then combines these reports with data from its TV and online panels, culminating in one report that shows reach, frequency and GRPs for the target ad. A second process matches the IP address of the pixel to one of Nielsen’s 210 designated market areas.

The Nielsen system is seen as a way to provide a more accurate picture of impressions delivered by different sites to different demographics and help improve the duplication between television and online. And the company said its online system will help advertisers, marketers and websites to become more efficient at building reach and frequency among their desired audiences.

APNewsBreak: University posts info of 40K students (AP)

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:08:38 +0000

APNewsBreak: University posts info of 40K students (AP)

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

AP – The Social Security numbers, grades and other personal information of more than 40,000 former University of Hawaii students were posted online for nearly a year before being removed this week, The Associated Press has learned.

IT Worker Gets Prison After Stealing Data for Online Surveys (PC World)

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:30:10 +0000

IT Worker Gets Prison After Stealing Data for Online Surveys (PC World)

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

PC World – A former IT staffer has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison for stealing sensitive information belonging to his co-workers and using the data to make money filling out online health surveys.

PARTING SHOTS: Prisons helped draft AZ immigration law, Joe Miller in dead last (The Upshot)

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:54:09 +0000

PARTING SHOTS: Prisons helped draft AZ immigration law, Joe Miller in dead last (The Upshot)

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

The Upshot – Here is our roster of stories that managed to evade full-on blog treatment: â€¢ The death toll in Indonesia from the volcanic eruption and tsunami this week has topped 400. (AP) â€¢ Tea party favorite and Alaska Senate GOP nominee Joe Miller is in third place in the latest poll. (Politico) â€¢ The United States [...]

Online Masters Program Focuses on Free Software (PC World)

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Online Masters Program Focuses on Free Software (PC World)

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

PC World – Given the expanding strategic role of Linux in businesses and governments around the world, it’s not surprising that organizations are scrambling to find employees with the Linux skills they need. More than a third of the respondents to a recent Linux Foundation study, in fact, indicated that they’re worried about finding people with the skills to support their increasing reliance on the free and open source operating system.

Gawker editor defends anonymous O’Donnell post (The Upshot)

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:12:15 +0000

Gawker editor defends anonymous O’Donnell post (The Upshot)

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

The Upshot – Gawker was convicted Thursday in the court of Twitter opinion. The charges: misogyny and reckless link-baiting. “Today, we are all Christine O’Donnell,” wrote Salon’s Justin Elliott. He was one of several journalists and bloggers to criticize Gawker for posting an anonymous account by a Philadelphia man claiming to have gone home with Delaware Senate candidate [...]

Does Urgency Matter More in Email Than in Social Media?

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:07:31 +0000

Does Urgency Matter More in Email Than in Social Media?

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

Flock, creator of the social web browser, sent WebProNews some interesting findings about the social media habits of consumers. One finding we found particularly interesting was that based on responses to a survey from the company, 74% say they feel pressure to respond to emails within a day, while only 52% feel the same about Facebook postings. Even more interesting is that only 26% feel that way about responding to personal tweets on Twitter.

Here are the findings the company shared:

- 93% feel their relationships with others have stayed the same or improved because of their interaction with friends and family through social media.

- The majority of respondents feel pressure to "keep up" with their online communications, particularly with email where 74% stated they should respond that day while 52% felt the need to reply immediately to Facebook postings. Surprisingly, only 26% saw any need to reply to personal tweets on Twitter.

- 64% of respondents feel stressed at some point to keep up with online social media

- 60% said they do most of their communicating on social sites from their home while just 17% accessed social media at work. Teachers do not have to worry as only 2% said they tweet or post from school.

- 89% have signed up to one-ten social networks/apps with 11% interacting with more than ten.

- 28% have over 500 contacts with 31% spending 11-20 hours a week communicating with their friends and family. 9% spend over 60 hours per week on social media.

- 49% of respondents use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and social applications like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Shopkick (excluding email) to communicate with others more than 50% of their time.

- Social media is on the rise in business with 72% stating that they use it for communications with business contacts.

What you do with this information is up to you, but it’s clear social media is becoming an increasingly popular avenue of communication, not just among consumers, but among businesses (not to mention between consumers and businesses). However, at this point, if you have messages that require timely responses, it’s looking like your best bet is still communicating through email.

Of course this will certainly depend on the person you’re communicating with. Still, I think it’s safe to say that most people, particularly in business, will still be checking their email fairly regularly. From a business perspective, I’d make a habit out of timely communication no matter what the channel.

Why do you think people place such a lesser amount of emphasis on timeliness when it comes to Twitter? Share your thoughts here.

Using Social Media As A PR Tool For Your Business

admin — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:07:28 +0000

Using Social Media As A PR Tool For Your Business

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

If you want to promote your product, brand or business you need to branch out from just using traditional public realtions tools such as press releases.

Coverage of SES Chicago will continue. Stay with WebProNews for more notes from the event this week.

In the session “Search, PR, and the Social Butterfly” the focus was how to use social media along with traditional PR tools.

Lisa Buyer, President & CEO of The Buyer Group, said social media is creating more opportunities for PR people and marketers, “it’s not killing PR.”

Customers are search and socially savvy. “Facebook is becoming a search engine,” said Buyer. With the Facebook and Bing integration, search is becoming more social.
The media is also search and socially savvy. More news outlets are using Facebook and Twitter.

Social media is influencing stories and news. 89 % of reporters arre turning to blogs. 65 % of journalist use social media. Google is used by 100% of journalists. Get your content in Google.

“Social media provides a wealth of information for journalists,” Buyer said.

Optimize
Press releases
Blogs
Videoss
Images
Posts
Tweets

Use keywordss in your tweet and titles.

Publize via distribution and socail media. PR strategy should be social via tweets, posts, status updates, blogs, and foursquare.

Have a content strategy and then break it down to daily, weekly and monthly updates.

Comments matter for all social media and your business. Comments can drive traffic to your blog. Integrate all your social tools…Facebook…Twitter…Foursquare, video.
Add social media links to all press releases. Press releases need to be in HTML format.

Have sharing tools for company news, Twitter, Facebook etc.

SEO, PR and social media need to be BFFs.

Peter Liefer, President, Primeview, talked about a case study for a client where they took pictures of a product before launch and sent them to select bloggers to get a pre-buzz.

Target bloggers in your industry. Do a press release about an upcoming product to get exposure and crediablity.

Hire influential bloggers to write about a press release. It builds a buzz and use social media. People can write comments about a product via social media. More comments more buzz.

Use all the social bookmarking sites to bookmark blog posts and press releases about the product.

Use a variety of Twitter accounts, Google indexes tweets immediately. Good way to get exposure for a product or brand.
Distribute press releases via all social media.

Moe Tamani's Internet Marketing and SEO Blog, Articles and Search Engine Optimization Tips

Facebook Creates Individual Pages About You and Your Friends

Most Commented Posts

Your Social Strategy May Lack Key Elements for Increasing Conversions

Most Commented Posts

Nielsen Wants to Take the Mystery out of Measuring Online Advertising

Most Commented Posts

APNewsBreak: University posts info of 40K students (AP)

Most Commented Posts

IT Worker Gets Prison After Stealing Data for Online Surveys (PC World)

Most Commented Posts

PARTING SHOTS: Prisons helped draft AZ immigration law, Joe Miller in dead last (The Upshot)

Most Commented Posts

Online Masters Program Focuses on Free Software (PC World)

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Gawker editor defends anonymous O’Donnell post (The Upshot)

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Does Urgency Matter More in Email Than in Social Media?

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Using Social Media As A PR Tool For Your Business

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