I’m always happy to get past the interminable drudgery of “best of” articles at year-end, but with Dave Barry’s ever-ready wit to balance the painful process of a month-by-month goodbye to 2011, this is a refreshing sendoff.
In an election year, I’m sorry to have to point out that the next version of this article is 12 long months away, leaving us only a few interim bright spots to enjoy: the Darwin awards, international Talk Like a Pirate day, and maybe your birthday. Oh, and don’t forget your anniversary!
Well, there’s also all the small victories of successful search marketing programs…and resurrecting the blog begins the process of improving our website’s relevance and boosting our own rankings. Marketers everywhere should resolve to add content as often as possible, as a simple, low cost way to stay in front of the “voters” who assist your financial race to the top.
I was looking to update some statistics today, so I visited many sites via interesting search terms like “best online marketing tactic” and “SEO + lead generation quality.” There was often a disconnect between the purpose of updating and the date of the article, but I did find a company doing great work as an everyday event: Elliance, an interactive marketing agency in Pittsburgh.
Having worked in and run advertising agencies, one thing I miss about our focus on the research and analysis side of search marketing is the loss of having graphic designers as part of the team. Elliance has a portfolio which says they get to work with universities as a major segment of their practice, so they have a core clientele of really smart people. They also work in manufacturing (Rust Belt, after all), and with non-profits. They love storytelling, and create complete solutions. They look like really intelligent, passionate, educated marketers. And they’re also doing search marketing. Personally, I’d really like it if they were here in Austin. Professionally, I’m glad they’re very far away.
Part of the mix is a series of weekly infographics, with a focus on search marketing. Here’s a complete story in a single image…nice work, guys, and thanks for sharing.
A few months ago, I shared one of those ubiquitous eMarketer charts showing how marketing execs measure the effectiveness of social media. Today, I ran across a new chart showing the top metrics marketers are using for online engagement.
An article in the new Fast Company explains that there is typically little, if any, accountability demanded of social media. And it’s interesting, in terms of actual prospects coming to your site, that the top metric most marketers are using is click-throughs, which shows you the dependence of marketing pros on paid search. While we understand the utility (and handy reporting) of PPC, we’d like to see lead gen and ROI as equally important.
After all, when you’re paying for clicks, and reporting click-throughs without disclosing bounce rates and time on the site, there’s very little real accountability. Since traffic is a direct effect of site optimization, we’re very glad to see that in the #2 position…because marketing drives traffic, and search marketing does it at less expense than any other medium.
Peter Shankman’s post, “I Will Never Hire a ‘Social Media Expert,’ and Neither Should You”, has been making waves in the internet marketing world in the past few days. There’s a good reason for that, even though what he’s saying has been said before. In a time where even my (basically computer illiterate) mother knows that social media can do amazing things for companies, there’s enormous pressure on marketing departments and staff to find a way to monetize that. Corporate profits may be up, but that doesn’t mean budgets have opened up much. The lure of “free marketing” through things like Facebook fan pages and Twitter is stronger than ever when your budget is tight.
Social media is an incredibly powerful thing with deep reserves of potential. There are most definitely people out there who have serious skills in utilizing it effectively to bring in revenue, strengthen brands, and respond to customers with agility. What so many people don’t seem to get is that those people aren’t social media experts – they’re marketing experts who use social media as one of their vehicles. If they weren’t marketing experts in the first place, they wouldn’t be able to do a thing with social media. It takes time, effort, failure, learning from mistakes and successes, and more effort to be an expert.
I’m not saying that people who say they’re Social Media Experts are malicious. Some are. Most of them are marketing people making themselves and their skillset more accessible to the people looking for it. Heck, I’ve been called one (which is funny to me), though it’s not a title I’d give myself. Do you need a social media expert as part of your marketing team? Maybe. But they had darn well better be a partner and advocate of the larger marketing strategy. How can they be effective if they aren’t on board with the vision, the message, the voice, and customer service? They absolutely must be honest about what to expect. A Facebook fan page will not be your salvation. Meeting up with your customers where they are and in ways that engage them will do wonders. That right there? That is a truly valuable asset to the team.
Posted by Sara Rasco on May 12th, 2011
Really enjoyed this clever, thought-provoking video. Kind of like a TED Talk, only animated!
We’re increasingly seeing this request from clients, which is to be expected when they’re spending hard cash on soft marketing. This eMarketer table shows the change in the expectations of CMOs from 2010 to 2011 (original source was Austin’s original Bazaarvoice and their CMO Club Survey).
The most interesting change is the DOUBLING of the expectation that increased conversions are a reasonable measure of SMM effectiveness. In B2B marketing, there’s a tripling of the use of increased channel sales as a measure. It’ll be interesting to see how their marketing departments connect cause and effect on those sales!
To put all this in the proper context, consider this pull quote from the published results of the CMO Club Survey: “However, standard ROI metrics proved difficult to measure for many social efforts; only 40% of CMOs surveyed in 2011 successfully tracked ROI on their social initiatives.” Not saying it can’t be done, but it ain’t easy.
The B2B Technology Marketing Blog posted results of a B2B Marketing poll conducted via their LinkedIn group. Things like: Integration of social media into lead gen programs; Focus on content marketing, lead quality, sales enablement, pull/inbound marketing tactics, etc.  No gigantic surprises, but predictions are always fun and B2B Marketing Trends seem worth a read to me.
If you’re a business where people search your city for what you do (Chicago personal injury lawyer, Austin massage therapists), Google has just rocked your world. Your web site optimization is now more important than ever, and you cannot neglect your Google Places listing (the map listing).
As of last Wednesday, Google is now showing the map itself over in the right-hand column, and the listings on the page MIX RESULTS FROM ORGANIC AND MAP LISTINGS. This is huge. Clients who weren’t very high on the map, but have great optimization, can suddenly find themselves #1 again. Happy days are here again for the SEO guys!
Previously, a Google search engine results page might show 2-3 ads at the top, then a map with 7 listings, and finally, the top organic listings. Historically, there were 10 organic listings on the page. Now, you see the ads, and then you march right in to the listings. Map listings will have a red circle with a letter, as well as a link to the “more info” on the map listing, and strong organic listings will have both…the title and description from the page, along with the address and phone number.
Caveat: Generally, these Google algorithm shifts throw everything into chaos for about six weeks, and then things settle back to normal. Hopefully, this is the new normal.
Here’s an interesting little table (you go, eMarketer!) on how Internet users share information…how they publish or share. I saw a tweet yesterday that 71% of all tweets are ignored (meaning a 71% drop in Twitter’s imaginary market value, I guess), but it’s fascinating to look at demographic penetration and see what’s really happening. Too bad some other social media weren’t called out, like LinkedIn. Even with all the news and buzz, we can’t get enough data on actual user behavior to inform our clients’ business decisions.
I’d imagine by now that everybody knows Google has fun with their logo. Today is a special day because they’ve posted the first-ever video doodle of the logo. Today is also a very special day for our fearless leader and founder, John Rasco. Since Google went all out to celebrate with us and Barry Schwartz even wrote it up on Search Engine Land, I thought I’d share.  Definitely take a minute to watch Barry’s screen capture of the process. Very cool!
Happy Birthday John! (oh. wait. It’s for John Lennon’s birthday which is TOMORROW?!?) Oh, well, our John isn’t quite as old . . .
