February 8th, 2010
Is social media better than a 60-second ad spot that costs around $3 million. Pepsi thinks so which is why they chose to launch a viral campaign at RefreshEverything.com instead of advertising in the Super Bowl this year. Pepsi plans to give away $20 million in grant money to fund projects in various categories. People can go there now to submit ideas and vote on other ideas.
From the Yahoo News article:
The problem, say marketing experts, is mixing the medium with the message. “The Super Bowl is just too extravagant for something like this,” says Lee Clow, chief creative officer and global director of media arts at TBWA Worldwide, the agency that created Pepsi’s campaign. “It’s seems like a contradiction to say you’re going to set aside $20 million in marketing dollars for a worthy cause, then turn around and spend $12 million on two 60-second spots for the Super Bowl. Couldn’t that money be put to better use?”
It’ll be interesting to see how skipping on the Super Bowl TV advertising will alter Pepsi’s sales as compared to the previous years. One thing is for certain is that large companies are starting to see the value of social media marketing and will continue to pull their ad dollars away from traditional advertising to turn over to search engine & social media marketing.
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Social Media Better than a Super Bowl TV Ad Spot?
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February 8th, 2010
Over the past weeks, I’ve come across a few highly valuable and inspiring articles on using Gmail filters as well Outlook rules for better productivity. This actually goes about organizing your email more effectively in order to do your job better and faster.
This prompted me to optimize my SEO process using email filtering to a achieve higher productivity. Just an hour or so of playing resulted in quite a few cool tips I am thrilled to share on SEJ:
1. Create a separate folder / label to store your weekly analytics reports
I use Google Analytics reports feature that sends me CSV traffic reports weekly. Now I have a separate folder to store all those report. I have also set them up to skip my inbox because I can now access my folder any time to find the most recent one (the latter one is optional. Some people prefer to receive the reports to the inbox and thus be reminded to go check their traffic / rankings trends).
2. Automatically star Google Alerts updates.
Like many other Internet marketers I use Google Alerts to track my brand name mentions. I now automatically star all updates coming from Google Alerts service to unstar them once I go through the updates.
3. Store client work in various folders
I have set up filters / rules for mail from my clients to get sorted into different folders. Now, once a message comes from any of my clients (From:*@clientdomainhere.com), it gets into the separate folder dedicated to this client. I can thus store and quickly access all the email correspondence from any person.
4. Send yourself reminders of upcoming tasks
I have created a separate label / folder to store the reminders. Now once I need to remember to do anything, I send an email message to myself and this task is stored in my TO-DO folder unread until I go and do that.
5. Send reminders to others
I can also automatically forward specified messages to the people I manage for them not to forget to do the task. For more detail on this one, refer to my Gmail productivity post on MUO.
6. Send an SMS to your phone once your story gets Dugg
Well, actually I haven’t seen this one in action yet because none of my posts has been dugg since the last week but I have this set up. I use BLVDstatus to update me via email once my webpages see some unexpected traffic spike. Then I use this post as the guidelines for setting up SMS alerts for those email messages.
7. Get uncluttered: filter social media updates
As much as I love my social media friends and always vote for all the stuff they share with me, the updates keep me from being productive by instant updates in my Gtalk. It is much more efficient if I access one folder daily and read all the shares and vote for them in one go.
Therefore I have created a separate label for Mixx, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc shares and now those updates skip my inbox and go straight to “Social” folder. They are marked unread there until I enter the folder, read every message, check the story shared and vote for it.
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7 Awesome Ideas to Use Gmail Filters For SEO Tasks
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February 8th, 2010
You’ve lost your account…it’s gone. You can’t log in. All your activity has been erased. You didn’t get an email, not even a warning. You’ve emailed the site a number of times, and nobody will tell you why you’re now a blacklisted member of your favorite social media network.
This is a common tale… all too common, in fact. Some social sites are better than others, but the truth is: most administrators don’t have the time to explain why they deleted your account. You’d be lucky if they even know the reason in the first place. Most likely it’s not a single act, but a number of user submitted complaints that puts your account beyond some threshold they’ve set as a matter of policy. Reach this threshold, and you’re gone…no research to determine the validity of the complaints, no explanation, and a snowball’s chance in hell of getting your account back.
Ok, so while it’s not completely impossible to get a banned account back, certain social sites just don’t bother. And depending on what you did to get banned, you might be wasting your time. In either case, it’s much less frustrating to just play it safe so you don’t get blacklisted in the first place. So here are 9 things that will get you banned that you should try to avoid:
- Break the terms of service – Let’s start with the obvious. If you don’t want to get banned, the first thing you need to do is read the terms of service. Read it for serious. Done? Ok, now read it again. My point is: make sure you really understand what they’re trying to prevent.
Legally, most terms of service allow social sites to remove your account for any reason, and they (usually) directly say as much. But they’ll also go into some specific items that they’re actively looking for. Break any of these, and you’ll find yourself starting from scratch. I’ll cover many of the more common items below, but if you want to know what your favorite social network is specifically looking for, I highly recommend starting here.
- Spam – Another obvious one, but somehow people don’t quite get it. Attempting to automate submissions, Votes, Reddits, comments, Diggs, etc. will almost always end up in a banning. If there’s one thing people hate more than human generated spam, it’s computer generated spam. That goes double –no triple for social sites.
- Self Promotion – I’m not talking about submitting or linking to content you’ve created. I’m talking about going on to other social conversations or threads and trying to cross promote or garner attention to your submission when it isn’t relevant. Link dropping is SOMETIMES ok (read the terms) if it’s directly related to the conversation, but rarely tolerated when it’s not. And it’s DEFINITELY something that can get you banned.
- Submitting Link Bait or Promotional content – Link bait is a (double) 4-letter-word in the social media world. People hate it, and if you’re caught being a marketer, or worse yet: an SEO, there’s nothing that can inspire someone to report you as a spammer quicker. Just be sure you are careful what you submit and if you’re doing it for the links and/or promotion, take great care to be sure the content is worthy of the votes.
- Un-natural voting/promotion – A common story (you might have heard) is the “clever” marketing agency with 200 employees all voting for a submission from the same office at the same time. If you think large sites like Digg and Reddit don’t have filters to identify geo-locations of your IP (and other un-natural indicators), you’d be wrong. In fact, if you’re involved in any schemes like this, you’re making it too easy for them. Nothing can get 200 accounts simultaneously banned easier than this scenario.
- Submit/link to inappropriate/offensive content – Nudity and explicit violence are rarely tolerated, and whenever you feel compelled to use the acronym “NSFW”, think twice before you submit it or link to it. More than likely, someone will find it offensive and report you as such. If an admin gets enough reports like this, the next time you sign in, it’ll be under another user name.
Note: Some sites like Reddit and Stumble Upon do allow adult content, but there are specific sections for it. Make sure to use these sections and/or mark it as adult content if what you are sharing is too racy or NSFW.
- Trolling – It usually takes a lot for comments to get you banned. Down votes aren’t generally enough, but they’ll certainly make you look like a troll to the rest of the community. While joining in on the social conversation (in comment boards and threads) can be a great way to network, try not to be offensive, abrasive, and definitely don’t get involved in a “flame” war. It’s too easy for someone who didn’t like what you said to simply report you as offensive. Even if it isn’t true, trust me, you’d rather just not go there. Also, remember: just because you think you’re being funny doesn’t mean others will. “Offensive” (in terms of comments) is a matter of interpretation.
- Consistently submitting or linking to low quality content – While you probably won’t get banned for having too many down votes, some members of your social network believe it’s their job to take the “bury” button one step further and report you as a spammer. A single report probably won’t get you banned, but if you get enough of them, you’ll cross that threshold and it’s over.
If you’re submitting content from commercial sites make sure that A. the content is worthy, and B. you’re submitting high quality content from elsewhere on a regular basis to dilute any of such reports that may happen.
- Be too good at Digg or Reddit – Don’t worry, most sites won’t get banned for being a power user…that’s an unfortunate myth. What happens, however, is when you’ve become noticed as being “too good” you’ll get away with a LOT less. In effect, all the above points become more important to avoid. Make one slip and the bury brigade will be all over you.
Another problem with being a power user is: you might be able to use the power of your network to promote “less than worthy” content to the front page. When this happens, not only will the submission get buried, but it’ll usually cause an influx of those nasty spam reports. If you’re finding yourself on a list like this one, it’s time to tread carefully. You may also want to have a back-up account…just in case.
If you’ve been banned and you were looking for a way to get your account back, my advice is this: email the site administrator and beg for forgiveness. You can use this email as a template:
Dear [Social Website] Admin,
I’m having trouble logging into my account. It looks as though it may have been removed???
I’m not sure what happened, but if I have done something wrong I truly apologize. I have read the terms of service and am very careful to follow them to the T.
I don’t know if there is anything I can do to get my account back, but I’d love to at the very least know what I did so I can be sure to avoid that activity in the future.
Please let me know if there’s anything I can do!
Thanks in advance,
[BannedUser]
If you’re lucky: they may tell you what you did, send you to the terms of service page again so you can re-accept it, and you’ll get your account back. Just know, this is pretty rare, and if you’re lucky enough to get an account turned back on, it probably won’t be a recurring event.
Have a story about being banned? Tell it in the comments; I’d love to hear it!
Todd Heim is CEO, co-founder, and SEO manager of Essential Internet Marketing, LLC, an SEM and Social Media Marketing company based in Albany, NY. You can find Todd on twitter at: http://twitter.com/ToddHeim/
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How to Get Banned on Social Media Networks
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February 8th, 2010
You may have noticed that two weeks ago Google announced a new feature for Google Reader: the ability to create/track RSS feeds for pages that don’t provide them.
There’s a lot of potential here in just about every aspect of web use – personal and professional.
Like most tools, the functionality can be used to many ends. The limits are only your own insight and creativity.
From an SEO standpoint this new feature opens up some interesting possibilities.
1) Add your core in-linking pages to detect when a link to your website is removed
Effective link building often means keeping track of the links you’ve secured – especially when you’ve invested money/resources into getting the link. Monitoring your in-linking pages manually is time consuming. With Google Reader’s feed creation tool you can track changes to the page in question – and automatically detect when a link has been removed or replaced.
This, admittedly, could get somewhat cumbersome (if you’re tracking 100s or 1000s of in-linking pages), but for the real hub links, the ones you worked hard for, its worth keeping track – and this is an automated way to do it.
2) Track the pages you want links from, and see who’s getting links from them (and when)
Often times in link building you’re looking for hub pages – where several competing websites in your space have been listed and linked to. It isn’t that you want the same links as your competitors (that, naturally, is no advantage), but often enough these pages are going to be easier to get links from if you’re offering something unique but related.
Tracking these hub pages with the feed creation tool before you’ve approached the webmaster/organization in question is a good way to see who your competition is – and who’s actively engaging in link building. You can also catch new competitors as they come onto the scene.
3) Track when your link is added to a page where you’ve requested it
Once you’ve requested a link from a website and they’ve agreed to add it tracking when that link has been added is often a matter of manually checking up – another task that burns up time you could spend on more valuable things.
Using the Google Reader feed creation tool you can automatically detect when your links go live – and, in the mean time, spend your time doing better things than checking up.
4) Monitor your clients’ website(s) to detect changes/updates to content
When you work with clients (as I do) there’s a little of babysitting that goes on. Sometimes the work I do or recommend can be tossed out inadvertently by someone who isn’t aware of the repercussions.
Sure, you may say, “that’s their problem,” but we should be better stewards than that.
Tracking their pages with Google Reader will notify you when any content changes have occurred on a client’s website – which is a great way to catch a potentially-damaging mistake early.
It’s also a great way to detect when and how a client is carrying out your recommendations (since the lines of communication aren’t always as open as we’d like them to be).
5) Keep tabs on your competitors hub or topic pages, and watch their SEO strategies unfold
This one is particularly powerful.
If you know who your competitors are and want to keep tabs on their SEO efforts create feeds for their most important/central pages. Now every time they make an update, add content, rewrite something, link to a new page, etc, you’ll be pinged – and the change is tracked.
An added bonus here is the ability to track how often your competitor updates the page (since Google marks each update with the date/time they detected the change) – a kind of “fly on the wall” view of what they’re up to that is delightfully sneaky. Of course, it’ll depend on how often Googlebot returns to the page (which is a function of how “valuable” and frequently-updated the page is).
One thing: this will track changes to content, not the page code itself (so you can’t track everything they’re doing SEO wise), but it is nonetheless an unprecedented way to keep tabs on what the competition is up to.
There are far more possibilities – and undoubtedly some phenomenal ones that haven’t dawned on me. Got any ideas? Share them in the comments.
Note: Webmasters can “opt out” of this feature (blocking the creation of feeds for their pages) by doing the following:
- Adding <meta name=”googlebot” content=”noarchive”> to their page head
- Using Robots.txt to block Googlebot (though this one is a quintessential case of tossing the baby with the bathwater – it means your site/page is removed from Google’s index)
- Moving content into an iFrame (similar to above, though, this renders the content invisible to Googlebot)
Mike Tekula is an SEO Consultant working and living on Long Island. Check out Mike’s latest free resource: The Blogger’s Guide to Google Analytics
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5 Powerful Ways to Use Google Reader’s Feed Creation Tool for SEO
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February 8th, 2010
There are lots of little ways you can check to see if your keyword optimization efforts are paying off for your Web site. You ll know you re achieving search engine optimization when your traffic increases when you enter the keywords you re using into a search engine and actually find your own site. There are plenty of tools that will help you check this or that so you can fine-tune your site s SEO. But do you really know if your site is optimized for the Web Learn how to use SEO analysis….
Download a Free Trial of Windows 7 Reduce Management Costs and Improve Productivity with Windows 7 Read Original Post Here
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February 8th, 2010
What are your Link Building Strategies? Do you have any? If you do have any, are you following them? Do you have a link building checklist to follow?
These are some questions that you must ask yourself if you want to build quality and quantity links to a website or webpage. With Google using around 200 data points to size up your website, we all know that links are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. The problem lies in the actual taking action to gather links.
If you are not willing to spend some labor intensive time link building, then I suggest you outsource this part of your search engine optimization to a reputable SEO firm that specializes in getting links. It just might be worth the investment. If you do decide to go down this road by yourself, then make sure you dot your I’s and cross your T’s. I suggest you find a consultant or firm that has experience. Be specific about the results you expect.
If you are willing to spend time and effort getting quality links, then here is a suggested link building checklist:
1. What is the purpose? Decide what your link building is for (choose one) –
- More traffic
- Better rankings
- Get a web page indexed
- Make you feel good
- Other?
2. Map out your strategy. (Part 1) Who and When? –
- Who is going to do the work?
- When is the work going to start?
- Is the work ongoing? or
- Is there a date that the work should be finished?
- Who reports to whom? Is there a reporting process?
3. Map out your strategy. (Part 2) What and How? –
- What web pages are the links directed to (in importance)?
- What keywords (anchor text) will be used in each webpage?
- What types of content/websites will be targeted to get links?
- How will the content/websites to get links be found?
- How to approach the content/websites to gather links?
4. Map out your strategy. (Part 3) Where will the links be gathered? (ideas) –
- Your own sites
- Internal Link building strategies
- Friends
- Competing websites
- News sites
- Forums
- Relevant blogs
- Related specialty sites
- How-to sites
- Social sites
- Social groups
- Social lists
- Social profiles
- Directories
- Widgets
- Guest posting
- Reviews
- Local and business links
- Article syndication
- Press Releases
5. Follow the ACT system. Using the list above it is now time to ACT. Start networking, exploring, and researching and take action today.
- Ask – be bold and simply ask for links!
- Content – create valuable relative content. “Modern SEO is all about crafting content so compelling that other people want to make note of it by linking back to you, thereby increasing your trust and authority and attracting links to the pages you want to rank well for certain keywords.” – SEO Copywriting 2.0 by Brian Clark
- Timing – plan and build a process that works for you.
Conclusion
Whatever your link building strategies, you need to have a plan and a checklist. If you don’t you will either never begin or you just might get off course. Link building is about determination not necessarily knowledge or creativity (although they help). Focus on the strategies but spend most of your time implementing the plan you have set forth.
Garrett Pierson is Founder and President of New Generation Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in search engine optimization, social media, website conversion, and success. He is the creator of Building Social Equity 2.0 a “SEO Meets Social Media” training course. Garrett can be followed on Twitter @garrettpierson
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Link Building Strategies: Checklist
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February 7th, 2010
Wow, Google has really jumped the shark! Tonight marks the first Super Bowl commercial by search engine giant Google which highly showcased its local search offerings, Google Onebox and Direct Answers.
If you missed the Google Super Bowl “Parisian Love” commercial, here it is :
Watch more Super Bowl Commercials Online
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Google Super Bowl Commercial : Parisian Love
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February 7th, 2010
It looks like the Saints finally have a drive going against Indianapolis, and Super Bowl XLIV is looking like it’s going to end up being a pretty good game.
On top of the game itself, I know a lot of people are not just watching the pigskin, but watching out for the Super Bowl Commercials that will be aired during the game. We’re pretty excited as Search & Social (the parent company of SEJ) has several clients airing commercials this year 
As we’ve always done here in SEJ, we’ve compiled a list of sites (especially search related ones) where you can watch the Super Bowl XLIV commercials.
There you go. Have a blast watching the super Bowl and those Doritos and Bud Light commercials. And hope you get to see Google’s spot during the 3rd quarter!
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Watch Super Bowl Commercials Online on YouTube & Bing
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February 7th, 2010
It’s a few hours before the Super Bowl XLIV kicks-off but aside from the game later, fans are also looking forward to the commercials that will be aired during the extravaganza. After all, it takes a lot of money just to get a 30 second slot from the prestigious event. And major brands have competed just to air their commercials and brand product endorsements with some even employing celebrities to do the work for them.
And guess who is among the most anticipated brand that is rumored to air their commercials during Super Bowl? None other than Google with their “search stories” ad. This was scooped out by John Batelle which was later on sort of confirmed by Google’s Eric Schmidt via a tweet telling everyone to watch out for the commercial during the 3rd quarter, as sure hell will freezes over during that time.
Interestingly, John also noted that Google was nowhere in the list of those who will have their commercial aired during Super Bowl. Or perhaps this is all part of a surprise to really make hell freezes over?
Anyway, for those of you who are watching Super Bowl tonight, please do share with us what the Google commercial will be about. Or bettery, Loren please update this post when you’ve watch the Google commercial as I’m pretty sure you’re watching Super Bowl tonight.
Have fun folks!
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Google to Air Search Stories Ad During Super Bowl
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February 5th, 2010
Microsoft and Facebook are expanding their mutual cooperation some more as announced on the Bing Search blog. Specifically Microsoft will continue to provide Facebook users full access to Bing features through the Microsoft-powered Facebook search facility. So, soon instead of just giving set of links, Facebook will now provide richer answers as well as other tools to enable Facebook members make faster and smarter decisions.
In addition, the Bing-Facebook search integration will now be implemented across Facebook’ s 400 million members worldwide.
But perhaps the biggest surprise of all is the said “mutual” decision by the two companies about their display ad deal. Facebook is now taking over the responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site while Microsoft will continue to serve search ads. This probably explains why the Facebook home page search bar is now prominently located at the top-most center of the site.
It is clearly a compromise which perhaps could lead to positive gains for both. Facebook has been working hard on its advertising program particularly display ads so this move is pretty logical. As for Microsoft, this would give them more focus on what they do best for Facebook – providing better search experience to Facebook members as well as let them focus on the previous agreement to bring Facebook data to Bing’s search results through the Facebook API.
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Microsoft, Facebook Expands Search Cooperation
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