What I have listed below in chronological order is how Social Media has directly impacted a music band and how a cheap click on Facebook resulted in countless new fans.

• A few months ago I saw a Facebook ad for a band called “One Day as a Lion” - the Facebook Ad was targeted directly based on me listing Rage Against the Machine as one of my favorite bands in my profile…the lead singer of ODaaL is Zack de la Rocha the former / current lead singer of RATM. Having never heard of ODaaL I clicked on the ad - which probably cost the advertiser $.10 as Facebook ads are dirt cheap.
• After finding out more info on the band and listening to a couple of their songs I went to iTunes and bought all 5 songs on their new album ( 5 x $.99 = $4.95 - $.10 CPC =  $4.85 “profit” on click).
• The day I bought the songs I mentioned what I was listening to on both Twitter and Facebook. I freely promoted the band with a link to their site and my approval to a direct audience of 1,200+ people (# based on Twitter followers and Facebook friends). The tweet / update was also seen on a various other blogs / RSS feeds.
• Based off of that Social Media messaging I received 15 Twitter replies, 5 Twitter direct messages, 8  Facebook comments, 4 Facebook emails and 6 emails. 1 click on a $.10 ad resulted in the band being part of a social conversation consisting of at least 38 people who never heard of them before.
• Of the people I talked to about the band through Social Media methods, 6 of them subscribed to the bands mailing list and 54 total songs were purchased.
• So do the math - that one click resulted in an unknown (but decent) amount of people being exposed to the band, at least 7 people who are now directly engaged with the band through email and a total of 59 song purchases on iTunes. This example also only takes into account my one tweet / status update but I mentioned that I was listening to the band on numerous occasions and I know of other Social Media conversations that took place based on my “approval”.

Granted the above example works very well for the music genre, however there are many elements that companies of all shapes and sizes could take advantage of. At its core Social Media is about connecting with people and in the end isn’t that the goal?

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As with any industry there comes a “tipping point” where the ship is just too crowded and something has to give. For the past couple of years we have seen the rise of people calling themselves “experts” in whatever online area they deem fit - regardless of their actual qualifications. This is creating a great deal of negativity and confusion throughout the online world. The most extreme example is of course SEO. How many SEO experts are out there right now? Just about anyone who even does a tiny bit of SEO work calls themselves an expert. Same thing goes for Affiliate Marketing and every other piece of Online Marketing.  Is the specialization of services really the future? No it isn’t. First, most of the “experts” are just people who are good at selling themselves and talk a good game - but lack in actual real world experience. I can’t count how many times I have talked with these “experts” about a strategy or method and have them back-track and stumble unable to provide any true thoughts on the subject matter outside the normal high-level, over-used, terminology and information. Don’t get me wrong there are a few people who I deem to be TRUE experts in the field but most of the people doing the innovative / meaningful / results driven work are not busy speaking at every single conference out there or spending more time promoting themselves then their clients / companies. The true experts are hard at work making their companies, whether their own or someone else’s, some serious cash.

So what is the future of Online Marketing and all of its pieces like SEO, PPC, Email, etc? The way I see it each piece will become less important individually and more important as part of a total strategy. For example SEO by itself will be a fraction of what it is now as Search Engines get smarter and rely on more semantic information rather then the traditional methods - like inbound links, keyword density, etc - we currently rely on today to rise to the top of the SERP’s. Will SEO ever go away completely? Of course not. As long as there are Search Engines there will be Search Engine Optimization - but what SEO actually entails will change.

The future of Online Marketing is about taking every piece of the online puzzle and putting them together to create a synergistic strategy based on a companies goals and objectives.  Every aspect of Online Marketing should complement each other, no longer will companies be able to rely on one or the other. I also see the future of Online Marketing being about brands and quality. The general web users have and will continue to get smarter - those affiliate based landing pages that offer nothing more than a “order now” button won’t work.  Customers will look and expect to have a wealth of information at their finger tips. Content will still be king but it will go beyond general copy -  the smarter consumer will want to see more social data,  meaning testimonials, feedback, reviews, product comparison and general unbiased information. Companies large and small will need to focus on their entire brand experience, off-site and on-site, in order to compete in a increasingly competitive landscape….notice I said competitive not crowded.

So who stands to really lose from the changes in online marketing? The people who aren’t willing to invest the required time and effort. No more crappy landing pages. No more mass low-quality / high-volume PPC buys.  No more nonsense domain names. Embrace the changes or find a  new line of work.

Ok that is enough ranting for one post…

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Here is a screen shot of SearchWiki at work with one of my affiliate websites. As you can see next to the title there is an up and down arrow. By “promoting” my site for the search term “college football jerseys” my site went from the 11th spot to #1 in my search results. At the bottom of the listing there is the comment option which allows you to make whatever comment about that specific search result you want - this comment is public, meaning anyone can see what I wrote about the search result.

Here is a screen shot of how to add a site to your SERP. The below option shows up in the footer and allows you to add a specific URL that will show up the next time you search for that specific keyword. If the URL you add is in the Google search index you will see it show up like a normal listing, however if the URL is not indexed you will see just the URL. This raises the question whether or not adding a URL that isn’t indexed would expedite the URL being crawled and added to the index quicker then with other methods.

Obviously everyone within the search business, especially those involved in SEO, are keeping a close eye on SearchWiki. Google is making it very clear that the changes users make to their SERP are seen only by them and does not affect the overall public ranking of a website. However, Google can do whatever they want and it is conceivable that they add how many people promote / remove a website to the overall ranking algorithm - they could even take into account the publicly available comments based on things like keywords. For SEO’s anything and everything has to be planned for.

The real and immediate impact SearchWiki will have is for reputation management, product reviews and customer feedback. SearchWiki will allow customers, fans, clients and anyone else who is logged-in to leave their opinion - good or bad - about a product, company, offering or person. Screw over some people? You better be prepared for anyone who searches for you seeing those negative comments. If anything this shows the increased importance of companies having a comprehensive online communication and customer interaction strategy in place.

Google seems to be working out some of the bugs with program as SearchWiki sometimes goes away for me. I expect to see fluctuations in the service for some time as this is a massive undertaking on the both the technical and strategic side.

For additional information check out the offical Google SearchWiki video:

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From the AdWords blog:

“We’re testing changes to the ways that AdWords advertisers see and manage the data in their accounts. These changes should make it easier to tackle common tasks, like navigating between campaigns and editing keywords across several ad groups. We hope the updates will give advertisers clearer insights into their ad campaigns and simpler ways to act on those insights.”

No information was available on when any changes would be made available to every AdWords user.

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On Wednesday YouTube announced YouTube Sponsored Videos, basically the same sponsored links strategy tied to Google web search but specific to YouTube content. “Sponsored Videos is a self-serve advertising platform that will allow you to promote your video to the audience you are interested in reaching in an easy, effective, democratic, and affordable way. Then, when people use YouTube to search for videos, YouTube will display the most relevant, compelling videos alongside the search results. These videos are clearly labeled as “sponsored videos” and are priced on a cost-per-click basis.”

Here is the offical video explaining how Sponsored Videos works:



Yesterday YouTube also announced that they will be serving overlay ads in their embedded partner videos. This obviously wont have the same impact as YouTube Sponsored Videos but is a strategy that makes sense regardless of how much revenue it adds to the bottom line. Up until this announcement was made YouTube only ran overlay ads against partner videos running on YouTube, allowing the monetization of partner videos no matter where the video is being played is a win-win for both YouTube and the content producer.

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Yahoo Deals, which is part of the Yahoo Shopping platform, offers coupons, notices of store wide sales, digital circulars and daily deals. Here is a run down of what a shopper will find on Yahoo Deals:

• Handpicked daily deals from partners like Woot!, Amazon and BradsDeals.
• Thousands of coupons from retailers like Macys, The Gap, Nike and Apple.
• Comprehensive list of store wide sales.
• Digital versions of weekly store circulars from some of the biggest retailers..

Yahoo Deals is a good site offering a needed service, however it isn’t anything original and I have to ask what took so long? Yahoo should have had this site up and running years ago.

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To see the value of attending the 2009 Elite Retreat you just have to check out the full Agenda or see who is speaking:

• Gary Vaynerchuk: Wine Library TV host and online / social media entrepreneur
• Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker: Digital marketing expert
• Neil Patel: Internet Marketing consultant and web entrepreneur
• Andy Liu: CEO of BuddyTV
• Stephan Spencer: President of Netconcepts
• Kris Jones: CEO of Pepperjam

That is a power-house lineup of digital marketing professionals you wont find anywhere else. For more information on the speakers check out their full Elite Retreat Speakers bios.

The 2009 Elite Retreat is taking place in San Francisco from February 18th to the 20th - click here to learn more about the Elite Retreat and how to attend.

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Youtube’s embeddable video has always been functional but other video websites, like Hulu.com, pushed the envelope in terms of functionality and user-experience. Yesterday, Youtube released 4 new features that look to increase usage and compete with other, better, embeddable players.

• High-quality start images (thumbnails) – Before you press play on embedded YouTube videos, the thumbnails for the video will be presented in high-quality. We’re pleased with the results – let us know if you agree.

• Search in embeddable player – At the close of an embedded video, along with the usual recommended videos and URLs, a search box will appear. Not only will you be able search from within the embedded player, you will be able to watch videos through the same window. That’s right, you can search all of YouTube from the comfort of your favorite blog, news, or humor page.

• Integrated video annotations – Annotations enable video producers to incorporate text information into their videos, create choose your own adventure-style stories or add links to any YouTube video. People watching videos through the embedded player can now join the fun.

• Integrated closed captions – Back in August we started allowing video creators to add captions to their videos. Closed Captions are now available in embedded videos like this one:

The key improvement is the search functionality within the embeddable player. Hulu got this right and every other video producer should take notice - allowing users to embed videos is not only good for Video SEO, but when done correctly should result in increased content discovery and direct visits.

The time and effort put into developing a embeddable player that focuses on the content and user-experience is well worth the effort.

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“As part of the next release of Office, we’re announcing that Microsoft will deliver Office Web applications - lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote - through a browser. With these new applications, people can use a browser to create, edit, and collaborate on Office documents. What’s great is that this provides a consistent Office experience when and where our customers want it, regardless of whether they are accessing their Office documents through the PC, phone, or browser.”

Now this should come as a shock to no one considering it makes perfect sense and Google has had tremendous success with their web-based Office type products. So the question becomes, will they work outside of Internet Explorer? Based on previous Microsoft product launches I would say no – or at least not function correctly. Now I am a huge fan of Firefox and Google’s Chrome, but if I was Microsoft I would make Office Web Applications I.E. exclusive – want to use our products then use our browser. All is fair in love and the browser war.

Check out some Office Web Applications screen shots below:

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International SEO Guidelines and Best Practices

Foreign extension vs. Subdomain
1.    Foreign searchers tend to search in their native language on local search engines
a.    An Italian consumer will search in Italian on Google.it instead of on Google.com
2.    Local search engines want to deliver the most relevant content for their users; results are skewed to what the local searcher would most like to see
3.    Using a foreign domain extensions is the ideal scenario when targeting a specific audience in their country of origin
a.    Goal: Target Italian consumers in Italy
b.    Solution: Publish your site at www.website.it
4.    While the ideal scenario is to have a url with a foreign extension, it is an acceptable and common practice to use a subdomain
a.    A subdomain is not affected by Google’s sandbox penalty which can help your site gain exposure in the short term.  Learn all the pros and cons of each strategy before moving forward.

International Hosting
1.    Sites with foreign domain extensions should be hosted in originating country if possible
2.    Search engines identify your site based on IP address – your site may be removed from searches if the IP address is not in the country you are targeting
3.    Use Google Webmaster Central for geo-targeting content

Identify Language in Metadata
1.    The language being used on the site should be identified within the meta data
a.    Examples:
i.    If the site is in English, use “EN”
ii.    If the site is in Italian, use “IT”
2.    Meta description should contain information that identifies your location (city, state, etc)
3.    If you have a local address, display it on the homepage

Localized Language
1.    Conduct keyword research keeping your target audience in mind, search behavior varies across countries and languages.
2.    All content should be translated for the native language. A human translator should be used whenever possible instead of an automatic translation tool.
3.    Use local language and spellings
a.    Holiday vs. Vacation
b.    Colour vs. Color

Local Inbound Linking
1.    Develop a linking strategy with sites hosted in the country of origin (it is preferable to link to sites using a foreign domain extension).

Tactics to Avoid
1.    Keyword Stuffing
2.    Doorway Pages
3.    Javascript Redirects
4.    All of these tactics will negatively affect your rankings and your site will be penalized

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