A quick post regarding news from my native land - the majority of Americans do not like advertisements, discounts, and news tailored to their interests via online tracking, reports NYTimes.  The poll, backed by professors at UPenn and UC Berkley, is "the first independent, nationally representative telephone survey on behavioural advertising."



I wonder if it's this simple - that Americans dislike targeted media, or if the fear of privacy invasion what preoccupies their minds?  Either way, targeted advertising via tracking isn't going away so they better get used to it.  Looks like the youth are slightly more open minded to it.

I can't imagine not wanting things tailored to my interests. I'm not as bored when exposed to advertising, I dare suggest I'm even, on occasion, informed!  Except for that spotify advertisement about killing motorcyclists while I drive (complete with splat noise), b/c I don't even have a license.

What do you think? Are these Americans simply naivete to the benefits of target marketing which results from online tracking? Are they justified to be flipping out about privacy concerns - that marketers are "spying" on them when they visit the marketer's sites?  Let me know!

Microsoft's Windows 7 home operating system comes out on 22 October 2009, less than three years after the launch of Vista.  In order to get people "buzzed" about their new product, they are encouraging Windows 7 House Parties! 

Doesn't that sound like fun!?  Naturally, I want to use my Saturday preparing to encourage my neighbors to use an overpriced Microsoft product (I vote Linux).  Don't forget - Microsoft wants pictures!

I was laughing really hard this morning, as I learned how to host my Windows 7 party (yes, they are serious):



What's the incentive?  Why would anyone do this? The answer: a party pack which includes...

* One limited Signature Edition Windows 7® Ultimate (32 bit)
* One Deck of Playing Cards with Windows 7® Desktop Design
* One Puzzle with Windows 7® Desktop Design
* One Poster with Windows 7® Desktop Design
* Ten Tote Bags with Windows 7® Desktop Design for hosts and guests
* One table top centerpiece for decoration
* One package of Windows 7® napkins

I didn't even add in those little R's!  They came straight from the responder at Yahoo Answers!

Excuse me???  You want me to host a party in exchange for Windows themed napkins?  And playing cards!?  There are no streamers or balloons involved because those extras are only shipped in America.  For a keg and some meat to put on the BBQ I may be tempted.

So I've applied to be a host. I'm not sure why, because I don't need ten Windows 7 tote bags and I have a Mac at home. Maybe my roommate could use the "Signature Edition Windows 7® Ultimate" for work.

Two parts of the application process made me chuckle - and it made the whole experience so PC-ish. First, I had to go on a duck hunt running tests and confirming my PC here in the office is capable of running Windows 7. Okay, fine, no, I didn't actually do this, but I could have...
Secondly, I had to decide whether or not I wanted to receive emails about Microsoft products.  Oh wait - did I say "decide"?  Microsoft actually made the choice for me, kind of like when my Windows XP decides to restart at 11am to do some random updates I will never need.



And the "legal jargon" section - was FOUR PAGES LONG - single spaced size 12 font!  I feel bad about the internet trees, so I wont publish the whole thing but it's over 1,500 words.   

Looks like Google is trying out some new ways of displaying SERP URLs.  In this image (taken by @robhammond), Google is sharing the location of a results page within a site by including the page's breadcrumb string instead of just using the first 51 URL characters.




The Renault UK results page (#7) has matching breadcrumbs on the destination page:



Today, a search for mobility provides the same results with "normal" URLs:

So what does this mean?  Should we all style out our sites with Hansel and Gretel in mind?  Keeping Google's usability priorities in mind, I think bread crumbs should be a mainstay in any site anyways.  Also, I do believe this is a feasible full time change we may see some time in the future. 

Displaying breadcrumbs in SERPs clearly maps out for searchers what section of the site their query result is located within; this will enable searchers to better read those URLs and have a clearer idea of whether or not that result is appropriate for their query. Also, if this is a going to be a major SERPs change, it's important the breadcrumbs don't go too deep since as always, there is limited character space.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this alteration plays out - if you see any more examples shoot them to me @ChelseaBlacker or chelsea.blacker@baseonegroup.co.uk .

Regarding display URLs in AdWords ads, Google states that the domain must be identical to the destination URL's domain.  But besides this rule, advertisers are free to incorporate keywords at the end of the display domain to be read as subfolders.  An example is this ad, which bolds the term for my query "sony laptop" at the end of the display URL:


The question begs to be asked, if we can add keywords to the end of a display URL why not incorporate those keywords before the domain via display URL subdomains?  Just to clarify, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger root domain, they read like this in a URL:


To my surprise, not many advertisers are utilising keywords in display URL subdomains.  It's a great opportunity to include an ad group's targeted term at the front of the display URL, so users read those relevant bolded keywords first.  Take advantage of it! 

The ad above with the subdomain "nokia-mobile-phones"  goes to the page "www.top10co.uk" which clearly doesn't include such a subdomain:



Google's AdWords help section confirms that this is a legal technique which is acceptable by AdWords.  However, when I phoned our Irish friends, the Adwords representative I spoke with told me this was not permitted - it's such a rarely used technique that even the Adwords rep's don't know about it!

So be sure to utilise this technique in your AdWords ads.  Also, remember that you can delete the "www." in display URLs which means 4 more characters for optimising your display URL. Now go... re-optimise those ads!

I've been playing around with a Digg account lately, trying to figure out how to best incorporate our clients content into this fun social networking site.  Digg is unique because it doesn't

1.An Ace Nickname: The Username.  I'm a big fan of creating plausible usernames - in this case I used my real name.  As a newbie, using a normal name like "Scott Osman" or "Miranda Mocco" helps sets the precedent that you're not a bot out to spam.

2.It's all About Looks: Your Avatar.  This needs to be unique from other users and if possible, consistent across social networking sites.  I threw a relatively ugly yellow border around my image, as an easy way for people to indicate it's me.  Check out some successful avatars and get a little feedback on what people think of yours. http://avatarwall.com/toprated.  Again, I found that as a newbie, people like seeing a face, it makes communicating more friendly, but as always different people like different things.

3.Hang Out in the Cool Places: Share Your Profiles!  Digg permits members to share tons of profile links, be sure to take advantage of this so your future friends can easily contact you.  Be sure to include your: Twitter, AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Gchat, last.fm, facebook, linked in, reddit, and stumble upon profiles. 

4.Make friends with the popular crowd.  Long ago Digg had a top users list (sometimes referred to as the "holy grail"), but it was deleted.  I used an alternative list set up by SocialBlade to friend top active diggers.
By friending them, you will become their "fan" whereby you receive updates on their Digg activities; it is only when they accept you as a friend that your status is certified as "mutual friends" and your activity will be received by them.

5.Identify stylish trends: Pin Pointing Submissions with Front Page Potential.  How do you find the high potential articles when the majority of submissions are spam with one or two Diggs?  First and foremost, digg your friends submissions as they appear, especially if the friend sends a "shout" (like a facebook wall post) promoting a certain submission.  You're allowed 200 diggs a day - depending on how much of a life you have, try to use all 200.
I'm a huge fan of the Digg Noise Filter, which pulls up articles with your requested number of diggs in it.  Or try the Flash based Digg Watcher.

6. Back Stabbing: Talk about your Friends.  I cannot stress this one enough.  You must comment on submissions, and the more people who vote up your comment, the more recognition you get.  

I've certainly struggled to figure out what makes a popular comment; supporting Obama, comic book heroes, and protests all seem to be green lights.  Whitty banter, sarcasm, and jokes are usually popular, and comments like "interesting submission" often get a thumbs down for being too obvious. 
Being one of the first people to comment on an article that goes to the front page is a great way to build up your recognition.  People who view the article will see your comment as it appears at the top of the page, hence more are likely to vote it a thumbs up, and hopefully friend you.  
Check out where your popular friends are commenting and be sure to "reply" to their comments.  This will call attention to yourself and hopefully be enough to convince them to friend you back.

Spend about 1 month following the above rules.  In part II (which will also take me about 1 month to write!) I'll go over great strategies for submitting content that gets notable traffic.  In the mean time, get commenting!

I went to SES London last week, and during the Social Media Optimisation seminar Krista Neher, CEO of the marketing solutions company Marketess, told this cute social media parable. 

You walk into a bar and start talking to your friend.  Suddenly, this jerk jumps in between you two and says "TRY MY NEW BEER! IT'S AMAZING!".  You probably look at your friend with those "what the heck is this looser doing?" eyes and bee line for the door. 


Rewind:  You walk into a bar and start talking to your friend.  When you need a new drink the cute bartender asks "Would you like to try this new beer?  It's quite good."  You probably look at your friend and say "sure, why not?" and viola!  You've been introduced to a new product.  This is how social media should work.
 
The key in example #2 is it wasn't forced on you.  Social media campaigns cannot work if the material is forced, the entire point is that users support the content because it's actually of interest to them.  By offering a new beer when you were ready for a new drink, the beer company is providing a solution to your need when you (the consumer) wanted it. 

Making friends isn't easy in real life, so you wouldn't think that finding friends or "followers" on Twitter could be an easy task either.  But it can be!  I used the following method with a client's twitter account and got fantastic results!

Like with real friends, I found the key is to identify common interests.  So first things first, what is your twitter account's interest?  For example, let's say I'm starting a new website about cooking beef burgers.

Provide a backlog of information.  I would want to get a bunch of burger related content up in my history, to prove that I'm serious about my burgers.  I can find online content about burgers and tweet it, with a tiny URL (check out tiny.cc ) for optimum space usage in those 140 characters!



Now for the edge - I will tweet my own content (a blogpost? A video?) about a great broiling technique.  When twitter users see my account, this will be the most recent update and most likely click.

Now it's time to search for friends, soon to be followers.  Scroll to the bottom of your twitter homepage and click on the search link or enter summize.com into your URL bar.  Next, type in "Hamburger".  As you can see, all of the results will be people who have tweeted about the subject of hamburger.



Now I want to follow all of these people who have mentioned burgers in their recent tweets.  In exchange, my hope is that people will follow me, as I continue to share my burger knowledge.  Also utilize synonyms, for instance I should also search for "cheese burgers" and "beef burgers", maybe if I'm feeling daring search for "hot dogs" too!

I also found it helpful to find a relevant twitter account (or potential competitor?), and follow all your competiror's follwers.  For instance, I may follow all of this guy's followers:



Note - it's really important that I continue to share my burger knowledge.  No one wants to follow an account that is inactive; they'll drop me from their followers like a fly.
 
Important Numbers: On average, I have found that about 25% of the people I follow follow me.  And Twitter only permits you to follow 2,000 people in a given day.

In short: provide relevant content on your twitter account and then search for people talking about that content matter.

The Exact Keyword Tracking Tool by the folks at ROI Revolution allows paid search advertisers to view the exact search queries of their visitors.  Broad-match is one of three Adwords keyword setting that results in ads running based on general keyword terms and what Google believes to be relevant variations; even if these terms aren't in a campaign's keyword lists.  With the Exact Keyword Tracking Tool, the exact phrases that triggered the broad-match ad to be issued can be retrieved, instead of only allowing adwords users to view which keyword terms they've bid on drove traffic to their site.

Typically, broad-match phrases are more expensive to bid on than their counterpart's exact-match and phrase-match, due to their higher traffic volumes (and more competition).  Utilizing this tool, Adwords managers can discover trends in long tail keyword phrases that would not otherwise be revealed in typical analytics data.  With this knowledge, managers can bid on their new-found phrases, probably at lower costs due to the lower volume, detailed orientation of long-tail keywords.

The script for Google Analytics can be found here (note there are two versions: ga.js and urchin.js).

Once the script has been implemented, where will you find this data in Analytics?

1) Traffic Sources > AdWords > AdWords Campaigns report and use the Dimension User Defined dropdown.

2) Using the Visitors > User Defined report.

Tip:  Let the new code run a couple of days so you can see results

Twitter is a service that broadcasts 140 character notes through the twitter community of approximately 1 million users.  Think of it as a mini blog, that can be placed on websites , added to social networking profile pages, sent to mobile phones, etc.  Users can update their "tweets" via mobile phones, PDAs, instant messaging services, and a host of widgets, so many users don't even sign in to the actual site.  According to Tech Crunch there are about 3 million twitter messages broadcast every day, so my question to your company is - why aren't you part of the action?

Many companies do operate twitter accounts, keeping clients and customers in the loop.   These include Dell, General Motors, Jet Blue - and the biggest success story - Zappos.com .  So get in on the action - the username "B2BMasterMind" is still available!

Twitter Terms:
Tweet - an 140 character update, like a new note.
Follower - The Twitter profiles receiving your updates ("tweets") on their homepage.
Following - The profiles a given Twitter account is receiving tweets from.

 Why Your Company Should Twitter:
1.    Easier than blogging. 140 characters or 400 words?  Forget debates over grammar, coming up with content is no longer a struggle, and your employees wont avoid you in the halls when there hasn't been an update in a week or two.  
2.    Simple Way To Update Your Website.   Add a twitter widget to your website and your tweets are automatically updated, so clients can always see what your company is up to.  Both Twitter Feed and Widget Box have created feeds.
3.    Free Advertising.  Every time you update, your username and tweet pop to the top of your follower's homepages.   The more you update, the more you will dominate their list.  But be sure to strike balance - spamming or recycling the same comment will probably deter them from following you.   Check out Woot's twitter, a site that "focuses on selling cool stuff cheap", they advertise one new product each day. 

How To Twitter A Company:
1.    News Updates.  Did your company just send out an exciting mailing, announce a new product, or change the logo?  Let the world know about these decisions, it will keep your followers informed.
2.    Get Client Feedback.  Twitter users love responding to questions.  Ask about your products, and don't be afraid to extend the subject matter.  Twitter is an opportunity for clients to see your personality, so if you're looking for a child entertainer for your annual company picnic - let them know!  
3.    Your Company Evangalist = Twitter Star!  Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos, is a Twitter star.  He has 15,000 people following his every word because he's funny, great at interacting with audiences, and keeps users updated on Zappos developments.  Or create a character, as Mars Candy did with their "Ms.Green" from the M&Ms lineup.  Your company could be holding the next twitter celebrity...
4.    Inter-company communication.   Imagine everyone staying on the same page at work via twitter updates.  No emails crowding your inbox, just tweets on a homepage.
5.    Find Fans.   Use a twitter engine like Steve's to find mentions of your company on twitter.  Perhaps people are talking about you (or your competitors) and you don't even know it!  Blogger Jonathon Fields was followed by Jet Blue only a couple minutes after tweeting that he was in a Jet Blue terminal. 

What are your experiences with Twitter?  Does it sound like a fad that'll die out soon enough, or is it an amazing bit of software?  

 
 

On Wednesday, Base One Search hosted a morning workshop to showcase the potential of utilizing search marketing in B2B.  Inspired by the Base One team, with most of the questions and answers designed by Sam, the following quiz is part of a group activity the workshop partook in.  Find the answers at the bottom in a points based system.

Q1. Discuss which is the best way to make use of future content:
A. Implement an RSS feed which would distribute future content to opt in visitors.
B. Submit content to news feeds such as Google news and content syndication sites. Create a company blog.
C. Distribute content to various industry relevant websites and implement it on your company blog.

Q2. Your business decides to have videos and images to attract new clientele. What do you do with them?
A.    Optimise the images and videos on the site to be found in the search engine results pages
B.    Optimise the images and videos further by distributing them to a number of sites, blogs and social networking sites.
C.    Have the images and videos hosted on your site.

Q3. What would you do to ensure a quick response to customer queries and complaints, in order to maintain positive online brand image?
A. Employ an evangelist who would actively scour the internet for comments or issues surrounding your brand or industry. Hire an online reputation management organisation.
B. Develop a blog to help visualise and create the personality of the company.  Utilise Google alerts so that you are informed when there are mentions of your brand name. 
C. Create a company support e-mail address that would deal with complaints and queries.

Q4. Set the stage for an SMM (social media marketing) campaign.  Which way would you assign your time?
A.    Distributing e-mail campaigns to trigger interest and traffic.
B.    Focus on unique viral idea.  Host your viral campaign on your site including implementing social buttons to promote it. Utilise a range of social media sites including stumbleupon, Digg, Facebook to reach a wide range of audiences.
C.    Develop a micro-site to host your campaign to further target online social communities. Create a Facebook group. Utilise social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Stumble Upon to generate traffic.

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Q1.  How to best use future content:
A. 5 points - the RSS feed will allow you to build a strong relationship with your customer as you continuously interact with them.
B. 10 points - You will benefit from the wider scope of keywords. Submitting content to Google news and content syndication sites will ensure you gain exposure and increase brand awareness of your service.
C. 20 points - By targeting relevant sites to host your content it ensures you drive targeted traffic to your website who are likely to convert due to the pre determined mind set of researching your service. You also obtain highly valuable links which would help boost your site visibility in the search engines for selected keywords.

Q2.  What do to do with new images and video:
A. 10 points - Obtain links but would also benefit from increased traffic as optimising videos and images would position your brand within Google for appropriate search queries.
B. 20 points - Previous benefits of A and C plus benefit of creating "noise" surrounding brand. This would not only gain exposure but also obtain extra links and visitors through mentions of your site via industry blogs.
C. 5 points - Links to the videos would help your Search Engine Ranking Position for targeted keywords.

Q3.  How to best maintain a positive brand image:
A. 20 points - Extension of  your marketing channel as an evangelist will become the face of the company. An online management company will ensure your voice is heard and create noise surrounding your brand. It will ensure your voice speaks and acts as a method for maintaining your brand reputation online.
B. 10 points - Encourages return visits due to "face" of brand responding and interacting new visits from increased trust. Driving traffic to site blog post will appear in search for long tail keywords and these visitors are more likely to convert. This will also establish brand loyalty.
C. 5 points - Lose return visits due to unsatisfactory experience and fake promises.  Still can't relate or see the personality of company.

Q4.  Manage your time for an SMM campaign:
A. 5 points - mass email campaigns will receive some attention and visitors. 
B. 20 points - developing a unique idea is 90% of the success. Time should be attributed to this as a viral campaign can have a significant effect on traffic and interaction. This website will benefit from obtaining links as it is hosted on your primary site. This will help increase the search ranking position of various keywords.
C. 10 points - Utilising social media sites to drive traffic to a site is very beneficial.  A social environment can help you engage with customers and gauge reactions and perspectives towards a brand.