As an online marketer, I need to be aware of everything that is going on outside of paid search, as well.  I have found it to be quite a challenge to keep up with the ever evolving and vast internet marketing industry.  What are the new developments and what do they mean for advertisers? What information can we see now through Google Webmaster tools that can help with SEO? How successful is Google retargeting? What does the increased use of Foursquare and other location-based social media mean for small businesses?  And the list goes on and on….

I surveyed several of TSA’s industry experts and came up with the following list of top blogs and news sources that we find to be helpful in keeping up with the latest developments.  What should you do with these? It’s up to you! You probably can’t read each one of these every day (unless you have some time management super powers).  Whether you work at an agency, manage your own online marketing campaigns, or just want to learn more about the industry, it seems valuable to cherry pick a few of the sites listed below to visit frequently and to give you insight into evolving your marketing strategies.

One more tip: www.TheSearchAgents.com is of course a must-read.  We just didn’t want to put it under EACH category to cut down on redundancy .

GENERAL MARKETING INSPIRATION:

http://www.mediapost.com

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

http://chiatdaynight.wordpress.com/

IAB and American Association of Advertising Agencies Smartbrief newsletters

SEM:

http://adwords.blogspot.com (Google AdWords blog)

www.ysmblog.com (Yahoo Search Marketing blog)

http://community.microsoftadvertising.com (MSN/Bing AdCenter blog)

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

http://searchengineland.com/

http://searchenginewatch.com/

http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/

http://analytics.blogspot.com/

http://www.semgeek.com/

http://sphinn.com/

http://whunt.com/

http://www.toprankblog.com/

SEO:

www.SEObyTheSea.com – Technical help

www.SEOMoz.com

www.SEOdojo.com

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

http://www.sugarrae.com/

Twitter – find the industry experts and follow them

DISPLAY:

www.eMarketer.com

CONSUMER EXPERIENCE:

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/

http://sitetuners.wordpress.com/

http://www.futurenowinc.com/

http://www.ioninteractive.com/post-click-marketing-blog/

SOCIAL MEDIA:

www.ReelSEO.com

www.Mashable.com

www.blog.facebook.com

www.blog.Foursquare.com

www.InsideFacebook.com

www.AllAboutFacebook.com

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/

www.blog.twitter.com

www.ReadWriteWeb.com

http://www.problogger.net/

www.socialtimes.com

EMAIL:

http://www.retailemailblog.com/

AFFILIATE:

http://www.nickycakes.com/

http://cashtactics.net/

http://www.shoemoney.com/

It goes without saying that this list is far from exhaustive.  What other blogs are on your “must read” list?

The first feature that grabbed my attention is called “Something Different” on the new left hand navigation.  The choices here make a lot of sense for someone doing an informational search on this term.  As do the “searches related to chocolate” on the bottom of the page.  When it comes to upper funnel or broad keywords that are informational in nature, these are quite helpful.

However, the big miss here is that these types of features are not “one size fits all” and that is where I believe Google and their engineers are stepping into unfriendly waters.  When I do a lower funnel search for a brand term, I think these features are less relevant, distracting, and in some cases inappropriate.  Here is a brand search I did on the term Nike:

As a brand marketer the results are incredibly shocking to say the least.  If I am Nike and I spend hundreds of millions of dollars building up my brand and then when a consumer does a search for my brand, Google displays all of my core competitors on the page, I am questioning the logic.  The beauty of search is access to information based on a stated intent.  If I ask for Nike, I am pretty far down the search funnel; in other words, I am not doing a general information search for shoes or athletic apparel and I am not looking to compare brands of running shoes.  I am very specifically honed in on a brand and not looking for something different.  Put another way, I raised my hand and said, “I want to see Nike” and don’t expect to see Reebok, Adidas, New Balance, Puma and Converse.  Taken one step further and applying logic, the list of searches related to Nike at the bottom of the page should really include Converse and not Adidas because Nike now owns Converse so they are related.

Another new feature is called “Pages similar to” which is based on the root URL of the search term and shows up at the bottom of the SERP.  Let’s take Honda for example:

Honda is similar to Acura, Ford, Nissan and Toyota?  Well I will give you Acura, which is owned by Honda, so that is similar.  The rest sell cars, but the similarities really end there.  Remember, I searched for Honda, so I was already focused on a brand.  A lot of marketing dollars were spent to get me to enter that into Google.  I was not looking for Toyota at that point and if I was I might have included a term like “companies like Honda”.

What is even more interesting to me is this feature does not show up on all car manufacturers.  When I searched for BMW, Mercedes, and Saab, this feature did not appear.  I am sure if you gave brand advertisers the choice, they would opt out of this and all comparison features on their brand term.

This is just one example of where a brand is getting pitted against their competitors, the same is true of GAP, Ford, Polo, Tide, Gillette, and the list goes on.  Now these features are suggestive in nature and meant to be helpful, but if I am spending millions of dollars building my brand, the last thing I want to see on my search results is my competition.

So what is going on here?  Is this a good user experience?  What should brand advertisers, who have helped fund the growth of Google over the past decade, do about these new features?  These are all good questions that Google will need to answer for advertisers who want a clean search results page that is devoid of competitors.  For now, advertisers have to play ball with Google because that is where the volume of traffic is.  As other options become more viable, I do believe Google is playing with fire.

There are numerous studies showing the beneficial relationship between concurrent paid search and display media, generally boosting conversions by 20%+.  Studies are mostly conducted by adserving and rich media companies, which naturally encourage media diversity and added tracking as their livelihood.  Seldom is there mention of the interwoven influence and intersects within the click-stream.  Credit is generally given to the ability of each media to perform a singular job and add scalability.  The added benefits of tandem messaging and optimization remain cloaked in mystery.

With the advent of retargeting technologies, it becomes harder to label the final actions that convert users.  Display and search are often targeting the same audience but seldom leverage cross channel data to confirm the mutual lifts in metrics.  Frequency is difficult to track across a single channel more so across multiple media.  Furthermore, depending on the product or services in question, channel switching within media may oscillate constantly during hours or months leading up to a conversion. Each channel also follows unique timing and creative variations to further complicate learnings.

A likely scenario is an initial brand exposure (perhaps via a display ad), and then beginning a search for competitive pricing and local availability.  This is a common path many users take.  It is also highly likely that the person who was exposed to a banner and performed a search would not be immediately converted after a single site visit.  It is then possible that the same individual was going about their general web browsing and saw another display ad.  Perhaps this ad had specific incentives and products relevant to their recent online activity (smart ads, retargeting, search retargeting).  Already both the search and display data are actively being used to generate audience profiles and increase product awareness.

What’s next? The user could click on the retargeting or standard ad, and return to the product site.  They are also likely to type the product name into a new tab within a search engine (or browser navigation bar).  A click on an organic search listing would give the display banner credit for a view-through conversion.  A paid search link would take credit for the final conversion if clicked, and also give a view-through conversion to the banner.  Search funnel reporting shows the path of keyword searches and sequence towards the final conversion.  Display media reporting also follows the click-stream and ad exposure.  The combined paths are becoming increasingly studied yet far from being merged in their messaging or sequence.  The need for universal adserving and integrated tracking parameters continues to make this an ambitious task, but not impossible.

The “halo effect” is when two objects conjoin to create a new vision or inspiration.  This term is often used to describe a combined media impact but also seems to evoke a cross channel phenomenon that appears only in favorable planetary cycles.  We must not hold our breaths waiting for some auspicious event to gain clarity.  The time is now to look closer at the media mix beyond simple budget allocations and incremental volume.  Position your focus on the entire funnel and how to bring in more users via various platforms and tactics.  Start to align on sequential messaging for your broader and niche audiences.  The added appreciation of how search and display function in tandem will lead to deeper messaging strategies and overall added efficiencies…which can later be invested in other emerging media channels- once the planets are aligned of course.

They have enabled us to have virtual conversations with the editors of The Economist on world politics, discuss psychology with the writers of Scientific America and keep up to date on the latest online marketing news with This Week In Google. The best part? We get to have these discussions while brushing our teeth, taking a jog or driving to work. Podcasts have become an ideal form of acquiring information in an age when newspapers seem archaic and the majority of us don’t have the time to sit down to have breakfast. They are efficient, free and informational.

As subscribers, podcasts are convenient, but as marketers they present us with the opportunity to speak directly to an engaged, curious audience that has self-identified themselves as interested in what we have to say.

What is podcasting exactly and how can it be used for marketing?

Podcasts resulted from the proliferation of social media and the iPod, and the relatively low costs of creating audio content. As Annalee Newitz wrote back in 2005 for Wired magazine, the podcast, “is the bastard offspring of the blog and the Apple MP3 player. It combines the hyperactive talkiness of blogs and the hipness of iPods into something utterly new: the podcast.” Back in 2005 podcasts were primarily used by tech geeks, looking for a cheap means of broadcasting their opinions. Today, several leading corporations, such as American Airlines, Disney, McDonalds and the New York Times, have caught on to the power of the podcast, producing their own original content. Other companies, like Whirlpool and Georgia-Pacific Corps., have begun sponsoring podcasts directed towards their targeted demographics.

These marketers have figured out how to leverage podcasting as a marketing tool.

Here are a couple of ways they are achieving this:

• Invitation Marketing – The basic theory behind online marketing is that customers invite you into their space, rather having you invade it with traditional forms of analogue marketing. Podcasts follow this same principle. Listeners invite you to share with them your company’s message and, in doing so, they identify themselves as pre-qualified leads, generating higher conversion rates and saving time and money.
• Building a Relationship – One of the benefits of podcasting is that the listeners tend to keep coming back. Because listeners can choose to subscribe to your podcast, they act  like regular customers who come into your shop for a quick chat. Good podcasts take this relationship seriously and ask their listeners for feedback on what they enjoy about the podcast and what they want to hear more or less of.

• Brand Building – Brand building has become a more nuanced practice since the advent of online marketing. Rather than relying on ad layouts and witty creative, online marketers now have to strategically position themselves as industry thought leaders. Podcasting present an opportunity, in conjunction with blogging and social media, to position your brand as progressive and an authority in your industry.

• Public Relations- While it shouldn’t be the only thing companies use podcasts for, they are a great way to report important developments and allow marketers to include audio interviews and commentary.

What do you need to know?

Creating a podcast can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make it. The basics are very basic, but there is a whole world of jargon and advice on how to properly produce a podcast.

Here’s the foundation of what you need to know in terms of the technology:

• Creating the file - In order to create a podcast, you first have to create an audio file. Here’s what you need:
  • Microphone- There are a range of microphones available on the market. Some sources will tell you that you can use the microphone built into your computer, but in reality the quality won’t be great. Others say that you have to go as far as buying a recorder/mixer, but if you aren’t planning to go out in the field with your podcast you can save the money and just invest in the microphone.
  • Audio Software- Producing your podcast can done either on a Mac or a PC with the recording/editing software the computer came with, for Macs that’s GarageBand and PC users you can use Window’s Media Player. Both systems can be used to edit your podcasts, which can help delete awkward silences, tangential conversations or edit together snippets recorded at different times. If you aren’t comfortable working with GarageBand or Window’s Media Player, there is a free audio program available for both Macs and PCs called Audacity.
  • Saving the file – You should save the podcast as an MP3 file. Keep in mind that the higher the encoded bit rate, the better the sound quality will be.

• Hosting/archiving your podcast- Your podcast has to be stored somewhere in cyberspace. There are two options for storing your podcast, either on your website or using a third party hosting service.
  • You can store your podcast on your website, but you run the risk of exceeding the bandwidth maximum set by your internet provider, which will cost you a pretty penny.
  • The other option is to outsource your hosting to a company that specializes in podcast hosting. (Check out PodBean, Podcast Revolution, or Dream Host)
• Getting your podcast out there- Assuming that you already have a blog, (if you don’t, check out this website on how to start one), you have to create an RSS feed, which your listeners will subscribe to to receive automated updates for future podcasts. The easiest way to generate an RSS feed is to use Google’s Feedburner. To note: an RSS feed for a podcast is basically the same as it is for your blog. The only difference is that it also includes information about the content of your MP3 files (size, content, location, etc.).
  • Obviously, you want to make your podcast available through iTunes. For all the details on how to submit your podcast and the terms of conditions required by Apple, check out their website.
• Tracking technology- PodTractor is the most sophisticated tracking technology available. Their tracking technology is extremely comprehensive, tracking every download, the keywords used to find your podcast on iTunes, and more.

The benefit of producing a podcast is that is can support and help unify your other online marketing efforts. Successful podcasts often work in conjunction with corporate blogs and social media campaigns to discuss relevant topics and current events in your industry, which can help distinguish your organization as an industry thought leader.

Identifying Issues

I can tell you just by looking at a client’s website what they need to work on from an SEO perspective: URLs, internal linking, on-page optimization, creating silos, etc.  I wouldn’t say I know as much as some of our gurus, but I can walk the walk, as well as talk the talk.  When it comes to SEM, Display, and Consumer Experience I’m at a bit of a loss.  Because I don’t fully understand the needs of these disciplines, it’s hard for me to make calls on what needs to be addressed.

Solution: Defer to the experts.  I am surrounded by people who are so good at what they do, it hurts.  On some level, I have to trust that they won’t judge my ignorance and on another hope that they understand what an incredible resource their breath of knowledge makes them for the rest of us on their team and for their clients.  A politely asked question has gotten me very far.

Communicating Tasks

Because I don’t know the lingo, there are a few things that I’ve asked for that weren’t clear to the team member I was engaging.  In these cases, it’s difficult because I might have an idea of what I’m talking about or I might be playing telephone, either of which can be dangerous and counterproductive if I deliver incorrect information.

Solution: Three solutions here – cut and paste, using CC, and communication.  If I cut and paste the information that needs to be communicated, 9 times out of 10, everything that needs to be messaged gets across.  CCing the expert helps because they can weigh in if I got it wrong.  Communication is the only way to make sure that I’m giving our team members the right information; if I don’t know the answer or I’m not clear on something, I have to humble myself and ask.

Understanding Scope of Work

Because I’ve never done a lot of the work that I assign to my team, I have no idea how long any particular task should take.  I thought I was being smart when I asked the team members assigning a task how long the task they were requesting should take, but apparently there is some disconnect between the perceived amount of time a task takes and the reality.

Solution: Set expectations.  By letting everyone know that I am more than happy to try to push a task through, but that I’m not sure exactly what the turnaround time is, I at least let my team know that they might have to message a delivery date differently to a client.  Ideally, as time passes, I’ll have a better idea of what and how much my team can handle and can give harder delivery dates.

Figuring Out Which Details Are Important

There are a lot of moving parts in this business.  From bid management and quality score to URL structure and link bait, every single detail has some kind of impact on our client’s success.  Some of these activities are very, very important and if executed incorrectly can cost our clients thousands.  Some are bonus activities that may or may not provide a lift for our clients.  The key is to know which are important and which can be put on hold.  This knowledge comes with experience, which I’m gaining, but don’t have yet.

Solution: Ask for feedback with setting priorities.  I have to lean on other people’s knowledge base for this activity.  By learning what they feel is important and under what circumstances, I’m better able to make the call myself in the future.

The biggest take away for me during these last few months has been communication.  I couldn’t do my job without input from my colleagues.  Because I work with the best people in the world, getting this information is not only easy, it’s an enjoyable learning experience that makes doing my new job exciting.

Siri  Assistant is a personal assistant application that takes spoken requests from the user—from searching for a restaurant in the neighborhood to finding out the next movie time—and fetches the appropriate results, similar to a search engine query. Siri’s voice-recognition feature first converts the request into text (the inquiry can be in written form as well). Then, the app taps into APIs across the Web to bring back results and/or recommendations.  It can even take this process a step further and reserve a taxi or purchase the movie ticket at the user’s command. Siri’s performance depends heavily on its partners such as WeatherBug, Yelp, MovieTickets.com, Taxi Magic, and Eventful. From Siri’s website:

“Siri works with leading web service providers to deliver answers and actions from trusted brands. For example, when users ask Siri to book a table for two, we partner with OpenTable, the leading restaurant reservation site, to fulfill restaurant reservations. Or, when users ask Siri to call a cab, we work with Taxi Magic, the leading taxi reservation service, to dispatch taxis.”

In essence, Siri’s functionality is simple voice-based search. However, it caters to the iPhone users on-the-go who are looking for immediate and manageable results, not a long list of websites that may not even be in the correct format to be viewed on a mobile device. It also utilizes the iPhone’s GPS feature to produce results that are relevant to the user at that particular time and place. If everything runs smoothly, Siri provides a much easier way to navigate on mobile devices than the traditional mobile search query via Google and Bing. Customer reviews of Siri Assistant reveal that the app can free users from thinking about which particular app to pull up to find certain information, because Siri can pool them all into one. We can only speculate how effective this new acquired technology will be for Apple’s business strategy, but it certainly holds the potential to change the mobile search landscacpe.

The Mobile Web

According to a market research report by NetMarketShare in 2009, mobile web browsing accounts for 1.3% of all browsing in the US alone. While this is a seemingly small number, it offers an enormous opportunity for mobile marketers. With the rising popularity of the mobile search engines, mobile SEO has become a revenue-generating channel, making the need for developing compatible websites, which match the screen resolutions of different mobile devices, increasingly important. What’s more, recent research has provided invaluable insight into mobile web content. A recent study by Neilson revealed that in 2009 33% of mobile users performed information related queries, 29% of mobile users were interested in local listings and 27% of users searched for website/navigational queries.

Mobile Maps

According to survey conducted by ComScore, “Of the 17 million mobile subscribers who used an application in Oct 2009, maps were the most popular, followed by weather, social networking and search apps”. The need for finding specific locations and getting directions while on the move has become very popular among the mobile users. According to a survey by ComScore Mobilens taken during Oct 2009, maps were most popular, followed by weather, social networking & search applications.

Mobile Ads

Banner ads, pay per click ads, text ads have gone mobile too. These mobile banners are designed to match the screen resolutions of mobile devices.  Over the past three years, we have seen an increasing number of large screen mobile phones on the market, which are ideal for mobile browsing. As a result, we can expect that mobile banners and pay per click ads will become increasingly important for marketers over time.

Mobile Applications

In the interest of better understanding mobile consumers, and being able to directly target towards a desired audience, marketers have developed an innovative set of mobile applications. As of late, mobile users, who use applications on the iPhone, Blackberry and other PDAs, has increased by a factor of ten. The mobile applications market is expected to reach $9 Billion dollars by 2011.

Mobile Games

WAP games ruled the roost for a while and were then dominated by games developed by Java (using the J2ME technology). Today’s games are more interactive, making the overall gaming experience very entertaining. Many mobile advertisers nowadays have developed mobile games to promote movies, products and their services etc.

Mobile Text Messaging

This has been one of the most reliable methods of communication, and has attracted over thousand of millions of mobile subscribers. As such, text messaging has become a popular mode of mobile advertising, as a reliable means of contacting mobile users who are always on the go. Entertainment organizations, local restaurants, malls, retail brands etc have seized the power of text messages to advertise their brands, events and products.

MMS Advertising

Multimedia Messaging Service enables advertisers to combine text, images, video & audio in their text messages, enabling them to send potential customers animated cartoons, videos, news, greeting cards and weather updates.

Mobile Video & TV

This is one of predominant features of the 3G mobile phones. Mobile TV can be accessed through subscriptions from the mobile cellular or proprietary networks. Today mobile video ads are becoming increasingly popular on various Mobile TV channels.

Mobile Alerts

Notifications can be sent to the mobile phones to update subscribers about the latest breaking news, stock markets index, events, weather updates etc. Mobile subscribers have the option of choosing the alerts that interests them.

Mobile is a compelling communication platform for marketers. However, marketers do face a lot of challenges. Now let’s discuss a few advantages & disadvantages of mobile marketing:

Advantages:

• Communication is possible anytime, anywhere & is immediate
• Campaigns can be targeted towards highly specific target audience
• Campaigns are typically cost effective
• As the nature of this media is interactive and instant, there exists the potential for viral marketing.
• Consumer response is higher in mobiles, as compared to other media such as television and radio ads.
• The ability to targeting a broader and more relevant audience
• ROI can be easily quantified; usually delivering a high ROI with low marketing costs
• Mobile campaigns are mostly permission based

Disadvantages:

• Easy accessibility from anywhere in the country can generate a lot of unwanted sales calls and messages
• Privacy has been an issue with mobile phones. Marketers should be aware of the privacy concerns that consumers have and must provide clear instructions to mobile subscribers for opting out of any communications.
• Navigation remains one of the biggest issues in mobile phones, not many phones have a large display, mouse or a QWERTY keypad. This makes it difficult for mobile users to navigate the mobile web.
• Standardization poses a problem to mobile marketers, as every phone model has a different sized screen, different operating systems and browsers. Marketers should optimize their ad creatives & webpages, so that they are compatible across a broad range of mobile phones.

Web Marketing and Mobile Marketing have a lot of similarities, but they also have a few differences. Some of these major differences between the web & mobile marketing are mentioned below:

Mobile marketing has been getting a lot of attention over past several years and the marketing spends on mobile campaigns have been increasing exponentially each year. The graph below shows the increase in the mobile marketing spends during 2009.

Today, there are more than a billion mobile subscribers in the world. Not only are the number of mobile subscribers increasing, but mobile phones are being developed with better functionality and features. As a result the demand to create mobile content that’s interactive, informational and useful has also increased.

Sitting at the latest Search Insider Summit conference in Florida, I realized how many times I’ve heard that in the last year. Customers now expect everything online to simply work, but the expectation is more than mere function. Everything online also needs to be “easy” and “focused on my immediate need/mood” and “tailored to who I am.”

This intuitiveness is the expectation of the coming wave of digital natives. This expectation will influence the work of earlier generations and dethrone, if not outright destroy, companies that don’t build this into their DNA.

The challenge is that the client/agency discussion often leaves something out – the customer. This is what digital marketers can learn from Apple.

Three-Legged Stools:  Working Better than Two Since… Forever

All too often, clients and agencies get so engrossed in the conversation about customers that they forget that it’s the customers that know themselves best. Let’s take a look

• Clients

1. Customer Perception: We know the customers best, we talk to them and they buy our goods/services.
2. Posture: Look at all the things we do!
3. POV: “Business Unit”
4. Company Metaphor: Yahoo

• Agencies

1. Customer Perception: We know the customers best – we can measure behavior and improve efficiency metrics in how they engage with the goods/services!
2. Posture: Look at how we are moving the needle.
3. POV: “Distribution Channel”
4. Company Metaphor: Google

• Customers

1. Customer Perception: We know ourselves best – this is how we want to do it.
2. Posture: Wouldn’t it be cool if I could do it “this way.”
3. POV: “What I Want Now”
4. Company Metaphor: Apple

Don’t miss the boat on all three perspectives…

The Solution – Step Back and Re-Segment, Re-Energize and Re-Focus on Customers and User Intent

I think this is where Apple gets it right. They provide products that customers want, products that solve problems. Here are some ways to frame the dialogue on customers:

• Thematic Thinking
  • I will break out themes for clients and focus discussion and metrics within the theme.  For example:
    • Theme: Brand Search
    • Intent: People Looking for Company X
    • Best Message: “We are Company X”
    • Messaging Segments That Work: Registered Trademark Symbol, Official Site
    • Keyword Watchlist: Company X, Company X.com, etc.
    • The list goes on…
• Personas
  • Define a persona for a theme, who is that person, when are they searching, where are they searching, what is compelling on the SERP for those searches, etc.
• Positioning
  • If you are a marketer who hasn’t read the book Positioning by Trout and Ries, you are doing yourself a disservice.  There are only three positions that matter and the SERP is going to reflect this more and more. They are: Position 1 – market leader (We’re the biggest), Position 2 – often playing off the leader (We’re not the biggest but we try harder), Position 3 – reposition the category (We’re the biggest/best for this subsegment).  Know what position you are targeting within a theme.
• Cross-Channel Thinking
  • At SIS, Matt Kain referenced the Walk/Sit/Slouch paradigm where the computer is for sitting, the phone for walking, and the ipad targeting a new “slouch” area of the market. Know how customers are using different channels and how that changes the message or use-case. Speak clearly to one.
• Modes
  • Know what mode customers may be in for specific channels/queries. Speak clearly to one. For example:
    • Browse – Options for a Friday night at home.
    • Research – Which is the best pizza?
    • Purchase – I want to buy a pizza.
    • Feedback – I thought this pizza was great.
    • Share – I want to recommend this pizza.
• Pointed Questions
  • If intent is unclear, then ask. Customers like this. Search engines are doing more for us – “did you mean…?” but we can do it too. We regularly use SEM creative testing to define intent – asking pointed questions in headlines and measuring results – “Looking for a Plumber?”
• Strategic Alliances
  • Lori Weiman from the Search Monitor spoke to this again at SIS. Can you partner with a super affiliate for providing research or some other intent bucket in order to represent multiple customer intents in unclear themes?
• Solutions
  • Ben Hanna spoke to a Current, Better, Winning hierarchy at SIS:
    • Current: Content
    • Better: Interactive Content
    • Winning: Solution
    • Companies should be investing in solutions to specific problems – speak clearly to one.

The Takeaway: Learn from Apple and start paying real attention to customers.

Do the things that work but also start investing in “real testing” in defining your customers and bringing the best content and the best solution to the front of the user experience.

On April 21, 2010 Facebook held its third annual developers’ conference, the f8, in San Francisco, where they announced their new services designed to make the Web a more social place.  Specifically, Social Plugins and the Open Graph Protocol are designed to bridge the gap between Facebook users and web publishers. By enabling users and publishers to share and publish content together, Facebook’s new tools are expected to emulate a web-wide social search engine with improved behavioral targeting and a focus on personalized user experience.

The Open Graph Protocol enables any website to be registered as a unique object in the social graph. By implementing markup tags specific to the Open Graph protocol, websites will perform with all the functionalities of a traditional Facebook page. If a Facebook user ‘Likes’ a page enabled by the open graph, the site will be linked from the user’s profile. The publisher then has the ability to publish information on the users’ News Feed, access the administration interface, and profit from inclusion in Facebook search and analytic tools.

Social plug-ins enable third-party sites to include Facebook services, e.g. Facebook’s Like button, Facepile, Recommendations, etc., in their site. Plug-ins are hosted by Facebook, which means that users can interact with third party sites as long as they are logged into Facebook, even if they haven’t registered with the site itself. Plug-ins are designed to help users share interests with other visitors and friends on Facebook. By clicking on a Like button, users create new connections, allowing sites to keep them updated on brand, company or campaign news.

There are currently eight available Facebook plug-ins:

The ‘Like’ Button

• The Like button enables users to make connections with third party publishers and share this content with their friends on Facebook. The content within the Like Button is hosted entirely by Facebook.  If your site visitor is not logged into Facebook, he/she will only see the number of people that like that piece of content or brand:

• If the user is logged into Facebook, the button is furthered personalized to include the user’s friends who also ‘liked’ the site (example from Facebook’s official blog):

• Sites that feature the Like Button can push the information users liked on their site back on to Facebook. For example, if a user likes a band of Pandora or a movie on IMDB.com that information will appear on the user’s Facebook profile under the music or movie section.

Like Box

• The Like Box is designed for Facebook Page owners who are interested in gaining Likes from their traditional website.  The like box enables visitors to your site to become fans of your Facebook page with one click of the “like” box.  It also enables them to see how many fans you currently have, as well as which of their friends are also fans of your Facebook page.  The like box is an easy way to build Facebook fans from your website and/or blog. 
• Here is an example of the Facebook Like box from Search Engine Land’s homepage:

Activity Feed

• The Activity Feed informs users of their friends’ activities on a website. If a user is logged into Facebook and visits CNN.com, for example, they will instantly see the topics and specific articles their friends are commenting on, and recommending via the Activity Feed.

Recommendations

• The Recommendations plug-in delivers users with personalized recommendations, by highlighting the objects and articles their friends commented on. If there is not enough social information to generate recommendations within a user’s community, sites instantly register the most ‘liked’ items in real time.
• For example, if a user is logged into Facebook and visits the NHL.com website, the site will highlight the items that were most commonly commented or shared via Facebook:

A few other social plugins available through the Facebook Developer site:

Facepile

• The Facepile plug-in shows the profile pictures of a user’s friends, who have already signed up on a website. If a user signs into Facebook and visits an external site, they can see if anyone within their social network has signed up for the site or if they have commented on any features.

Live Stream

• The Live Stream plug-in enables users visiting a site or application to share their activity and thoughts in real time. Websites can run the Live Stream plug-in in tandem with concerts, speeches, sporting events, TV shows, presentations or webinars.

Login With Faces

• The Login with Faces plug-in allows users to see the profile pictures of their friends who have already signed up for a site- in addition to a login button.

Comments

• The Comment plug-in allows users to comment on a site’s content in real time, whether it’s on an article, a website or a photo. Users can then take this information and publish it directly on Facebook.

Impact on Marketers

By automating the online relationship between consumers and businesses, Facebook has generated countless new opportunities for online marketers. The promise of an open graphed web means that for the first time since the advent of Facebook in 2004, marketers will be able to tap into the wealth of Facebook’s 400 million self-identifying users. While the possible benefits of Facebook’s Open Graph are exciting, the responsibilities of becoming a member of this new ecology are important to note:

• Facebook plugins represent another source of user-generated content to manage. As with other forms of social media, marketers are responsible for representing their brands well within online conversations. Whether a disgruntled consumer complaining on a forum or an industry scandal has been exposed, people expect brands to respond with a comment or solution.  Before Facebook’s Open Graph, consumers had to proactively seek discussions. With the automated convenience of Facebook’s new services, however, we can expect user- generated content to increase and for a more dynamic user conversation to evolve. This could prove challenging for some marketers, as they attempt to juggle Facebook’s new personalized user-generated content with traditional forms of social media.
• Plugins will help marketers increase their understanding of and engagement with consumers. These plugins make it easier for users to find content on the internet, based on their interests and the interests of their social network. Once on a site, owners can help users navigate and explore content, by highlighting known interests or activities. Insight into Facebook users’ information will enable marketers to deliver more personalized recommendations and update their followers more frequently.  
• The lines between a brand’s owned assets – Facebook pages, websites, blogs, etc. — are becoming increasingly more blurred. Managing the content across these sites will become a bigger priority.  By implementing these plugins, marketers will be driving traffic between and across each of their sites more explicitly.  Users will expect a consistent and relevant experience across each of the brand’s sites. 
• Users will expect a more tailored experience. The introduction of Facebook plug-ins represents the latest step in a growing shift from broad user-generated content, to a narrow, personalized web viewing experience.  User-generated content has traditionally consisted of the reviews, comments, or content from largely unknown web surfers.  Facebook plugins now enable marketers to highlight the preferences of each user’s own social network.   Users can not only see how many 5-star ratings a restaurant or new movie received, but how many of their own friends (and which ones) liked it.  Facebook users can now augment or replace “the wisdom of crowds” with “the wisdom of their crowd”.

Actionable Insights

• Marketers should consider adding the like box to the top level-pages of your site. This gives your visitors an opportunity to show affinity to the brand.  By clicking the like button on your homepage, they will automatically become fans of the brand for your Facebook page and receive status updates.
• Also consider adding the like button to deeper pages of your site for specific content or products. When a visitor likes or recommends a sub-page on your site, this will appear as a text-only status update on your customer’s Facebook wall. The update is quick.  But the value is that if someone views that web page,  they will see all their friends that also like that product or content.
• Become familiar with the paid media options on Facebook. Even before these new social plug-ins, Facebook already had a broad set of behavioral targeting data based on their users’ profiles and activities within Facebook.  By launching the Open Graph, Facebook now has an even more granular and timely understanding of each of its 400 million members.  Although it’s not clear how Facebook intends to use this data for behavioral targeting, Facebook is uniquely positioned to segment and target its audience based on any number of factors and serve display ads based on user demographics, indicated preferences, and the “likes” of each individual’s network of friends.

Facebook is taking some bold steps to become the hub of most everyone’s web surfing experience.  This concept of the social web is nothing new.  But Facebook has the size (400mm users and growing) and scale (connecting millions of sites together through the open graph) to produce an immensely powerful database of people and preferences.  This means a more efficient and relevant web surfing experience for consumers and a treasure trove of targeting data for advertisers.  It also means the “official” marketing message becomes increasingly less relevant.   The opportunity for marketers is to figure out how best to engage their customers with relevant content and motivate them to “like” it, customize it, and share it with their friends.

Brands that choose not to implement the Facebook social plugins may be seen as being out of touch with their customers.  And at the end of the day, the Facebook Like Box and Like Button are about customers connecting with the brand and publicly declaring their affinity.  Marketers who have spent the past 10 years responding to angry comments and negative reviews across the web should rejoice in the fact that Facebook hasn’t implemented the “dislike” button…yet.

In the context of a conference theme of “Where Does Search Go From Here?”, I presented on Mobile Search and the rise of Apps as a preferred interface to content, a form of specialized vertical search. The topic was “Searching Through Apps: Moving From Destination to a Utility”.