Good afternoon again,
One of my readers (Matt S. from Newsy.com) sent me their video as a reaction to my last post… some good information on the security of Facebook…
If you ever have a reaction to something I write, please email me (marketmpb@rocketmail.com) and with your permission I will post it….
thanks Matt!
marketmpb
Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com
Good morning, how is it going for you so far?
Well the verdict is in on the tractor and it is dead. The engine was so worn and got so hot the crankshaft (aluminum) began to melt. I learned the hard way never to buy a 100 series John Deere to cut 3 acres of grass.
I read with interest the Chronicle’s post on student’s feelings on privacy. The article indicated that 18-19 year old students are extremely concerned with privacy. However, Facebook continues to be plagued by issues of privacy.
Over 100 million users of Facebook recently had their identities published by a security consultant. Currently, over 1000 users have downloaded this list of Facebook users. There are a lot of concerned and angry people who right now might be wondering how their information will be used.
According to the Chronicle, students are “far from being non-chalant” about their privacy and many have adjusted their privacy settings within the last year.
So I ask you the question. Should you advertise on Facebook right now? I do not think so. I think you should continue to engage in social media but Facebook needs some time to work out its privacy issues. However, I certainly think you should engage students on Facebook to lift your brand. You can assure the students that their privacy will not be disclosed when you are working with them.
enjoy your Friday!
marketmpb
Good evening, are you doing alright tonight?
I have read a lot of articles recently about jailbreaking, and the I-phone. When I was growing up, jailbreak was a game kids played, it was like a combination of hide and seek and tag. So, lets talk about how jailbreaking and the i-phone.
Owners of the i-phone are now permitted to legally unlock their devices so they can run software devices that have not been approved by the Apple Corporation. This practice is commonly known as jailbreaking.
Unless users unlock their device they can only download apps from the I-phone store. Also, before this week Apple had to approve any application for the I-phone before it could be used.
Apple will still have some control over the phones however. Owners of jailbroken phones will not be able to enjoy all of the software upgrades that would be available to non-jailbroken phones. Apple also can void a warranty for doing so.
What does all this mean? Well I think it is huge. Mobile marketing is exploding in the higher education and business world. The I-phone is used by students and older consumers all over the world. Now a student can use an app of their choice to view companies websites or a college website.
Mobile Marketing is going to soar!
enjoy your night,
marketmpb
Good morning, are you having a good week so far?
There are a lot of concerns out there these days regarding social media. There is no concrete ROI tools to tell you how many friends on Twitter should bring “x” amount of revenue, etc. Here are some common obstacles that can hinder brands using social media.
The first big challenge is converting fans/followers into customers. It is important to look for your demographic audience in their niche areas. For example, you should use social media heavyweights such as Facebook and Twitter combining that with a college forum (if you are trying to draw students).
The next challenge for brands is increasing followers. Unless you are a Coke or Yamaha brand, you will not obtain a large amount of followers right away. The best thing to look at here to get down to the folks who really love your product. Also, if you are a smaller brand, do not pay attention to what the larger (more famous) brands are doing.
A big challenge for brands is creating an meaningful campaign. The important thing to keep in mind here is create a campaign with your audience in mind, not your own opinions, etc. Also, use a variety of means here including a blog, blog commenting, and videos.
enjoy your afternoon,
marketmpb
Good afternoon, are you enjoying your weekend?
In this down economy, it is very important to not make these mistakes, lets take a look at some ways to avoid these.
Consider marketing and advertising muscle and not fat, be very wary of cutting it. Be careful to manage your budget for the up an down times, this will allow you to ride out this wave of slow economic times. If you have not, then you make have to make cuts, always trim fat and not muscle!
Next don’t pursue customers you would not normally pursue. Stick to your core audience that you are pursuing and do your best to raise the value to your core demographic audience. If you try to broaden your product appeal, it can backfire on you by upsetting your core customer base.
This next thing is going to sound strange, but don’t discount! I think in good times or bad, you discount your price, you discount your product’s value. However, if you do this, do it deliberately and be very careful. You don’t want it to take years to recoup margin losses.
And finally, position yourselves to be the market leader when we come out of this economic situation. People are still going to need higher education, food, drink, chain saws, lawn equipment (just don’t buy John Deere with Intek engine) and clothing.
marketmpb
A great guest post that was sent to me by Elizabeth Kraus of myusearch.com, the leading college matchmaking service!
thanks Elizabeth, marketmpb
A Secret Shopper’s Report: Inside Admissions at the Leading For-Profit Colleges
Our company, myUsearch.com, the Honest College Matchmaker, is in the business of generating leads for colleges and lately we’ve noticed that some of our college clients have far better luck converting our student leads than others. We started to wonder whether our student leads were not as qualified as we had assumed, but since all of our students are pre-qualified through the same 30-question college match quiz, it didn’t make sense that some schools would be receiving higher quality leads than others. Was it possible that it was the quality of the lead follow-up rather than the leads that was the problem? To find out, we decided to pose as a prospective student and call a sample of both for-profit and not-for-profit colleges. The results were astounding. We will be revealing the full secret shopper’s report in our upcoming free webinar (“free webinar” http://www.myusearch.com/Colleges/NewsandEvents/SecretShopperReportofForProfits/index.cfm), but here are just a few things we discovered.
We are still in the process of calling the not-for-profit colleges, but wanted to share the insight we’ve gained from the for-profit colleges first. This information should be valuable to both 1) for-profit colleges who can gain insight about their competitors and 2) not-for-profit colleges who – let’s face it – can no longer afford to ignore the marketing success of the for-profits. If you pay attention to what they are doing, you might just learn something.
The Experiment: We called six for-profit industry leaders: The University of Phoenix, Capella University, Westwood College, Keller Graduate School, Grand Canyon University and Everest University. In order to fairly compare these schools, the following constants were set in place:
1) All colleges were initially called at 10pm Eastern Standard Time
2) The fictitious student:
a. was interested in an online MBA program
b. received a bachelor of business in marketing from the University of Colorado in 2003
c. planned to pay for college with her own savings
d. was hoping to gain more operations and finance knowledge to secure a more central managerial position
While I don’t think it’s fair to name any names, my experience with two of the schools was excellent, fair with two schools, and absolutely atrocious with two schools. So what separated the good from the bad? Again, we will be revealing the complete report in our free webinar, but here are just a few things that made a big impact on my impression of the school:
1) Response Speed: With two schools, I was quickly pre-screened and connected directly to an admissions person who could answer my questions. With the other schools, I was put on hold for five to seven minutes only to find out that no one was available to take my call. Since response speed (“response speed” http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/New-Leads360-Research-Identifies-Speed-Call-as-Critical-Driver-Sales-Lead-Conversion-1157561.htm) is a crucial part of the process, this is a big issue.
2) Pre-Screening Process: Each of the schools responded to my phone call by fielding me through a pre-screening process in which they collected my contact information and asked me some quick questions in order to field me to the correct person. This pre-qualification is also an important success factor; however two of the schools were unable to access my information when I called back later. If you ask your student prospects to take the time to give you their information, you better make sure that you keep it.
3) Quality of Admissions Reps: The admissions reps at three of the schools I spoke with were intelligent, personable and positive people who seemed to actually believe in their product. The other admissions reps just wanted to move me through the process as quickly as possible and gave the impression that they were going through the motions to collect a paycheck.
4) Product Positioning and Differentiation: As I mentioned, I asked each of the schools to tell me why someone should choose their school over the competition and with three of the schools, I received very definitive answers without hesitation. The other schools struggled a bit and in one sad instance, the rep just stumbled around for a while and then told me she would need to do some research and get back to me.
To find out more about the results of my little experiment, consider attending our free webinar on August 3rd at 3pm Eastern: Secret Shopper’s Report: Inside Admissions at the Leading For-Profit Colleges (“Secret Shopper’s Report: Inside Admissions at the Leading For-Profit Colleges” http://www.myusearch.com/Colleges/NewsandEvents/SecretShopperReportofForProfits/index.cfm)This process was very enlightening and I think the information I’ve gathered could be very helpful for both the colleges that consider themselves to be peers of these schools as well as many of the traditional colleges who are slowly starting to re-evaluate their marketing practices. Oh, and as I mentioned, I will not be revealing the specifics of the experiences I had with each school, but if you are an authorized employee from one of these schools, I’d be happy to discuss specifics with you at ekraus at myusearch dot com. We hope to see you at the event!
A great article by Valeria Mantoni ….. enjoy!
marketmpb
(source: conversationagent.com)
Twitter can be a pretty daunting place. Now that it has become somewhat known and a celebrity in its own right, other celebrities want to associate themselves with it. Many companies and brands are now on Twitter as well. Having a Twitter account may be all the rage, however there is something to be said for the power of focus.
Consider this - Twitter is
Keeping up with it all is not impossible, yet it may be foolish, especially if you are planning a strategy around your participation. Your focus then depends on what you want to accomplish. We've discussed business uses and we asked if it was time for corporations to have a presence on Twitter. We also talked about the role of Twitter in brand management.
While when I asked why you joined Twitter, many people talked about joining the conversation, sharing resources, and meeting others as the top reasons for doing so, I do wonder if there is a measurement associated with that goal. And if it matters.
One of the reasons for my participation is connecting people, so I work on finding ways to make introductions during conversations to help others build a network and find content/ideas.
Companies and organizations generally join for slightly different reasons. Some of which are:
However, once people sign up as representatives of an organization, especially if that company does not have a clear idea of what they are trying to accomplish, people tend not to participate actively. One of the reasons might be that Twitter does not scale well in commercial terms before your stream becomes a string of commerce.
A company wants to market and is trying not to spam, yet representatives may not have the time to dedicate effort and attention to learning through observation and experimentation. All learning happens through participation. This is especially important for social media - emphasis on social. See for example how media people are using Twitter.
The burning question is about who you should follow. I'd suggest people (and/or organizations):
The other thought is that as you use the tool and discover other ways to engage with people there, your strategy may change. What started as an experiment to observe and learn could become an important part of your integrated marketing communications.
There has been quite an evolution with blogging, why wouldn't there be one with Twitter? One of the important layers online in addition to content and community is commerce. Twitter as a CRM tool would be quite messy, however. It needs to be integrated by respecting its intended role and usefulness.
How do you decide who you continue to follow? I follow people who engage in conversations with me and provide an opportunity to interact.
Because conversations between many parties are really hard to track on Twitter proper, it takes more effort to organize such opportunities. I've worked on many formats so far, and have yet to crack the code. Friend Feed is better for that, but it has not reached critical mass for me.
However you decide what your strategy is, do dive in - there's no better way to figure it out, than to do it for yourself. And do pay extra care to being clear and explicit on Twitter, because the truth is 140 characters.
There are several key things that you should do and not do when it comes to social media, lets take a look at the worst mistakes you can make when it comes to social media.
The first thing is not promoting your current social media initiatives. The best place to put links to your social media is on your homepage in order for them to easily connect with you. The other helpful thing you can do is add your social links to your email signature and business cards.
The next mistake you can make is sending the wrong message. For example, you are a student looking for some information on the University of Notre Dame and in the Twitter updates you see admissions folks talking about what they did such as being at McDonalds or Starbucks or using foul language, which is a huge no-no. They should be talking about the upcoming football pep-rally or the new Eddy Street Commons area near campus or application deadlines. Always remember that this is not a personal social media account, you are there to promote the school (or business).
A big mistake that is often made is using social media just to get a back link to your home page. This is not an effective use of social media because people will see right through it. In other words, make sure you to use the accounts you set up and update with fresh content.
The next mistake is being overly concerned with ROI, and not engaging with students. For example, if you are a business do you always send out coupons with tracking codes? Is that all you are doing? Aren't there other ways you can engage them? Certainly, talk of a new product of new class would be wise.
enjoy the afternoon,
marketmpb
Good afternoon, how was your weekend? Mine was rough, my John Deere tractor sounded like it was going to blow up and started smoking while cutting grass. It could be a costly one, I will keep you updated!
I read with interest that the location based social media site foursquare.com wants to sell their data to the major search engines. Foursquare would provide a stream of check in activity to its partners, who could then enable users to search for restaurants and bars receiving a lot of visits in their area.
Foursquare is currently up to 2 million users which makes it at least interesting for the search engines to look at.
As a marketer there are some great possibilities. A personalized “xyz” company or university badge from a certain check in location would be ideal. Lets say for example you are Miami University (Ohio) and you are targeting Cincinnati, Ohio. Why not create a Miami University badge for people checking in at metro Cincinnati? This certainly would distinct Miami University to the high school students in Cincinnati.
It would work the same for a business. If you are targeting 50 miles from your restaurant, create a 5 Guys Burgers and Fries badge (one of my favorite restaurants) for the metropolitan area you are in.
Once this data is sold, you can only imagine how the SEO would improve for the places that are checked in.
marketmpb
Good evening, did you have a great weekend?
The most important thing for a new or an existing blog is blog promotion, you need readers! I have been lucky to grow my traffic rather quickly, so I wanted to share some of things that you can do to grow your blog’s traffic.
The first thing you should do is promote your blog using social media websites. You can do this many different ways. A few things that I have done is link any new blog post to my twitter followers and set up an auto rss feed to my facebook friends, which automatically updates anytime I post something new. Also, consider using linking your new blog posts with websites such as delicious.com, stumbleupon.com, and digg.com. For me, digg.com seems to bring over the most readers.
The next thing to consider is doing link bait posts whereas you post a few lines on a websites and create the link back to your blog for the “rest of the story”. It is important here to take a look at high traffic websites to do this, you want to try and get as many readers as you can!
Creating a compelling or “attention getting” headline is a great way to get attention to your blog. Before you write your article, do a Google search to see if there is any other articles out there with the same title, if not go with it!
It is very important to “tag” all of your posts as well so when your blog does receive attention, the search engines can find your content rather easily.
Get the leaders involved with your blog. On the right side of my blog you will notice a blog roll with some of the industry leaders. When possible, interview one of the bloggers and turn it into a Q/A and post it into your blog.
Most importantly, make sure to comment on high traffic websites and other influential blogs. This is what I call “free advertising” and it really does work. However, make sure to make your comment thoughtful and not just something to put your blog link out there.
enjoy your evening,
marketmpb
Happy Friday to you!
If this was not an ad, it should have been for Everybody Loves Raymond, hey its Friday, why not keep it light!
Enjoy,
marketmpb
Good morning, are you enjoying your day?
As you look at social media, certainly there are some tremendous positives, but also negatives associated with it. Social media continues to grow at rapid pace and we are all still learning.
Social media is providing “real time” intelligence into consumers (and students) thoughts and actions. At this point, there has never been so much data available for marketers to look at.
The challenge here would be to decipher what is a person’s real thoughts are and “noise”. Ever see someone trash a school or business over and over with an axe to grind?
Social media is still a great way to get people to talk about your brand in a cost effective way and engaging a large number of folks in an interactive environment. A lot of word-of-mouth recommendations can and do occur with social media.
However, there can be negatives as well and you really should have a person in place to monitor this. This individual can be in place to turn negative messages into positive ones. However, if this does go unchecked or unnoticed, the negative comments can snowball rather quickly. Do you have a person in place to monitor your social media?
enjoy the afternoon,
marketmpb
In hearing all of the tributes to George Steinbrenner today, I thought college marketers need to be more like him. Now, I will be the first one to say George Steinbrenner has his moments where he was “over the top” but higher ed marketers need more of his fire.
In my previous experience as a vendor, I talked to a lot of individuals who were squeamish about competing for students, was ok in finishing in second place, and fearful. Does that sound like the American spirit? Nope.
Marketers need not be afraid of beating out the competition for students (businesses understand this very well). I think higher education is always slow to transition over compared to business, but none the less. It was always supremely frustrating to marketers I spoke with who had come over from the business world. I could tell stories and more stories on that one, sometimes with curse words!
Do not be afraid to be the best and do not be afraid to beat the competition. As you know, I think colleges should be run more like a business!
marketmpb
More curse words on TV? I am not sure.. some breaking news from the LA Times.
source: (latimes.com)
By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
July 13, 2010 | 12:03 p.m.
la-fi-fcc-indecency-20100714
Reporting from Washington —
A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government's longstanding prohibition against indecency on broadcast television and radio, ruling that the policy was "unconstitutionally vague" and created a "chilling effect" that violated the 1st Amendment protection of free speech.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York is a major victory for the broadcast TV networks, which jointly sued the Federal Communications Commission in 2006 in the wake of a tougher crackdown on indecency over the airwaves.
The suit stemmed from an FCC ruling in March 2006 that unscripted expletives uttered impromptu on live broadcasts, such as awards shows, violated indecency rules and were subject to fines.
The same court found in 2007 that the FCC's policy on such so-called "fleeting expletives" was "arbitrary and capricious." The FCC appealed the ruling and the Supreme Court upheld the crackdown on fleeting expletives that began in 2004.
But the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling was focused on the way the FCC enacted its tougher policy and sent the case back to the New York court to decide the broader issue of the constitutionality of the ban on profanity on the broadcast airwaves.
That policy dates back to a 1978 Supreme Court decision stemming from the radio broadcast of comedian George Carlin's "seven dirty words" monologue. The FCC began a tougher crackdown on indecency in 2004 under the Bush administration.
Congress voted in 2006 to boost the maximum fine for each violation tenfold, to $325,000, in the aftermath of singer Janet Jackson's so-called wardrobe malfunction during a performance in the Super Bowl halftime show in which one of her breasts was briefly exposed on live TV. Each station that airs an indecency violation can be hit with the fine, putting networks on the hook for as much as $35 million for each incident.
"Under the current policy, broadcasters must choose between not airing or censoring controversial programs and risking massive fines or possibly even loss of their licenses, and it is not surprising which option they choose," U.S. Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler wrote in Tuesday's decision. "Indeed, there is ample evidence in the record that the FCC's indecency policy has chilled protected speech."
The court cited the failure of several CBS affiliates not to air the Peabody Award-winning " 9/11" documentary, which contained some expletives in audio footage from firefighters responding to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Fox Broadcasting Co. cheered the ruling.
"We have always felt that the government's position on fleeting expletives was unconstitutional," the network said. "While we will continue to strive to eliminate expletives from live broadcasts, the inherent challenges broadcasters face with live television, coupled with the human element required for monitoring, must allow for the unfortunate isolated instances where inappropriate language slips through."
Good morning! Here is the newly released white paper from Noel Levitz looking at enrollment trends for this year… enjoy, marketmpb
As I read over the report, it was very interesting to see some trends that were occurring. First, most of the smaller institutions did not meet their enrollment goals whereas the larger institutions did meet their goals.
Yield rates for public institutions rose this year while their public counterparts saw a decline, you think tuition had anything to do with that? I am sure the economy did. Also, smaller institutions in the midwest region seemed to take the hardest hit. There could be several factors for that as well. The midwest economy is especially in the dumps with losses to manufacturing, etc… there would be less money for financial aid as well.
Higher Education Institutions did admit more students this year however, the numbers ranged from 13-17% more admitted students than May 2009. As you can imagine most institutions saw around a 5% rise in applications, hence more admitted students.
Overall, there was some very interesting strategies used by institutions to recruit students. These include increased telephone and email contacts, more personalized communications, increased use of social media, more contact by non-admissions folks (alumni, current parents, and even the president of the university).
A trend that I saw over and over was messaging about financial aid and those particular opportunities within an institution, highlighting that the economy and costs are still on everyone's mind!
marketmpb
In my time as a vendor (for those that didn’t know I used to work for a higher education vendor), I consistently saw colleges not do enough marketing. Colleges would take stabs at mostly meaningless branding, without leads or bought leads without branding. What are they thinking?
The most often used excuse I heard was not enough budget, but I contend that schools need to be run more like a business. This is exactly what the “for profits” are doing at this point, they are being run like a business.
I think that some non-traditional think they are “beyond” or above marketing. However, the facts are clear and that there is a serious population decline with high school students, and a serious decline in faith-based students. Where is the college revenues going to come from if their student population continues to decline?
The thing to remember about marketing and branding your university is that it is not an overnight process. I would consider having an firm come in (Noel Levitz, etc) and letting them make a recommendation. It is very unwise to take a stab at branding for a year, without having some data to back it up.
Now, there are are more ways than ever to market your college or university, and business for that matter. You have the social media outlets to engage your consumers, and battle any negative publicity. Also, you have the traditional online directories and print opportunities. Consider using a combination of all of the above, however you need to do more marketing!!!!
marketmpb
Good evening, and I hope the day was tight!
I wanted to share some more ideas that have helped boost traffic to my blog and help you boost traffic to yours.
First, give your readers something substantial to read. I like to make sure I give people a laugh or write or post an article that you can take something away and say “hey I learned something today”. Keep your readers in mind when you are writing your blog posts.
I think its always important to create new and fresh content. Now, I probably overdue it, but you should at least plan on writing new content once per week. This will also help you in your search engine optimization as well.
The next thing to think about is your keywords and not to overdue them. It is important to put your keywords in the beginning and end of each of your blog posts, and not all through out.
Also, when coming up with your keywords, try to use a 3-4 word key phrase, otherwise a one word keyword would be way too competitive.
enjoy the evening!
marketmpb
Sad story out of New Mexico…
get your breaking news here…. marketmpb
(source: associated press)
Jul 12, 5:08 PM EDT
Police: 3 dead, 4 wounded in Albuquerque shooting
By SUE MAJOR HOLMES
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan
Watch Related Video
Six Dead in Shooting at Albuquerque Office
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A gunman opened fire at an Albuquerque fiber optics manufacturer Monday, killing two people and wounding four others before turning the gun on himself in what police said was a domestic violence dispute.
Earlier Monday, police Chief Ray Schultz said there were six dead.
He explained at a news conference later that responding officers had seen people down and believed they were dead, then continued into the building to search for the gunman. Officers who arrived later determined several shooting victims had survived.
Schultz also said there was confusion at University of New Mexico hospital, where one victim died but was reported as two deaths.
The shooting at Emcore Corp. appeared to involve the 37-year-old gunman's girlfriend, Schultz said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A gunman opened fire at an Albuquerque fiber optics manufacturer Monday, killing three people and wounding eight others before turning the gun on himself in what police said was a domestic violence dispute.
Earlier Monday, police Chief Ray Schultz said there were six dead.
He explained at a news conference later that responding officers had seen people down and believed they were dead, then continued into the building to search for the gunman. Officers who arrived later determined several shooting victims had survived.
Schultz also said there was confusion at University of New Mexico hospital, where one victim died but was reported as two deaths.
The shooting at Emcore Corp. appeared to involve the 37-year-old gunman's wife or girlfriend, Schultz said.
Good morning, and I hope you enjoyed the weekend! Did you get everything done you wanted to?
I would like to take a look at getting you started marketing your college or business using the hot new social media site called Foursquare.
First, if your business or college is not added, add it! If you happen to be in a large city than chances are it might already be added for you. You can do this by clicking the button “add this place”. It would be best to give as much information as possible about your entity.
Next, add your contacts from Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Another tip would be to add friends specifically from the location that your business is located. Remember to always think in terms of your business or college.
It is very important to reward those who check into your business, offer them a unique prize different than any of your other marketing efforts. Do consider doing additional paid advertising with Foursquare as well.
Make sure to offer exclusive tips only available through Foursquare, such as college visitation announcements, 20% off dinner, etc… give people reasons to keep coming to your Foursquare page.
Lastly, get the word out! You can link your Foursquare page to all of your other social media outlets you are using. It is also important to “shout” out occasionally to keep people aware of your profile being updated.
enjoy the morning,
matt (marketmpb)
(great article on mashable.com regarding search engine basics), enjoy! marketmpb
source: www.mashable.com
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
For millions of websites, publishers, and online businesses, search is still the king. While social media may have the media’s attention and Twitter(
) and Facebook(
) are garnering a lot of the hype, search still trumps them when it comes to driving traffic and being discovered by potential new customers.
Because of the importance of search traffic to online business, there is an entire industry dedicated to improving websites’ visibility in search engine results: Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
SEM is a complex topic that focuses on search engine optimization (SEO), but also includes the use of paid advertising and contextual advertisements in order to bring a website’s articles or product pages to the top of search engine result pages (SERPs).
While I could write dozens of articles on the art of search engine marketing and SEO, I’m going to focus on some of the key issues and best practices for optimizing your site for search.
Before we dig into search engine marketing, it’s important to note that not everybody agrees on the definition. This has caused confusion among search professionals for years.
Essentially, there are two ways of defining SEM: either it is an “umbrella” term that encompasses SEO, paid search, contextual advertisements, and paid inclusions, or it only covers paid advertising, inclusions, and search and is separate from SEO.
Organizations such as Forrester Research and the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization believe that SEM is an umbrella term that encompasses both SEO and paid search. For the purposes of this article, I’m using that definition.
Defining SEM is fine, but what matters is this: what simple things can you do to make your website search-optimized?
With help from Chicago-based SEO consultant Carolyn Shelby, currently the Web Experience Manager at the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago , I’ve come up with a short list of tasks that can quickly boost your website for SEM.
1. Familiarize yourself with SEO: The most important component of search engine marketing is making your site easily discoverable in search results, and that requires a basic understanding of SEO. You don’t have to buy a book or take a class on the subject, though: SEOmoz has a fantastic beginner’s guide to SEO that will get you up-to-speed.
2. Grade your website: Hubspot offers a tool called Website Grader, which will provide you with a quick assessment of where your website is optimized for SEM and where it is not.
3. Make the quick fixes: While you could spend months optimizing your website for SEM, make sure to get the little things out of the way first. Focus on what Website Grader says you’re lacking (e.g. meta tags, keywords in your title tags, etc.) and then go from there.
4. Use SEM-optimized CMS software and plugins: Unless you’re a large company with the money and need to customize every aspect of your website, you’re likely using a content management system (CMS) such as WordPress(), Drupal(), or Zen Cart. The good thing about using one of these tools is that they come optimized for search engines.
Do your research: choose software with good SEM features and a plug-in system so you can enhance it. For example, WordPress has the All in One SEO Pack, a great plug-in for optimizing your website. If you run an ecommerce website, Wikipedia() has a good comparison of SEO features for different shopping cart software.
5. Test(
) your PPC and landing page strategies: Another major component of search engine marketing is PPC, or Pay Per Click advertising. By putting your ads in search engines, you can drive traffic to your website. Even if you have good SEO and organic search, paid placement still helps. However, that’s only half of the story: you need to convert those visitors into customers or regular users.
It’s a smart idea to test which keywords and advertisements drive the most traffic (keep track of the stats), and it’s just as important to track what happens once those visitors arrive. Google() offers tools such as Google Analytics() to help you track those visitors and see whether they are staying on your site or bouncing away.
6. Inbound links are still king: This quote from my discussion with Carolyn Shelby really stood out to me:
“I would love to say that the most important thing to get a site to rank well is having superior content, or standards compliant HTML, or even a magic percentage of certain keywords, but I can’t. Unfortunately, you can overcome a lot of really basic flaws with any website if you have enough inbound links (with the right anchor text) pointing at the site.”
The truth of the matter is that inbound links are still the top way to boost your rankings in search results, so partnering with other websites, asking for links, and creating great content that others want to link to should be your top priority.
Good afternoon and hope you are enjoying your Saturday!
In this culture of Enron, BP, and others, I thought it would nice to take a look at some ethics in marketing. Wouldn’t be nice if all companies were ethical?
First, always reward sound judgment regarding ethical marketing practices by your employers, make a positive example out of them and make it known that their actions fit in with the culture of your company (or university).
Always lead by example, and make sure your subordinates are aware of your ethical behavior. The rewards you will garner from this is that all of your employers will live by the “code” you set forth.
Require all of your marketing proposals to spell out and address any possible ethical considerations and certainly give any credit due to the author(s) of the proposal.
Lastly, create a ethics code specifically geared toward the marketing department, on top of the general company code. This will specifically address any possible ethical situations that could possibly arise when campaigns are done.
Enjoy the weekend,
marketmpb
(great article from Laura’s Marketing Blog, enjoy! marketmpb)
(source marketing.about.com)
I love when we coin phrases and they become the buzz, but when it really comes down to it a lot of people don't know what's meant by the said phrase. I'm going to pick on one of those phrases today and it's Integrated Marketing.
Our marketing world is shifting that is no secret. Everywhere we look we see something about integrated marketing, but I still see companies that don't embrace that approach. Integrated marketing is the holistic approach to communication in marketing. It's making sure that you are being consistent in your marketing both online and offline. In other words - well it's important.
A few years ago there was a marketing campaign that was launched in my area and I was always amazed that they did not use an integrated approach to gain more bang for their buck. I often use it as an example of how integrated marketing could of worked and creating a user experience that perhaps would have increased the companies overall investment.
I'm going to share that story with you today in hopes that you will learn what integrated marketing is and why it is important to your business - big or small it doesn't matter - integrated marketing can increase your overall impact.
Good afternoon, how about some breaking sports news for you…..
enjoy,
matt (marketmpb)
Derek Fisher is said to still have hopes of playing next season for the Lakers but contract negotiations are moving at a slow pace. (Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
By Broderick Turner
July 9, 2010 | 10:02 p.m.
Derek Fisher and the Lakers have reached an impasse in contract negotiations, and the free-agent guard has flown to Miami to meet with Heat President Pat Riley on Saturday to see whether a deal can be reached to Fisher's liking.
Fisher departed Los Angeles on Friday for Miami, said a source close to Fisher who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, because he wants to play for a team that has a shot at winning the NBA championship.
The source said Fisher would like to remain with the Lakers and that negotiations are amicable, but that Fisher wants to explore his options, especially now that Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh have joined forces on a Heat team some consider one of the favorites to win the NBA title.
But with each of the three stars agreeing to a multiyear deals just under the maximum of $16.6 million a year, and with the Heat nearing a five-year deal for almost $30 million with free-agent sharpshooter Mike Miller and close to an agreement with free agent Udonis Haslem, Miami can probably offer Fisher only the veteran's minimum of $1.352 million.
"He's there to hear [Riley] out," the source said. "I think he's going to take everything under consideration before he makes a decision."
Fisher, who will be 36 next month, earned $5 million last season in the final year of a three-year deal.
When the free-agency period began June 30 at 9:01 p.m. West Coast time, Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak reached out to Fisher first. But no deal has been reached.
"We're having ongoing discussions," Kupchak said Friday. "Both parties want to be back, and hopefully that will happen. We are continuing a dialogue. Hopefully at some point and time we get something done. It's not moving as quick as we all would hope."
The Lakers signed guard Steve Blake to a four-year, $16-million deal, but he's the only ballhandling guard they have under contract.
The Lakers are leaning toward not bringing back guard Shannon Brown. Among the free-agent guards still available are Luke Ridnour, Earl Watson, Shaun Livingston and Javaris Crittenton.
Meanwhile, Friday night in Miami, James, Wade and Bosh arrived in front of 13,000 fans. The new teammates were lifted into the air on a forklift, with James dressed in a white Heat uniform for the first time.
"It feels right," James said. "To be in this position, to wear the Heat uniform, everything is nice. We're going to make the world know that the Heat is back."
Etc.
Kupchak said the Lakers are negotiating one-year deals for assistant coaches Frank Hamblen, Brian Shaw and Jim Cleamons that the GM hopes will get done in about a week. Kupchak said the Lakers first want to get Coach Phil Jackson's deal signed.
"That should be done soon," Kupchak said. "We've had discussions [with our assistants]. I don't see any problems."
broderick.turner@latimes.com
twitter.com/BA_Turner
Times staff writer Mike Bresnahan and Times wire services contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
I grew up with his marketing campaign, very funny!
I hope you are enjoying your weekend…
marketmpb
As much as he was criticized for the spectacle that Lebron James created last night, he is the biggest branding story in the last month…. front page of Cleveland Plain Dealer: enjoy, marketmpb
(source clevelandplaindealer.com)
(the text beside his hand says “7 years and no rings”)
Good morning, and are you ready for the weekend?
I hope are marketing well this morning!
There is no question that in 2009 we saw huge growth in social media across the country, so what could social media look like in the second half of the year?
Your company (or university) will have a social media policy. These policies will govern employee behavior, your entity will formalize what is appropriate and not appropriate in social media usage.
Currently there is around 70% of companies that ban social media usage for their employees during the day? This is going to continue to fuel the already explosive usage of mobile applications. Have you been noticing that smokers have been using those breaks to update a Facebook page with their smart phone?
The next thing is social business and Foursquare immediately comes to mind. As I posted a couple days ago Foursquare is a game like social media site that focuses in on local bars, restaurants, etc. The members of the site are incentivized to participate through various badges and awards. I look for business to capitalize on this by advertising with certain badges (lets say a TGI Fridays or Honda badge) exclusively for participants in a certain area. Social business is the next big thing!
Social media is going to start to be used more and more for things other than sales. For example, Best Buy is currently using social media for customer service. Has your cable or satellite provider offered to solve your problems over Twitter yet? This is also a great way for businesses or universities to cut costs through free social media accounts.
enjoy the morning,
marketmpb
Good morning!
I saw this article from the Wall Street Journal that was very interesting because of the implications for Chinese students and consumers to check out American businesses. enjoy! matt (marketmpb)
(source: wsj.com)
BEIJING—Google Inc. said Friday the Chinese government renewed a license it needed to continue using its Chinese Web address, marking a compromise between the company and Chinese regulators since Google decided to stop cooperating with censorship requirements.
The company updated a blog post by its Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, saying it is "very pleased that the government has renewed" its Internet Content Provider license, and "we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China."
The Ministry of Industry and Information Industry spokesman declined to comment, but said he expects a notice related to Google's status to be posted on the ministry's website soon.
Google users and advertisers in China, which has the most Internet users in the world, were concerned that the website would become inaccessible since the company announced in January that it was no longer willing to comply with China's self-censorship rules because of the government's tightening limits on free speech, and because of a series of cyberattacks that Google said originated in China.
The company's content license was a key concern because Google needs it in order to use its Chinese Web address, which is overseen by authorities. If its rights to use the Web address are ever taken away, users would have to access Google.com.hk or Google's other international Web sites directly, but authorities can limit access to those websites.
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The announcement comes almost two weeks after the Internet giant said it made changes to its Chinese Web site because authorities criticized its decision in March to redirect all traffic to its Chinese domain, Google.cn, to an uncensored website in Hong Kong to get around government censorship requirements.
On June 28, Google created a new Google.cn page that presented users with a message in Chinese that asks users to remember its new Web address, Google.com.hk. Rather than being automatically redirected to the new site, users must click on an image to be taken to the company's unfiltered Chinese website. Mr. Drummond announced that day that the company had resubmitted its application for the content license after making the change.
Google said China renewed its Internet license and that the company looks forward to continuing to provide products to "our users in China." Aaron Back and Evan Newmark discuss.
A Google spokeswoman said that the government's renewal of Google's content provider license means that the changes made to Google.cn were deemed satisfactory. Google is required to renew its license annually, though the license technically expires in 2012.
Good morning, and I hope it has been so far!
Here is the latest E-Expectations Report from Noel-Levitz, you saw it hear first!
Here is the download:
Scrolling Toward Enrollment- Web Site Content and the E-Expectations of College-Bound Seniors
(source: noellevitz.com)
As I read the report, there were some fascinating trends in there, and I am a big fan of Noel Levitz, consider letting them come to your campus!
In this report there was 1000 seniors surveyed on their internet usage to find their schools. The first piece is very interesting, concluding that search engines are still very powerful, especially Google. The report stated that 41% of college seniors found a college’s home page via Google and 38% found them through college matching website such as “mycollegeoptions” or “the college board”, which are considered the leaders in college matching right now.
As the report goes on, it is very clear that students like an easy to navigate website. 88% of students would drop a school from their choices if they felt the website did not deliver them the information they need. Is your website user friendly?
Another key issue is the economy, and students are very concerned about this. Does your website do enough to address financial concerns? You need to make sure to address cost and value concerns on your website.
The next part was very poignant regarding website design. The results were split on “young, edgy” website design versus “traditional” website design. The desire for more interaction on a website was higher for African American/Latino students as well.
Seniors are also very high on social media. Students surveyed indicated that 70% of students felt that colleges should have a presence on social media and 75% felt that schools should create “private communities” for students to interact with.
How are you using social media?
enjoy your day,
matt (marketmpb)
Good evening, and I hope you enjoyed the day.
Most recently, the website “foursquare.com” has been creating a lot of buzz. Have you heard of it? Do you know what it is?
Foursquare is a location-based social network site that encourages you to check in using a mobile application. It seems to be a combination of Google Latitude, Twitter, and Facebook. A person can then write a short message (similar to Tweet) stating where they are and their status.
In the past I have written about how invaluable this unsolicited information can be for marketers in business or higher education. For example, if you are an admissions counselor trying to attract a student, check out his foursquare page. If he or she likes a certain chain of restaurants , you can use this information in your pitch. The marketer can look at his foursquare posts and use them to his schematic advantage!
The users can also earn points for badges based on how many times they check in, etc.. The other interesting aspect to this is that the owners of the social network site are gathering unsolicited information about bars and restaurants. If I owned a business or marketed for a university, I would inquire about getting a badge made with my entity’s name on it.
Mobile Marketing at its best!
matt (marketmpb)
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