Think eBiz; thoughts on eBusiness

Influencer's: Enabling Brand Building and Sales

What makes online marketing so vibrant and exciting is all the new "buzz words" that come into play. The latest that I have latched onto is called - "Influencer's".

"Influencer's" is one that we at Think-ebiz believe represents a major aspect of Web 2.0. Simply put, Web 2.0 is about fostering a conversation and relationship with your customers and prospects online. Influencer's is how one person can affect the branding and buying power of another person through web site enablers.

Recently, I began working with an innovative start-up called StickySurf, where we defined the value proposition as being an "influencer" for B2C (and even B2B) web sites. StickySurf is a tool that can be added to an existing web site that enables easy and efficient conversations with your friends and co-workers.

The premise is simple: You are visiting a web site and notice a product or service that could benefit a friend or co-worker. A digital camera, a unique European Travel Tour, or a new software product that could benefit your Mfg group. StickySurf or a viral enabled web site can help enhance the purchase power of the web site by bringing new visitors onboard - with a friendly recommendation.

Influencer's can exist in other more traditional mechanisms, such as forums and eCommunity advice and image sharing. A web site that enables the visitors to share experiences could increase awareness and sales. A travel web site that allows people to share pictures and advice, and experiences could influence others to sign up for the next tour.

We all know the power of a personal recommendation. Web 2.0 is enabling this capability online, and this is exciting and powerful. Hopefully I am influencing others to consider enabling this capability on their own web property.

Paris Hilton? Google? Libby? Katrina, Brittany Spears, White Sox; a blog title experiment

I read a recent treatise on blog titles and traffic spikes at my ole stompin ground: DigitalGrit. As we know, blogs are great vittles for the search spider; rich content frequently updated. So the question is, will placing some highly topical keywords within my blog and in the title, such as Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Chicago White Sox, Google, Google & Google and Scooter Libby cause a marked increase in traffic?

Of course visitors will be highly disappointed that the Paris sex tapes or Brittany's baby pictures, nor the Google record earnings nor the transcript of Libby's indictment - nor the latest news on Katrina aftermath will be found on this blog. But maybe, just maybe a few new readers will stay around to see what I write next. Hmmmm  Harriet Miers? Iraq War? Podcasting? 

I'll let you know the results.

<<<  The answer is not really. As one of the commenters pointed out, the other side of the coin is relevancy. If my blog was about Baseball, then the use of White Sox would provide for a spike. White Sox is a highly topical word due to their World Series success. However, my site is about online marketing. Not a high degree of relevance with the White Sox.  The morale to the story; remain relevant and they will come  <grin>.

Quick update (1/2/2006): My tracking software reports that this blog entry has been found/read in a high number of Brittany Spear web searches. In fact, we reached page three of MSN search for Brittany Spears Baby (and page one for brittany spears new baby).  Interesting that all of these results came from MSN Search.  Does that speak to MSN search relevancy? I'll let you decide.

Podcasting; a viable online marketing vehicle

I'll admit to being slow off the mark on Podcasting. Now I load a dozen 'cast onto my iPod and listen during my commute into the city. These include BusinessWeek's Cover Story review, Danny Sullivan's The Daily Searchcast, CBS's NFL Today Hot Topic and Paul Colligan/Alex Mandossian's MarketingOnlineLive*.

iTunes has nearly 20,000 poscasts available; most not of any real value except to the 'caster themselves. However, Apple makes it easy to get on the list and to subscribe and receive updates. Other directories exist include Podcast.net, iPodder and Podcast Alley.

Great entertainment; but is this a viable online marketing channel? Can a Podcast create  sustainable monetization? The initial podcasts were nothing more than audio blogs. Even today, anyone with a microphone and a dream can be a 'caster. But will anyone listen in? Just like blogs, will anyone visit? Early bloggers were teenagers that used blogs to share their feelings and thoughts with their friends. Podcast has moved up the evolution scale (sorry creationist) very quickly and are now (or about to be) a big channel for business. Blogs may become big for business.

Read about the rush to Podcasting in the Wall Street Journal, "Is Anybody Out There?" by Sarah McBride and Nick Wingfield.

The same rules apply for Podcasters as with Blogs. If the message is self-serving, if the content is not updated frequently, if the speaker is boring, the audience will go away (or worse, bad mouth your attempt). I didn't find any corporate podcasts; but that is just a matter of time (let me know of any you find).

Can Podcasts be monetized? Google AdSense won't work (not yet atleast); so it's about sponsorship and voice-ads (think radio). It can also be subscriptions. At Audible you can subscribe to the daily Wall Street Journal, which provides verbal readings of key stories. And you don't need to learn how to fold a newspaper on the train (something I can never get right). You can also subscribe to educational podcasts, like The AffiliateGuy. For $47/month you gain access to exclusive content for Affiliate Marketers. Even Rush Limbaugh has his own fee-based Podcast.

The BusinessWeek Podcast contains a brief sponsor message, a 30 second spot. The balance of the 'cast is commercial free. And like Tivo (kinda) you can fast forward past the commercial on your iPod or other MP3 devices.

If you have interesting content to share and can establish a following; you can make money as a PodCaster. And if you are an advertiser looking to reach a hip new audience, maybe PodCasting is the way to go.

* I wrote Paul an email about his podcast, and imagine my surprise as I was riding the train hearing  my name over his 'cast. This shows the power of PodCasting as a two-way communications between the PodCaster and the audience (think comments in Blogs).

Blog Maps; cool

I don't know why I find this so cool, but I do; mapping other bloggers in your Geo area:

Get your Blog on the Map here...

Blogs and SEO Strategy; Your Advantage

Back in October we wrote about the power of Blogs as an search engine optimization (SEO) strategy (Think-eBiz 10/2004). Well it seems AdTech and a recent series of online newsletters are all abuzz about blogs and SEO. Maybe for once we were slightly ahead of the curve?

On Topic Content, frequently updated with plenty of links; these are the reason why a blog works so well in a search engine optimization strategy. These three reasons make up the main tenants of an effective SEO strategy!To their credit, these articles have gone further than my discussion; to clearly express the advantages and risks of a blog for your business. Make it an online commercial, and no one will pay attention. Update your content occasionally, and you will lose your audience to more frequently written sites. Even the search engine spiders will ignore you! Strike the right balance of news and information, and your website (naturally well linked from the blog) will garner the rewards.

How does your website reap the benefits of your blogs page rank? When the spider reads your well ranked blog and discovers a link to your related website, some of this page rank is shared with your site. This makes sense; if the blog speaks to a specific topic, and there is a link to your website, with the same or similar content; the spider will consider your website to be important.

One tip on the links to your website (from another website or blog), the hyperlink text should speak to your keyword phrase (your topic). If the link (the text written within the <a> tag) says "click here", then the spider will think your website is about clicks. Instead, structure your link in this manner:  Click here to learn about <a>Online Marketing and SEO</a>.

In a future article we will discuss how taking this single blog to the power of ten will give your website an intense SEO advantage, legally and ethically. We call this strategy; Blogsets.

Blogs and SEO, a winning partnership

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogs are hot! In the world of SEO, "content" is King and "linking strategy" is the Queen. Google is known to reward sites with highly relevant content with equally relevant linking. Well written and focused Blogs are well suited for both.

Here is why:

Assuming that the Blog is highly focused on a specific subject (i.e. Personal Financials), it will attract the attention of like-minded Bloggers. Like minded Bloggers add links to your site on their own site. Google rewards websites (a Blog is a website) that have links to other similar websites, by giving them a higher ranking. In SEO terms, this tells Google that your page is highly relevant for its assumed keyword. That's a good thing!

Website SEO isn't easy, so why not leverage a corporate Blog to enhance your own websites visibility. As an example, let's stay with the "personal finance" example. You’re a financial institution - so create an informational Blog with a strong call to action right on the Blog! Don't hide who you are, but give your readers worthwhile un-biased personal finance tips & suggestion. Establish a level of trust and present your readers with a "Contact an Acme Financial Consultant today for a free assessment". A call to action right on the Blog. Plus include a link to your company website as well. Thus, some SEO benefits for your website as well!