The Think eBiz Blog

Potential #Twitter Advertising: SuperTweets

As reported by Robert Scoble in his blog, Scobleizer, the COO of Twitter Dick Costolo said that Twitter was "going to turn on an advertising model". The challenge of course; how will advertising be presented and accepted on this 140 character social platform? Twitter culturally, has been free of advertising - a change might not be well received.

Mr. Scoble suggested the "Super Tweet", which is contextual advertising that is linked to a "tweet", yet is viewable ONLY when the reader clicks or hovers over the content. We had two reactions - wow, great idea...  and yet be careful how this is executed and implemented. 

First, the idea would have advertising that relates to the tweet content. Scoble uses the example of a tweet telling us what is happening - "I am going to see the movie 2012". An advertisement or link could be presented to Fandango or Coca-Cola (ie giving a coupon for a soda at participating theaters). And the ad would NOT be viewed unless the reader clicks or hovers over the tweet. Otherwise, we assume that the tweet looks like it does today (and we mean no hypertext or coloration to change the look of the tweet).

Where we have concerns:  Tweet content is - we believe - owned by the author. Twitter owns the platform, but the writer owns the content - and represents what he/she writes. Therefore, does Twitter have the "right" to present an ad placed on "my" content. We don't think so - unless, by agreement, we share in the ad revenue. If we agree to accept revenue, then we are deferring our content rights to Twitter. That is not a bad idea - sharing revenue ala Google Adsense - if it is the authors choice.

Besides the revenue option, the Tweet owner should have a say in what ads are presented with their content. The rationale is easy - an ad that resides with "my" content could be construed to be an endorsement by me.  For instance, we don't drink soda, so why would we allow a Coca-Cola ad on our content? And what about political ads? Liquor ads? What if we are employed for Ford, and a Honda ad is presented on our tweet? 

Another idea is to present the author with the option of opting out of specific ad categories.

The SuperTweet would be primarily on the twitter.com web site (which is seeing a dramatic drop off of users - so other platforms would have to access the advertising API - and presumable also share in the revenue. Thus once again - the 3rd party Twitter product companies are further enriched at Twitter's expense.

Our conclusion: We believe the idea of SuperTweets could be very powerful and finally give a monetization model for Twitter - yet it would only gain acceptance with revenue sharing and/or opt-out options for the content owner.

Post Note: In an article that included an interview with the founder of Twitter, Biz Stone and Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, Biz dispells the notion of advertsing on Twitter. In this article, 3News "Twitter to Follow Google's lead", it was reported:

"But following a new round of funding, Stone seems in no rush to go down the advertising route which has been so successful for the search company Google."

So - is "Supertweet" or any other kind of advertising on Twitter really coming - or is there a major disconnect between Biz and his COO, Costolo?

Web 3.0 : really - are we past Web 2.0 already

Web 3.0 has crept into the conversation - what is Web 3.0?  We will ponder this and report back to you soon. However - we believe Web 2.0 (which is a bit of an overused and worn out term) still has some life left .... viva la Social Media.

#Twitter now asks "What's Happening?" (#w2e, #hashtag)

Are you sitting? Twitter made a change... in some ways a big change. No longer do you Tweet about "What are you doing?", now the question posed is : "What's Happening?".

Tweeters (those that Tweet on Twitter) have been bypassing the previous question, so it just makes sense to change the question to match how the massive number of users use this social media platform. The people have spoken- er tweeted. 

Does it really make a difference? In the old version (as of yesterday), you might Tweet (answer):

"I am enjoying a nice cup of coffee at Starbucks".

Yet now when asked, What's Happening? You might reply...

"I am enjoying a nice cup of coffee at Starbucks".

We might have suggested "Write what you want, but keep it brief please".

Ok, you may now resume your life and be sure to tell us all...  "What's happening?". If you want to know what is happening in my humble world, i am @sph001. I'll keep it brief.

#hashtags: Creating a Viral Buzz on Twitter (#w2e, #hashtag #viralmarketing)

One of the funniest keynotes at the NYC Web 2.0 conference was by Baratunde Thurston: "Everything I need to know about social marketing, I Learned From Being @the_swine_flu". Baratunde demonstrates the incredible power that could be leveraged on Twitter, all done 140 characters at a time. He is profane and perhaps politically incorrect, but look past this - and you will see a highly effective campaign.

View Baratunde's - being @the_swine_flue presentation at the Ignite NYC session. <For a longer version of Baratunde' Swine Flu Viral Marketing Experiment - he begins the hashtag talk at the 2:50 time mark>

More to the point, Baratunde's experiment prove that Twitter can be applied to business to create a viral marketing buzz - a digital word-of-mouth. Another Twitter'r brought to my attention that Kodak did just this in April, to name a new camera. Unfortunately I could not locate the actual tweets onTwitter: the hashtag was  #nameakodak (view one Twitter's entries). Another B2C viral #hashtag campaign was with Moon Fruit (#moonfruit). In both cases, the winner in these campaign's won a prize.

Viewing Baratunde's YouTube video will give you a sense of the depth of thinking that is required to make this campaign work. In the case of a B2B/B2C campaign - the rules that exist for bloggers and other social media programs must be kept in mind. Keep it real. Be honest and upfront and try to make it fun. Of course you are advertising your company's product, however make it engaging, and where possible, informative to the participate. A blatant Twitter viral "advertisement' will fail and may in fact be a detriment to your brand.

Think Ebiz will try to duplicate Baratunde' campaign and we will report the results. Please Tweet me or comment if you know of other Viral Twitter campaigns. I am @sph001.

Mobile Market: the challenge of fragmentation and marketing (#iphone #blackberry #mobilemarketing)

Listening to Tim O'Reilly' keynote at the New York Web 2.0 conference, he reminisced about the browser wars of the past. He was making the point that there is an unevenness on the web; previously on the web and now on mobile.

In the bad old days, web sites were labeled as being "best viewed on Netscape", or "we recommend Explorer for this web site". If you have the wrong browser, your internet experience will suffer.

Today, there are 100,000 applications for the iPhone, yet if you have a BlackBerry, so sorry. A friend sent me an invite to IM on her Blackberry - sent to my iPhone - outta luck. There is - as there was in the browser wars - different platforms, different applications for different mobile phones. How social is that?

PC World, in a recent article "Fragmentation Prevents Viral Marketing in Mobile" by Nancy Gohring - she echo's Tim (or Tim echos Ms. Gohring). Here she talks about the massive success of web based social networking - which required practically zero marketing.

"On the Internet, sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace grew so big so quickly based on word of mouth,...  People told their friends about the sites, and those people told their friends, who immediately could use the sites on their computers. Growth didn't depend on huge traditional marketing programs"

On the mobile platform, if your friends are on Android or Blackberry and you - iPhone, there will be a chasm in your social landscape.

In the PC article, there was no solution - until such time that all mobile phones accept the same operating system (OS). Good luck with that. However - could developers focus their application a step above the fray? Could the launch of a new super-social-app be simultaneously built for all major mobile platforms? Or perhaps a middle-ware layer be constructed that converts each of the diverse OS's and defines a new commonality. Why not?  This has been done in the database world, so that data tools could easily and quickly sync with different database types?

I ask.. why not?  Your comments appreciated.

SEO: Google might include Page Load Speed in Ranking Algorithm.

How fast your web site loads could become a factor in Google rankings. We think this is a positive addition to the search engine optimization (SEO) algorithm. Chris Crum of WebProNews, in an interview with Google' Matt Cutts, said that Page Load Speed may be added as a ranking factor in 2010 "Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010".

As readers of Think-ebiz know, we believe strongly that a well designed and content relevant site is a great destination for the search engines and (most importantly) the human visitor - and thus should be rewarded. Web sites that load slowly or incompletely present your audience with a poor experience.

This factor is not yet included in the SEO mix, yet it would be wise for site owners to evaluate their page load speeds for the benefit of their audience. However, we think Google should be careful in implementing this change, sampling the target site on numerous occasions to account for internet bandwidth irregularities or unexpected site delays.

Any change that forces a site owner to focus on their sites relevancy and performance is a positive step, we believe.

SEO, Blogs and Social Media: Creating a killer online strategy

The potential audience reach online has expanded exponentially in the last five years, primarily due to  Web 2.0 and the social aspects of the web. By focusing primarily on an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy to build your sites awareness and ROI, your online success is doomed to fail.

Search Engine Optimization, in its purest state of meta tags, site design and site-based content management is only a one dimension strategy; in a multi-dimensional world.

Blogs, as we know, are great for linking building for a web site, yet many people leave money on the table when it comes to their blog management. Blogs have the potential of very rapid top ranking, especially in lucrative long-tail keywords. We have seen articles ranked high within 15 minutes of release - yea really!  Think about your content and links when creating blog articles - especially in terms of your anchor tagging.

Social media completes the strategy by providing a wealth of link building and brand visibility potential. Twitter (Bing scans, Google will soon), Flickr, YouTube, Linkedin and much more should all be including in your overall plan. Be sure to review these and implement a strategy that makes sense for your site and business objectives.

To learn more about building an effecive multi-dimensional online strategy, please read Lee Odden's "Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success" article. 

 

Think through your optimization strategy

Website Usability: How much information is too much information?

Face it... people don't like to read web sites. They arrive at your web-site and want to know, immediately:

• what do you do? 
• Why should they select you?
• how should I interact with you?

The industry says this information is consumed within 8-12 seconds.

For many site owners, there is an innate need to impart all of their company history, philosophy, processes and...   often right there in one large content-dump on the homepage. Thus a great divide exists between what is wanted by the visitors and what is provided by the site owner.  This divide is easily resolved by the reader... click... gone.

Clearly less is more - far less in some instances.

To the site owner, we recommend that you have your clients and peers visit your site and let them tell YOU what it is that "they" think you do. We have heard people clearly ask - "So what is it they really do?" The site owner would retort, well read it and you will  know. BUT that's the point, no one has time or desire or motivation to read it.  And worse, the content continues on and on way down... scroll down and down...     and that is another thing people won't do...  they won't scroll.

Your web site should be "mostly" presented above the fold (viewed on the browser without scrolling). We like images and flash - yet keep this to a minimum. Use the HTML H1 and H2 tags for  your main sentence and secondary support sentence. These two  tags - which are valuable for SEO (search engine ranking optimization) should present your headlines. It should scream - "This is who we are, this is what we do!"

Then continue with a well written/tight content paragraph, telling the visitor more about your company product/service. This informative paragraph should support your headlines and tell the visitor: "why chose us". 

Finally - the biggest thing missing from web sites - how do we contact you?  This is called the "call to action". What do you want your visitor to do - what action should they take? Don't be afraid - ask them to contact you, buy something or...

Having a "learn more" action is also permissible, which takes the visitor deeper into your site. The reader has granted you permission to provide more details. We recommend that this page should be more in-depth yet not a novel.  And include your call to action. Every page should have a call to action.

Keep it simple and reap the rewards.

#SEO Specialists - be wary, be careful.

Why is it so difficult to find real highly qualified search engine optimizations (SEO) specialists for small and mid-sized businesses? Why are their needs any different than a Fortune 1000 level company?

Recently I have encountered a multitude of search engine optimization vendors that were more snake-oil, less substance to the detriment of their clients. Each had their unique angle for "gaming" the rankings, although they didn't use that word precisely. None of these vendors would last two minutes in presenting their services to a corporation, so why allow them to service your small business needs?

Successful - and ethical - SEO is about providing visitors with a highly relevant experience. This is the foundation for Google. Good strong content, a nicely designed web site, relevant links all contribute to the success of the web site. Success - meaning not only high ranking but conversion ROI. SEO is about ranking and providing more and better conversions - both!

In other words, a highly ranked web site does not necessarily equate to the delivery of real conversion results. Tip: When discussing SEO with a specialist, ask about how their work will affect conversions - not just ranking.

One of these specialist followed an old and actually erroneous technique of adding lots of keywords under the footer - in a color that was nearly invisible on the page. This is not even black hat (evil SEO techniques), it's just an automatic ticket for getting your site blacklisted. But consider this; all this blank or light text below the footer does not render a pleasing experience for your visitors.

Another offered various "submission" packages, whereas they would submit your web site at key-times during the month so that it would be spidered and ranked. Here it is verbatim, after they updated the meta tags on your website (no mention of enhancing your site content):

The next step is submissions. We submit your site to all 14 major search engines twice per month. By timing our submissions to coincide with the search engines re-indexing routines, we are able to achieve a strong placement initially. This timing is extremely important and not something available through software based submission programs. Basically what we are doing in this part is letting the search engines know who you are and what categories to place you in.

Can you actually name '14' major search engines - and we are aware that we can submit sites to Google, Yahoo and MSN all day long - they will visit when they are ready to do so. Present frequent updates and  new content, refreshed and the spiders will come often - on their own.

And from this same specialist:

We need to increase your sites submission routines, but it must be done in a legitimate way. The use of doorways, gateways and mirrors are commonly used for this purpose, but can have negative results when found by a search engine. WE DO NOT USE ANY OF THESE TECHNIQUES! What we do is unique to our company. We use what is called "Directory Information Pages" , also known as D.I.P's. These pages are non-publicly viewed pages hosted on our own servers that are seen by the engines as completely unrelated websites.

I am glad they do not use any of those black-hat techniques - they have their very own! BUT the question to ask, how does all this enhance the user experience and help deliver more and better results? Perhaps their technique will temporarily cause an increase in ranking - but it could also be a quick ticket to the blacklist ball.

Finally, with this vendor, for nearly $3,000 set-up and $100/month - they...

Warrants top-10 ranking on at least 6 of the 14 major search engines.

My guess is that you will not see top ranking on Google, Yahoo and MSN, which represents nearly 94% of all searches. TIP: Ask for their success and warranty on these three major search engines.

Their proposal was totally devoid of any enhancement to the user experience - content and even relevant linking. Relevant linking is a means of getting related web sites to link to yours. If your web site sells car parts, having links from auto related blogs and non-competing mechanic/auto web sites will enhance your ranking.The key, these are related sites to yours.. and will actually deliver visitors as well from those sites to yours. The DIPS (good name eh) mentioned above is on non-public sites, so how will this help deliver qualified visitors?

We at Think-ebiz could go on and on about this subject - and may in additional articles as we uncover more snake oil. One last tip.

To rank high for a specific keyword is important - but do people actually search on that keyword? Ranking high on seldom used keywords is equivalent to having a fantastic billboard - in the middle of the woods.

Ask the specialist for samples of keywords they have ranked high or ones they project for your web site. Then do some simple homework. Visit the Overture Keyword selection tool and enter in the keyword. This easy to use tool will provides an estimate of the number of searches for the given keyword during the prior month (on Yahoo). If the result is at nor near zero, then you may be dealing with snake-oil. And also consider the level of competition for the keyword, expressed on Google as the number of possible results (top right of the search results page). Total results under 1 million are not very competitive, 1-10 million are moderate, 11-25 million are highly competitive and over 25 million is very competitive. It is relative easy to gain high ranking in the moderate category, and possible but may be expensive to reach high ranking in the highly or very competitive categories.

The following is a fun example of this last point, using the keyword Stephen Harris (click on image to view).

In this example, this keyword meets the requirements of an SEO specialist. The keyword is ranked #1 in a moderately competitive keyword and there are indeed 640 searches per month (on Yahoo) for Stephen Harris. Wow, am I that popular?

In conclusion - ask questions and always relate the service offering to how this will enhance my visitors experience - on the 'three major search engines' and deliver real results for your web property.

#SEO for SMB's - it's more about usability.

Search Engine Optimization practitioners won't like this, yet we believe there is too much emphasis and hype over SEO for the small and mid-size business segment. We love SEO and we know that achieving high ranking in your keyword segment can deliver real results for your company. Yet what is the value of a highly ranked web site that does not excite and motivate your human visitors?

We have working with small companies that demand high ranking. They hear the hype and want to be numbero uno in <name a highly competitive keyword>, yet their site is presented poorly - difficult to understand or navigate through. The visitor can, with one click, return to their search results and visit your competition. Click... gone....

We recommend developing our web site with SEO basic (title tag, h1/h2, strong content, meta tags...) while focusing on your site's usability. Present strong tight content and your visitors will come and do business! Keep in mind, the search engine spider never buys - unlike the human visitors you with to attract. Managing to both masters - SEO and site usability and your site will deliver real results for your business. This is how we recommend they spend their limited dollars - then circle back and increase their SEO focus to continue to increase their site's ranking.