Microblogging can be used for more than just recapping your actions

For the longest time I wanted to know what was the big deal with microblogging sites like twitter. Do your friends and colleagues really want to know what you are doing at every moment of your life. Since I like to think of myself as a Web 2.0 enthusiast I decided to give it a try. Soon after I created an account I got bored with it. Even though I was able to update my account from my phone it was still a very tedious experience from me. Plus I really didn't see the benefit of being on twitter, because everyone was doing the same thing. Sure it gave me a bit more insight into the lives of my friends, and it allowed me to pimp my blog. It was still too overwhelming at times. It was almost like watching 100 different reality shows at once.

Well recently my opinion of twitter has changed. I realized that I was seeing the concept of microblogging from the wrong angle. Twitter allows people to give commentary in a way that they could have never before. I am noticing that people are starting to use hashtags as a way to group a collection of related topics so they form one mass conversation. Last week at OMS was my first time getting involved with using hashtags. I wanted to try it out for 2 reasons: 1. To see what the big deal with hashtags was about. 2. To see if using twitter was a good way to take notes. I was really impressed to find out that twitter makes an excellent note taking tool. Now if I want to review them all I have to do is search on the OMS hashtag #OMSSD08 and I get a transcript of whole day. It includes my notes along with everyone else who participated. This also gives me info on sessions that I didn't get to sit in on. Using hashtags is also a benefit to the organizers of the event, because they get instant feedback on how the conference is going.


I also feel that Twitter is making watching TV an interactive experience. Twitter allows everyone to become participants of the event, and give their commentary on the program. I used twitter as a tool while I watched the last 2 presidential debates. It made something that would be normally "dullsville" a rather enjoyable experience. Along with giving my own feed back I got to hear in real time what other people thought of the debate. If you are interested do a search on #tweetdebate or #vpdebate to view the commentary. Social Media Analyst Jeremiah Owyang also did a recap on the #tweetdebate experiment if you care to take a look.

The online news site, Current is taking this phenomenon to a new level by allowing people to "Hack the Debate." If you post tweets with the #current hashtag they will overlay it on their broadcast of the debate in real time. I'm curious to see how this concept will evolve over the next couple of months, or even the next year. If you have any ideas leave a comment and let me know.

Now that the wedding is behind me time to get back to blogging

Wow it really has been a while since my last post, but I have an excuse. For those who don't know me personally I got married to my sweetheart of 6 years on Aug 16th up in Malibu. So for those of you who are already married, you know what it's like when it's "crunch" time. And for those of you who are about to get married hang in there cause it's worth it!

I have to say the last 6-8 weeks before the wedding was the most stressful time of my life. There were so many little details that we had to take care of. Making sure the rooms were booked, getting gifts for the bridal party, planning the rehearsal dinner, making sure Courtney (my wife) was sane. So with all of that, and all the stuff going on at work there was no time for blogging.

I have to say even though it seemed like it came and gone in a flash, the wedding was a big hit. Everyone had a good time, and there were no major train wrecks. That is all thanks to Courtney, she did most of the planning. I just tried to be as supportive as possible and not get in the way. =oD

After the wedding we spent a week in Hawaii on the big island to un-plug and relax. Someone told me that my honeymoon would be the best vacation of my life, and they were right! After a year of planning a week in paradise it the perfect way to unwind.

So now that my second job of wedding planner support is over I can get back to the business of online marketing. Before I took my hiatus I was planning to write a 3 part series on analytics, but I just attended the Online Marketing Summit, and my head is swarming with ideas so I might have to change it up a bit.

If you were not able to attend the summit, you missed a good summit. The information was fresh, the speakers were very knowledgeable on their subject matter, and above all it was a good place to network and learn. There was some really good takeaways; one of my favorites was on the topic of social media. In the final keynote: Big Brands, Big Plans I asked if there was a measurable way to measure ROI in social media. The collective response was that with social media it shouldn't just be about ROI it should be about engaging with your users. If you get your users more engaged in your brand eventually the sale will happen. Also another good point is that social media doesn't have to just be about blogging, or being on facebook. If you have a product letting your customers rate the product and give feedback is a form if social media. Finally one of the panelist said "Don't just jump in to social media just to check something off of a list. You should use social media in a way that is aligned with your overall marketing strategy." If you want to check out some more good points from OMS check out my twitter feed. If you were at OMS please feel free to comment with your feedback.

So stay tuned because over the next few weeks Im going to be posting some good topics on analytics and paid search.

Also if you are going to the MarketingSherpa B-to-B Demand Gen Summit in Boston or San Francisco let me know. I will be co-presenting with ion interactive on the topic of Optimizing SEM Strategies from Keyword to Conversion. We will be talking about our success with increasing our paid search conversion rates. The whole summit looks to be a promising event, so if you have the extra time and money I encourage you to come out.

So I'll leave you with a couple of pics from my wedding & honeymoon, Enjoy!

You cannot fake social media

I was watching a really good video the other day titled Social Media Mistakes of Five Big Marketers. It is a segment from Joseph Jaffe's speech at the Association of National Advertisers' Integrated Marketing Conference. Jaffe explains some blunders that some major corporations make when it comes to social media. I think the biggest nugget that I took from that segment was the idea of "No Faking." I know this may seem simple, but some big corporations are still not getting it. They think they can treat social media just like any other media; make something up so it looks "social media~ish. The problem is that it stands out like a sore thumb, and your users will hate you for it.

If I could pass anything along it would be this: Don't be afraid about losing control, and just go with the flow. People are going to say what they want to say and it may not all be good. I feel that it's better to have these negative remarks it in an arena where you have a chance to fix the problem right away; rather than hearing it second hand.

You need to be honest with yourself. If you don't think you can handle this level of translucency then social media is not right for you. In a case like this Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing you can do.

Reality Mining: The future of marketing, or a privacy nightmare

I read an article the Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog Titled: What’s Next for Marketing? Reality Mining, where Paul Barsch talked about how with the advances that have made in the cellular industry with GPS and internet enabled phones they have the potential to be able to mine more than just your calling info. MIT professor Sandy Pentland calls it "Reality Mining". He believes that they have to ability to record everything from your physical activity to your conversational cadences. With all this information at their disposal they have the ability to proivde customized plans based on all of these traits. As a marketer I feel that this is exciting news. We will have more advanced tools at our disposal to take behavioral targeting to the next level. We can further segment our audience and provide them with a more personalized marketing experience. But on the flip side of the coin one will argue that this is borderline invasion of privacy, and have the potential to compromise our personal information. Maybe cause I'm on the marketing side, but I don't really see any problem with this as long as the user is aware that this is going on, and have the ability to opt-out if they choose to. With the decline of mass media, its tools like this that will allow us to scope out that niche market that will actually find value in our message.

Do you have a blog and want more traffic?

Do you have a blog that has cool content, and do you want more traffic? You should submit you blog or feed to MySpace News. Earlier this week MySpace announced that they will be providing a news section on their site. How are they getting the feeds you ask? Well I'm sure they have some sophisticated web crawl tool, but they are also allowing you to submit your blog or feed and choose which category your blog falls in. Submit your blog to mySpace! Once your site is submitted they will review it to see if your blog is right for their site.

Asking people to add a link to your site will increse your site popularity

If you see a site that that has a product or service that would work well with your product or service you might want to ask them to link to your site. The owner of the site might ask for you to link to their site in return or have you pay a fee. Link Building or Co-operation is a good way to increase your site popularity. You can also send link request to blog owners that talk about topics related to your industry. Below is an example of a link request to a blog owner.


Steve,
I really enjoy reading your Web Marketing Blog, and I feel that you are an excellent asset to the Web Marketing community. I am a subscriber to numerous internet marketing related blogs and I feel that your content is top notch and extremely knowledgeable.

I noticed that you link to a lot of industry related blogs, and I wanted to know if you could link to my blog garyware.blogspot.com. Since we talk about a lot of the same topics it might be a benefit to your readers to get multiple points of views. It would be a privilege to be linked to your site, and in return I will link back to you

Thanks,
-Gary Ware