Your SEM Bid Management Solution: it’s a ‘Turk’

 

Image via Wikipedia

In 1770, Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen invented an automaton chess-playing machine affectionately known in modern times as "The Turk". For more than 80 years the 'machine' toured Europe and the Americas, defeating most of its opponents -- including Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin.

In 1820, Surprise! As if anyone didn't know, the chess-playing Turk was exposed as a hoax, a parlor trick, powered by humans stuffed inside the machine -- not automated by the machine itself.

Bid Management software is a 'Turk'. It's not that Bid Management isn't necessary, or helpful, or effective -- but if an agency is trying to sell you based on how awesome their 'proprietary' bid management software is, or how they've cracked some special code and have super-top-secret algorithms that make their bid management software smarter than Ken Jennings, take a pass.

Bid Management is a Turk, only as effective as the human being who is inside the box pulling the levers.

Don't misunderstand me. I am a big believer in bid management software. I recommend it for most of our clients, and there are some really, really good solutions in the marketplace -- some of them almost as smart as Ken Jennings.

Bid management is attractive for two reasons:

First it has the capability of processing information really fast, smartly predicting bids, and executing real-time optimization decisions that can result in added efficacy for your SEM campaigns.

Second, it offers tremendous efficiency. Multiple publishers can be managed from one single platform. Thousands of keywords, budgets, and bid decisions can be automated based on configured rules and parameters.

Clients get excited by the prospect of added value to their business and increased ROI from their ad dollar. Ad agencies get excited because they can provide services at some fraction of the human resourcing cost that SEM would otherwise demand.

The problem is that bid management is really just a Turk. In order for Wolfgang's chess robot to beat most of it's opponents like a robot should, he had to find world class chess players to sit inside the machine. So it is with bid-management software: while useful and even superior to humans for many automated functions, unless it's powered by a skilled human operator -- it just doesn't work very well.

Sometimes (actually lots of times) agencies get a little over-enthused by the prospect of profit margin and they skimp on the quality of human resourcing necessary to make it work. They buy into the myth of the Turk.

So when you're ready to hire an agency here are some things to look for:

1. They should have a bid-management solution. If they don't, I'd move on. At ZAAZ, I've had my team build familiarity with multiple tools -- some of which are better solutions for some clients than others. I really believe that there's an 80/20 rule here: without bid management you spend 80% of your time doing admin functions for paid search, and only 20% of your time doing strategy. With bid management, it can be the reverse. But the operative word is 'can'.

2. They should talk about their people. They should spend more time talking about the value and intelligence of their people than the magical value of the machine. If it's all about automation, algorithms, and predictive intelligence -- I'd take a pass. I can't tell you how often I'm in a new pitch, and the incumbent agency has deployed a great bid management solution; but they've thrown in a low-cost intern or a project manager with no time to spare and no real search experience. It just doesn't matter how awesome that machine is, without a good human to operate it, the venture always turns into a big mess.

I have a basic rule that surprisingly isn't always obeyed by others: I don't hire people to play chess unless they know how to play chess. Yes it costs me more to hire good people, but I have significantly lower churn on my clients, and my clients are happy.

3. Pricing should be transparent. If you can't tell what you're paying for between human contribution and software contribution -- take a pass. Bid Management software is usually priced at a percent-of-spend fee. At ZAAZ I've elected to take whatever volume discount we earn as an agency from bid management partners and I pass-through the discounted fee directly to my clients. Then I'm extremely transparent about what kind and how much human effort is required to make that Turk work.

 

this blog post originally appeared at RichDevine.me

 

Your SEO Guy: Expert or Business Partner?

My team had a call with a prospective client the other day. I sat in and listened as the client made some frank observations about ‘SEO people’. In essence, she said her company’s progress with SEO always seems to miss the mark because consultants can never get past their own knowledge. They spend too much time bragging about their elite technical competency or secret strategies; and too little time understanding her business.

I’m not always the smartest dude, but I steered the remainder of our conversation toward questions and ideas about her business.

Her point is valid. Without question there is a tremendous amount of nuance, technical implication, and know-how required to do SEO right — it’s not a discipline for fakers, you’ve got to know your stuff. But is that really what sells SEO? It shouldn’t be.

SEO should be about about the promise of performance. I’m not talking about rankings or traffic — I don’t care about rankings, and I don’t care about traffic. You heard me. What I do care about is performance.

Too often SEO professionals equate rankings and traffic with performance. That’s a mistake. Certainly rank success and traffic contribute to performance, but rankings don’t make me money. Traffic…believe it or not…isn’t a recognized currency that can buy lunch.

SEO professionals can be really smart within their discipline, but it’s rarer to find SEO folks that also have strong business perspective. It’s the difference between the Expert and the Business Partner.

So what are you getting from your SEO person — an expert or a business partner? Hopefully both. Here’s some basic questions to help you determine what kind of SEO you’re talking to:

1. Does he spend lots of time talking SEO jargon — algorithms, robot.txt files, canonical redirects, etc., etc? EXPERT

2. Does she ask questions about your business and products? BUSINESS PARTNER

3. When you talk about success measurement, does he talk in terms of rankings and traffic? EXPERT

4. When you talk about success measurement, does she talk in terms of behaviors and goals tied to specifically to your business? BUSINESS PARTNER

5. Do you understand what he’s actually doing, and why it’s important for your business? No: EXPERT. Yes: BUSINESS PARTNER

7. Does she speak transparently about the process, and try to match unique strategies to very specific business objectives? BUSINESS PARTNER

8. Does he try to steer you away from other marketing efforts like paid media, creative & UX, or traditional advertising — in favor of just focusing on SEO? EXPERT

9. Does she want to coordinate SEO efforts with other marketing channels and stakeholders, including creative, paid search, display media, web analytics, traditional advertising? BUSINESS PARTNER

You get the idea.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with being an expert. But if you’re hiring an expert for SEO, be aware that strong business perspective isn’t always included.

 

this blog post originally appeared at RichDevine.me

Design Commission & UI Stencils

 

A big thanks again to our frends at the Design Commission for hooking us up with iPhone stencils for our recent School of Visual Concepts mobile design workshop.  We had a great turnout and the attendees were super-excited when we handed the stencils out. (there is still space available for our March session if iterested.)

The stencils are made by UI Stencils and come in many flavors - iPhone, Android, iPad, etc.  They also have some great sketchpads to do your concepting on.  We find that they come in handy for putting together some quick mobile ideas to share with the Creative and Dev teams (and even clients.)

Very cool.

Koto's Adventure

It's been 5 months since Erik Koto left ZAAZ to do volunteer work in Ladakh. Yesterday, we received an in-depth update about what he's been doing with his time away. 

Below Erik returns as a ZAAZ blogs Guest Author to share the story of his work in Ladakh.

Himalayan Folk Recordings - Powered by ZAAZ
by Erik Koto

How do you go head-to-head against Brittany Spears and Bollywood when you're promoting centuries old folk songs and quaint pastoral dances?

That's the type of question Morup Namgyal has been asking himself for three decades as he's struggled to keep his culture's folk music alive in the face of slick commercial entertainers imported from India and the West.  Over the past 30 years, Morup has tirelessly used his status as a much-loved folk singer to help pass down the cultural traditions of his native Ladakh to younger generations.

As it turns out, we had a chance to help Morup go mano-a-mano with Bollywood and Brittany.  Here's the story:

Ladakh -  "Land of high passes"
With an average altitude of 12,000 feet and a sub-zero winter that lasts 9 months, Ladakh is a very remote place.  The region survived as an independent Himalayan Kingdom for over 1,200 years until the British drew it into India's borders in 1947.  Today, Ladakh is home to roughly 250,000 people and one of the most vibrant cultures in Asia.

Like many mountain cultures, Ladakh's history and traditions are largely oral.  As a result, very little has been recorded in a written format.  So when Morup worries about folk songs dying out, it's more than just the loss of a pretty tune; it's an important piece of Ladakhi history vanishing. 

The Lamdon School
I had the good fortune to meet Morup two years ago while on vacation in Ladakh.  I met him while visiting The Lamdon School.  With 1,500 students, The Lamdon School is the largest school in Ladakh.  It is a non-profit organization created with the specific objective of preserving the Ladakhi language.  Like many indigenous languages in India, the Ladahki language is not taught in the Hindi dominated public schools and is at risk of slowly dying out.  The Lamdon School was founded by Morup in 1971 with seed money he had earned performing folk songs and dramas.  It was his first effort to pass down Ladakh culture to a younger generation, and over the years the school has grown into the most significant educational and child welfare institution in Ladakh.

 
The Lamdon School (foreground) with Stok Kangri Himalayas in background

The Lamdon International Center for Music and Drama
While many older Ladakhis recognize the importance of preserving their culture, it's a significant challenge convincing younger generations to care.  Try telling a kid from a Himalayan village whose parents just installed satellite television that he should be singing folk songs instead of channel surfing: Television 1, Folk Songs 0.

Over the years, Morup has learned that you cannot make children care about their culture simply because "they should". 

 
 
Morup Namgyal

Morup’s dream for preserving Ladakhi folk music was to open a world-class music and drama center at the Lamdon School.  The facility would not only offer music and drama education, but also provide the opportunity for students to interact with visiting international musicians, plus gain hands on experience with cutting edge digital recording equipment. 

Experience with computers and digital recording equipment was essential for the music center.  Unemployment is a major problem in Ladakh, and many Lamdon students graduate with limited job prospects.  However, computer literacy dramatically improves one's chances of employment.  Morup knew that if the Music Center could offer potential economic opportunity in addition to cultural education it would provide a significant draw.

With the resources of The Lamdon School already strained, Morup needed financial support from International donors to make the Music Center a reality.  That's where we came in.

It's a Party... I mean a Fundraiser!
ZAAZ is full of artists.  Singers, writers, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, photographers, graphic artists… you name it and there's probably someone here doing it.  We're also a bunch of tech geeks, and whether it's Photoshop, Pro Tools, Aftereffects, or Final Cut every artist at ZAAZ is using digital tools to create or distribute their work.  So when I started shopping around the idea of supporting Morup in his quest to bring world-class digital creative tools to Ladakh, I found a very receptive audience.

We also love a good party.

In June of this year we threw an auction fundraiser to support the Lamdon Music Center.  Like any good fundraiser it started with drinks, lots of 'em…  By the end of night, we'd auctioned off over 30 items and raised over $6,000; enough cash to outfit Lamdon School with a full recording studio, plus a set of handcrafted traditional Ladakhi instruments.  ZAAZ also made a corporate donation of two speedy MacBooks to power the studio and complete the night of fundraising.

The auction was a huge success, and also a completely ZAAZ created event.  ZAAZ employees and friends donated the auction items, the event was organized and hosted by ZAAZ employees, and all the money raised came from ZAAZ employees and friends.  Call it closed loop social responsibility, or maybe just coming together for a good cause, either way it was a blast.

The First Recordings
In July of this year, a coworker and I (both on temporary leave from the working world) traveled to Ladakh to set up the studio and teach the school how to use the equipment.  Nothing close to this level of technology had ever been installed in Ladakh, and the school was surprised, awed, and more than a little intimidated by all the new gadgetry.  But they took to learning the new technology quickly.  In mid July the Lamdon Center for Music and Drama was officially opened and by August 5th we had completed the first recording session.  We left the school that day making plans to bring Morup and other master Ladakhi musicians to the studio to record a CD along with the students. 

 
Lamdon student playing a Ladakhi Damian

The Flood
I was awakened around midnight that same night by torrential rains and non-stop thunder.  It was an unnerving sound; Ladakh is a high altitude desert and normally receives minimal rainfall during the summer months.  By morning, it was clear how devastating the rains had been.  Flash floods had ripped through dozens of villages during the night.  In the capital city of Leh, where the Lamdon School is located, an entire section of the city had been washed away taking with it the hospital, bus station, radio station, and telephone exchange (including the city's internet connection).   The only two roads connecting Ladakh to the outside world had been washed out and would not reopen for many weeks, any supplies reaching Ladakh had to be brought in by military aircraft. 

 
Floodwaters cut through homes and villages

During the next week news began to trickle in, over 200 hundred people had been killed in the flooding and thousands more had lost their homes.  The entire village of Choglomsar, a Tibetan refugee colony of 20,000, had been destroyed by mudflows.  The Lamdon School, situated on higher ground, had escaped damage, but tragically, the school was not unaffected.  Two teachers and two students had been killed by the flooding and many more students had been left homeless.

With activities at the Music Center suspended, we put our efforts into helping with flood relief fundraising.  In conjunction with a well-established Ladakhi aid organization, we shot a fundraising video with the Principal of The Lamdon school and helped create content for fundraising presentations.  The video and presentation can be viewed here, along with information on donating to support flood victims: 

http://www.ladakhfloodrelief.org

As of October 2010, the site and related fundraising efforts had raised over $100,000. 

The Future
Having spent the last 6 years in corporate America, I left Ladakh feeling defeated.  Not only was I leaving an area devastated by flooding, we had also fallen short of our goals for the recording studio.  The students and staff had only a basic grasp of the technology, and we had been unable to produce a planned CD of student recordings.  In corporate speak; the project was off schedule and now understaffed.

When I asked Morup about my concerns, he gave me a puzzled look.  

When you speak with Ladakhis you quickly learn that their homeland is one that teaches patience.  With a nine-month winter, a house can take 5 years to complete.  In the Himalayas, building a 100-kilometer road link might take 10 years.  A young Buddhist monk will spend his next 30 years memorizing sacred texts.  "Why" Morup asked me "does the recording studio have to be completed in one short summer?”  All good things take time, especially culture.  Recordings can begin again next summer.

After all, with the Lamdon Music Center now officially underway, Morup is confident his students will be singing folk songs for many years to come.

 
Lamdon Students at their morning assembly

Using Remote Research to Get Actionable Insights

Imagine—the economy is in recession, budgets are t-i-g-h-t, yet you still need to provide recommendations that are based on more than a hunch. What’s a digital agency to do? Thank goodness for that word, “digital,” as the advent of new technologies has made it possible to get actionable insights at a lower cost, often with even better data quality. This will be the first of several posts on how ZAAZ is using Remote Research methods to get great insight and ensure that the Voice of the Customer informs our recommendations.

Would the Best Performing Label Please Stand Up

In this post we’ll look at a project we did for our long-time client, and one of the largest Credit Unions the nation, BECU (Boeing Employees’ Credit Union).

The project was designed to answer just one important question, “What is the best navigation label for people who are looking for Internet and mobile banking options?”

We created five different designs of the BECU homepage, each with a different label or label placement, and hosted them on a staging server. The alternative labels were:

• Remote Account Access
• Mobile & Online Banking in the primary and global navigation
• Remote Banking
• Online Banking



We then asked five groups of 30 people per group to accomplish the same task, each using a different version of the label on the home page. The task was:

“Use the site to find how to view your banking information using your Internet-enabled cell phone.” 

Four follow-up questions were asked.  They were:

1. How difficult was it to complete this task?
2. How certain did you feel that the name of the section would take you to the information you were looking for?
3. What specific information would you expect to see when you click on the name of the section?
4. What, if anything, would be a better name or label for this information?

After only 48 hours, the results showed that ALL the suggested labels performed better than the original label (“Account Access”). And the study suggested a winning label, “Mobile & Online Banking”, as well.

Remote Research helped answer a key navigation question using more than an educated guess or emotionlly-driven opinions. And because it was an unmoderated study (e.g., participants completed the study without a researcher present), and the tool did most of the analysis, we were able to find the best solution very quickly.

Look for more posts on how we employ Remote Research to ensure that the Voice of the Customer is heard, coming soon.

 

SEO & Social Media: What is the Relationship?

There are so many ways to answer this question. I've been trying to answer this question for at least a year, in terms of how we position our agency services and capabilities -- and I think I have the answer.

But first, lets discuss why it's so difficult to consistently and concisely define SEO/Social kinship and fit it neatly into a box. There are many reasons -- a few of of them include:

1. Subjective Definitions of Social Media:

While we most folks generally agree on what SEO is, why it's important, how it's generally done, and what the benefit can be -- no two people have the same definition for Social Media. For some, it's about blogs. For others it's about social networks like Facebook, and perfoming community management. Yet for others, it's about having conversations using Twitter. Some look at Social as a means for outreach, public relations, and awareness. And others view it plainly and simply as another visitor acquisition channel. Then there are those that view Social as a means to understand sentiment and tonality related to a brand or product. Is it limited to just digital? Or does it include any kind of social effort and behavior that exists online or offline?

Because there is no generally accepted definition of Social Media, how we understand the relationship between Social and Search is just as fragmented. Likewise the way we execute strategy based on Social/SEO synergy is inconsistent.

2. Lack of Standard Process

Because there is no widely accepted definition for Social Media -- how the medium is applied by marketers varies widely. This is where we can get in trouble. From an agency perspective, this is maddening because I want to hone our method, and define our capabilties and offerings. But the more we try to add structure and process to the execution of social media -- the more risk we face in missing new and innovative ways to harness the potential of social media.

For SEO & Social -- the same challenge exists. Any standardized process to realize synergy between the two may limit potential from that synergy.

3. Rate of Change:

Trying too hard to standardize process is risky because of the rapid onslaught of new tools, technologies, fads, and practices. The rate of change we see requires a reset in our understanding of what Social is -- monthly or even weekly. I won't even try to recite all of the variables that go towards 'change', but just think about how Twitter has impacted how we view social just during the last 6-12 months. Think about the emergence of local-social phenomenons like Foursquare and now Facebook Places. Think about the impact of Mobile and Mobile Apps. Think about all of the ancillary tools, widgets, and nic-nacs that strike social resonance and inspire sharing.

For SEO specifically, consider the impact of unviversal search. A SERP is no long just a SERP. Both real-time and seasoned social content continues to be more and more prominent -- both in its display within search results as well as its contributing impact on site authority and rank potential.

3. Organizational Boundaries:

However you define Social, there is considerable overlap between SEO & Social. But all too often, those that are responsible for SEO aren't always the ones assigned to manage Social Media efforts. Naturally, whatever potential synergies may exist between both disciplines aren't realized as well as they could be if managed by separate teams or resources.

So with so much ambiquity and fragmentation, how do we make sense of the connection between SEO and Social? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I have the answer. But before I tell you, you need to pay me. For such an invaluable answer, why would we give it away for free?

Don't worry, all you have to do is Pay with a Tweet (one of my favorite little social nic-nacs). Here's the deal: we want more traffic for ZAAZ Blogs. And there's a couple of ways we can get it: through increased SEO visibility, and through viral Social Media distribution of our blog.

So here's how this works: my ground-breaking answer and the remainder of this riveting blog post can be accessed after you tweet a nice little tweet. Your tweet tells your followers all about this clever blog post written by yours truly, and how it changed your life. Your tweet inspires further sharing of my post and blog to others, and their interest in accessing my 'answer' incents further tweeting and social sharing.

But it doesn't stop there! Many of those that take interest in my post and our blog will lead to a viral cascade of links (blogs/sites/tweets/etc.) Google then sees these links and adds authority to our blog, increasing our search engine rank potential.

Believe me people -- the answer is worth it. Seriously. But even if you don't care about the answer, do me a solid, and just tweet this damn blog post, okay? Just click the link below. (Oh, and follow me too!)

#shamelessselfpromoter

SXSW Interactive

ZAAZ has three submissions in the SXSW PanelPicker. We guarantee education, entertainment and surprises. Voting ends August 27th! Look at our ideas, ask us questions, vote for us, and let's take 6th street by storm!

Rich Devine "Mobilizing Performance From Search"
By 2012, 20 percent of all search queries will come from a mobile device. While there is growing focus on creating mobile site experiences and applications, not enough businesses focus on their mobile search experience. Just because you’ve optimized search for the desktop doesn’t mean it works on a mobile device. Mobile search is different than desktop search—and for many businesses, it’s a critical step toward customer success. Our discussion focuses on three core actions: how to identify unique business opportunities for mobile search, how to optimize for mobile search, and how to measure the performance and value of mobile search.

Anders Rosenquist and Katlen Tillman "How Mocial Apps Help Dorothy Kill the Witch"
What if Dorothy had had access to social, mobile, and location-based services on her journey to Oz? How would that have changed her experience getting back to Kansas? This panel will explore that very question with the aid of an innovative case study from Alaska Airlines. Location-based services can build customer loyalty, provide value and support a brand. We’ll discuss how the marriage of mobile with social can integrate real world places through mapping and destination content. Connecting conversations based on location, these "mocial" apps can help people like Dorothy understand where to go and what to do during the journey while avoiding the witch, or the perils of air travel.

Jason Carmel "Privacy vs. Relevance: Who Smells the Tension?"
Generic, digital experiences suck for both users and businesses alike. People expect to be treated as individuals with unique perspectives and needs. When executed appropriately, everyone benefits from more targeted content. But when does personalization go too far? With digital technology collecting data at an unparalleled rate, there is a risk of this information being breached, mishandled or assumed incorrectly. This session delves into the cost and benefits of using digital and offline data to create a more personalized experience, and investigates the best ways to build these data-driven experiences without trampling over the privacy rights of the public.

The WSJ's Datapocalypse 2010

The Wall Street Journal has an amazing interactive piece entitled "What They Know" that focuses on the data that is collected and used for tracking and reporting by 50 of the most visited sites on the Web. Play around with it for a while- you get a sense of the massive amounts of data that popular sites such as ebay and CNN.com collect about you behind the scenes and how that data might impact your privacy online.

Unfortunately, the good people at the WSJ couldn't leave it alone with a powerful display of information. Instead of representing an informed understanding of what data companies are tracking, the risks and benefits of collecting and using that data to the end consumer, and an assessment of efforts that are or should be made to improve the system, they got all "DATAPOCALYPSE 2010" on us. Let's unpack a few issues I had from this little suitcase of drama, shall we?

Issue #1: Marketers are spying on Internet users"

This is how the author starts off the article (note the bold was their emphasis, not mine), and it's an exaggeration of the grossest order. "Spying" is not a term one should thrown around lightly. In fact, unless it is literally applied to the act of assassinating someone with an umbrella tip or swallowing something on microfilm, the only people who use the verb "spying" in this context are those who are trying to create controversy. Are marketers "spying" on you as you navigate the web? Of course not. Collecting anonymous data to inform how successfully an audience is consuming certain content is a far cry from sending someone with an accent to open up your home safe and take pictures of your offshore bank account numbers with a very, very tiny camera. Using the term "spying" when you mean "sharing aggregated web data" is from page 12 of the Fox News Handbook of Journalism, and the WSJ needs to be better than that.

Issue #2:  I'm not even going to justify the graphic of the dude with the binoculars with a comment.

"Watchers?" Honestly. The WSJ makes Web Analysts and Data Miners sound as if they are video taping you in the shower.

Issue #3: Exposure Index?

The Exposure Index is the grade that the WSJ folks give to each site to inform the reader of how worried she should be about her data being traded around like prison cigarettes. The WSJ explains its methodology obliquely at best. Volume of trackers and opt-out options are interesting circumstantial factors, but they pale in comparison to an analysis of 1) what information is being shared 2) with whom 3) for what purpose, which this index appears to lack:

• More tracking isn't necessarily more sensitive tracking - The fact that a site collects 200 pieces of information doesn't make that information particularly relevant or sensitive, in aggregate. There is a false assumption permeating the data as it's presented that each data tracker leads to information of equal value. Think about how patently untrue this is. Information concerning which articles I read on espn.com and how ESPN would share that information in an aggregate way, even to 100 third party advertisers is in the grand scheme of evil out there in the world fairly low on the totem pole. Compare that to the very sensitive financial data that is collected and used by PayPal, which gets a better score on the exposure rank, in part because it has significantly fewer trackers.
• Define your terms - I think the infographics would be a lot more telling, and consequently a lot less sensationalist, if they included a key explaining what these 3rd party sites are that get your data and what they are doing with it. When a site shares information with Microsoft, for example, it likely has to do with the Bing! search terms used to get to the site. The trackers are not sniffing your machine to see if that copy of Outlook 2010 is registered. Similarly, "Coremetrics," will sound a lot less ominous if you know that it is a standard web tracking tool that monitors anonymous visitor behavior on site, rather than a collective of Nigerians trying to steal your daughter's college tuition.

I don't want to be misinterpreted here as saying that we shouldn't be concerned about what data is being collected about us on the Web and how it is being used. Privacy policies are impossible to understand, a lot of unnecessarily sensitive data is being collected and stored indefinitely for no discernible advantage to the end user, and, let's be frank here, businesses can't always be trusted to act in good faith when an opportunity to make a killing arises, and the only thing standing in its way are the sanctity of a few words on a web page that no one really reads anyway. I work in the industry and know full well that it needs to change. I applaud the WSJ for releasing its findings and recognizing Internet privacy as an important issue.

My concern here is that the language used by the WSJ inspires panic (check out the results of their poll) rather than conversation, and panic invariably results in knee-jerk reactions and ineffective legislation- both of which are on the way.

Facebook Open Graph Coming to a Phone Near You

Facebook is pushing the mocial envelope these days. At the MobileBeat 2010 conference in SF earlier this week, Facebook announced that it will be extending its Open Graph platform to mobile, moving away from an individual mobile app strategy and moving into a let's-allow-facebook-to-be-connected-into-everything strategy.

What does this mean?  App makers will now be able to connect into the Facebook platform and incorporate data into their own apps, leveraging information such as friend recommendations.  It's easy to imagine a scenarios that combine information from your friends with location-based services - say Foursquare but with your whole Facebook community and history.

For marketers this means greater opportunities to serve offers at the right time and place, but with the added benefit of having the backing of your friends. A hotel chain's app that leverages a user's Facebook community could connect friend-recommended POI's and restaurants with discounts to stay in at a nearby hotel property.  Or a retailer could show you your friend's reviews of the product you are looking at while on the showroom floor.  Pretty cool.

Facebook also stated that they have 150 million mobile users of Facebook and are growing.  A nice plus that they just implemented too is the ability to sign up for a new Facebook account completely on your mobile device.  Good call, and good move toward further breaking mobile's tether to the desktop.

More info check out:  http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/07/13/facebook-mobile-platform/

The News Could Be You: Managing Your Brand Reputation Online

Online reputation management has become an increasingly hot topic as mass adoption of social media progresses. There are no shortages of issues or drama that overtakes blog posts, trending topics and social commentary, the new reality is that no brand – whether consumer or personal – is exempt. I know I am stating the obvious here, but it’s for this reason that engaging in social media is tenuous for companies and individuals, since there is always a potential for risk; however, whether or not you choose to participate, if something is going to happen it will whether you’re ready or not.

Looking at the new ‘news’ consumer which uses multiple platforms to access the news, with approximately 72% of U.S. news consumers indicating they do so “because they enjoy talking with others about what is happening in the world” (source: Pew, www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-News.aspx) suggests that people do so to follow the dramatic narrative that may directly or indirectly touch their lives – and reality can be stranger than fiction.

News isn't just produced in the newsroom anymore.
With the onset of citizen journalism, seemingly innocuous encounters between people in public have the ability to become a 'news' story that is disseminated and shared at a local and global level. The power to elevate an issue is now in the hands of anyone who has something to say. There is happenstance and momentum that can quickly build - catching fire through social channels when fueled properly.

Categories of developing 'news' that have recently inspired conversation waves across the social Web have included:

• Consumer watch groups and commentary on corporate business practices -- such as Nestle and the case with Greenpeace
• Business decisions that can impact consumers -- such as Apple vs. Adobe and the exchanges that ensued once Apple announced that Flash would not be supported on their iPhone and iPad products
• Businesses making decisions or causing situations that impacts society or stakeholders -- such as BP and their focus on traditional media to communicate and then engaging in social media a day late 
• Perception, perspective, or situation related to an individual that spirals out and causes a gossip cycle -- such as Tiger Woods and his long period of silence while social commentary was running amuck on blogs, the Twitterverse, and across Facebook and other social networks.

It can happen to you.
Looking at these scenarios it’s very easy to fall into that place of thinking that ‘it can’t happen to me.’ But you never know when you might find yourself in a situation where a person might misconstrue an interaction and choose to take it online. Brand or personal brand, everyone is at risk at some level.

When managing a company or a personal brand do differences exist?
No way. Both are equally as important in terms of how the crisis is handled, and the same guiding principles are applicable since the damage to reputation can be just as detrimental. A Pew study found that 44% of adults online have searched for information on people who they seek services or consult with professionally. (source Pew: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Reputation-Management.aspx?r=1) Brand, personal or not, managing your reputation online matters.

Here are 6 basic steps for reputation management during a crisis:

1. Listen - Whether you implement a full strength monitoring tool or use something as simple as a Google alert, knowing that something has happened is the first step in moving towards a resolution and not missing a critical development that can be more damaging if left unaddressed.
2. Act quickly yet deliberately - The goal is to address the situation with the right reaction, making decisions from a place of emotion rather than logic in these instances can prove destructive to your brand.  How you’ll act or respond naturally will depend on the situation and the impact, but being deliberate instead of rash is the key, and responding quickly shows responsiveness.
3. Assess whether it’s true or false – If it’s true, face it head on in a professional manner and work to find a resolution, demonstrating that you are listening and acknowledging the situation. Many times taking it offline is helpful. If it’s false, contact the individual through Twitter, their blog or e-mail and in a friendly manner request that the information is corrected. But the main thing here is to be   professional and take the high road, remember that your customers/potential customers are watching.
4. Engage responsibly and with integrity – These are especially important values when engaging online since the repercussions for not being truthful or inappropriate can be long-lasting.
5. Counter pages with pages in search – The more content you put out there, the better you can balance the pages that are in search results. You are definitely in control of the content you create whether it’s on your site, your Twitter or Facebook pages or in forum or board posts.
6. Wash, rinse and repeat, if needed – Some brands are more targeted for attacks than others, and this might be an ongoing process.

Today’s digital world has made aspects of marketing and professional communication more complex than ever. But by starting with monitoring your brand – corporate or personal – it’s that first step towards decreasing risk of not being ready for when a crisis arises.