Since joining the 10e20 team in July, I’ve been so impressed by 10e20’s professionalism, work ethic and encouragement to each other and to our clients. Greg and Jake are two of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. Patrick’s design skills are so fantastic that I’ve threatened to clone him on a regular basis. Victor and PJ pretty much define “cool as a cucumber” and never seem to get frazzled or overwhelmed. Rody is like the Wolf from Pulp Fiction — she always seems to get everything done and make sure all is in order. Steph is very smart and headstrong, and in my short time working with her I can already tell that she’s an invaluable addition to the team. Danielle is nurturing and encouraging, never being too busy with the baby to make time for her employees. And Chris has by far been one of the best work mentors I’ve ever met. He’s straightforward, tough but fair, expectant but encouraging, and knows when and how to get the best possible performance out of his employees.

So why would I leave such a tight-knit family after less than a year? Believe me, the decision was a tough one. While I loved working with everyone, as is the case with many people in this industry, I wanted to transition away from client consulting. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with some great clients at 10e20, and I hope some of the friendships I’ve made extend far into the future. However, after doing some variation of client work for the past four years, I wanted to change things up and bring my strengths to a different table.

I bet you’re wondering what that table is…well, I can’t really divulge too much because the company’s in “stealth mode” right now, but basically I’ve accepted the role of Director of Marketing and Community Relations for a start-up that’s working on a soon-to-be launched media website. There’s no more client work; instead, I’ll be working diligently on testing and improving things until the launch date, and from there I’ll be marketing the site and building up its community. I’m very excited about it and can’t wait to share more with you all, but for now you’ll have to wait until we get our beta rolled out.

If I could take the entire 10e20 team with me, I would in a heartbeat. Our clients would probably be bummed, but I would selfishly keep them all to myself if I could. I really couldn’t have asked for a better work environment and group of coworkers. I’m really going to miss working with everyone — hopefully I’ll get that New York Marathon entry so I can visit NYC (yes, I still live in Seattle, and no, I never relocated) and run with Jake while our peeps cheer us on. Until then, I’ll still be contributing to the 10e20 blog every so often, plus there will still be great content courtesy of the rest of the team, so keep checking the website and the 10e20 Twitter account for updates.

As for me, I’ll still be around on Twitter, Facebook, email, and my personal blogs (one of which I promise to resurrect and update on a semi-regular basis), plus I’ll continue to guest blog on various industry sites every now and then, so don’t think I’m going into stealth mode along with this new gig. I’ll also be speaking at Searchfest next month alongside Matt Inman (and by “speaking,” I of course mean rushing through my crappy presentation so everyone can hear how awesome The Oatmeal is), so if you’re attending or will be in the Portland area, be sure to say hello.

That’s it for now. Keep 10e20 in your hearts and minds, as they’re one of the best (if not the best) social media marketing companies that exist today. I’m going to miss everyone, but rather than say goodbye, I’ll settle for a “See you soon.”

Pepsi’s already made the shift — a few months ago they announced that, for the first time in 23 years, they were not going to advertise during the Super Bowl, electing instead to focus on social media marketing. I think it’s a smart move — $3 million is going to go much farther online than in a one-time 30 second ad, especially in the age of DVRs and streaming video. With social media marketing, Pepsi can tweak its messaging to cater to different markets and demographics instead of trying to come up with a single ad that can appeal to the masses.

Also thanks to social media, you don’t have to air a commercial during the Super Bowl in order to reach millions of viewers. I saw this Old Spice commercial on TV and thought it was really funny:

The next day I checked Reddit and saw that the commercial was one of the most voted up stories of the day:

The comments were littered with remarks from users about how much they loved the ad and that they’re going to give Old Spice a try. This commercial cost a fraction of a Super Bowl commercial and already seems much more effective, as it’s getting laughs, views (nearly 200,000 views on YouTube already) and being shared.

So what does this mean for Super Bowl advertising? Well, I don’t think they’ll be going away any time soon; even though people have DVRs and can buffer the big game, a lot of folks still tune in to catch the commercials since it’s as much a part of the Game Day tradition as beer, chips and shouting expletives at the television. However, I think big brands need to start rethinking their advertising strategy:

1. Don’t just think about the Super Bowl audience, think about its viral spread potential. The Old Spice commercial is a perfect example — it had the humor element that tons of Super Bowl ads try and go for, but it was so absurdly amusing that it really resonated with the younger Internet demographic and is being spread around a lot. Think about ads that are so memorable, people will want to share them with their friends. The same goes for Google’s ad — it wasn’t the stereotypical funny/vaguely sexist angle that you usually see on Game Day. They went with a sweet little ad that stuck out among the others and is getting tons of buzz via blogs and social networks.
2. Speaking of sharing… What about flashing a Twitter or Facebook account or a microsite URL at the end of the ad for a wider branding spread? I don’t remember seeing any mention of social networking account profiles in the ads. The Internet is becoming such a huge part of marketing that I feel it’s important to cross-brand as often as possible. Heck, an ad could have even made fun of Twitter or Facebook and incorporated their profile into the spot. I could easily see Budweiser setting up an ad where someone “gifts” his friend a Bud Lite on Facebook and the idiot friend smashes his hand through his monitor trying to grab it.
3. Work backwards. Google’s ad had already been airing via its Search Stories channel on YouTube, and the response had been so positive that they decided to air the ad during the Super Bowl. Instead of trying to create a successful ad for the Super Bowl, why not test out some commercials online and air the most successful one?
4. Think about your ROI. Maybe other big brands need to pull a Pepsi and think about where their dollars are best spent. It’s not like we’re going to forget about Pepsi if they don’t spend $3 mil to remind us they exist once a year. Other brands should follow suit and shake things up a bit — invest a little more in social media and viral marketing to see if it benefits them more than a commercial spot. Not only can it yield positive results for them, it’ll open up the Super Bowl spots to other brands and diversify the commercials for once.

What do you guys think? Should Super Bowl advertising get a bit of a shake up in light of the possibilities social media marketing presents? I’d love to see creative online marketing attempts from bigger brands, and I think that’s where they need to start focusing your efforts. Your thoughts?

Interview with Taylor Pratt and Jon Henshaw from Raven SEO Tools from 10e20 on Vimeo.

The bio’s already not off to a great start by calling Enterprise customers “retarded.” While the account has less than 200 followers, people can still come across the profile via search or links and mistakenly assume that it’s the brand’s main account. The tweets make for a bit of a reputation management headache:

Complaining about your job and using profanity from a branded Twitter account doesn’t really ooze professionalism. Thankfully, the account doesn’t seem very active — its last update was from last April, so Enterprise should contact Twitter with a trademark claim to gain control of the account and turn it into a more appropriate company profile.

The main problem here is that Enterprise didn’t register its brand name in the first place. If I were them, I’d have snatched up @enterpriserentand variations of the brand name so nobody else could use them. They don’t even have to use the accounts, although they should probably have some sort of presence on Twitter, seeing as how they could reach a wide audience as well as deal with any reputation management/customer service issues like the one below:

Companies really need to be proactive and make sure that they’re in control of their brand whenever possible, and right now a big part of that is registering their brand names on major social media sites (KnowEm is a great service for helping out with that).

Another problem is that Enterprise wasn’t aware of what its employee was saying about them online. A few months ago I blogged about why companies shouldn’t block social media in the workplace, but I added this part:

Obviously, there are some downsides to letting employees have full reign of social media usage at work. I’ve seen people update their Facebook status complaining about a work task or saying negative things about customers/clients. This sort of behavior is clearly unprofessional and doesn’t reflect well on either the employee or the business. However, I think that a little bit of training and awareness can stifle these sorts of incidents. Clearly state your social media usage policy to new employees and say that while you encourage responsible and occasional usage of social media and networking, be courteous, professional and mindful of the company who’s employing them.

A good company policy upon hiring new employees is to provide a handbook that covers social media guidelines. At the very least, include a “public mentions” policy in their contract — after all, it’s reasonable to expect an employee of your company to refrain from publicly complaining about his employer or customers or painting them in a negative light. From there, keep tabs on your employees. I’m not saying you should spy on them; just be aware of their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. accounts and see if they have a personal blog. Know what’s reasonable (e.g., “Frustrating day at work today”) and what’s over the line (“I hate my stupid boss so much! Dealt with stupid customers all day because he wasn’t around to help! XYZ Company is the absolute WORST!”), and put out any fires as soon as possible (have a chat with your employee and outline your company policy, issue a warning, escalate the repercussions from there).

What about if you don’t know that your employee registered an anonymous blog or Twitter account? Well, in that case brand mentions and monitoring play a key role. Keep track of brand mentions to see what people are saying about you. If you notice a Twitter account pop up that’s authored by an employee of your company, you can try and file a trademark claim or at least combat any negative content that comes from the account with public statements from your official account. Even if there’s not much you can do, you can at least be aware of the account so you can intercept people who may confuse it for the real deal.

In any case, Enterprise has a lot of opportunities here, and I hope they do something to address the account and are more aware moving forward. Other companies should take notice and realize that as social media grows more and more powerful, they’re going to have to expand their branding as well as adapt how they’re monitoring their brand and their employees.

1. Check social media sites for inspiration. Sometimes I’ll check Delicious, Digg, Reddit, etc. to see what sort of similar content has been submitted and how well it fared. I think whether I can come up with an idea that’s similar to or inspired by a successful submission, or whether I can improve upon an idea that was good but somehow failed to go viral.
2. Tie in current events. I check a lot of news sites to see what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t have to be any sort of monumental news event like the unveiling of Apple’s latest gadget — even local news stories inspire me.
3. See what people are talking about. Check your network of friends and colleagues on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. See what they’re talking about and whether you can leverage the discussion. If something slips through the news crack or isn’t on your radar, there’s a good chance your friends will notice and be talking.
4. Ask someone else. When I’m temporarily stumped for ideas, I’ll ping a close friend on IM or turn around and throw something at my boyfriend (who also works from home) and ask for their input. It’s always nice to have a fresh perspective, and oftentimes I’ll receive ideas that are great on their own or that inspire me to go down a new brainstorming path and come up with something good.
5. Check the website for inspiration. Oftentimes the client’s website has a good deal of information that can be used as the basis for something great, whether that’s a blog post, an interesting picture, an informative study, etc. See if there’s preexisting content that you can polish up and present in a new and interesting way (via a video, list, infographic, etc).
6. Do some “point of origin” research. I’ve often looked up general topics in Google or Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I know) to get an idea of their history and to see if anything in particular stands out. It’s a great way to learn a little bit about the topic I’m brainstorming for and usually helps me come up with ideas based on its history/origins.

All of the above are usually good starting points for me. If you have any other tips on brainstorming content, feel free to share them!

Nowadays, social media seems to be about trying to keep your head above water and staying updated with the latest marketing trends in order to help your business and reach a relevant audience. The webinar shared a quote from a small business owner who stated, “At the end of the day, if we have spent a lot of our time tweeting, facebooking, and ‘me’tubing, I’m afraid [individual productivity] is on a rapid decline. What really gets done in a day that helps improve the bottom line?”

Below are the main social media challenges cited by small businesses:

It’s no secret that social networking usage among adults has grown rapidly in the past few years:

If adults are turning to social media and social networking sites, isn’t that a good opportunity for businesses as well? Absolutely — in fact, many businesspeople are using multiple social media sites and resources for business information:

However, there is a difference between B2B direct media and B2B social media.

B2B direct media:

• Tends to evolve slowly
• Is comprised of established best practices
• Is reasonably predictable
• Has a clear optimization path

B2B social media:

• Evolves extremely rapidly
• Can be comprised of temporary best practices
• Can be frustratingly unpredictable
• Has a shifting optimization path

A lot of B2B social media “half-truths” and myths have been floating around:

Myth#1: Nobody Uses Social Media for Business

A lot of business owners feel that Facebook, Twitter, etc. is just for keeping up with friends. The fact of the matter is that social media resources are broadly used. Businesspeople are using multiple resources and investing aggressively in different media channels.

Keep in mind, however, that the perceived importance of using social media for business depends on the industry. This chart illustrates that different sectors regard social media marketing to be more important than others:

Myth #2: Community is the Core of Any Social Media Strategy

The word “community” itself is often misunderstood — it’s the core spirit underlying social media, but there’s a difference between “community ethos” and “community creation.” Social media provides the opportunity, but not the obligation, to interact with others. The webinar shared this Venn diagram to help illustrate the point:

Myth #3: Metrics are Difficult to Measure

Social media is very measurable. Its success is no more difficult to measure than other online marketing, as long as you’re clear about business goals and make measurement a priority. In fact, B2B companies are usually better at measurement.

The important thing is to identify your main focus areas:

1. Where is the real opportunity? Make sure your target audience is clear. Use 3rd party sources like Comscore and Nielsen to investigate target audience participation in social media. Survey your customers, look into which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your website, and find out where your best leads come from.
2. Immerse yourself in key channels. Each social media channel has its different nuances. Immerse yourself and commit to finding out how these sites work and what matters most for your business.
3. Do less with more. You won’t have the resources to execute effectively on everything, but you can do less (social media) with more (resources).
4. Stay organized to stay focused. Carefully target your initiatives for specific target audiences and objectives.
5. Focus on business metrics, not social media metrics. Business metrics are more important when it comes to benefiting your bottom line.

The webinar concluded with a POST analogy:

People — Understand how your target customers use social media during the business buying process.

Objectives –Align social media and activity with business goals.

Strategy — Determine how your objectives will change your relationships with customers.

Technology — Choose the appropriate tools and tactics to deploy.

Overall, the webinar shared some interesting stats about B2B social media adoption. Hopefully you found the information valuable!

“I personally would have been offended to be asked to be on that panel. I’m on a panel because I’m good at what I do and not because I wear a bra. I’m not knocking the skills of any of the ladies appearing on that panel…[but] find the whole idea of the panel a bit gimmicky and a bit of a put down, as if there needs to be a “all female panel” to get smart women on stage.”

I see her point — I mean, it’s not like organizers would go out of their way to have an all-black or an all-Asian panel unless the session specifically marketed their point of view as a selling point (e.g., “How Female-Friendly is Your Website?”). It is a bit gimmicky, and I can see how some females would be offended — it’s hard to be treated equally if you’re singled out for being different.

On the other hand, I understand that conferences need to get butts into seats and take various measures to pique interest, whether that’s by having a “Smackdown,” a “Black Hat vs. White Hat” panel, or an all-female lineup. Plus, it’s not like these women wouldn’t have otherwise spoken or presented if there were no “Women of SEO” panel — conferences usually assemble talented, savvy females instead of just plucking three or four people with the required anatomy (or lack thereof) out of the Expo Hall and shoving them towards the stage.

So is it offensive to have a female-only panel at a conference, or to specifically require X-number of female speakers at at event in order to create more of a balance, or is it not a big deal? I pinged Kristy Bolsinger, Christa Watson and Kate Morris, three of the participants of the Women of SEO site clinic panel (along with Carolyn Shelby and Jane Copland — poor Lyndsay Walker got denied entry into the US), for their input. Check out the brief video interview below:

Kristy, Christa and Kate — Girl Power at Affiliate Summit West from 10e20 on Vimeo.

Personally, I’ve seen an increase of females in Internet marketing in the past four years of my career, and I think it’s great that the industry’s becoming more diverse. I don’t really mind the “female” angle at conferences so long as they’re featuring the best possible people (instead of females for “females’ sake”), whether it’s for a women-only panel or if there’s a mix of men and women speakers. What do you think about the treatment of females in the Internet marketing industry (or other male-dominated industries)? Are we on equal footing, or are we given special treatment?

SEO Site Clinic panelists

• Stay on top of those status codes! Make sure you’re checking your status codes so that your site is returning the proper codes for appropriate situations. One man’s site page was returning a 400, and Michael Gray urged him to look into what was causing the 400 and fixing the bad request.
• Move that site off Blogger! Greg Boser said that “serious” sites need to move off Blogger and other hosted service sites. You’ll bring traffic and links to your own domain rather than the parent domain/host, and it’s just more professional and better for business to have a separate set up.
• Make sure your Javascript/CSS is on external files. Greg also said that so much can go wrong when Javascript/CSS is on the page, so keep them external to avoid any issues.
• Linking to unrelated sites can raise red flags. All of the panelists noted that one attendee’s site was linking to a poker ad at the bottom of the page. The site they were analyzing wasn’t poker-related, so this link could potentially be harmful since Google could see it as being unrelated and possibly spammy or a paid link. Indeed, the woman noted that her page’s PR had dropped 2 spots and the panelists said that a good start would be to remove the questionable link.
• Check your site for canonical issues. One man’s site had multiple copies — the www and non-www version of his site was resolving, and he also had his domain with no dashes and the domain with dashes (e.g., 10e20.com vs. 10-e-20.com). Make sure that you’re sticking with a canonical version of your website (e.g., www.nodashurl.com) and 301-redirecting other versions and iterations to this central version.
• Be aware of what your webmaster is doing. During one man’s site review, the panelists found a few one pixel by one pixel links on the homepage — holy 2001 spam, Batman! The site owner had no idea these links existed and said that he has a webmaster/programmer who handles everything. After urging him to fire his webmaster, the panelists all pointed out that you need to make sure you’re aware of what your webmaster is up to and check his work to make sure that he’s not doing anything shady (either intentionally or otherwise).
• Use a theme pyramid for information architecture. Rae suggested a “theme pyramid” approach for your website content (e.g., home page –> main categories –> sub-categories –> content), as it’s the most logical and best layout for users and for crawlers.
• The faster the server, the better. The faster your server responds, the quicker your site can get crawled and the more content will get indexed.

My absolute favorite piece of advice came from Greg Boser, who suggested that you monitor questions that pop up on Yahoo! Answers, and instead of answering them right away, pay attention to which questions seem to pop up over and over again, then author up relevant blog posts that address these questions. That way, you can cite your blog post as a reference which can drive traffic to your site and establish yourself as an expert/relevant resource. Awesome tip!

The site clinic was definitely a success and was one of the best I attended at ASW. I hope you all enjoyed some of the tidbits I shared from the panel!

A few responses started to trickle in, and most of them followed the same train of thought:

• ChrisBennett: “When you self proclaim that you are a ’social media expert’”
• Amabaie: “A social media d-bag is someone who asks more than he gives. The rest is just details.”
• LoriBourne: “Only promote yourself and no one else; call yourself a social media “expert”; promote yourself anonymously & hope no one notices”
• Audette: “those hateful auto DMs that try to sell you something. FAIL”
• KennyHyder: “when you ask me to be a fan of your lame ass fb fan page just because we’re friends; people that straight up ask me to follow them on twitter”

I’m sensing a bit of a pattern here. It appears that many folks’ definition of a social media d-bag is someone who is too self-promotional. Social media marketing can be a slippery slope; after all, the main point of marketing is to promote yourself or your services. However, once you throw that whole “social” element into the mix, what was once “me me me” has now evolved into “me + you + everyone we know.”

Think about a party you’ve gone to. Everyone’s been in a social situation where they’ve experienced the self-absorbed person or the one-upper. They can’t wait for you to finish your story so they can immediately best it with a “better” one involving them, or they don’t bother asking you how things have been and would instead prefer to drone on about every minute detail of their lives. These types of people are really the hit of the party, aren’t they? You sneak an eye roll to your buddy and wait until the end of the night so you can complain about “that jerk who wouldn’t stop bragging about himself.” Nobody wants to be that guy in real life among a group of twenty or so people, so why would you online across a network of millions?

Constantly tooting your own horn can be detrimental to your business. Even if you’re actually a hard worker and knowledgeable in your field, you can turn off a lot of people who may think the following:

• You’re selfish (and possibly untrustworthy). Who wants to do business with someone who only thinks about himself? How is this person going to help you if he seems to be lacking in the generosity department? Are you always going to have a hidden agenda? Will you only help someone out for personal gain?
• You’re narrow-minded. If you only share content you’ve produced or spread your own advice, people might get the impression that you might not be open-minded enough to consider other points of view or share third party information.
• You’re a possible spammer. Nothing smells spammier than self-serving comments and links that always point back to your website.

Even if the above assumptions aren’t true, a lot of people may think otherwise. Take a look at how you portray yourself socially and see if you can potentially scale back the promotional stuff. Look at the following:

• Your blog. Are you always blogging about your company or your products? Try introducing some non-company related information, such as interesting industry news you’ve heard or some general tips that your readers will find helpful.
• Your tweets. Always tweeting links to your products or services? Never responding to people who tweet at you? Mix up your tweeting style — throw in tweets to your followers, responses, general chitchat and observations, interesting links you’ve come across (that aren’t from your site), etc.
• Your comments. If you’re commenting on someone else’s blog, make the remarks relevant to the post and don’t drop a link to a specific page or blog post on your site unless it’s absolutely relevant.
• Your Facebook profile. Even if you have a fan page, mix up the wall posts once in a while. Show appreciation to your fans by giving them some acknowledgment. Share some cool tips, poll them for their opinion/input, post some pictures and videos, share industry news and information, etc.

You don’t have to be afraid to promote yourself and your business, just be mindful of how often you’re bombarding your followers and peers with self-serving information. If you mix in a healthy array of information along with the self-promotions, your promotions may end up being more beneficial because they’ll stand out more and seem more important and genuine.

Do you have any other tips on how to be self-promotional without being repetitive, selfish or pushy? Share your examples and suggestions in the comments!

To make a long story short, a woman ordered a pizza from Domino’s that took over an hour to get delivered to her house, and then turned up being the wrong order. The customer complained about the mishap on Twitter, where it was spotted by Ramon DeLeon, a managing partner from seven Domino’s in the Chicago area. He acted swiftly by doing the following:

• He contacted her and apologized (presumably via Twitter)
• He sent the correct pizza over to her
• He sent her a video apology featuring him and the store manager
• He provided pizza for 350 people at the Chicago Social Media Club, an organization the customer is involved with

You could argue that this is going a bit overboard to appease one angry customer — an apology and correct order on the house would have probably sufficed. However, it’s easier to complain when someone does too little than when he/she does too much, and DeLeon proved that by going out of his way to turn a customer’s negative experience with Domino’s into a positive one.

DeLeon has a good quote about social media:

“The only way to put out a social media fire is with social media water.”

When someone takes a complaint public, it’s best to address it publicly. Even if you have to address the issue behind closed doors, a public acknowledgment of the situation and/or a public apology shows the user and his/her followers/friends that you’re listening and taking action. Silence can be deafening, especially to angry customers.

Ramon DeLeon appears to understand this and has embraced social media with open arms. He has 2,800 followers on Twitter and updates his account regularly, interacting with people and addressing customer concerns. He monitors social media activity using a variety of tools and has created video responses to different customers’ feedback. This isn’t someone who just “gets” social media, this is someone who loves social media.

It’s one thing to assign the young intern or new hire fresh out of college all of your social media tasks because “young people get social media, right?” It’s entirely another, more successful approach to find the person who is truly passionate about your brand and about social media and actually enjoys using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., and entrust him with your brand’s social presence. When you love what you do, it shines through and people notice. Ramon likes his job, and he likes social media. He’s embraced the latter so that he can continue to grow his business and reach out to his customers, and he’s successful at it because he cares.

You need to make sure the right person is handling your social media marketing, not just whoever’s available. It can mean the difference between failure and success, or even the difference between treading water to stay afloat and blasting across the sea in a speedboat. Users and customers are more savvy than you think, and many of us can pick up on who’s social because they feel they need to be, and who’s there because they really want to be.