10e20 Blog

Last week I was featured in a USA Today article about the craziness that continues to swhirl around Yahoo. Will it be AOL? Will it be Microsoft? Will Rupert jump in? Jeff Graham wrote an interesting article about what a combined AOL-Yahoo company would be like for users. Personally I feel that a Microsoft-Yahoo combination makes more sense (and this was reflected in my comments):

AOL and Yahoo “are shells of their former selves,” says Chris Winfield, president of New York-based 10e20, which helps companies with their search-advertising campaigns. “I don’t see how combining them makes either stronger.”

and then later:

MySpace has a rich $900 million deal for Google to provide search ads on its site. Put MySpace with Microsoft and say goodbye to the Google deal, says Winfield.

“Microsoft-and-Yahoo is the only legitimate shot at a real competitor,” he adds. “Microsoft has the drive to compete. The same can’t be said about (AOL owner) Time Warner.”

This is a recap of a teleseminar I attended which was given by Steve Harrison. It was “Seven Things You Absolutely Must Know to Get Publicity in Major Magazines and Newspapers.” The intent of this call was to give information on how to get publicity and to impart this information; he provided mini interviews with various people involved in PR. Based on the information the speakers provided – there were actually more than seven things to know – there were 14!!

Silent Endorsement

He stressed that just one feature article about you in a major publication can bring you a flood of orders – overnight. When you get publicity, you get something that no other kind of marketing can give you – a ‘silent endorsement’. People assume that if you are the one who has been written up in something like USA Today, they figure you must be the best at what you do. It is a silent endorsement.

You know the old saying about the cobbler’s children’s shoes? Well unfortunately our blog has become the children in that analogy. We’ve been so busy kicking out amazing campaigns for our clients that it’s been hard to keep up with our writing. And we also didn’t want to fall into that trap of just writing for the sake of writing. Or rehashing a bunch of things that have been said over and over again. So it’s time to catch up on some stuff that has been happening and make a pinky swear to getting the 10e20 blog content flowing strong again….

Search Engine Strategies New York. Last month I had the pleasure of presenting at SES NY. I spoke on a panel called Social Media Marketing – What is it and What is it Good For? with people from Yahoo!, IBM, Comedy Central, Ogilvy and BlogHer. My presentation focused on three of my favorite social networks (Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon) and how to leverage them effectively for your business (with three case studies for each network).

Last week I spoke to Richard Dalton from Newsday and gave him my thoughts on Microsoft and Yahoo coming together for a story he was doing. The article ran in today’s paper and can be seen here. Here are my thoughts from the piece:

Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, an Internet marketing company based in Fleetwood, agreed that neither Microsoft nor Yahoo can effectively compete individually against Google.

Microsoft’s search capability is a few year’s behind Google’s, while Yahoo’s search engine is good but lags Google’s as well, he said.

“Personally, I would much rather have two really strong options than just one really good option and then two OK ones.”

Rich ends the article with the most recent news about Yahoo! turning Microsoft down (for now): Even though Yahoo’s board has rejected Microsoft’s initial offer, some experts believe Microsoft will inevitably work out a deal to obtain the company – and then deal with an issue the software giant is familiar with – antitrust.

On Tuesday, I did my friend Shoemoney’s show on WebmasterRadio. We talked about how to get started with public relations, how to create a “USP” and most importantly how to become a great resource for reporters.

Check out Jeremy’s post here or listen to the full podcast below. And be sure to tune in to Shoe’s show every Tuesday at 6pm EST on WebmasterRadio (it’s always entertaining and informative).

Webmaster Radio
	Public Relations for Websites Show: Shoemoney Show

Sorry for the light posting lately, things have been extremely busy….

This week Facebook launched their 3 part ad program. The night it launched I spoke to a reporter from the Associated Press who wanted my thoughts on the new program. The article ran in many, many different places. Here are my thoughts from it:

Privacy concerns aside, many Facebook members may be reluctant to endorse an advertiser for fear of alienating friends who had bad experiences with the same company, said Chris Winfield, who runs 10e20, an online marketing specialist.

“They are relying a lot on their users to make this happen, and that’s going to be tricky,” Winfield said.

Then yesterday I spoke with Jonathan Richards from The Times for his article: Facebook to allow corporations to advertise via users’ referrals. Here are my thoughts:

On Wednesday night, I spoke to Brian Caufield from Forbes for a story they were doing on the Microsoft/Facebook deal that had just been announced. In this deal Microsoft beat out rival Google and was able to get international advertising rights and a stake in the company. As I said after Microsoft stole Digg.com away from Google in July, this is another big symbolic victory for Microsoft and especially the AdCenter unit. Here are my thoughts from the Forbes article:

It’s also a coup for Microsoft’s adCenter online advertising team, which has already scored key advertising deals with Facebook and social news site Digg this year. “Microsoft, again, usurped Google to attach themselves to another hot startup,” said Chris Winfield, Chief Executive of 10e20, a social media marketing consultancy based in New York.

Jeff Graham from USA Today is one of my favorite tech reporters. He’s not just someone who reports on trends, he actually gets in the trenches. I’ve known him for years and always enjoy speaking with him. So it worked out when I brought up the issue of the power of social new sites (like Digg) a few weeks ago and he said he was going to be meeting with them shortly at Web 2.0.

Today his profile piece called Readers want to know what you Digg ran and it’s about the rise of Digg and has a great interview with CEO Jay Adelson. Jeff also focused on the power of Digg for marketing purposes and search engine rankings. I spoke to Jeff for awhile about this (but had to give him a lot of info off the record):

On Thursday morning, I spoke with AP reporter Michael Liedtke about Google’s upcoming earning announcement. I told Mike that I expected them to report really strong earnings (especially based on Yahoo’s) and to exceed expectations. That educated guess wasn’t exactly rocket science if you’re in our industry and see how much Google controls…

Chris Winfield, who runs the search engine ad firm 10e20, says Google has become the Internet’s equivalent of the Beatles during that rock group’s heyday in the 1960s. ”It’s pretty amazing. It’s almost like they are in control of the world.”

Beatles reference? Yeah — my exact quote there was that ‘Google is more popular than Jesus right now’. Taken from John Lennon’s infamous quote about his own band and the power they held in the 60’s. GOOG is big right now. Really big. Is that a good thing? Well it certainly is to Wall Street.

There is a new article on Forbes today about how marketers are harnessing the power of Digg. I am one of the marketers included in the article:

Chris Winfield, president of search marketing firm 10e20, enumerated some subjects that are sure to get approval from Digg’s largely libertarian and adolescent user base. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the NBC show Heroes, and the iPhone, for instance, are favorites among Diggers. President Bush, Fox News and the Recording Industry Association of America, on the other hand, are hated topics that companies should avoid.

Andy Greenberg’s article also includes 4 other brilliant social media marketers: Cameron Olthuis, Neil Patel, Tamar Weinberg and Brent Csutoras. The article stemmed out of seeing all of our presentations at SMX Social Media (which was a great success). I kind of like this quote of mine that he ended the article with: