10e20 Blog

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.

For this round of the ‘How Would I Do This…’ I am looking at an article on CNN called ‘How do you know your love is real? Check Facebook’. I am also going to tie in my previous post on the overuse of stock photography.

The article from CNN is a news story that is generating 100’s of comments and opinions from people expressing how they deal with relationship status on Facebook.

The photo used is great. I think it conveys right away the feeling of being watched while on your computer. But I would have pushed it one step further and incorporated the Facebook logo on the computer where there is a blue space on the back of the monitor. It seems so obvious to me and would add that extra bit of information to the photo to make it almost tell the story.

Here’s a quick run-down on where I’ll be speaking during April. One thing that I have tried to do is vary events up a bit so that I can come in contact with all kinds of different people from different industries. Here’s a look at April:

SEO Class. This Friday (April 11th) I will be helping out Jim Boykin with his SEO Class. This is the first one since Jim took it over and brought it under the umbrella of his Internet Marketing Ninjas program and features some amazing presenters. I’ll be presenting on social media marketing tactics and attendees will also get to learn from Michael Gray, Greg Niland, Ted Ulle (tedster), Kim Krause-Berg, Barry Schwartz and of course - Jim Boykin. I think it’s pretty much sold out but if you really want to go, email me (cwinfield [at] 10e20.com) and I’ll see what I can do.

OK, before I begin let me say that I use stock photography. Stock photos are a great convenience. I sometimes depend on it, especially in a crunch or when I just need someone smiling and expressing happiness for a call center spot. That being said, there comes a time when stock photography is so obviously staged, politically correct fluff that screams “I am STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY!”

You all know the image, a group of happy employees who all are various ages, genders and races. Everyone is sitting around a desk pointing to a computer screen in some bland office interior.

Sometimes only the top few results are ever used in a stock library search and those photos are everywhere. How do we avoid these pitfalls of overused imagery and photography?

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).

Frequently I speak with Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s), Business Development Specialists, Product and Brand Managers regarding Social Media engagements and they always ask: “How many customers am I going to get directly from my Social Campaigns? What’s going to be my CPA, my ROI and my ROAS? What Immediate sales will I get?” To this I respectfully respond: “Stop! Don’t look at Social as a direct response marketing channel.” These marketers often react in shock with a quizzical twist because they are used to hearing what they want which is: “Hey, all of our programs are going to get you crazy, mad sales dude, right away - mate.”

With great design and implementation you can break all the rules and still be successful. This, by any other means, shouldn’t have worked. It shouldn’t have reached the ridiculous number of 3,338 diggs after being posted just 4 days ago. It was Flash animation. It was an advertisement for a product. It was selling you something. But as the submitter ‘ad-hater’ #1 stated :

If all advertisements were done like this, I might actually start reading them.

What happened? It was a healthy combination of good design and smart implementation of a beautifully created product that spawned a much deserved buzz. Pink Floyd was selling their limited edition 40th anniversary 14 album box set called ‘Oh, By The Way’. The Flash animation was designed by a London digital creative agency called Bloc.

If we look at the presentation and design of the interface that the user controls to view the various albums in the set we see that it is very minimal.

I’ll admit it, I am a search addict. I search all day long morning, noon and night; on the move on my mobile, at home and at work.

Each day, 7 days a week, I spend no less than 4 hours conducting well over 150 queries, searching and scanning search engine result pages 2, 3, 4 even 10 pages deep. Organic results, I can’t get enough of them.  Descriptions, domains, URLs, Titles; I’m sick and obsessed with them. I search at least 4 different search engines , 6 social media and bookmarking sites, 3 social news sites, 2 blog search engines and 3 comparison shopping sites every day. Web, images, video, books, you name it, I search it.

I search until my eyes hurt and are bloodshot, ’til I have a headache, my fingers hurt, my arms tingle with pins and needles, my elbows are sore and my legs feel numb. Then I search more, almost until I forget to go to the bathroom.

Yesterday, Chris Sherman from Search Marketing Now presented another webinar jammed packed with useful information. This session entitled ‘Multi-National Search Marketing: Effective Strategies for Global Marketers‘ was sponsored by iProspect and moderated by Claire Schoen.

Chris was a perfect speaker due to his experience covering search and search engines since 1994. He is the author of several books, including ‘Google Power’.

Chris started out the presentation by outlining that he’ll cover why we might want to go global, what types of campaigns work best and how to do it.

The first slide discussed the fact that a lot of people perceive that Google has taken over the earth. Yes, Google is dominant and if you are running a search marketing campaign, you understand that Google’s reach can give you that global coverage. Chris said we may ask ourselves why should we should bother going multinational since Google has a global reach. But, Chris believes there are other opportunities out there.

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.