Out-Smarts Internet Marketing

International blog day is coming up again (on August 31) and once again the Out-Smarts blog will participate. The whole point of this day is to break down borders and allow bloggers from all over to connect.

What do you need to do? Find 5 blogs that you like and blog about them on the day. They have to be blogs from other countries, areas of interest or culture. Last year our favorites included a rock tumbling and travel blog. You’ll have to wait till Sunday to find out about this years favorites.

As someone who can fritter away hours on Google analytics looking at web traffic patterns and trying to understand them, I was over the moon when the opportunity arose to review a book for the Mini Book Expo for Bloggers about just that.

Click - Unexpected Insights For Business and Life by Bill Tancer takes a very close look at online patterns: specifically what millions of people search for online and turns up a number of unexpected and interesting parallels.

Bill is the general manager of global research at Hitwise, a company specializing in online competitive intelligence and as such has vast amounts of data available at his disposal on how and where people click. He loves finding patterns and predicting outcomes, some of which he shares in the book and, as I found out, he has an uncanny knack at uncovering search habits one wouldn’t expect.

Did you know, for example, that searches for “Prom Dresses” peak early in the year or that on-line sports gamblers like to play poker in the close season. These are some of the first discoveries Tancer discusses in the book. He goes on to analyze celebrity addiction and what we really fear as opposed to what we say we fear. Tancer makes the valuable point that people are more transparent and honest when they search online. They see it as a forum providing anonymity and are therefore more comfortable using online search to find out about touchy subjects than they would be face to face or in “real life”. By tracking who searches for what, where they click and when, patterns emerge that tell us a lot about the habits of our society and the way we use both traditional and new technology.

As a fan of the Arctic Monkeys, it was interesting to find out that Bill was able to track their meteoric rise to fame through as small number of “super connectors” spreading the word in MySpace and that TV also plays a major role in driving online traffic patterns.

This book is full of case studies and interesting anecdotes and has many gems of information such as the fact that Pareto’s 80/20 rules doesn’t apply online where 1-9-90 one does: 90 percent of people online are lurkers, 9 percent are intermittent contributers and 1 percent active collaborators. A kick in the teeth to the web 2.0 ideal of everyone participating.

As an Internet marketer, this book is invaluable and effectively displays the value of data mining online to hone in on your target audience but its not simply a book for the internet or marketing professional. It provides an entertaining analysis of online habits written in laymen terms that would be applicable and valuable to anyone interested in the habits of our society.

Thanks to Hyperion and the Mini Book Expo for the advanced reading copy of this book and especially to Bill for sharing his insights. I look forward to more in the Hitwise blog.

I love tracking the stats on the traffic that comes to this web site and can easily while away hours finding out where people are visiting from and what they are interested in. I was therefore fascinated this weekend as I watched traffic to the site spike at a time when there had been no post so of course I headed straight into Google Analytics to find the solution. There I discovered that it wasn’t a new post that people were finding but an old one.

Let me explain. Back in December 2007, the there was a similar spike that happened when I posted Facebook overpopulated? and Facebook Overpopulated - the aftermath discussing a fun wall post I had received in Facebook warning that the system was overloaded and that inactive users would be deleted unless they forwarded the message. It was a classic chain mail hoax and many were taken in.

By using Analytics I was able to determine that the traffic patterns to this site were repeating this phenomenal surge in traffic but this time there was no new post simply the old post that worried Facebook users were finding. I can only assume that the hoaxers (is that a word? - sounds like the Scottish word for armpits - which is rather apt really) had decided to revisit their little scam.

If you have indeed received the fun wall or email similar, here is Facebook’s excerpt outlining how they communicate with users in the event that they need to do so. ”We will never use any of the following methods to tell you information, or ask for you to take an action:

I hope we have put your mind at rest somewhat. Thanks for coming to our site. Please stay a while and find out more about what we do….

Gotta love Google Analytics.

Thanks Sam for the photy!

Thanks again to Rob Cottingham of Social Signal for this.

This great article came from Rowena List of Getting It Together and deals with strategies to get your email organized - thanks Rowena!

Getting Your Mail Together

Dedicated to all the people who would like to simplify their lives just a little bit more.

When it comes to our mail you will want to adopt the “Deal with it, delegate it or dump it” philosophy.

Deal With It: Let’s start with the first one. Collect your mail from the box when you have 2 minutes to deal with it. Handle each piece of mail once if at all possible. File your bills and invitations etc under the appropriate dates in your 1to31 organizing binder. There is no need to pay bills until the day they are due. By being organized with your mail you will avoid the pitfalls of having piles of unopened mail all over your kitchen counter or top of your desk.

Delegate It: Can you delegate any of the mail tasks? Setting up prepaid authorization payments is a great way of delegating your bill payments and takes the stress out of paying them monthly. Is there someone in your household that can fill in the forms that need to be returned to set-up authorized payments? If not set aside some time to do this yourself. The time spent to get it set-up will be worth it!

Dump It: Dump all junk mail in the recycling bin or better yet sign up for the RED DOT program and you will never receive junk mail again. Think of the trees you will be saving too.

Next time you go to your mail box try these simple tips and see how much time you will save. What will you do with that extra time?

Given my previous 2 posts, I thought this would be a good time to revisit the reasons and benefits of using microblogs and Twitter in particular for business benefit.

1. Great source for the latest information in your industry - if you’re following the right people that is.
2. Shorter than blogs and more concise so if you only have a few moments you can hone in on juicies more readily.
3. Stellar way to establish your expertise and build awareness of what you do - build brand.
4. Microblog technology can be used to expand awareness of your service. A great example is the police and fire services using Twitter to get the word out in emergency cases.
5. By linking or announcing new articles or changes to your site you can drive more traffic to said site.
6. Microblogs are a great way to monitor what being said about your product or industry, so you can keep ahead of the pack. Its also a great way to elicit feedback.
7. To share neat links and add value for your followers.
8. To collaborate on a project with remote partners or colleagues in short blasts.
9. Whilst direct selling on microblogs is discouraged, many companies use it to bring awareness of the existence/benefits of their products and services to new markets.
10. To network with peers in your industry in order to develop your knowledge and to build better partnerships.

Following yesterday’s post on the increased scam level in Twitter, here are 10 tips to safe Twittering.

1. Friends and Followers - be selective about who you follow. If someone is following way more people than they have followers then it may be best to avoid them. They could be “Follow Spammers” more interested in gaining exposure than in finding interesting Tweets.

2. Before you follow someone, check out their recent Tweets to see if they are of interest to you before you add them (or of interest at all).

3. Keep a limit on the number of Twitterers you follow. If you are following too many people then you’re simply going to suffer from information overload and you won’t be able to find the gems so easily.

4. Don’t click on a link from anyone you don’t know or trust. Many Twitterers use TinyURL or similar to shorten URLs (I do) but this camouflages the true source so you don’t know what your clicking on. These could be disguised links to potentially dangerous sites or viral downloads so be careful, or you get a Mac.

5. Monitor the Tweetosphere and make sure you are aware of anyone who mentions you so that it comes to your attention and you can be ready to counter any adverse Twittering.

6. Read the Twitter blog for updates and information on malware and spam issues.

7. Secure your Twitter name. Get a Twitter profile in your business name before someone else does. Thanks to Pimp McFly for that one.

8. Use your common sense when Twittering and remember that most of these announcements can be seen by anyone and everyone. You don’t really have to tell announce that you’re away from home.

9. If someone you’re following overloads you with spam then use the Twitter block at the right of the side panel to block them and let Twitter know too.

10. Call on the community. If something adverse does happen then make your community aware of it. You will be amazed at the support, advice and action of the collective.

As the number of people using Twitter has grown so, off course, has the number of people using the system to try to take advantage of others. There have been a number of scams lately that have come to my attention.

Twitter power user and Facebook coach Mari Smith has been hounded recently by a Twitterer who sets up fake profiles pretending to be Mari and uses that forum to deride and poke fun of the coach. Each time Twitter identifies the offending Twitterer and closes down the profile but each time they simply set up a new fake profile and start from scratch. No doubt it has been really annoying for Mari, but she’s done a good job of using Twitter to bring these to the attention of her audience and therefore limit the impact.

Also in the news on the Twitter scam front comes the case of the Brazillian site which shares a porn link with Twitter contacts but when someone clicks, a nasty virus is downloaded which can access data on your machine. Maybe it serves them right for clicking on porn links in the first place but regardless, this is one of the first instances and no doubt not the last, of people using Twitter maliciously.

So Twitterers: beware and be safe when you microblog. Our next post…. You guessed it, safe Twittering. Watch this space.  

Thanks for the image freschje

Recent articles in the Vancouver Sun highlight the growth in popularity of social networks as a means for disgruntled consumers to get back at corporate giants and even smaller businesses like the one in the coffee debacle.

Wednesday’s article about Telco customers using Facebook to bite back at Bell and Telus and June’s article on Gas Tax protest numbers soar on Facebook both showcase how these mediums are quickly catching on as a means by which the ordinary person on the street can have their say. They depict dire results for companies.

Rather than a threat, I look on these forums as an opportunity for companies to do vital research. Gripe groups provide a vital pulse on customer sentiment. Every company should be constantly monitoring the Internet and social media forums like blogs, microblogs and social networks to hear whats being said about their company or industry in these forums.

The more consumers gripe the better - its the perfect way for companies to find out what people like and don’t like about aspects of their product or service and to make it better.

Traditionally organisations have expended substantial sums to research their target audience using focus groups, surveys and questionnaires. Now there’s data available for free online. Granted the flow of gripes may not be controlled in the same way a focus group or survey would be but you cannot ignore the value of this information.

Use Google alerts, regular searches (on different search engines) and tools like Tweet Scan to monitor these forums and keep an ear to the web for what is being said. By doing so you will have the opportunity to act quickly to respond to adverse criticism and you will gain great insights into your customer opinions so that you can improve your offering.

Its that time of the month again. Time to look back and recap on new media developments. Here are links to our favorite finds of the month:

Fresh Start Recycling - not only an online wonder using blogging, blog PR and social media to spread the good word, this Vancouver company gets rid of your junk (both home and domestic) and recycles as much as possible.

Sphinn - is a great forum to find Internet marketing news and to participate on related forums, its a great source for whats new in the industry.

Easy Tweets - I found this where else but on Twitter. It allows you to manage mutliple Twitter profiles in one central place. Very handy for social media marketers.

Xobni - I am ever on the lookout for ways to keep organised and love the concept of Xobni as a tool to help me keep my in box efficient.

Yelp - had a good meal and want to rave or had a bad spa experience and want to rant, then you need to Yelp.

Loopt - the concept seems a bit wierd (I am not sure if I want everyone to know where I am and what I am doing via maps on their phones) but Loopt will probably catch on.