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Archive for August, 2009

Brian Solis’s ‘Conversation Prism’ the dynamics of conversation at Affiliate Summit East #ase09, Part 1

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Tons of information from Brian Solis. First we’ll start with some tools for keeping up. See conversationprism.com, but Brian tackles the concept of conversations and how to monitor them for engagement and/or monetization.
This is the first segment of his talk at Affiliate Summit East.

Start w listening and observing

  • It’s more than just sharing coupons
  • The conversation is bigger than Twitter
  • Go find the conversations that matter to your business and your target group
  • Most overwhelming part of starting is just starting, the larger the company, the bigger the project

Tools for monitoring

  • friendfeed
  • collecta: document real-time activity
  • backtype
  • peoplebrowsr: Tweetdeck for every social network
  • backtweets: helps to try to assess whether your links are being passed on: tinyurl etc.

On any social media site 90% of the people read, 9% share (blog comments), 1% create

Companies are/should dedicate teams to monitoring Twitter

Read more from Brian Solis’s ‘Conversation Prism’ the dynamics of conversation at Affiliate Summit East #ase09, Part 2

Social media is simply trust – Peter Shankman, Founder of HARO – Help a Reporter Out

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009


Social media is simply trust, previously known as reputation management

Peter Shankman, Founder of HARO – Help a Reporter Out
@ Affiliate Summit East 09

Peter Shankman keynote video available

Learn how to write

  • 80% of communications will be written
  • You have 1 paragraph to nail the reporter, the buyer, whoever you’re trying to connect with
  • Learn how to write, with brevity, and you will increase your sales


If they’re at your site + you can’t hook them with our writing = you will lose the sale

You’re creating top-of-mind presence

Social media is trust, everything you do, everyone will know what you’re doing, so have to be honest

Performance marketing is really about relevance – Don Mathis, Epic Advertising @ Affiliate Summit East 09

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009


Key Trends in Performance Marketing: Performance Is Really About Relevance


Don Mathis CEO, Epic Advertising

Offline equivalent = direct mail

A lot of people don’t know what Performance or Affiliate Marketing really is

  • Affiliate is a media buyer = CPC, display, email or combined
  • Publisher is someone who has a site and puts up content
    • Blog posting content focused on long-tail, they want to publish, make money is secondary

Trends

  • Shifting from brand spend to more sophisticated performance models
  • Mainstream traditional advertising declining
  • Online is healthy
  • Now affiliates and publishers are hybridizing: hard to define and to manage them
  • People buy terms on Google to sell to Blockbuster and Netflix, have more content, boosts quality scores
  • No longer just thin landing pages to a couple dozen pages that drives organic as well
  • Monetize more robustly


What do the trends mean?
    o    Opportunity
    o    Advertisers and agencies need to become more creative and diversify
    o    Ad networks need to target better
    o    Pubs need to utilize networks for success & keep up w/ what ads need for success

Inference, reference, relevance

Need to focus on
    o    Playing by the rules: Attract larger advertisers
    o    Technology & targeting: Provide better ROI
    o    Education: Evangelize everyone on the win-wins

“Desire plus danger equals drama” Jonathan Kranz shows how you can have a superb eBook too

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Wondering exactly what you need to do to demonstrate your abilities — or those of your company or organization? You’ve digested all the Kool-Aid about educating prospects and consumers, not selling to them. Great, but now what?

eBook guru Jonathan Kranz bails you out with his new eBook eBook.

Basically, he kits you out with all the skills you need in today’s new marketing expeditions FOR FREE!

So, if you’re still pumping traditional sales and marketing messaging, take a quick read (really) through Kranz’s eBook eBook. This guide leads you from the abyss of ignorance into the light of successful information-based campaigns that today’s decision-makers respond to.

It’s an absolutely free (no registration even) download @ http://www.kranzcom.com/

“This cupcake thing is killing my summer,” an evening with Ryan Abood of GourmetGiftBaskets.com

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009


Kudos to the Boston-Cambridge SEO meetup organizers for not just another great presentation, but a riveting speaker.

Ryan Abood took what he knew from his parents’ floral business in Manchester NH and created a multimillion dollar David among the Goliaths of the gift-basket realm: Harry and David, Wine Country.

On Monday he revealed how and how GourmetGiftBaskets.com got burnt by Google for some unsavory tactics: paid-for links.

His strategy now — besides delivering the best quality goodies in the baskets, with lowest-cost shipping — create events and find strategies that reach beyond SEO.

And, so we will soon witness the results of his (just) monthlong quest to obtain the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s largest cupcake, to be baked and unveiled in Detriot in just a couple weeks.

Why? Not just to create an “international sensation, you can’t can’t buy that publicity,” but also because “I want to be the guy who holds the world records for the most world records,” Ryan said, rousing quite a response from the normally serene crowd of optimizers, link-builders, eMetrics-centric folk.

Aside from his quips, though, Ryan had some serious insights to take home:

  • “Conversion has everything to do with trust”
  • “Building credibility, conversion has to do with that and only that”
  • “Link-building has to have consumer interest in mind”
  • and “Vanilla rises better, travels better.”