Archive for the 'Business Blogging' Category

Heeeeeeere’s Skippy!

Guess who’s back / Guess again / Marketing Genius is back / Tell a friend / Guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back, [fade out]

Looks like the Marketing Genius blog is back after the hijacking.  That was much quicker than anticipated.  Please continue to enjoy posts from our good friend Skip Lineberg, which resume today.

Marketing Conference Blog Changes / Update on Marketing Genius

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know that it hasn’t been updated in awhile.  Please accept my apologies.  The three of us have been pretty swamped since our spring conference dates around West Virginia.  We hope to have some announcements on new dates in the next month or so and we’ll update here first.

In the meantime, I wanted to give you an update on 2 items:

1. For a time being we pulled posts from each of the travelling speakers from Next Generation Marketing.  We are no longer doing this, but still encourage you to check out each one individually:

2.  You’ll note I didn’t link to Skip’s blog.  We didn’t have a falling out - I still want to give him a great big bear hug every time I see him.  His blog - Marketing Genius - got hacked.  Really tough situation. As soon as the situation gets resolved, I’ll provide an update.

Ranked Among the Top Advertising & Media Blogs

We are proud to share news that Marketing Genius from Maple Creative is now ranked among the top advertising and media blogs in the world, according to Advertising Age. We are presently ranked #393 out of 600 total blogs. Not bad ... even if you do have to scroll several times to find us on the list. The Power 150 is a ranking of the top English-language media and marketing blogs in the world, as developed by marketing executive and blogger, Todd Andrlik. It's really as simple as that, except that the name isn't strictly accurate: It currently ranks more than 500 blogs written about all types of media and pretty much every imaginable marketing discipline. It's now housed on Ad Age, partly because we thought it'd draw some traffic and links for us, but also because both Todd and Ad Age figured it was a useful service to rank and showcase all these sources of information in one place, where thousands of readers could discover them. With more than 700,000 registered users on our site and a host of daily and weekly products, we also hope we can grow the traffic to Todd's creation and some of the blogs it highlights. Methodology What Todd came up with is a largely objective ranking, which is probably why it's already gained such popularity among marketing and media bloggers. It uses a basic multimetric algorithm to obtain a final ranking based on the sum of eight sources, seven of which come from Google, Bloglines, Alexa, Yahoo! and Technorati. The last is Todd's own personal subjective measure. In the case of a tie, individual scores for a blog are weighted in the following order (from highest to lowest): Todd Points (1 to 15): As the only subjective measure in the Power 150 algorithm, 1 to 15 opinion points were assigned to each blog. Todd Andrlik values frequent, relevant, creative and high-quality content. The use of audio, video and graphics is also heavily weighted in the Todd Points. Yahoo InLinks (1 to 30): Much like Technorati's InLinks count, Yahoo uses its Site Explorer to tabulate the number of links to a particular blog. We then scale this number down to a 30-point scale. Technorati Ranking (1 to 20): Technorati ranking analyzes the number of sites pointing to a particular blog. The more link sources referencing your blog, the higher the Technorati ranking. Similar to the Bloglines Subscribers value, Technorati ranking ranges were determined (i.e., top 9,000, top 10,000, top 20,000, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 20) that was used in the Power 150 algorithm. Technorati Authority (1 to 20): Much like the InLinks count, Technorati's Authority count is the number of blogs (as opposed to individual links) that link to a particular blog. This number is then scale down to a 20-point scale. Technorati InLinks (1 to 20): Technorati tallies the number of links to a particular blog, and we then scale that number down to a 20-point scale. Alexa Points (1 to 15): Alexa ranks sites with an algorithm that incorporates page views and reach (the percentage of all web users who have visited that particular site). For the Power 150, we take that rank and assign it a proportional score between 1 and 15 and factor it into a blog's total score. Bloglines Subscribers (1 to 10): Bloglines displays the number of feed subscribers. Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., more than 20, more than 30, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 15) that was used in the Power 150 algorithm. Google PageRank (0 to 10): Google PageRank is a link-analysis algorithm that interprets web links and assigns a numerical weighting (0 to 10) to each site. High-quality sites receive a higher PageRank. The actual PageRank number was used in the Power 150 ranking algorithm. Collective Intellect (0 to 10): Collective Intellect is a social media analytics company that works with brands to evaluate consumer opinion, measure buzz, identify customer sentiment and manage corporate reputations at the industry, company, brand, campaign and messaging levels. For the Power 150, Collective Intellect's authority ranking uses a patent-pending algorithm to calculate an author's authority on a topic, including such measures as link-analysis between on-topic posts, topic density, author's percent of contribution to the topic, number of comments and post quality. This honor is to be shared by all of you, our entire community of marketing geniuses. It goes to show how important all of you are who comment, contribute, link to, recommend, tag and 'favorite' this and other blogs. Thanks! We couldn't have done it without you.

Building Loyalty and Advocacy: Skip Lineberg

Will it Blend

Check the videos.

We’re wanting raving loyal customers. Or loyal raving customers.

Would you refer us to someone else?

Net Promoter

Great little example of advocacy of Zappos.com from Jenny in the audience in her explanation of her Zappos usage - “Any shoe you would ever need.”

If you check their site you have have testimonials front and center. Let others toot your horn.

Good memory moment from Justin about a great thing Zappos did for a customer a while back. I’d forgotten about that one, but then again, I’ve forgotten what I had for lunch.

Seriously, read Seth Godin. If you don’t have a sublime realization of zen-like wowser-ness then I’m a numpty.

Get your free copy of Groundswell. (Although it’s a free for blog review copy.)

Right, where are we.

The whole general idea here is to not act like you give a crap but to actually give a crap and align in that kind of engagement with you and your customers. Yes, it’s something you have to do, but it’s something you honestly can’t fake. Or can’t fake honestly.

You can inspire them with going the extra yard like with the Zappos example above.

Linkedin

If you do happen to be an existing member of Linkedin or sign up for the service after the conference, feel free to mentioning it in the comments if you’d like to connect.

Beware the John McCain spam troll strategy.

Whatever the channel, you need to engage and communicate with your customers and develop a deep relationship. It’s fairly simple. Blogs are fabulous in the current Web landscape that is of the read/write variety, but if you feel more comfortable utilizing video or audio (podcasting) then go right ahead.

From a personal point of view I’ve always been a more avid writer than speaker. And I’ve always had a face for radio. Blogs are an easy choice from my pov . I’d also argue that because of additional benefits such as the search engine reach they’re more beneficial as a more rounded marketing strategy. Let a blog be your Web presence’s engine room.

Engagement and Dialogue: Justin Seibert

One way conversation is that old creaky dinosaur most beloved of the old creaky media.

Nice. Charlie Brown’s teacher as the zoned out messenger. Good impression with hand gestures to boot.

Justin’s flagpole - the story will happen and will you join the conversation.

The conversation is uncontrollable. It’s the old Oscar Wilde quote about the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

Twitter.

Two chances to make a first impression - when you first meet and when you first screw up. A Huntington attendee took the idea and threw it round his bank as a mission statement type thingy.

So how does one maintain one’s online reputation.

Half of all purchases are made with online customer reviews. Negative and positive.

Search Providian

Really. As if a Boy’s Gone Wild video starring Justin would’ve sold any copies whatsoever. Now I’ve got a terrible mental image.

46% of all employees have talked about their workplace online.

Google Health Service

Truly universal healthcare provision.

Ebayink.com

How on earth do you win a severed finger in a bet?

All businesses have advocates. Embrace them and cajole them. Take them skiing like Brad does on a regular basis.

THREE THINGS TO DO TONIGHT

google.com/alerts

Techrigy

Start building a Web presence - even if it isn’t a site per se, start building a rapport online. You can use one of the above services to find out where your brand is being mentioned.

Set up a paid search accounts - only half an hour on Google and Yahoo with your brand and business name results. If and when it happens it’s set up so you can adjust whatever it is that has occurred as a modifier.

“Google are awful! Absolutely awful!” - Justin Seibert, President, Direct Online Marketing.

Man, this isn’t half a test of my flabby touch-typing skills. Then again, it doesn’t take much.






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