Papa Johns Pizza is currently running one of the cleverest Facebook promotions I’ve seen.  Between now and December 1, if you sign up to be a fan of of Papa Johns on Facebook you will receive a coupon for a free medium pizza (fineprint: you must first purchase a pizza online, which insinuates this is really a buy one get one free type of things).

The promotion appears to be working, as Papa Johns has gone from 10,000 fans to 168,509 fans in a matter of days.

Not bad, particularly when you consider the coupon isn’t any different from the ones the pizza chain mails out and offers on their website every day.

Thumbing through the October 2008 issue of PRSA's publication Tactics was a lot like opening up my RSS folders and taking a look around. Featuring an internet/web 2.0 multiple page spread, the issue covered topics ranging from maximizing the benefits of Twitter to the convenience of using FriendFeed. Most of this seemed familiar — maybe a little too familiar, as I had seen all of this content in one form or another on various blogs over the last year or so. Even their articles (the Twitter article in particular, which made use of a numbered list) read more like blog posts than articles. Well, so what?

If the editors of Tactics thought it was worth covering this on such a grandiose scale (the web 2.0 features run eight pages), it simply means that the PR industry as a whole is still learning about these new technologies and how to use them to advance their clients' desires. I mean, these articles are quite basic, and nothing I wouldn't expect most of our readers to at least be aware of — like an entire persuasive piece on why your company needs to Twitter (sound familiar?)

Seeing this spread caused me to stop and re-examine perspectives for a moment. While people 'round these parts may take these basic elements of digital PR for granted, this area of the industry is still relatively very new. Sometimes it is good to go over the fundamentals, to relearn your basics. If you have access to PRSA's trade publications, I'd check out the issue — a good introductory summary of some elementary online PR tactics — maybe show it to your boss and convince them to start a company Twitter account.

Yesterday I streamed a recorded webinar from MarketingProfs titled "Beyond Trade Show Metrics: Improving Your Event Marketing ROI," conducted by Skip Cox is CEO of Exhibit Surveys, Inc.  This interested me since we had a booth at the Personal Democracy Forum for ImpactWatch last month.

During the webinar Cox discussed the concept of selective attraction.  This is basically a smarty pants way of describing the importance of attracting the trade show attendees who are the most interested and in most need of the product that an exhibit is pitching.  These people are much more likely to purchase the product or service than other attendees, and devoting time to someone who isn't interested is a waste of time when a potential client is left alone.

This makes sense since, considering our recent experience, not everyone who is attending a politics and technology conference is interested and/or in need of a media monitoring program.  For instance, I met plenty of great folks at our ImpactWatch booth, but some didn't need what we offer.  However, I hope we attracted the people who were interested in our product.

So how am I going to tie trade show exhibit metrics and search engine optimization together?

Well, selective attraction is also an important concept in SEO.  For example, we may optimize the ImpactWatch site to rank high for searches for a general keyword like "news," but a very small portion of these searchers are interested in a media monitoring product.  Perhaps they simply want to know how the stock market is doing or what Punxsutawney Phil did on Groundhog Day, not reputation management. 

Thus, it sometimes is wasteful to invest in ranking well for a general keyword.  That's why the long tail of search is an important factor to consider.  Although focusing on appropriate long tail keywords may attract fewer site visitors, if a greater portion of site visitors is coming from a more niche term are likely to convert from a visitor to a customer, that is a better practice — especially since it is probably less competitive to rank well for a niche term.  

To learn more read our SEO Basics white paper; we discuss selective attraction in the keyword section.

In many ways, I've learned more while explaining a concept than I do reading or listening about it.  That's why it is always intriguing to explain Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to someone who doesn't work in the realm of web development. 

Over the weekend, I was explaining SEO to a librarian I know. During this conversation I was trying to explain the field to her in terms that I assume she would understand.

For example, I explained that a search engine is like a librarian whom people approach to find the most relevant information about a topic.  In the case of search engines, people ask by using a keyword.  Then the search engine provides a list of sites in order of relevance.

To do this, I explained, that search engines gauge many factors of each information source that a librarian must also consider.  These factors include: the age of the source, who cites (links to it on the Internet) it, how often it is updated, etc. 

During this discussion she mentioned something that intrigued me.  Librarians, like us all, need to conscientiously work to avoid providing biased information.  For instance, a patron may ask a librarian for a book about the librarian's religion, and the librarian may feel compelled to refer the patron a book written by someone who sheds a positive light upon the religion.  Whether this is truly the best book or not, the librarian must refrain from unduly emphasizing one factor of relevance over others.

Likewise, search engines must also work to avoid providing biased information.  This was the case years ago when they weren't as selective with the link factor when assessing a site's relevance.  Many web developers would create virtually useless sites to a human that were chock full of links (aka "link farms") to sites that they were trying to get ranked well.  The search engines eventually became more discriminating when assessing links to prevent such manipulation so that they could provide less biased results to those who used them to search for information.

Although I've understood the concept of link farms before my discussion with my friend, her comments helped me understand SEO in a better way.  Thus, I would suggest to anyone to explain the complexities of their field to someone else.  It helps.

We're excited to post a new document about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to the research and articles section of our site.  This is an important discipline in web development.  It is the process in which one tries to boost how search engines like Google and Yahoo! rank a web site when they provide search results to their users for specific keywords.

Many people openly discuss SEO on the Internet, and we wanted to contribute to the discussion by writing our document, SEO Basics (click to download it in PDF format).  While there are many great resources out there, we hope that we present things in a different way so that we can help more people understand this field.  We hope you like it and welcome your feedback.

In it we briefly define SEO and then discuss keyword selection, title and meta tags, content, site structure, link properties, and content management systems (CMS). It is important to note that in this document, we focus on on-site optimization.

There are many aspects of a web site that one can control, and we have focused on the major ones.  Having said that, there are many factors that a site administrator cannot control that have major influence on a site's search engine rankings.  One such factor is the links pointing to a site, and collecting and managing the links pointing to a site is a very important part of SEO that we do not focus on in this document. So, please keep that in mind as you read our document.

In case you didn't know, Tuesday, June 17th is a big day… for the Firefox community.  That's when Mozilla will release Firefox 3.  It also hopes to set a new Guinness World Record (they've been some wacky ones) for the most software downloads in 24 hours on what it dubs "Download Day 2008." In fact, on the day's official site, people are asked to pledge to download the new browser on that day.

Firefox is one of the most popular alternatives to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, and it has a cult following.  Thus, it is not surprising that Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind it, actively taps into this crowd to spread its product, and Download Day is one way that it can help foment excitement with the fans.

The whole concept of creating a special day to set a new world record may seem gimmicky, but it is also creative.  While a more traditional advertising and marketing campaign might promote the release of the new browser well, Mozilla likely lacks the funds to adequately pull this off on a global — or even national — scale.  Further, Firefox is an Internet-based product, and advertising and marketing is different on-line than it is off-line.  However, that's not necessarily a hurdle since a well devised scheme can cheaply and quickly turn into a viral phenomenon.

While I bet existing Firefox proponents will make up most of the potential world record participants, the novelty of helping set a record might attract some people to give the browser a test drive.  However, the hoopla is mainly for the current user.  It gives them a chance to revel in using the program.

Are you excited about Download Day 2008?  Do you like to have special days to celebrate your favorite products? 

The Bivings Group is a busy web development firm, and as such we don’t always spend the time we should on our own websites. As a consultant, you focus so much on helping clients that sometimes you don’t spend the time to help yourself.

In an effort to improve the performance of our own online program, we are going to take some time this summer to update the content, graphics, etc. on our main site, our blog and the website of our principle product, ImpactWatch. One of the first things we are doing is looking at ways to improve our performance in search engines. Our sites do pretty well in Google, but, like anyone else, we want to do better. We know that search engine optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process, and that if we don’t consistently put in work our ratings will drop. (more…)

In our post announcing the launch of our Bivings Twitter account, I mentioned being inspired by the way other companies/organizations are using Twitter (what is Twitter?). The organization that I was thinking of specifically when I launched our account was Zappos.com. Lots of organizations are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon and using the tool to publish RSS feeds and have one way conversations. But very few at this point are using Twitter to actually engage with customers and stakeholders. Zappos.com is one of the few.

Zappos has set up their own Twitter micro site to highlight the company’s use of Twitter. The site features:

• A “Beginners Guide to Twitter” that does a good job of explaining what Twitter is exactly.
• A leaderboard, sorted by number of followers, that lists all Zappos.com employee Twitter accounts (252 of them). By doing this, Zappos is empowering all their employees to engage with customers through Twitter.
• A reverse chronological list of all employee tweets.
• A reverse chronological list of all Zappos.com mentions on Twitter.

Importantly, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh is the company’s most active and followed Twitter user. Just in the last few days, he has used his account to:

• Share some details about what he’s up to personally and professionally.
• Provide some behind the scenes info regarding what its like to work at Zappos.com.
• Launch a Twitter contest asking people to help them rewrite their confirmation emails.
• Incubate an idea for polling customers on Twitter.
• Explain why he is using Twitter.

Don’t believe they are into it? Check out Tony’s business cards.

Zappos.com is successfully using Twitter to put a human face on the company and engage with customers more deeply. I’m impressed. If we do half as well with our own Twitter account, I’ll be happy.

An interesting study crossed my screen recently.  According to this press release, media agency Starcom USA, behavioral targeting network Tacoda, and digital consumer insight company comScore collaborated on a research study whose results call into question how well click rates on ads measure a consumer base.

The study states that only 6% of the total Internet population represents 50% of the clicks on ads.  Online media companies may use click rates as points of negotiation with their clients, but if this study is accurate, that measurement is not a clear view of how many people are seeing these ads.  Further measurements from the study show no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked.

So who are these clickers?  Reading some forums concerning the topic led to some interesting, and occasionally probably ideas:

• Young children that may click more than they should
• Overly frugal consumers fiendishly looking for a great deal
• First time Internet users
• Employees who click on their own ads to raise metrics
• Professional ‘ad clickers' who are hired to click to raise metrics

The ‘Heavy Clicker' is profiled in the study.  These users are typically between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40000.  They also spend four times more time online than the typical Internet user and are more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites.  Clearly, these are not typical Internet users, nor are they the type of people that many of the above suggestions implied.

As I mentioned in a past blog post, measuring click rates is archaic and unnecessary.  Ads on the Internet are not what they were promised to be-noninvasive and simple.

I think that it's actually sad that what could have been a great aspect of the Internet (essentially, selectable commercials) has been destroyed thanks to pop-up ads, spam, scams, and the need for online metrics.  It's time to move on to a new form of online advertising.

Let's face it; China needs to bolster its reputation before the Summer Olympics begin.  Otherwise, the several countries that are already considering boycotting may, in fact, do so.  In my opinion, it would be a shame if a past representation of political and economical unity were to be halted.  After all, if this one year is a bust, future Olympic games may follow in failure.

PRWeek recently ran an article in their online resource that the Chinese government was interviewing potential US and UK-based PR firms in the hopes to gain some positive pre-game press, prior to the events.  However, no PR firm has admitted to being in the bid war for this lucrative account.

(more…)

[This is cross-posted at our ImpactWatch site]

The overly popular Facebook social network has recently seen a surge of ‘applications' added to its roster.  Users hoping to enhance the experience of the social platform create these applications.  As of January 2008, there are over 14,000 applications in circulation among users.  The uses of these applications range widely; in July 2007, the first Facebook-only venture capital firm (Altura 1 Facebook Investment Fund) was released to the public.  They have gotten so popular that Stanford University recently debuted a class where the end product is Facebook application.  The great success of this class most likely means that many more schools will soon follow suit, offering more classes on social network metrics and creation.

(more…)

Combining aspects of things that people already enjoy is one of the best ways to make an impression on a market without having to be completely original or creative.  For the past couple of months, there has been a surge of such activity in the form of ‘angry' video game reviews.  These reviews combine aspects of life that many males (and some females) enjoy, including ranting, nostalgia, cheap Photo shopping, and dirty humor.  Taken together, these form a "review" of a classic video game.  The reviews have the taste level of an episode of Family Guy, but also have the marketability, as well.

(more…)

Social networking giant Facebook is teaming up with Paramount Pictures to let users download thousand of clips from the filmmaker’s archives.

The VooZoo application, which launched Monday, was developed by FanRocket. The idea is to let individuals re-live some of their favorite scenes and moments from any Paramount film. Clips last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.

Viacom, Paramount Pictures’ parent company, plans to market DVDs through the new tool.

Though FanRocket aims to garner a few hundred thousand users within the first few months, Paramount hasn’t set any revenue goals to its end.

The application features a double-pane window on top – the left side shows the clips you’ve added yourself. On the right, you’ll find a display of your history, with ‘Featured VooHoos,’ or featured clips, just underneath.

(more…)

Want further proof of Barack Obama’s popularity online? According to the site Twitterholic, Obama has more followers than any other Twitter user (followers are people who sign up to receive a user’s Twitter updates through the service). Here is a chart showing the top 10 users:

Despite this popularity, Obama’s team doesn’t use the service that aggressively. They have only posted 78 updates. The second most popular user, Robert Scoble, has posted 7,499 updates.

You can visit Obama’s Twitter page here and Twitterholic here.

Update: Twitdir is another great resource for looking at data on top Twitter users.

My post yesterday about the use of images in email got me thinking about what the best days or times are for doing bulk email sends. There really isn’t one answer, as each list is unique and finding the best times is a matter of trial and error. But I’ll take a shot at providing some general guidelines.

Based on my own experiences and everything I’ve read, for business to business emails (or any list that consists mostly of work addresses) the best days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The rationale for this is pretty simple. Most people don’t check their business email accounts on Saturdays or Sundays. On Mondays people tend to be in heavy delete mode, as they try to clear all the email that has accumulated over the weekend. On Fridays, people tend to be less focused, as they look forward to the weekend. Friday is also an extremely popular day of the week to take off, meaning your email could end up not being seen until Monday.

In terms of time for business-focused email, it is best to send email out during normal business hours. If you send your email before or after work hours, there is a good chance folks won’t see the email as they try to clear their email queue first thing in the morning and go into delete mode. Assuming you are trying to reach a US audience, I think between 12:00 and 4:00 EST is the best time, as you’ll catch people at work in all time zones.

For business to consumer emails (or any list made up mostly of personal email accounts), the situation is more fluid. Some studies show that these audiences tend to be more responsive to emails sent after work hours and on Fridays and weekends, as this is when people tend to check personal email accounts.

It makes sense - lots of people with desk jobs might not check their personal email accounts during the day and others don’t even really use email in their jobs. Just as importantly, business to consumer email tends to be about action. You want users to buy something or enter your contest or whatever. Most people are more comfortable performing those type of activities on their personal computers during their off hours.

My sense though is that there is more room for error for business to consumer emails in terms of time/date. In my experience, volume to personal accounts is lower and spam tends to be less of a problem. So I don’t think people get as delete happy as they do with their corporate email accounts.

Ultimately though, every list is different. Email Labs suggests looking at when people register for your list and trying to send during the days/time you get the most sign ups. But the best way to figure out when to send is through trial and error. Try sending out messages on different days at different times and see when you get the best open and click through rates. This will allow you to figure out your own best practices for your list.