Over the last 16 hours or so, there has been much hue and cry over Facebook’s new ad platform. Many commentators cry “I won’t shill for Coke” or “Don’t tell me what me Facebook so-called-friends are reading”. Fine. I won’t tell you about this excellent band I just found. Do you care if I don’t tell you?

Like it or not, our real friends are our second biggest influencers, and I would not have heard about many excellent books if it wasn’t for my close friends. I appreciate these recommendations, and try to return the favour, which I also know is appreciated. If a friend fills out a widget on Blockbuster.com recommending a movie, I will pay attention.

What Facebook misses is the idea of what a friend is. Facebook gives equal weight to our close family, our closest friends (our “inner circle of advisors”), our work acquaintances and the guy with whom we were college roommates for three months. Even among our wider net of associates, certain people have different weights of authority in different areas. If I had Rob Hyndman among my friends (I don’t know him, but I like his commentary on the tech world), I would take his recommendations on books, but probably not air conditioners. And, with apologies, I really don’t care what you drink.

Facebook, I need to categorize my friends. Inner circle, friends, superficial acquaintances (you don’t need to use this terminology). If you would also give me tools so that I can specify the types of recommendations I get from my friends, I would greatly appreciate that. For example, I will take book and music recommendations from Tad, but not from my cousin. If Steve (the snappy dresser) reviews a shirt, I’m listening. Mike: tell me about the skis you are buying this year, but I don’t care for your taste in beverages.

If Facebook wants to make this “a strong trusted referral for your brand”, then I want recommendations from people I trust in certain areas, not my “Facebook friends”.

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Facebook made a range of announcements today, but the one that struck me is “Beacon”. Zuckerberg explains, quoted from TechCrunch:

Social distribution, now here is where it gets interesting. When somebody engages with your (the advertiser’s) page, that is spread virally through the network. When someone says they are a fan of your brand, that becomes a trusted referral. It goes right to their Mini feed. A strong trusted referral for your brand.

One of the issues with “Facebook friends” is that the majority are not really friends from whom a referral means anything, but a group of superficial acquaintances from whom a referral means almost as much as random review on epinions.com. I’m lucky - the vast majority of my friends (at a paltry 47) are people I trust and from whom I would probably consider a recommendation or opinion. I wonder about those with 1000 friends. Does a recommendation mean anything? Especially if 1000 people are recommending 200 different items in the same category. Who do I believe? Why would I care to sift through all this information and try to make an informed decision?

I’m thinking that this will end up like the groups: a way to align yourself with a brand, but the identification with the company (as it is with many groups) is more to brand yourself than to engage with like-minded people.

Hmmm… creating not corporate pages, but promotion pages. That would be interesting. If I saw that “Dave Walker entered the iCoke.com Untimate Nintendo Wii Contest”, that might get me interested.

I can’t wait to see how this will work, and how companies will use this, good and bad.

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Of all the things that Facebook will be announcing today, I’m most interested in the social retailing feature. David Wilson at the Social Media Optimization blog summarizes:

Facebook’s social retailing plans will allow data about Facebooker users to share their online transactions and product reviews/opinions to be shared within their social network. Marketers will also be able to plug in to the program, enabling consumer interactions such as purchases to become part of the social network.

The people looking for recommendations, and the influence of those recommendations, is huge (click here to see Deloitte’s numbers), and the ability to bring the company/marketer into these conversations is exciting, but a little dangerous. I hope this doesn’t turn into a spamfest.

The elephant has entered the room. Can’t wait to see how this one plays out.

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Some CSS, coding and design sites and articles I find useful and interesting:

• 24 Ways. 24 tips and tricks in 24 days. Done each December for the last two years, and I’m really looking forward to this year’s crop (hoping they do it…).
• CSSPlay. Lots and lots of CSS examples.
• Web 2.0 How-to Design Guide. A deconstruction of Web 2.0 design tropes. Some great ideas, and some things to avoid doing if you’re getting tired of the Web 2.0 look (Is Web 2.0 dead? Read this…) 
• Registration Usability - 87 Registration Forms Tested. An excellent look at registration form design from Get Elastic.
• Building a Bulletproof Contact Form with PHP. Clearly written, easily implemented and accessible for PHP novices. And critical for database security.

Happy Monday! Now to get my glasses fixed so I don’t have a headache by noon. Darned toddlers…

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SearchEngineWatch.com and ClickZ.com have been running articles recently about search engine marketing and social media. The odd thing, in my mind, is the focus on the social bookmarking sites.

“These days, it seems that social media marketing is on the minds of every search engine marketer. With the importance of links in the algorithms of all the major search engines, along with the benefits of putting your pages in front of a broad, targeted audience, getting your articles popular on major social media sites like del.icio.us and StumbleUpon is an important part of any search marketing strategy. ” - Eric Enge

For the last 5 years, SEM has been a large part of my web duties, so I can understand the SEM focus on StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Digg, et al. SEM and SEO is about traffic, pure and simple. However, search engine marketers are marketing technicians, not social marketers (duck! here comes the storm!) in that SEM is about the technical aspects of web sites, algorithms, etc. while SMM is about talking to people. If SEM is focusing on the social bookmarking sites, they are missing the picture of social marketing.

Admittedly, SEM talks big about optimizing text and content for the web site users (well, for Google search bots, really), and they talk about the art and science of search engine optimization. They also talk about user-centric experiences (because that’s what the search engines like), but rarely - if ever - have I heard SEM talk about talking to people. Enge goes on in his article to talk about the advantages of making friends on StumbleUpon and del.icio.us, but again, this is one small part of the big picture of SMM.

An analogy: SEM is like taking tons of video footage of people in a store and arranging the products on the shelves, the position of the cash registers and the signage on the building to get people coming into the store and optimizing the buying flow. SMM is about talking to those people and finding out what they like to buy. And, for success, one needs the other.

The general impression I am getting (except from those who read blogs like Webwalker) is that the majority of (traditional) marketers, PR people, advertising people and SEM people are looking at SMM like the proverbial elephant (and SMM is large and somewhat ill-defined). Everyone is feeling a different part of the elephant and defining that as SMM. (I’m not innocent - I also have a perception of SMM that probably doesn’t match yours).

Instead of trying to claim the SM space for themselves, the different specialties need to join forces and combine their knowledge. Smart companies who want to make an impact will do this (and some are doing this quite successfully). The rest of us will be left holding onto the tail of the elephant.

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I’ve never really been “hip” per se, but I like to think I’m on top of the major trends and have a idea as to what’s going on in the world. Until I got smacked with a clue-by-four last night.

When Did the 80’s Come Back in a Non-ironic Way?

My wife and I went trick-or-treating with our 16-month-old son. Our first stop was our next-door neighbour, whose 17 year-old daughter babysits Ryan regularly. She comes to the door dressed in the following: black leggings with hot neon pink legwarmers, long oversized sweatshirt, big hair pulled onto an off-center ponytail and blue eyeshadow. I start making cracks about the 80’s look, needs a cinch-belt, bangles, etc., etc.

As we’re walking away, my wife leans over and says “Dave, I don’t think that was a costume. That’s what the kids are wearing now”. (She teaches tweens and teens, and is a little more up-to-date on teenage female fashion).

It was at that point I realized I am old.

In an attempt to save a little face, I will try to turn this into a marketing lesson.

The Marketing Lesson

Without talking to people outside your immediate cultural sphere, you cannot know the subtlties of different cultures, and therefore you cannot effecively market to those groups.

Cultures (or demographic - choose your term) defined here as any group with fairly homogeneous lifestyles. This is a very broad definition encompassing very small groups. I am a late-30s, suburban dweller, mid career wage earner with one small child and a first marriage of less than 5 years, which is different than a late-30s suburban dweller mid career wage earner with two teenagers and a 18 year marriage. I see the world differently, my current needs and wants are different, and I see marketing and advertising in different ways.

And unless you are me, without talking to me to find what I need, you cannot market to me effectively.

A Current Case Study

I am the web guy (marketing, design, coffee-making) for a staffing firm with a strong online presence. The company is a bit unusual; the two owners are guys in their mid-30s & early 40s with pretty good technical savvy. Most staffing firms are heavily female oriented, and most of the candidates we place and the client we have are women, 20-50 with generally low technical/web interest.

Four technical guys between 30 and 40 sit around trying to figure out what women want out of the web site. We don’t actually go out to talk to these people (too much effort? too little time? not enough money? lots of excuses…), but we make guesses as to how we should build the site. We do research, but there’s only so much you can get out of a white paper. And we wonder why we don’t have the success we think we should.

Social Media Success

We are starting to see some small gains through talking with our people online. Through various social media channels, we can talk to people in our target demographic and get some feedback on the web site. Plans are in the works to expand this, more for marketing and for research.

By opening up channels for conversation (Facebook group, forums, etc.), we can get the feedback we need to do our jobs properly. And the best part is that it doesn’t take too much effort, time or money.

And I still have a couple of years left until my son doesn’t think I’m cool anymore. I’ll take advantage of that…

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After a sh**storm yesterday (did I hit a nerve? I saw a 5x traffic spike) and a looong night with a teething toddler, here’s a whole lot of not much.

I just launched a web site for a new Vietnamese restaurant in northwest Calgary, the Green Papaya. No wonder I’ve been craving Vietnamese food for the last few weeks. Can’t wait for it to open. Web site notes: the Vietnamese characters were the toughest part of the site. Just sourcing the HTML entity codes was difficult, but I found a great site for it, and I’m glad I know my eth from a dyet.

I have created the first draft of my Squidoo Lens, Social Media Marketing Action Plan. Comments? Please be kind, I’m still battered and bruised (but pugnacious - watch out). It’s aimed at smaller business who want a way to get started interacting with their customers online in a non-”marketing” way.

Things I’m reading:

Interesting article on raising a brand-free kid. Something I’m struggling with, having a toddler of my own.

Primate Diaries. Monkeys, evolution, athieism, Intelligent Design and religion. Put your thinking cap on.

And I will never pass up a chance to promote The Comics Curmudgeon.

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There’s a battle in the agencies over social media. Doug Walker at Webwalker blogs about this battle, and looks for the middle ground between advertising people and public relations people doing social media marketing. I’m not sure either community should be doing this.

Social media (blogging, really) belongs to the people and the community, and more often than not, the heavy hand of marketing (advertising and PR) tromps into the social media sphere like a herd of elephants. And everyone trembles when the CEO blogs. Actually, Seth Godin makes a good point. Blogging is based on candor, urgency, timeliness, pithiness, utility and controversy. Not a typical CEO. And the calculated words of both advertisers and PR people fail at several of these points.

Blogging and social media by it’s very nature is entrepreneurial: quick and driven by personality rather than policy. Bloggers are single people giving their voice, their opinions and sometimes, bucking the trends. Microsoft doesn’t have a blog; Richard Scoble blogs, and happens to work (have worked) at Microsoft. Google doesn’t have a blog; Matt Cutts blogs and happens to work at Google. For many in SEO/SEM, Matt is the face and voice of Google. And, surprise, surprise, Matt is not a marketing guy. He’s an engineer. Scoble is not a “marketer” per se (despite a title of “Director of Marketing”) - he is best know as an evangelist.

Keeping up a regular blog (not a “blog campaign” - ugh) takes the passion of an evangelist. It takes the desire to be involved - not because you are told to (or paid by the client), but because you need to. Please keep in mind that these techniques - journaling, media bookmarking in the form of sending links to friends, etc. - have all been around long before “Social Media Marketing”. Are marketers are seeing this passion, and trying to force feed it to their clients? Are the clients seeing this passion amongst their people, and trying to turn it to bottom-line goals? Does the passion become dilute when applied commercially?

And I tremble at the idea of the “SMM Campaign”. That doesn’t get more calculated and unnatural - all of the things that social media isn’t.

 Update: Doug Walker summed up the post a little too accurately (is it warm in here?). Should marketers stay out of the blogosphere? Um…

My response on his blog:

Unless they are talking about marketing. That’s interesting.

Maybe I should step back a little tiny bit and ask the question: How can marketers find the evangelists with the organization to blog, and how can marketers facilitate blogging, including convincing the upper levels of management to go along with this.

Marketers-as-bloggers (unless they are talking about marketing) is scary IMHO. If I said that marketers don’t have a place in SMM, I’d be shooting myself in the foot. But is the role a traditional advertising/PR role? I don’t think so; it’s a new channel looking for new approaches.

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Yesterday, I promised I’d look at where my blog traffic comes from, and I’ll gove some insight into some of the marketing tactics I use to get traffic.

We all want people to come to our blog, but if you simply write a post and let it sit there, it’ll be hard for anyone to find. You need to actively get your information out there; the good news is that the basic steps are quite easy, and can give decent results.

Couple of things:

1. I use Google Analytics on every page of my site, including pages outside of my blog. The direct referrals usually come to the home page, not the blog.
2. I’m doing basic marketing, not aggressive marketing so the volume of traffic may not seem impressive, but I’m happy with it. I don’t have any goals for the blog - just get it out there. I’m using this blog as a test arena for a few theories, too.
3. The blog is two weeks old; it’s too early to get fine patterns, but there are some obvious trends.

Overall traffic

Since October 14:

• 352 Visits
• 678 Pageviews
• 1.93 Pages/Visit
• 56.82% Bounce Rate
• 00:02:27 Average time on site
• 77.27% New visits

I’m OK with the visits; this week has been a significantly higher average over last week because I’ve tried a new bookmarking tactic. I’m not thrilled about the 1.93 pages/visit - I need to cross-link other parts of the site much more heavily. This should help with the bounce rate as well. Time on site is OK, and the % new visits is OK for a new blog - I’m still building a regular audience.

Sources

I’m really interested in this one, especially with the PageRank reshuffle this week.

• 17.9% direct traffic
• 74.72 referring traffic
• 7.39% search engine

The low search engine traffic is interesting - very few people come to the blog (or the main site) via search engines. I’m OK with that - the terms I’m using on the main site are very competitive, and I’m not doing any PPC campaigns. This volume of organic traffic is OK since this isn’t the focus of the marketing. I’m pretty pleased with the 75% referral traffic - people are linking from other sites. The backlink strategy is working.

The actual sources are even more interesting:

1. StumbleUpon: this is amazing. This is my single biggest source by a wide margin, and I’ve only been Stumbling the site for 3 days. I’ve had 118 visits, but the best part is the bounce rate from Stumblers is a very respectable 35%. They are reading and exploring the site. Thanks, Stumblers!
2. Direct: 63 visits
3. Digg: 61 visits. I’m surprised here. Even though Digg is a respectable third place, I’ve been Digging for two weeks, and the bounce rate from Diggers is high. The thing I don’t like about Digg is the categorization - I still need to find the performing categories.
4. Seth Godin’s Blog trackbacks. This is the next strategy of commenting on other people’s blogs and linking back to yor own. Seth’s blog is an excellent read, and there’s always an insightful observation to comment on. I’m trying to limit myself to one trackback a week, but it’s hard. Interesting thing: I would have expected traffic spikes on the days I comment, and complete drop-offs on non-commenting days, but there is still traffic coming from the non-sommenting days. People read the archives, and the comments in the archives there. I’d love to know what his average pages per visit is.
5. Google (organic). This is highly disappointing. Plenty of traffic, but 91% bounce rate and an average of 7 seconds on the site. People come, see that it isn’t what they are looking for, and bail. I need a better SEO/page content strategy.
6.  and on. This is mostly linkbacks from comments I’ve made on other blogs. It’s the long tail, but respectable traffic.

Visitors

• USA: #1 by a long shot, with California, esp. Silicon Valley, leading the way. No surprise there.
• Canada: #2. Thanks, countrymates!
• Great Britain #3
• and into the long tail. Hi to everyone from outside North America, and thanks for reading!

Loyalty

Not a surprise here, but I can do better. 1 visit is the top spot (no surprise), but I’d like to say ‘hi’ to everyone in the 9-14, 15-25 and the 26-50 (which is probably me before I took my IP address out of the equation) groups; I have some regular readers! Yay!

Browsers

This floored me. But, upon reflection, not surprising, considering the audience.

1. Firefox: 63.35% (Wow - this is *waaay* above the typical market share of browsers)
2. IE: 33.24% Again, surprising, considering Microsoft’s market dominance
3. Safari: 3.12% Hi, Mac people!
4. Opera: 0.28% This represents 1 visitor, which was probably my testing the CSS.

The IE 6/7 split is about 67%/33% for v6. v7 is coming on fast. Firefox is interesting. Even though it sent nearly 2/3 of my traffic, the time-on-site is low (1:11 min) and viewed 1.61 pages on average. IE users, on the other hand, spent, on average, over 5 minutes on the site and looked at 2.5 pages. IE users, despite the lower number, are using the site much more.

I’m not going for any conclusions right now; I’ll do that later when I have more data. There are a few strategies I’ll be testing in the coming week, and blogging about the results. Stay tuned!

Thanks to all my visitors, and I hope you are enjoying the blog!

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Yesterday, many of the big blogs woke up to find their PageRank lower by up to 3 points. And here I thought Pagerank became irrelevant two years ago…

Google PageRank is (theoretically) used by Google to weight pages in their search engine. The higher the PageRank, the better a page would do in the search engine. However, the PR system has been gamed and abused time after time, and Google’s Jaguar update in 2005 reset the criteria for PR, killing link farms and a lot of black hat SEO. When I wear my SEO hat, the last thing I look at is PR; it doesn’t tell me much. However, evidently many site sell advertising based on their PR. The Neilsen ratings system for TV has many of the same problems - see James Surowiecki’s analysis in his book The Wisdom of Crowds.

The remarkable thing about this PR shift is that (on one day’s data) these sites do not seem to be losing traffic.

Is PR, or even search engine marketing/optimization, even relevant in the social media sphere anymore? Yes and no, depending on the site. I’ve argued before that SEO is not dead, but there are better ways to get qualified traffic.

Many commerce sites still rely on the search engines for their traffic - the organic and paid listings are critical to their success. Strong organic optimization and good AdWords campaigns are the lifeblood of most businesses. But how relevant is this to bloggers, and are bloggers relying on the SEs for traffic? If they are, they’re hooped.

Referrals from other sites accounts for over 75% of my traffic. StumbleUpon is, by far, my biggest traffic generator, and Digg is a solid second place (I’ll talk about my traffic sources tomorrow). Admittedly, my numbers are not huge, but for a two-week-old blog and minimal marketing of the blog, I’m pretty happy. Social bookmark sites and referrals from other blogs have helped me far more than the search engines, and I’ll bet that other bloggers with strong SMO and SMM will say the same things.

Optimize for the search engines, keep the Google in mind, but don’t rely on them - there’s better ways to generate traffic.

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