Blog covering all aspects of Internet marketing including search optimization & marketing, email marketing, blog marketing, video marketing, social network marketing, SMS marketing & online pr.
This is a presentation for a seminar Pat Lilja, my colleague at Tunheim Partners, and I conducted on Wednesday for some public health people who are interested in how to reach the Millennial generation. We will have video of the session soon.
I've been meaning to write about this for a month but since the Super Bowl is today, I figured it's now or never.
Early last month a got a call from Dwight Adams, a reporter for the Indianapolis Star, who wanted my opinion for a story he was working on about the online marketing efforts of the Indianapolis Colts in particular and the NFL in general. He called me because of a two posts I did on the redesign of NFL.com.
When a reporter calls asking me to talk about my two favorite subjects--Internet marketing and football--I'm definitely game.
After taking a look at the Colts' online presence, it became quite clear quite quickly that the team is ahead of the curve compared to a lot of other teams' online marketing efforts.
That didn't really surprise me, though, because Indy's online presence is overseen by the Colts' Executive Director of Digital Business, Pat Coyle. I've been following Pat's excellent Sports Marketing 2.0 blog for a while now; it is the only blog that I know of that gives you a perspective of the Internet marketing issues being faced by professional sports franchise.
The Colt's maintain three web sites: The team's web site at Colts.com and the social networking sites MyColts.net and MyIndianaFootball.com. MyColts.net caters to the team's fans while MyIndianaFootball.com associates the Colts' brand with high school football. (There's even a team page for the high school I attended.)
The Colts are embracing social and embeddable media in a big way. The site features a podcast, a widget you can add to your blog or MySpace or Facebook page:
And embeddable video:
At MyColts.net, fans can discuss any and all things Colts on the site's forums or they can read Head Coach Tony Dungy's blog where he actually does post. Having your head coach maintain a blog is way ahead of the curve. Kudos for the Dungy and the Colts for having the courage and the insight to launch it.
The team does not appear to have a presence at the most popular social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube & Flickr. That absence, I suspect, has a lot to do with the NFL's attitude toward those sites than anything else: The league routinely asks YouTube, for example, to delete game highlights that users have uploaded.
Nevertheless, the Colt's online presence points the way toward those social networking sites. I'm betting that before too long, the Colts model and outposts at YouTube, Facebook, et. al. will be standard operating procedure.
I was trolling Upcoming.org last night to see what shows were coming up and it occurred to me just how important MP3 blogs have become for marketing music and bands.
As a frustrated musician, I love music. As those of us who are passionate about our music can attest, there are few things better than discovering new musicians and bands. And though I don't get to as much as I'd like, I love to see bands live.
Back in the day when I played in bands and had a ton of time on my hands, I'd devour newly discovered bands, listen to as much of their music as possible, memorize the lyrics to their songs, watch for their videos on MTV (yeah, that was back when MTV actually aired music videos).
There were three primary ways you'd learn about new bands back then: 1) friends, 2) radio, and 3) MTV. Nowadays, I find new music through MP3 blogs.
I've tuned out of music radio because I have no patience for the commercials. With the exception of stuff like talk radio-sports or otherwise--and live events, I just don't listen to radio. When I do listen to the radio for music, I listen to The Current, Minnesota Public Radio's ad-free modern music station. But even The Current has annoying pledge drives to give me a reason not to listen.
When I want music, I turn to my trusty iPod and that gets filled from the MP3 blogs to which I subscribe. Some of my favorites:
So I learn about new bands not from traditional sources but from my favorite MP3 sites, MP3 search engines like Hype Machine and elbo.ws, and music sharing sites like last.fm. I think I'm becoming the rule, rather than the exception. Plus, I spread my love these bands among my friends and coworkers. They laugh because I have a "new favorite band" every week.
Back in the day, when I wanted to go see a band, I'd go to the Entertainment section of the Sunday Star Tribune, our local newspaper, or I'd get a copy of our free weekly alternative newspaper, The City Pages. Or I'd hear about upcoming concerts on the radio.
Now I go to Upcoming.org, or, occasionally, the web site of a nightclub that has live music like First Avenue or The Fine Line. I'd rather pay ten to twenty bucks for a far superior performance in a nightclub for a relatively unknown band than $200 to $350 for an inferior concert by an international superstar in a cavernous auditorium.
But for MP3 blogs, though, I would not have recognized three-fourths of the bands with upcoming gigs that were listed on Upcoming.org.
In addition to MySpace and YouTube, MP3 blogs have been a boon to music marketing, especially for the unsigned musicians and bands.
I may have only downloaded the one or two promotional MP3 songs that Voxtrot or Spoon released online for blog fodder, for example, but now I know who they are and am more likely to buy a CD or go to a concert. Were it not for the MP3 blogs, their names would not have jumped out at me on Upcoming.org.
From a music lover's point of view, too, MP3 blogs have made a vast amount of music far more widely available than ever before. I'm constantly amazed at the amount of great music out there.
And that is what we Internet marketers do in fact call, "A very good thing."
Read More: Music Marketing
Last Tuesday I discussed a domain name problem I ran into after I was interviewed for Future Tense about the Minneapolis bridge collapse and they omitted the hyphen from this blog's address when they cited it on air: They said estrategyblog.com rather that e dash strategy blog dot com.
Because I had not yet bought the hyphenless version of the domain, I stood to lose some very targeted and valuable traffic to my blog as a result of the interview.
Consequently, I had to scramble to buy estrategyblog.com, forward it to e-strategy.com, and write a blog post seeded with "estrategyblog.com" on the assumption that radio listeners would use that as a search phrase if they wanted to find my blog after hearing the interview.
Here are the results of my efforts:
Search Engine Visits
Since Tuesday, this blog had seven visitors who found it using "estrategyblog.com" as a search phrase. Those visits had a bounce rate of 25.57% and the average time on site was 12:57, which says that the information on the blog matched what they expected to find and was compelling enough for them to stick around and read it.
Further, those visitors averaged 2.43 page views, so they were interested enough in the overall blog rather than just that specific post, making them prime candidates for becoming regular readers.
Search Engine Marketing Results
By the following day, August 8, 2007, Google had found, indexed, and listed my blog post for the search "estrategyblog.com":
Yahoo hadn't found the post yet (nor as of this writing) but provided a link directly to the domain, so I likely didn't lose traffic even though the actual post wasn't listed:
Windows Live Search hadn't found the post as well (nor as of this writing) but asked if I was looking for e-strategyblog.com and provided a link, so, like Yahoo, I likely did not lose traffic here as well:
While seven visitors is obviously a tiny, tiny sliver of my overall traffic, because I know they came to my blog after hearing the interview on Future Tense, they are highly qualified visitors. Future Tense is a self-described "journal of the digital age" so I know that it's listeners are interested in technology. Because of the topic of my interview, I know these visitors are interested in Internet technology in particular and social media specifically. That adds up to make them highly likely to like the topics I address in this blog.
Time Shifted Media
The other thing to consider is that the interview is likely to have a very long afterlife, the proverbial long tail.
Future Tense distributes each episode as a podcast, as well, so they are not just being consumed over the airwaves. They post a summary on the Future Tense site for each episode that includes the MP3 file of the episode, a Real Audio stream of it, and a link to the episode in iTunes.
Not only are existing Future Tense podcast subscribers going to hear the episode but anyone coming to that post about the episode can listen to it as well. And because there's a downloadable MP3 file of the episode there, the episode could end up anywhere online.
People will often listen to their podcasts at their leisure, not necessarily the day of, or even the week of, the original broadcast.
I would not be surprised to find people searching for "estrategyblog.com" a year from now after people found and just finished listening to that particular episode on the web somewhere. Or, in the event of another disaster, it's entirely possible that this episode of Future Tense will get referred to and I could consequently see a spike in traffic as a result.
So it is important to have the mis-cited domain name active, and those search results in place, to funnel the traffic from those delayed searches to my blog.
This is the full presentation Ann Treacy and I gave on marketing with Web 2.0 technologies, called Communications 2.0. We presented to a nonprofit communications class at Hamline University.
This lecture is divided into twelve segments that cover the theories and technologies behind Web 2.0; marketing with photo sharing sites such as Flickr; podcasting and podcast marketing through such services and search engines as Odeo; viral video and video sharing sites like YouTube; social bookmarking marketing with services like del.icio.us; feed readers and RSS marketing through services like Bloglines and Technorati; microblogging and mobile marketing through text messaging and instant messaging with services like Twitter; marketing with document sharing services like Google Docs; event marketing with online calandar services like Google Calendar and Upcoming.org; expertise positioning with answer services like Yahoo! Answers and Answers.com; and the lecture is capped off with a question and answer session.
See also:
This is the third part of a presentation Ann Treacy and I gave on Web 2.0 technologies, called Communications 2.0. We presented to a nonprofit communications class at Hamline University.
The third segment discusses podcasting and podcast marketing through such services as Odeo:
See also:
Last Friday I discussed the changing expectations on the multimedia web and how people are increasingly expecting to be able to take control over online content.
With the explosion of online audio and, specifically, the MP3 files that populate music blogs and podcasts, there is really no excuse for not making those files playable directly from your web site or blog so that your visitors don't have to download the file to play it.
Fortunately, the popular social bookmarking service del.icio.us provides free for anyone who wants to use it, a nice little strip of JavaScript code they call Play Tagger that will enable a lightweight and elegant Flash MP3 player on your site any time you link directly to an MP3 file.
We include the script by default in the blogs we set up for clients and there's no reason you shouldn't use it as well if you ever link to an MP3 file. It is well worth the minimal time it requires to paste it into your site in order to vastly improve the usability of your site.
The links below demonstrate the del.icio.us Flash MP3 Player. Click on the blue arrow icon to play the file and you'll see it start working; you can pause and stop the player as well as tag the file into your del.icio.us account.
If you hover your cursor over one of the hyperlinks below, you'll see in the status bar at the bottom of your browser that they are direct links to MP3 files, so your visitors could actuall right-click on the link and download the file directly to your computer.
It is often the simplest ideas that are the most brilliant.
So it is with Minnesota Public Radio's "speedcasts." Speedcasts are, logically enough, simply podcasts speeded up just fast enough so that they are understandable yet cut down the amount of listening time significantly. To the tune of squashing a 53 minute program into 29 minutes.
Thank you! You've just saved me about a half an hour of my life.
Clearly, speedcasts will only really work with the talk show format. Unless you're just plain odd, you're probably not going to enjoy listening music or drama on steroids. But if you're listening purely for the information and you're as impatient as I am, you'll love speedcasts.
They are sort of funny to listen to at first but after a little while you get used to the fast pace and you tend not to even notice it before long.
Currenlty, MPR only speedcasts the Midmorning program with Kerri Miller. Subscribe to any of MPR's podcasts on their podcast page.
Subscribe to Midmorning speedcasts:
The first question you must ask yourself when considering how to blog is whether or not you should blog at all.
If you want to blog because you have a need or desire to communicate, then you're on the right track. If the sole reason you want to blog is to get good search engine rankings, then don't because you're probably about to engage in a time-wasting effort that will probably fail.
It's true that blogs can be a valuable tool in your search engine marketing arsenal but if you view the medium as marketing tool rather than the communication medium it is, you're taking the wrong approach because your motivation is probably not enough to sustain a successful blog in the long run.
Which brings us to my second point: Commitment. Producing content is hard work and since content is what blogs are all about, publishing a blog is by definition hard work. So that's the second question you must ask yourself before even considering how to blog: Do I have the commitment to blog?
So you've determined that you've got something you need to say and you're committed to publishing a blog over the long haul; you are now ready to plan your blog.
Find Your Niche
You know what topic your blog will address. Do some research online to try and find blogs covering the same topic. How many are there? How do they address the topic you will be blogging about? This research will give you an idea of what your audience is already reading and how you might create a niche for yourself among the competition.
Plan Your Publishing Schedule
In the publishing world it's called an editorial calendar. The primary reason blogs require so much hard work is because readers expect regular content: Generally once a day but at least once a week. You can see from this blog how tough I find it to keep to such a schedule; but, you know, do as I say...
Another benefit of creating an editorial calendar is it will help you identify appropriate seasonal content. If you review products on your blog, for instance, you'll want to identify the seasonally-appropriate products for which your audience will expect reviews.
Keep It Brief
There are exceptions to every rule but in general, it's best to keep your blog posts short. Write short, declarative sentences. Use paragraphs of two or three sentences. Break up blocks of copy with headlines and subheadlines. Use bullet points.
The reason you'll want to keep things brief is simply because it's easier for your reader to read on a screen. It is also because tend to scan rather than deliberately read online.
Use First Person
Blogs are an inherently intimate and casual medium and the vast majority are written in first-person, so meet the expectations of your audience and write in the first-person. Don't be afraid to let your personality come through your blog posts.
Chose Your Blogging System
I'll reveal my bias from the outset: I use and love TypePad. TypePad is a hosted blogging service owned by SixApart; the company also owns the blogging service LiveJournal and the blogging software Movable Type.
My very first post on this blog, in fact, compared TypePad to blogging software Radio Userland.
I've used Google's Blogger service extensively and it has two primary things going for it: 1) It's free, and 2) It's simple to use. But perhaps because it is easy to use, I find it far less flexible. Lastly, it has no statistics program so you can't tell how many people are visiting your blog, where they're coming from, or what search phrases they used to find you in the search engines.
TypePad, on the other hand, is far more flexible but just as easy to use as Blogger and not that much more difficult to learn if you want to get your hands dirty. TypePad supports categories; blogger doesn't. On the sidebar to the right, below the Archives section, you'll see Categories with a bunch of links beneath it.
I can assign each post to one or multiple categories and those posts will then be archived in the appropriate category. That helps readers follow only the subjects that interest them and, happily, it also his helpful in search engine marketing efforts. TypePad supports podcasting but with Blogger you need to figure out a workaround.
Those are just a few of the things I like about TypePad. You pay a little more but then you get what you pay for.
Configure Before You Launch
This may seem obvious but I don't know how many times I've found a live blog that is still getting the kinks worked out. As a result, the posts tend to talk more about the technical aspects of the blog than about the topic the blog was created to address.
That's a great way to lose potential readers. Get your blog ready for prime time before you launch it live.
Be Two Weeks Ahead
If you can, try and write two weeks worth of content before you publish your first blog post. That will help to keep you ahead of schedule and make your life a lot easier.
Tell People
After you launch your new blog, tell people about it. Submit your blog to the search engines and blog directories. Ask other related blogs for links and give them in return.
Create Great Content
The best thing you can do over the long term to build a successful blog is to create great content. if your blog posts are useful, insightful, compelling, entertaining, or all of the above, you'll go a long way in developing a following.
The Twin Cities Business Journal devotes most of the front page of their current issue to a story on business podcasting.
The excellent piece by staff writer Nicole Garrison-Sprenger details how local radio stations are turning to podcasts as the medium of the future and includes some telling statistics:
The article is a very good read but, alas, not yet available on their site. (I'll post a link when they post the story.) In the meantime, here are the links that accompanied the story:
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