the URL problem – explained!
Posted on | February 12, 2009 | Comments Off
I dreamed of an elegant website, but as I have the technical skills of a cheeseburger cat, I struggled with even simple things, like permalinks! I had wracked my brain, thinking the URL gobbledegook could only be solved by fussing with the sub folders on my server side. Turns out WordPress had an answer for me and even allows me to choose (and customize) what my links will look like. Now I enjoy lovely hyphenated urls with pleasant little keywords!
I visited my friend’s blogs and apparently the did not have the problems I had in figuring out the permalink secret – They’ve probably had some time to research (lately I have not.)
Another thing I don’t have a lot of time for is twitter, which makes me very sad. You’ll notice in the iPhone post I stated that I can’t tweet because I don’t have an iPhone – this is one part that’s honest! Tweeting with a clunky Razr is a joke. Tweeting on the work PC could get me canned. Tweeting just once every other day from my laptop at home hasn’t brought me much followers. This isn’t working. I need an iPhone
Speaking of iPhones, until today I was winning the sales contest. Now I’m tied 1-1 with another guy in the group, and it’s giving me a sinking feeling.
I’m not happy with this. I want that iPhone. Plus, I don’t want that other guy to win.
How I found a new job in 30 days
Posted on | February 10, 2009 | Comments Off
(back in April)
(Having no actual job skills)
So this is a bog post I’ve been meaning to write for long time, because I know it will mean a lot to people to see a story of how I survived the recession early on.
Up until April of last year, I worked for a well-known corporate institution in the publishing industry. I was working specifically in the software division, which you can imagine is shrinking drastically. The nature of the content industry is going through its own revolution iwth the explosion of hte internet. Even now companies are sprouting up based on the trading of information for points.
Anyways, I tangent. On April 2nd I lost my job at this company. It was a bit of goofy job. I was there to help a director sell large unit deals of wholesale software to licensing groups, publishers, and stories, but as we had very few customers and I wasnt’ really motivated to help get more, most of my days I wasn’t very busy. I spent a significant portion of my time surfing the web and mucking around. I took very long lunch breaks.
So I probably should have seen my layoff coming. For some reason I thought I had job security because I know some things about product codes. At the time that it happened I was actually busy with a few projects because the main creative director was on maternity leave. But our team was down about half a million dollars, so they gave me a new package and out the door I went.
The first weekend was tough. Everybody wanted to give me a pep talk but nobody had a new job for me. I had to find it for myself. That didn’t stop me from asking every one I knew! Some people definitely suggested various companies. There was one I even applied to even though I didn’t think it was a good fit, but I did it because someone went out of their way for me and I didn’t want them to think I was ungrateful (obviously I didn’t get that job – I thought the company was creepy!). Keeping your contacts happy is important, but can be dangerous. When I got out of college a friend of my father’s kept trying to find me work . . . . without ever once actually talking to ME. The first company she recommended was a company that had fired me the year previous. The second company she recommended gave me a massive anxiety attack. Then she said she couldn’t in good conscience recommend me for any more. For that I was very grateful.
Going back to last April: Since my list of contacts are only so big, I decided to ask the internet for help. Career Builder and Monster got my resume, and then I started to use Indeed.com, npo.net and idealist.org. NPO’s are great for people with lots of energy and enthusiasm. I was very lucky at the time that my roommate became my job finding coach. She scoured the internet every day for jobs she thought I could apply for. I in turn would apply for them without trying to hard to analyze each post. Between Indeed.com and a thorough scouring of Chicago Marketing agencies listed on Google Maps, I had enough leads through the company web sites to meet my quota of applications without resorting to Craigslist. This, I think, was a very good decision over all: postings on craigslist tend to get too many responses! Applying to postings on the website reveals your super research abilities and general business world knowledge. Linkedin.com is also very awesome for finding work. When I found out I was laid off I reached out to every one I had worked with at other companies and connected to them. That job tab on my profile exploded with fun offerings. I especially enjoy how Linkedin will craft emails for you if you want to reach out to someone who’s a friend of a friend.
The Third thing I did was the above-mentioned application quotas. My in house job coach made sure I applied to at least ten per day. I created a document listing ever company I had applied to and I added to it with each new email sent out. I also had a tally sheet above my work station to make sure I was hitting between 10-15 a day.
I did notice some funny posts: My high school, a rather prestigious Catholic institution, had a job listing that was 5 pages long and listed a series of very serious rules and specific personality traits (right down to the person’s speaking tone, mannerisms, and dress!). For some reason I wasn’t surprised! I even considered applying to the job as a joke. Why as a joke? Pay was 33K per year. It was temporary position. And they had spent FIVE PAGES describing this person. That’s just nuts.
A job you know you want to apply for describes specific duties and responsibilities. It will state clearly whether it’s full time, part time or contract. Vague personality traits should not be the bulk of the description. Also note that postings tend to have more “Ideal” factors than “deal breaker” factors – so if can do everything on the list but only have half of the experience years required . . . go ahead and apply!
Don’t sweat too hard over the resume/cover letter. I sent out more than a few that weren’t perfect. In fact, when I applied to my current company, I applied for a different position. The office manager thought I would be better in sales and just shifted my resume to that pile instead.
I applied to jobs I knew I’d never get (some places gave me a interview!) and I applied to temp agencies that had gotten really bad reviews (scary!) but I also asked myself what the city had to offer and looked into work at PBS, Northwestern University, and the Jerry Springer show, all of which are places I would find fascinating to work for (especially the Jerry Springer show. I don’t know if a single skill I have is something they need, but I’d still jump at the chance. Okay, now that I think of it, there’s some jobs there I wouldn’t do. Actually, there’s a lot of jobs in that studio I wouldn’t want to do. I would imagine there’s a lot of mopping that would have to happen and I don’t know if I want to be a part of that.)
Applying to so many jobs was key – I got a good rhythm going and started to get bites without having to do much in the way of follow-up calls (HATE follow-up calls. BLEH!) Putting in ten a day meant I left my emotions out of it, and I couldn’t get hung up on things that didn’t work out – clearly it just wasn’t the job for me!
I got a call back to an interactive agency. It was my first actual interview coming back on the job market. Interestingly, I was told there would be another interview before a final decision would be made, but Boss Lady then gave me the silent treatment for about a week and a half, only to call my reference, then call me and offer a job. I was a little panicked because it wasn’t something I thought I would be very good at. I asked for 24 hours to think about it. Then I called my reference. He said I should go for this job. The job market was only going to get tougher (he was right) and interactive advertising would be like knowing the back stage of theater – only it’s the internet! And he was right. When I think about the job skills I have now, I feel far more accomplished than I did when I got laid off.
One guy called and asked me if I wanted to work for his company in an entrepreneurial-type sales position. He said he was psychologically unemployable, hadn’t been able to keep a job for longer than to two weeks, but this company let thrive. I told him I didn’t want to work for someone who was psychologically unemployable. He said that some people in life who just wanted to sit in cubicles. I told him I missed my cubicle. He said if I just wanted to be like 80% of the population, then that was fine by him. I told him to fuck off.
Prayers have been answered!!!
Posted on | February 3, 2009 | Comments Off
So Boss Lady has announced a sales contest with the prize being – you guessed it – an IPHONE!!!!!!!!!
I WANT! I WANT! I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!
So all I have to do is win this crazy contest. I only have a month to do it. First on the AGENDA OF WINNING is research: I’m putting together a notebook of all my leads with at least one area where they can improve their site or their marketing. This is going to keep me pretty busy (winners lead very hectic lives) but I’ll keep the Vapor Trail Gallery updated with the results.
Tags: AGENDA OF WINNING > I want an iPhone > sales > the sales contest > Winning
The basics of SEO Vs. PPC
Posted on | January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
So I find myself explaining this concept so much, that even though it may seem really basic to some, I decided to do a post about it.
Let’s say I want to know more about cat food for senior cats before I go to the grocery store. I’ll probably go to Google and search for “senior cat food.” Here are my results:
senior cat food google search
The top listing and the listings on the right are marked as Sponsored Links, and you’ll notice that all of these results are from companies that are selling senior cat food. On the left side, below the first link, we have a set of links that seem a little bit more informational: There’s a cat food FAQ, a metafilter post about affordable cat food, and a link to “cat care 101.”
The Sponsored links (sometimes call paid search results, Pay-per-click, (or PPC)) are paid advertising. Iambs and Petco are bidding on the term “senior cat food” (and more than a few other terms, I would imagine) to have their link show up first. You’ve probably heard about Google’s Algorithm, and you should know that Google has another Algorithm for paid search, based on the relevancy of the ad to the term, the popularity of the ad (determined by clicks) for that term, and the amount that the advertiser is bidding on the term. There’s a whole behind-the-scenes workshop called Google Adwords where advertisers are constantly refining their set of keywords to bid on, the bidding prices, and the ad text. Some companies, including mine, turn a profit just by managing these campaigns for thier clients. Currently, I know of no school program or teaching group that will train you on managing the campaign, but Google does have an extensive learning center with lectures and quizzes set up so that, after taking an exam administered by Google, you could become an adwords professional. In this tough economy, I think people with degrees in accounting could find this another useful skill set.
But let’s dig in more into the process: Here I am, still looking for my cat food, and let’s say I click on the top link, which takes us to a landing page in Iams.com (it’s called a landing page because I landed on it.) Iams now has to pay Google the price that they bid on that term, which I would imagine to be about $1.50-$2.30 (I’d check, but I’m lazy).
Let’s quickly look at this landing page because I think it’s pretty good:
iams landing page
First thing I like: I’ve earned a coupon! They know I may be shopping for a good deal more than anything else. Small problem moving forward with their offer though: looks like there’s some confusion on the bargain of the coupon in the title tags. But we’re on the right track, Iams! The also have some health information about cats and why Iams products are healthy for them – I especially like the guidelines for switching cats to a new cat food. Clicking on the product takes me to the product page with a form to find Iams at a store near me. It doesn’t look like I can buy it online, but if I get the coupon they will know all my information and my cat’s information. If I only use the form to find the food at the store, they will know what product I’m looking for and where I’m looking for it (That’s some good information too!) If I do nothing, they will know that someone in the Chicago area clicked on the ad for the term “senior cat food” at 12:31 on Saturday, January 31st, looked a few pages, but didn’t do anything. So as you can see, even if you don’t get a sale from PPC, there’s a lot of value in running the campaign. Terms that are highly successful in PPC can also be successful in SEO.
So what about SEO? On the left side, which is called “organic” or “natural,” We can see that iams is not ranking in this section for senior cat food at all, and that could be for a number of different reasons. Google’s goal is serve informational results on the organic side and promotional results on the paid side, so the winner for this term is an ecommerce site with extensive information on caring for senior cats. Good work, Drs. Foster and Smith! You’ve made it to the top just for this term even though your page rank is pretty low. They will never pay Google a cent if I click on them, but they got there by telling Google that they were absolutely the best resource available to someone searching for this term. This is the Algorithm that Google guards like the Knox list, because if web masters knew how to cheat the system, Google wouldn’t be able to serve the very best results. SEO engineers are constantly testing content, key terms, navigation, organization, outside links, domain structure, and every other aspect of internet that you can think of, to see if it will make them rank higher for the terms they want on Google (and Yahoo, and MSN, and Ask.com). Google in turn is tweaking the algorithm to serve better content and keep the spam out of your search results.
So to recap: Sponsored links = pay up! Organic search results = good content, and SEO
If you do have a budget and you want to rank organically, simply contact your local SEO agency. Some are better than others, some have differing philosophies of what works, and some are just plain-old snake oil salesmen. How do you tell the difference? Call up a company that is ranking well (perhaps in a different vertical than your own) and ask if they are using outside consultants or agencies and if you can get a referral. You want to find someone who will partner with you, as SEO is an ongoing strategy. Or look at the list of Google Analytics Authorized Consultants – SEO’s have to be rock stars at analysing traffic, which is how many of them were selected to be G.A.A.C’s. My boss describes it thus: “If we were in charge of walking the dog, Google Analytics is like watering the plants, too, because you’re already in the house.”
I know that was probably a lot to take in for one post, but do you have any (non-specific) questions?
I want an iPhone
Posted on | January 28, 2009 | 1 Comment
First order of business: I’ve changed my twitter username to vaportrailg so if you tweet, now you can follow me. This is good because now my identity can remain a secret.
So here’s the fun part of my post: I want an iPhone, but Sprint won’t let me break my contract. I’ve hated Sprint for a long time mainly because they keep selling me phones that kinda don’t work and then really stop working after 1 and a half years (oh, with a two year contract! That makes sense! I’ll just use a carrier pigeon when my phone dies.) I recently went into a store to ask if they could help me update the software on my phone to make the battery last longer. They tried to sell me a new battery for 50$ (!) for a problem I was able to solve in four minutes when I decided to look it up at home first.
The whole time, they tried to sell me a Palm Centro or a Blackberry, and I told them I needed an iPhone for my job (which is kind of true) and that it was like an Apple job (not really true at all). They told me Palms and Blackberries work with Apple computers just as well as iPhones. In response, I threw a tantrum and kicked thier stupid pedestal and screamed “I WANT AN iPHONE! I tried to throw one of their display blackberries out the window but it was connected to wall and just kind of dropped to the floor.
After that I left. I still don’t have an iPhone.
Here’s a list of the things that I can’t do without an iPhone:
- I’m not very good at keeping personal appointments because I bounce around a lot when I’m not at work and my appointment books always get lost. If I had an iPhone I could manage my calendar on the go, and set reminders if I’m supposed to be somewhere.
- I would listen to music more as I’d never forget my iPod. With Shazam I’d be able to identify music and then purchase more songs. Since I’m a magician I’m going to do this in such a way that whenever someone asks me if I know what song is playing I can inform them with knowing contempt for their inferior music expertise.
- I would find it easier to jot down notes on the go. Since I don’t have an iPhone, I originally wrote this list on a piece of paper. Then I filed the paper in someplace I can’t recall. This is a problem clearly only an iPhone can solve.
- It seems like the Loopt application is the key to a secret elitist society that I absolutely need to join.
- I have a sales position and need to look smart at all times. The Razr is like the Myspace of the cellphone world: kinda splashy, kinda blingy, and So Last Year. Since I work in cyberspace, I can’t used last year’s phone. Cyberspace hates last year’s phone.
- I can check Facebook every 5-6 minutes without my boss knowing.
- With the economy in the trashcan, I need all the personal budgeting help I can get. iPhones have calculators built in, and since the display is bigger it will be easier for me to use. Then I will be rich! RICH!
- I would tweet more, and follow more tweeters, especially when I’m on the go.
- What else could possibly be the point of working this hard at a full time job in SALES if I don’t get to have shiny new toys?????
- News and weather. Especially weather. I never bother to check the weather, and maybe iPhone could wake me in the morning and let me know if it’s going to rain before I put on sandals.
The weather point is the most important. I know I can look up the weather online or by turning on the television or paying attention to the second page of the RedEye (useful for more than just a spontaneous umbrella!) but I’ve never figured out how to discipline myself to pay attention to it – I always find out whether or not it’s going to rain by overhearing someone talk about it, and usually by that point it’s too late, and I have to use a copy of the RedEye as a spontaneous umbrella.
If any one can tell me how to get out of my Sprint contract, I’ll be eternally grateful
January and all the things I’m missing
Posted on | January 25, 2009 | Comments Off
So my last post was about excuses and team work, and I wanted to dig into that a little bit more, due to the season and weather. Crosberg told me today that the third week of January is probably the most depressing time of the year – and if you live in Chicago, you probably don’t have to think about that twice. It is cold outside. And not a wimpy, here-comes-December-you-should-wear-gloves kind of cold, but a painful, biting, never-want-to-leave-the-house-again type of cold, and it been this way for a couple of weeks. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few months thinking about all the things that I this year, and lately I think I’ve completely succumbed to the Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder (Coincidentally – SAD!) because I feel like I’m dividing my time between staring at the television and staring at the wall.
In relative terms, I’m doing far better than others, but I could go broke on a catalog of complaints at the moment regarding my work, my friends, my apartment, my cellphone service, and my tummy. To add icing to this layer cake of negativity, it drives me up the wall when people complain about service and judge others for circumstances beyond their control, and for the first time in my life, I find myself biting back intentionally. Here I am, barely trucking along, and I’m screaming at people to get out the kitchen if they can’t stand the heat. (or, I guess, in this case, the really really really awful cold).
For further depths of irony (or as some might see it, hypocrisy) this was the inauguration week of Barak Obama – a man who reminded the world that usually people like their commander in chief. A friend was astounded and surprised by the fact that Obama and his wife walked the streets of D.C. to the Capital building, waving to people and smiling, no fear of assassination in their minds, just joy and preparation. NEWSFLASH! I told her, Bush was the first president that had to go to his inauguration safely stashed in a limousine. Look what can happen between one president and the next – over eight years we became so used to the idea of despising the president that when Obama gathered a large following his competitors thought is was some sort of character flaw. And now, while I think that Obama is a great leader and extremely qualified for the job, so many people are being pleasantly surprised by things that we should really be able to take for granted, such as a general feeling of diplomacy and dialogue with our top politician. Oh, yeah, and leadership, which was clearly not one of Bush’s strengths.
Even though it was inauguration week and everybody who left the house apparently really enjoyed themselves (I watched Rachel Maddow talk about it on MSNBC) it’s becoming more apparent that our economy is sliding into the crapper, which some people are very bluntly calling a depression. (Others have big hope for Q3 2009, but I wouldn’t twiddle my thumbs until then). Obama isn’t really saying anything to that effect, but he is letting his actions speak louder than words by appointing cabinet members who are well-versed in the trials of the Great Depression. So not only are we stuck in the most depressing week of the most depressing month, we are also, as a country, mired in a depression.
I may be going out on a limb, but I feel as if there’s an extra vein of despair in the fact that we’re a little bit more aware now of some dangerous contradictions in capitalism, and I think this is especially true for people in marketing. The industrial revolution has made excessive consumerism an imperative for the survival of the economy, so we as marketers and salespeople know that we have to push people to spend. At the same time, we’re becoming more aware of how money and clothes and fancy cars and perfume and reality TV stardom just doesn’t fill the soul with contentedness. It’s a constant struggle between simplifying our lives to just the necessary and seamless ingredients, releasing ourselves from the oppression of letting our stuff own us, and knowing that if we want to keep a roof over our head, we have to transform good people into money-leaking zombies.
I cannot, in good conscience, bring forth a problem without a solution – so if my previous paragraphs have left you contemplating the many uses of your razor blades, you should probably at least wait until Obama’s had 100 days in the White House. Rahm Emanuel has the home grown, bitter Chicago sensibility to say that no crisis should go to waste. There have been so many things that people have wanted to change about this country, so many things that need to change, and now that we’re getting closer to a spot where we have nothing to lose, there’s a better chance that we will become the innovation and the inspiration that we wish to see.
The big light and inspiration for me was seeing Obama lift the Global Gag rule, something that I truly despised about the Bush administration. For that, I’m eternally grateful, but I would be far happier knowing that there was a way that it could never be implemented again. It would require more than laws, I think, but a complete transformation of the way we think about healthcare.
That, of course, would be an entirely different post all together.
Tags: chicago > Depression > Global Gag rule > inauguration > January > Obama
Back to the Grind
Posted on | January 8, 2009 | Comments Off
So I have an awesome excuse for not updating my blog – My internet was out an entire week. As you can imagine, I was quite devastated and had to spend most of it in a safely padded room.
Yeah, right.
For the most part, I didn’t really miss it, and when I needed to have it, I went and mooched from the coffee shop down the street, and I was able to accomplish everything I need there (like keeping up on the cheeseburger cats.)
I did miss the internet when I couldn’t instantly figure out where the closest church was located on Sunday morning, and when my boyfriend-type person informed me that he was actually suffering from the norovirus after I had just returned from the coffee-shop (and spent half an hour studying up on e. coli . . . which only kind of sounds like the norovirus)
Gratefully, AT&T realized that they had broken something and fixed it and now I have no excuse to not post. I’ve learned that I can live without the internet (at least for a short period of time), that I’m more productive when I’m working at someplace that’s not my couch, and I still need to find a late-night coffee shop that’s within walking distance.
The other grind that I get to get back to is my job, which I was worried would slow down a little bit at least in the beginning of the year. Boy was I wrong! The first email of the year was sent to me on the Third (that was a Saturday) by my boss, reminding me and the SEO engineer that she needed proposal in a matter of days.
My boss and I often talk about excuses, especially the excuses I make. I’m pretty talented at justifying various modes of procrastination. Bare with me, I’m going to connect this to SEO in just a second. So I’m making all these excuses to blow off projects I really don’t want to do, and she’s an athlete, which somehow gives her a creepy ability to see through all my lame excuses, and I wish I could bottle the essence of her eyeballs when she’s angry and sell it as a snake oil for better productivity
What has been more inspiring though was what I refer to as the Elbow Agreement, which occurred when she told me that we should be able to walk into a sales meeting going “We Are A Team!” and held up her elbow as if we were arm in arm. I’ve always had trouble getting up and getting out of bed in the morning, but for some reason the elbow agreement has made me a little bit more motivated to stay dedicated to my projects.
Okay, here’s the cheesy connection to SEO and blogging: good seo and blogging takes dedication, especially if you’re working on the project with other people. Sometimes you have to do things like delegate yourself to projects you know need to happen, and sometimes you have to remind yourself of the bigger picture, the overall goal that you have, and ask yourself if your day-to-day tasks are fulfilling that goal. This goes for the specific posts in the blog and pages in the website – You can’t let them stray too far from the task at hand, or you could find yourself with several irrelevant posts and very little on the topic you originally chose. Irrelevant blogging doesn’t get you attention unless you happen to be so good at it that it comes off as comedy or you’re already famous anyway.
Speaking of irrelevant blogging, I’m starting a new chapter in 2009. Tomorrow I’m taking my first class as a grad student, and I’m studying the incredibly relevant and timely art of creative writing. Creative writing traditionally has very little place in the corporate business world, but it does play a big role in SEO. But that’s another post for another time.
The Holidays, at last.
Posted on | December 27, 2008 | Comments Off
Sometimes I have a difficult time getting away from my job, and with the new blog, it’s even worse! Even though I should be languishing in front of a deliciously old fashioned analog fire and ancient traditional tree, I’m hiding in my Grandma’s bedroom (thank God she’s finally graduated from AOL dial-up!) typing out recent thoughts about social media and SEO.
I guess that’s just my luck for working in an industry that’s popular and growing. Everybody wants to talk about the website they have built or worked on, how many people have visited it, what kind of money they are making from it, and how they use the internet for leisure or to grow their hobbies. Sometimes I want to take careful mental notes, that I can use in a future proposal or presentation – and sometimes I just want to say “That’s my JOB! and right now I’m on VACATION!”
But I did notice some interesting things on Facebook over the Christmas day. Many of my friends posted tweets or status updates wishing family and friends a happy new year, while some were clearly sneaking off to take a break from the festivities. One friend summarized a rather snarky conversation about a recent breakup. For many people, it was busy as usual, only the picture albums included more family members and descriptors for the holidays.
My uncle, an independent wine brewer (when he’s not practicing tax law) was very excited about a social network he frequents called , which is part of Crushpad winery, sort of a do-it-yourself group of wine-makers. He also frequents a few other bulliton boards (including E. Robert Parker’s site) for winos and creaters, and what really gets him excited is that when he puts up a posting note, he can see how many people have looked at, and he gets responses from the vineyard owners and the brewers. This is really exciting for him (as a wino and brewer) and for me as an internet marketing specialist. Most of my clients want this level of interactivity, and if they don’t, I’m trying to convince them to to do it.
We’re going to be going to a place called The Grit for dinner tonight, which I’m very excited about, only except that they’re website seems to be down (I think the domain name might have expired,) which makes me want to hand them my business card while I’m there, and then I have to remind myself that no matter what, I’m still on vacation.
The site is indexed!
Posted on | December 20, 2008 | Comments Off
Hey! So if you’re looking for me now, and you google “vapor trail gallery,” you’ll find the site! In fact, Vaportrailgallery.com is the first site at the top of the page. Excellent!
Unfortunately, that’s only a small part of getting a site optimized. Unless I start advertising “Vapor Trail Gallery” like a crazy woman, no one is going to think “SEO” and type in those three words. This is why SEO is so important to drawing traffic to your site. Your audience is essentially walking around in the dark with a vague sense of what they want but they aren’t sure how to find your site or if it even exists. So you want every page and every aspect of your to clearly reflect that.
While it is important to make sure that you rank for your brand name, you should also rank for the service or products that you offer. For instance, I’d like to eventually rank for “SEO blog Chicago,” but right now I’m not in the top fifty listings. This is a highly competitive keyword, so it will take a while for me to rank for that. There are many other keywords I’d like to rank for too, and I think that casting my net wide (but keeping it in the topic) will be my best bet.
Use the facebook!
Posted on | December 17, 2008 | Comments Off
so I’m too tired tonight to fight with the meta description and URL problems, so I decided to do something pretty simple – build a facebook fan page. This is pretty easy if you already have a facebook account. Now I can connect with people on facebook who are not necessarily already my friends without looking like a spammer. Facebook expects me to promote my fan page, and even asks me if I’d like to promote the page with an ad.
Okay, I totally have to go into a tangent and write about facebook’s monetization efforts. Aside from the whole beacon disaster, so far I have to say, good work! I’ve been a fan of facebook for a long time, but having seen the first dot com burst come and go, I think it’s good that they are taking steps to make sure they make good business sense as well as a good time. HOWEVER, the targeting still needs help, and they don’t quite offer the level of customer service to their advertising clients that Google offers. While it is exciting that the anonymous targeted advertising is available (and keeping facebook innovative and free to us lay people), initial reports have been that their platforms can be tricky to work with and they have a high point-of-entry even for agencies. As the Boss Lady would tell me if I was tough to work with, there’s room for improvement.
But for you DIY online marketers out there, I think you should take advantage of facebook’s free advertising tools. Facebook has positioned itself as the “connections” social network, (as opposed to myspace which is really more about entertainment (more on that in another post)) and you should take advantage of that! Facebook understands the value of lovemarks big and small, so if your small business or art project of NPO has audiences on facebook, you should start connecting to them on facebook to keep in touch and keep them updated on your upcoming events and news.
For instance, the artist Catherine Forster has, on my urging, joined facebook and created a fan page, even though she previously believed herself to be “too old” (no one is too old to join a cult) and she has enjoyed it so far. She’s used it mostly to post event news and pictures of her family. Then, when I bought one of her pieces for a couple of friends of mine as a wedding present, they actually found her through me, and with no begging whatsoever, became fans of her page. (All fan pages are public, by the way. You don’t have to be signed into facebook to see them)
So long story short: They love her work, they want to connect to her, and so they physically connect thier personal news source and connection platform to her online marketing page. And all she had to do was sign up and upload some pictures!
HOWEVER, the trick to making social media work (especially if your more of large corporation or institution instead of an incredibly innovative artist and curator) is the commitment you bring to the table. Social Media marketing doesn’t exist in campaigns; the goal is to create a long-running relationship with your customers, clients and fans. Think about why you wanted to go into marketing in the first place – you wanted to create something like the next “Priceless” Mastercard campaign in the hearts and mind of everyone who approves of capitalism, right? The power in those campaigns is that they find a very common idea in something that can be applied to many different communities – thus making us feel more connected, which is the very power of social media. Social Media allows us to connect the diverse communities we encounter in our lives in an organized and technological way. It also allows you as a marketer to connect to the diverse communities of your product and find connections to more customers and clients you might not even know you had. Forster has not yet met the two people who enjoyed her paintings so much, but through facebook they were able to show their support and admiration of her work.
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