Today’s Category: Conversion

45% Of Leads End Up Buying

This is a remarkable number (45% of leads end up buying) and would surprise most of both sales and marketing people. It did me. But, once you read article by Marketo (excerpt below) that talks about this it become more believable and understandable. The questions become how enterprises define a qualified lead and the […]

Use This Formula to Calculate Brand Engagement On Your Website

How much of your website traffic is branded?  In other words, how many visitors to your website already knew you existed?  And, perhaps more importantly, how many didn’t? If your spending big bucks on awareness campaigns both on and off-line, the effect will be measurable in your website analytics. You just need to know […]

Auto-Responders: Why Trigger-Based Email Will Increase Your Conversions

Internet marketing research firm MarketingSherpa recently asked online businesses what types of automated emails they send. The results (full chart here) show that outside of welcome, thank you and transactional emails (such as receipts), most business are not fully embracing the power of auto-responders. In fact, based on their data, about 75% of businesses […]

Are You Tracking Metrics That Mean Nothing?

Spend more than 20 minutes with a B2B marketer and you will inevitably end up speaking about metrics. Marketers are constantly looking to measure the impact of their craft and gain a better understanding of overall performance. While we certainly should take the steps to measure marketing performance, many of the metrics being tracked today [...]

Tomorrow’s Fresh Pressed: Miscellaneous

Blogging has transitioned from something housewives do while their husbands and children are gone into the new option for anyone interested in earning a few extra dollars or aiming to get a taste of worldwide recognition. Here are just three examples of blogs out there, and why you shouldn’t be afraid to start one of your own.

The Viral Ambitions

The world was introduced to YouTube on February 14, 2005, and since then it has become the world’s go-to for viral blogging. Justin Beiber used YouTube to document his growth as a singer and performer and eventually gained the attention of a talent manager who placed him in front of Usher Raymond. The next thing you know, he’s on MTV singing, “Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Ohhh.”

Bloggers, who were born without the talent of song, have also been able to use the tube to squeeze their way into some sort of fame. Let me introduce you to, Funky Dineva also known as Quentin Tantum. Through a few years of posting, “My Hair Is Laid Like…” videos on YouTube he eventually landed a co-hosting spot on the late night web show, Kandi Koated Nights. He has also received recognition from the cast of the hit show Scandal. And a shout out from his favorite character on television Olivia Pope, played by the amazing Kerry Washington. For the future, he has hinted at the possibility of becoming the host of a more mainstream broadcast. The lesson: sometimes all you need to be to make a viral blog is yourself.

The Fashionista

We live in a celebrity-obsessed world. For some that obsession is tied to a desire to constantly appear “put together” or fashionable, and that creates a market for the fashion forward blogger.

Posting pictures of yourself dazzled up in expensive clothes might seem like a bit much for some, but what you might not realize is that many of these gals and guys who successfully drive traffic and promote their blogs actually reap high benefits. The majority of them receive a commission on products they helped sell through affiliate marketing.

For example, Leandra Medine is the owner of, Man Repeller.com.  So far, she has been able to take reign as the blogger with, “more sponsorships and brand collaborations than any blogger out there.” As for the male fashionistas, there’s Bryan Grey Yambao, the owner of Bryanboy.com.  So far he has been able to tie a deal with CAA or the Creative Artists Agency. They have signed some of the most talented people in Hollywood, like Tom Cruise and Kanye West. Bryan also made an appearance on America’s Next Top Model as a judge during cycle 19.

The clothes they wear might be tied to high price tags, but what does it matter when they’re getting everything for free? If you ask me, the work and research that goes into a fashion blog is definitely worth the rewards.

The Power Blogs

The news changes every minute, and since you are an outstanding American citizen, chances are you have a job that doesn’t allow you to watch the news all day. Your next option would be to subscribe to the RSS of your favorite news blog.

The news changes every minute, and since you are an outstanding American citizen, chances are you have a job that doesn’t allow you to watch the news all day. Your next option would be to subscribe to the RSS of your favorite news blog.

The quality of a news blog relies on how quickly they deliver information and the accuracy of their content. Sites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch have been able to build their reputation and become respected in their niche. Sites that have attained an equal level of respect are able to remain live due to deep pocket investors. This explains why the Huffington Post is not filled with a clutter of ads and yet can still afford to have reporters from all over the United States and United Kingdom.

Power blogs are more concerned with gaining respect and receiving recognition for being a quality source of information rather than being famous for posting a story about the trending celebrity.

The Takeaway

Building, researching and delivering quality content in order to sustain a successful blog requires a ridiculous amount of work. But depending on your end goal, whether it be respect, fame or money, the payoff can outweigh the hardships.

Penguin 2.0 went “live” last night. I am seeing mixed reports from around the globe from “my family is going to starve” to “my family is going to use our extra Google traffic to fund our next holiday.”

Here is what I know: it ain’t over yet. Whether that means more rollouts of the changes Mr. Cutts talked about in his video, or whether that means new updates in the future, it ain’t over. It will never be over as long as Google drives traffic, and people want that traffic to make money, and aren’t willing to pay Google directly for that traffic.

These are the things that have become very clear throughout all of the Penguin rollouts:

1. Links are still THE core of the algorithm. If they weren’t there would be no point in penalties, warnings, and disinformation.
2. Authorship isn’t as close to being a viable signal for them to use to separate good links from bad links as some may believe. Again, if it was, things like guest posting wouldn’t be thrown around as targets. You would just devalue the posts quietly and call it a day.
3. Google is using webmaster data to make changes. Things like link warnings and the disavow tool are being used to help Google connect the dots on link strategies, because at the end of the day distinguishing good from bad link signals is hard, and again links are still THE core of the algo.
4. Google is using categorical relevance of content (site and page level) to target (where the link points to) to evaluate how natural a placement is. Kind of like finding the 42 year-old bearded dude at Chuck E. Cheese that isn’t there with a kid. That ain’t right. I think some will say that the filtering of these type of posts will be authorship based, but I think it is more so a relationship between the two web pages on a categorical level.

I think the summer will be thick with more changes for people focused on search, and so my advice is the following: Google-proof your marketing.

How?

Stop focusing on doing stuff just to rank in Google. It’s an insane cycle that has been created. I need Google traffic, I build stuff to get that traffic, that stuff gets me killed in Google and has no value beyond that platform, I scratch my head and chase the next cheat.

That is the definition of insanity.

Here is what Google obviously wants:

1. Brands – Websites people are talking about, not just linking too. Co-occurance – the occurance of two terms on a page. Like when people write “Dave Snyder is handsome and you can read more from him at CopyPress.com” my author bio may start ranking for “handsome” (fingers crossed).
2. Awesome high quality content that gets traffic from lots of places (high quality content written by experts).
3. Links to that awesome content without crazy-ass exact match anchor text.

If you are going to build links, do what Google wants: good marketing.

1. Contribute awesome content ongoing to relevant sites in your niche. One-off placements are a pretty easy thing for Big G to pick up on.
2. Link back to articles and awesome content on your site as resources in this content not your homepage or product pages.
3. Use great onsite tactics to assure the value of these links flows internally.
4. Steer clear of publisher posting sponsored reviews and adverts with followed links, even if your stuff is natural, that’s going to be a dangerous hood.

There will still be holes in the algo, and if you choose to chase them just realize your focus is Google specific, and from a sustainability perspective is flawed. In short, accept that your wins will be short lived, and ride the roller coaster.

If you want to Google-proof your strategy, we know a lot of creative people that would be willing to help you get there

Good luck this Summer.

Every week there’s a new story about a major Twitter account getting hacked. Our emotions don’t even register surprise or fear anymore when we hear about major corporations getting compromised by phishing scams launched by foreign terrorists. Twitter decided that it was time to take action and launched a two-step verification system yesterday.

To set up the authentication, go into your settings, register your phone number (be sure read all the checked boxes or Twitter will send you a text every time you get a new follower, mention or retweet)and then opt-in to two-step  verification. Now whenever you sign into Twitter from a new device, Twitter will text you a code to enter before you can access your account.

The social network gave these instructions and described the reasons behind them in a rather blasé article on their blog:

We occasionally hear from people whose accounts have been compromised by email phishing schemes or a breach of password data elsewhere on the web.

They’re trying to downplay the situation that more than 250,000 of accounts have been hacked in 2013 alone and some have directly affected the stock market. That’s understandable, but given the recent hacks of the Associated Press and Financial Times, this new barrier is hardly timely or relevant.

In the past month, most of the hacks that made news came from the Syrian Electronic Army launching email phishing scams. No amount of cell phone verification will save an account when the computer is infected by malware launched by employees accidentally opening emails and clicking bad links. Twitter took the opportunity to specify this in a security memo sent out to media a few weeks back:

Talk with your security team about ensuring that your corporate email system is as safe as possible…strong security practices will reduce your vulnerability to phishing.

If the fault lies with computers failing to block spam and human error by opening bad emails, why did Twitter set up the two-step verification?

They’re trying to comfort the average user while building back their reputation. I highly doubt that the Syrian Electronic Army will go after my 355 followers, but I sleep better knowing that the novice hacker operating out of his mom’s basement will get stumped by the needed verification… at least for now. It’s only a matter of time before someone overcomes it and Twitter is in the spotlight again for lax security.

This two-step verification process would have been relevant back in February, when average user accounts were being compromised left and right. Now, it just looks like a PR move to keep the Internet from labeling Twitter as the social network of choice for hackers and terrorists. It’s like asking a driver to wear his seat belt as he careens off of a cliff. It’s a nice sentiment, buy ultimately ineffective.

Do you think the two-step verification process will help cut back on the affected accounts? Are you going to change your settings just in case?

Today’s Category: Curation

What I Wish Clients Knew About Social Media

I oversee the Content and Social Media departments here at Overit. It’s a great gig and I’m lucky to have gotten it. I spend my days evangelizing the importance of integrating content and social into your marketing, breaking down how both can lead to better relationships and sales, and then, at the end of […]

Why It’s A Mistake for Brands to Ignore Tumblr

Pretend I’m someone who understands the basics of the Internet but has never used a social platform. Now let me ask you: What’s Facebook? What’s Twitter? What’s Instagram? Most answers, at least from the readers of this blog, would be similar. But I’ve got another question. What’s Tumblr? I would bet that at this […]

If Google+ Is Good, Why Does Google Force It On Us?

Google really, really wants us to like Google+. Google is embedding Google+ into each of its products, making it increasingly difficult to use its services without embracing the Google+ borg, whether you want to or not. Judging by Google+’s still stagnant market share, you generally do not want to use the social service, or […]

Coming to a Pinterest Near You

Pinterest is upgrading – and it could mean big things to come for social media sites. All the features haven’t rolled out yet, but they’re on their way. Here are some forthcoming changes to watch out for: Brand partnerships are coming to Pinterest. No more confusing paths or broken links to get more information. If […]

Tomorrow’s Fresh Pressed: Conversion

Many in-house marketers have told me how their company does not understand the importance of content marketing. They struggle,  argue and often get no support to complete tasks. So here are some suggestions that might help.

Educated Everyone, Not Just Decision Makers

For effective content marketing you will need a lot of data and a good amount of this data will come from other staff members. If you start educating everyone, not just your “bosses”, on “why” what you are doing is needed you will have people to back you up. You need a team behind you for decision making and team behind you to help you complete your future tasks.

This is also an opportunity to make others feel important (which moves me to my next point).

Everyone Has Something to Contribute

Everyone is important and has information you need to make your content marketing work.

Every member of a staff has data and information to contribute. It isn’t just sales people, marketers and managers that matter. Secretaries and assistants deal with clients more than anyone and often they get asked the most questions. These people can fill you in on what people are looking for, what questions they have, what irritates clients and they can provide you data on your target audiences. You need data from everyone.

Next, sit down with those that have always dealt with traditional forms of advertising and find out what works, what doesn’t and which audiences responded to which forms of marketing. Your next move…

Show The Advertising Team How to Integrate Online and Offline Marketing

Once you let the traditional advertising folks know that you know you have something to learn from them you can start bonding with them. Let them know you respect what they have done and you’re all are on the same side. Then you will have an opportunity to show them how to integrate online and offline marketing. You can show them how to integrate your website, social and Internet marketing strategies into commercials, magazines, advertisements, etc. These are staff members you need on your side.

Get Opinions, From Everyone

When you go up to a team/staff member and say, “What do you think about this?” you accomplish multiple things:

• You make them feel like their opinion matters – confidence booster (they like you for that).
• You get good feedback you might not have thought of – info is good!
• You have a new opportunity to educate a team member on why you are doing what you are doing – backup!
• You get ideas for additional marketing strategies – blog posts, infographics, tutorials, videos etc.

The truth is most of us are smart, but we can always learn from other views and opinions. We don’t know everything so we need to get the advice of others. If you want people to listen to you then you have to be open to listening to others and show appreciation for the advice you have received.

The Goal: To Create a Unified Team with Unified Goals

The bottom line is you need a supportive team that will work hard with you to meet your goals. The only way to grab as much support as possible is to be kind and educate. Don’t make people feel stupid, just find a way to get in there and help them understand what it is you do and what you plan on doing.

When you have the back up of several team members you have a better shot at convincing your manager or boss. When a team believes in something and has unified goals good work gets done. Everyone is going to have to work together to make things work. You can unify your team by educating everyone and the team can then work together on unified goals.

Have you ever stopped to think just how crazy the whole social era is? Today, seeing one of your friend’s or family member’s faces splashed all over the Internet is as commonplace as eating or drinking. Photos are a great way to showcase the here and now, but there’s one type of picture in particular that has me intrigued (to say the least) every time I see it: the oh-so-familiar “selfie.” It hasn’t lost momentum from its infantile MySpace days and shows no signs of slowing down. I’ve often thought about the social psychology of the “selfie” and found the behavior an interesting topic to ponder. After all, we’ve all at some point had a conversation questioning someone else’s motives for posting certain images.

Make Note of the Difference

What is a Selfie? I want to make sure were talking about the same “selfie.” There are a couple different types. The first are those avatar and profile images used for an online profile, then there are the photos that aren’t needed, but we take them anyway. I think it’s important to differentiate the two because I’m mainly referring to the latter. The latter is the one that people make fun of, the latter is the one that graces Instagram feeds, dating profiles and Tumblr dashboards.

This is a selfie:

Why All the Selfies?

Reasons vary as to why certain women pucker their best duck face or why men feel it’s a must to flex for the camera. Circumstances dictate the composition of each selfie, but those who take one with intent to share do it for one simple reason: the ego. We all, to some degree, care about our self-image, and we tend to rely on others’ perceptions and judgments to formulate our own online self.

My Take on Selfies

Social sites today give us the option to decide how we would like to mold our online selves. We choose who to follow, what to share, how often and on which platforms. There is no sure thing, no sure guide as to how to operate your online profile. It’s individuality. It’s expression. Some love to share themselves more than others. Just like our day-to-day decisions, we have the ability to choose our online personalities.

I think we often forget just how much control we actually have over the content we see and the content we put out there. (Of course, societal pressures and competition to impress others is a fundamental human element to the social media space. It’s probably why I find the topic so interesting to begin with. But I digress.) It’s on us to decide what parameters we set for ourselves. Which is why I say: selfie away. If you want to post a daily photo of yourself, go for it. If you want to post an hourly photo of yourself, it’s your call. Your online presence is your brand, are you happy with what you’re putting out into the world?

For the Selfie-haters

Not everyone has the patience to sift through selfies as they scroll through social media. Fortunately, in the age of the Internet, you control both what you put into the world and what you see from it.

Unbaby.me replaces baby pictures on Facebook and replaces them with photos of cats, bacon, beaches, or images from any RSS feed. I know that the babies aren’t taking selfies, but you can customize what words trigger the app. Try adding commonly used tags and words associated with selfies and soon you’ll see less headshots on your news feed.

Now that you’ve cleaned up Facebook, it’s time to hit up Tumblr. Thank you Tumblr Savior. Choose whatever tags you don’t want to see  on your dashboard and this app will hide them: #GPOY, #selfie, #tbt, #throwbackthursday, whatever you want. Instant selfie-blocker.

Final Thoughts

I’m torn, you know? I find some selfies incredibly annoying and seek out ways to block them, but on the same token, I understand why people want to show their friends what they’re up to. I accept that this is the era we live in. I guess I’m more interested in what others feel about the topic. Are selfies annoying to you? Do you unfollow people who post them at a machine gun pace? Do you ignore them? Or do you just accept that’s who she/he wants to portray?

The lesson used to be “don’t talk to strangers,” then the Internet happened and the lesson became “don’t talk to strangers online.” But as social networks evolve, teens are talking strangers and becoming more comfortable with sharing personal information.

A new study released by the Pew Research Center looked into teen social network use, particularly the amount of information they’re sharing and why they’re on various websites. In short: teens are sharing more online, but are becoming more careful with whom they share information with.

From 2006 to 2012, teens became more comfortable sharing five main pieces of information: photos of themselves, the schools they attend, the cities or towns of residence, their email addresses and their cell phone numbers. In the past six years, the percentage of teens who feel comfortable sharing their cell phone numbers online went from 2% to 20%. Gender doesn’t matter with revealing different types of content, but age does: older teens feel more comfortable sharing personal information online than younger ones.

One of the hot-button topics of Facebook is the privacy settings. Users want to know what Facebook is doing with information and how they can prevent others from viewing content. Facebook has created anti-bullying pages to teach about privacy settings and has tried to make them easier to understand. Well, teens don’t have a problem with that, they get privacy settings. 60% keep their content private or feel that they know how to manage privacy. Furthermore, another 60% of teens say they’re not too concerned about websites having third-party access or using their information for advertisements. That’s good news for Instagram.

Teens don’t like Facebook. They’re on it, but they’re not happy with it. Other than parents signing up and lowering the “cool factor,” teens don’t like inane status updates, drama, and the constant need to manage their reputation. They feel chained to Facebook because everyone is on it and they don’t want to miss out. Teens use Facebook because they feel pressured to stay in the loop, but they use Twitter and Instagram because they want to.

This is all well and good if you’re a high school guidance counselor, but what can marketers glean from this study?

Marketers should listen to teens. They are the pulse of our society, what they think is cool now eventually catches the attention of the rest of us. The tech bloggers of the world aren’t early adopters, the high schoolers are. They may not be able to afford a Google Glass prototype, but they know that an app that deletes pictures 10 seconds after opening is awesome.

Also, social media strategy – geared towards teens or otherwise – shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. A picture on Instagram shouldn’t automatically be shared with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest. People are on multiple social media accounts and will either get burned out by seeing brands over and over again or know that they’re getting second string content when they see hashtags on Facebook.

The survey disproves several misconceptions about teens on the Internet: they’re not Facebook obsessed and they know privacy settings. Maybe, they’re not as dumb as we think.

Today’s Category: Connections

Blogger Outreach: A Tactic to Keep Your Strategy Fresh

As outbound marketing tactics become obsolete, establishing relationships with bloggers who can promote your brand via word of mouth is becoming more important than ever. Now that modern consumers are wired to tune out traditional ads and have the self-empowerment to research brands on their own, marketers and PR professionals are scrambling to fill […]

How Should Publishers Respond to Link Removal Requests?

Thanks again to Panda, Penguin etc, it seems many webmasters are panicking about links they have obtained in the past, or have been pulled up by Google as a result of over-zealous link building. As a result, we are receiving many more link removal requests than we ever used to, ten or so in […]

Are People Stealing Your Content? How (and When) to Fight Back [SlideShare]

If you’re drinking the inbound marketing Kool-Aid and regularly publishing content online, there’s a good chance you may have experienced content theft at one point or another. Many of us are all too familiar with the feelings that follow the discovery of content thievery: your stomach drops, quickly followed by thoughts of “Why me?” […]

Guest Blogging is not Content Marketing

Like many of the digital folk reading this, I read a lot of blogs, books and pretty much anything that piques my interest. Hell, I’ve even been known to drop into the occasional Google+ Hangout. Doing the rounds, there is a common theme on approaches to content marketing. Though the wording changes from article […]

Tomorrow’s Fresh Pressed: Curation

Poor Yahoo, any move it makes is either harshly criticized or wildly unpopular. While certain corners of the Internet were still simmering over this weekend’s purchase of Tumblr, Yahoo went out and gave Flickr a makeover. The new and improved photo sharing site now has – you guessed it – tiles.

There’s no doubt that the interface is definitely an update. They’ve done away with most of the white space that made their site feel like a warehouse for stock photos. Flickr has also brought the user to the forefront, and every user can brand him or herself as a professional photographer.

Flickr is the quintessential example of a company playing catch-up. They recently updated their app into an Instagram copycat, where users could take pictures, add a filter and share them with friends. Flickr, the site that originally targeted photographers as a platform to display their art, has lowered its standards to appeal to the everyman.

Compare and contrast Flickr’s updated look (above) with Instagram’s look (below).

After Flickr modernized its app, it turned to its online presence. 2013 is the year of the tile, we’ve seen it in website updates on Pinterest, Instagram, and most recently Google+. Tiles have been used in curation sites like Feedly, Pulse, and Scoop.it and have become a popular layout on smartphones. It only made sense that Flickr would try to keep up with the cool kids and adopt a similar design.

So who is Flickr targeting? It seems to be stuck in the crossroads between appealing to the niche market of photographers versus the millions of smartphone users who love taking pictures of food almost as much as eating it. Does it want to become a home for photos so users can share their work on social networks like Pinterest, or does it want to be the social network people visit to comment on and favorite images?

On the one hand, the website is trying to court photographers again by giving each user a terabyte of space. This appeals to photographers who take large high resolution photos and need unlimited space to store them. On the other hand, Flickr is trying to promote the shareability and user interface with an Activity Feed that regularly updates friends’ photos. Pair that with the emphasis of their iPhone and android apps and it seems like Flickr really wants to come back and be the next Instagram.

Check out the side-by-side screenshots of Flickr’s iPhone app (left) and Instagram’s iPhone app (right).

Last week we poked fun at Myspace and their constant struggle to draw users –any users – to their revamped layout. Recently, the once popular Draw Something desperately tried to pull from Instagram’s fan base.  Now, Yahoo and Flickr are trying to catch up and become one of the top networks again. In the modern world, do fallen companies stand a chance at reclaiming their former glory at the top? Or are they doomed to fall into the shadows and disappear, unable to innovate with both the current giants and start-ups with the next big thing?