smcandrew's Gooruze Blog

Rely heavily on Google Analytics? You won’t like this.

smcandrew — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:03:44 -0700

Google Analytics might be one of the best things that Google Robin Hooded to website owners large and small. The analytics package provides incredible functionality and does so for not a dime. That combination of functionality and free have lead to massive market share for Analytics. One estimate last year put Google Analytics at a whopping 80%, while another fell slightly shorter, but still impressive at 74%.

It’s been a win-win for Google and for the sites that use the tool to measure their efforts, but a post on the Google Analytics blog today should have some eyebrows raising. The post is short, titled:

More choice for users: browser-based opt-out for Google Analytics on the way

Maybe Google realizes they need to earn back some “do no evil” sentiment from the population at large. Maybe there’s a clever reason why it’s best that you not know what happens with the traffic on your site. Maybe, gulp, they really are just doing the right thing. It’s hard to tell. The blog post, almost short enough to have been slipped out of Mountain View in a tweet, is served point-blank. In it’s entirety:

As an enterprise-class web analytics solution, Google Analytics not only provides site owners with information on their website traffic and marketing effectiveness, it also does so with high regard for protecting user data privacy. Over the past year, we have been exploring ways to offer users more choice on how their data is collected by Google Analytics. We concluded that the best approach would be to develop a global browser based plug-in to allow users to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics. Our engineers are now hard at work finalizing and testing this opt-out functionality. We look forward to make it globally available to our users in the coming weeks.

So, it’s coming soon, and it’s pretty clear that the solution would allow people to completely opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.

Depending on how the option is presented and received to the end-user, it could have an unnoticeable effect, or it could eventually impact quite a lot of what you know about your website traffic. ‘Free’ may just become very expensive in the long run.

Thoughts?

Why A/B/Multivariate test?

smcandrew — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:59:11 -0800

There’s a lot of love about online marketing from a strategic standpoint. Possibly the biggest differentiator between online marketing and other marketing methods is the degree to which it can be tracked. After launching a website, social media presence, or campaign, the next logical step is to understand and optimize the performance you’re receiving.

While marketers often rely on industry best practices, past performance, and trends to optimize performance, one method of optimization seems to often get swept under the rug: A/B and/or multivariate testing. A/B and multi-what? Let’s start with what Wikipedia says and bring it down a notch:

A/B Testing

A/B testing, split testing, or bucket testing is a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates.

In layman’s terms, two (or several) different versions of an ad, email, or web page are tested and measured to see which one performs best. Pretty straightforward. The two promotional banners below could be tested to see which encouraged more sales.

Multivariate Testing

This method is different than multivariate testing which applies statistical modeling which allows a tester to try multiple variables within the samples distributed.

Again, in (hopefully more) simple English, multivariate testing allows you to identify several items on a page, for example, that for each, you wish to test different one or several different options. An example would be an email where you want to test three different headlines, two alternate images, as well as three variations of the call-to-action to see which combination is the most successful.

Sounds great. Nah, I’m not interested

The goal of these testing methods is to serve the best possible option to the end-user and in doing so to optimize performance. So, why doesn’t everyone run tests like this?

Here are three common reasons that A/B Multivariate testing isn’t done:

“It costs too much money”
Unless budgets are incredibly constrained, this shouldn’t be an issue. Testing doesn’t have to be expensive, especially with the tools available today, including free one’s like Google’s Website Optimizer (note that Website Optimizer is for just that-websites, not email, ads or other media). And, if you’re working with an agency, they likely have tools that they’ve already licensed. The cost is then limited to concepting the different versions and putting the test in place.
“We tried it once and didn’t see much of a difference between versions”
You definitely won’t hit a home run every time. Just because testing on one occasion revealed that between the options tested there wasn’t much of a difference, that doesn’t mean that nothing should be tested.
“We know better”
Clients often simply think that they understand their offering, brand and customer so well that testing is just a waste of time and money. While I can understand (and respect) a client’s knowledge and intimacy with their brand, what sometimes comes to light is that what performs best can defy common logic or perceived wisdom. Sometimes the consumer just sees it differently from their side of the equation.

What you don’t know can cost you money

To put it as bluntly as possible, if you don’t test something you simply won’t know if it could have performed better.

Yes, you can run tests and find that other options offer marginable, offer only negligible gains, or offer even worse results. But, you may also find out that there’s an option that performs significantly better, sometimes by a long shot, pushing the impact of your marketing dollars far further.

If your budget allows for it, I’d recommend testing when it makes sense.

Some final advice

First of all, you certainly don’t need to test everything. That tagline that the new guy brought up in the marketing meeting that clearly sucked will still suck no matter how many ways you test it.

A great way to get started is to test something that will effect the return on your marketing investment. Possibly an email that is going out that has a call-to-action to redeem an offer or sign up for a seminar, or a landing page on your website where you drive paid marketing traffic and hope for a conversion.

To find a great candidate for testing, identify something that has created some uncertainty internally. Are you struggling with two subject lines that both state the same thing, just with a different tone? Are you considering changing the placement or styling of a form? Wondering if you might capture more leads if less information were required of the visitor? Each of these situations would create a great testing opportunity.

A few A/B/Multivariate testing resources that might help you:

Google Website Optimizer
Google Website Optimizer is designed for testing landing pages for Google AdWords campaigns. The tool is made available for free by Google.
Google Website Optimizer Blog
The blog for Website Optimizer has great ideas and results from real-world tests.
Which Site Won
This site is really enlightening if you’re considering testing. Marketing agency consultant Jay Baer of Convince and Convert recently tweeted about it and I wish I would have stumbled across it long ago. The site shows results of A/B tests, and even lets you play along and see if you can pick which version performed better prior to seeing the actual results.
Marketing Experiments
They’ve been running tests for quite some time over at Marketing Experiments, and they provide their results in succinct, easy to understand terms.
15+ Free A/B Split Testing Resources
There’s a good round-up of free resources available on the Internet for A/B testing on this Wingify blog post. Definitely worth a read. If you like the post, browse the other blog entries on Wingify… They’re all about testing.

Good luck!

Augmented reality, live video overlay from Photosynth creator

smcandrew — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:03:21 -0800

This is a great video from TED2010 that shows off the latest Microsoft has to offer on the mapping front including live video being overlaid at the street-view level in Bing Maps. Blaise Aguera y Arcas, who brought us Seadragon/Photosynth, lead the team that made this a reality.

The whole video is worth a watch, but if you want to skip to the clip that shows the live video integration forward to the four minute mark.

With all the video cameras monitoring intersections, parking lots and buildings it makes you wonder what the future of mapping will be like. Will we be ‘walking’ through real-time virtually online?

Are these social AdWords ads?

smcandrew — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:06:55 -0800

I was doing some searches today to see if anything was new and exciting with how Google was handling Social Search results and saw something in the Sponsored Links results that’s new to me. I searched for Terralever (the online marketing company I work at) and one of the AdSense results was for another local company, bluemedia.

I haven’t seen Google Ads like this before.

These aren’t geotargeted Ads triggered by the keyword “Terralever.” These ads are different.

Right above the top Ad there’s a heading that says “Related to bluemedia”. That’s new to me. I took a quick glance at the AdWords blog and didn’t see any mention of how “Related to” ads would show up. A few Google searches later and I resigned to the fact that this must be a Google experiment as sometimes the Ads appear and sometimes they don’t. But, there’s a bigger question here.

What’s making these ads show up?

The “Related to…” leads me to believe this is likely based on social ties between our two companies. I can think of a few ways that Google could conclude that Terralever is related bluemedia: Our two companies follow each other on Twitter, individuals from each company link to one other on LinkedIn, each company is a Fan of the other’s Facebook Page, and so on.

Just one more reason to buy AdWords ads?

Either way, this example is pretty innocent. We don’t compete for business with bluemedia. We do, however, communicate and (occasionally) collaborate with competitors in our local community and beyond. If this is a sign of a new trigger for Google displaying AdWords ads, should we tighten down our social ties, or jump in and advertise, too? My guess, assuming this experiment goes live permanently, is that Google hopes we just buck up and buy some ads ourselves.

Bank of America: A tale of two social presences

smcandrew — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:56:58 -0800

Bank of America has a presence on both Facebook and Twitter. The brand perception that one walks away from after visiting each one couldn’t be more different. In a presentation I recently did I used the contrast between the two as a way to illustrate success, and failure, during the strategic planning process.

A Few Common Strategic Planning Pitfalls

During the planning process for a social media presence some commonly overlooked questions include:

Do we have the right goal?
Who will be the brand owner of the social effort?
What should our tone/voice be?
How will we handle negative interaction?
How do we define success?
Are we prepared for the depth of commitment required for this to be successful?

There’s plenty more pitfalls, but we’ll focus on those above in reviewing Bank of America’s Facebook and Twitter presences.

Bank of America Example #1: Facebook Group (the failure)

If you go looking for Bank of America on Facebook, you’ll find a few different Groups and Pages. From the get-go, not all of what came back looks great. For Groups there’s “Bank of America Are Crooks!”, “Please BOYCOTT Bank of America”, and no shortage of “Bank of America Sucks!” Groups. This is a bit beyond the context we’re talking about (these Groups were created by non-Bank of America personnel), so I headed over to the Group that I guessed was the official Bank of America Facebook presence as it was listed first and had the most members (over three-thousand).

It’s simply called “Bank of America”. Here’s a screen capture below of what you see on arrival:

Fairly innocuous. Clicking on the “Wall” tab reveals the conversation being had here, and it’s quickly clear that things aren’t sunshine and rainbows. The Group has become a soapbox for anyone and everyone who is unhappy with Bank of America, and Bank of America is nowhere to be found to stand up for itself.

Considering the social media strategic planning pitfalls above, see how the Bank of America Group fares:

Do we have the right goal?

Of course I have no way of knowing what the creator’s actual goal was, but we do have a publicly stated goal under the Information heading: “Help build the biggest BOA Facebook group.”

Well, they succeeded at that goal. This is the biggest Bank of America Facebook Group. Unfortunately its now clearly an anti-Bank of America Group.

How do we define success?

If being the biggest was success the metric being used this would then be considered a success. I’m fairly certain this isn’t what the creator was hoping for. And, a little more poking around shows that this Group wasn’t intended to be for the general public. In the Description it says the Group is open to “Bank of America employees and alumni.”

Who will be the brand owner of the social effort? What should our tone/voice be?

For Bank of America, this is where the plot thickens. This Group, which appears to be an official Bank of America Group, was created by an employee – a teller at Bank of America. His role of Bank of America Teller is listed as a previous job he held, so it’s safe to assume he’s no longer with the bank.

So, although this looks and feels at first glance (before you read the Wall content) as its likely an official Bank of America Group, it’s something a teller created hoping to create a gathering place for past and present Bank of America employees, not a ‘formal’ effort Bank of America corporate undertook.

How will we handle negative interaction? Are we prepared for the depth of commitment required for this to be successful?

Things get a bit more complicated here. How is negative interaction being handled? Hear no evil, see no evil, respond to no evil. To which one might say “you just said that Bank of America didn’t officially create this Group.” My response is that while they didn’t create it, they certainly don’t need to be ignorant of it.

It’s not beneficial when your most popular presence on the largest social media site in the world sets up a regular association between your brand name and the word “sucks.”

This Group uses their trademarked name, and was created by someone who is easy enough to track down. There are plenty of options that Bank of America could explore to be a part of this conversation and help shape perception.

As it stand now, the inmates are running the asylum.

Bank of America Example #2: BofA_Help on Twitter (the success)

Here’s something completely different. Bank of America created a presence on Twitter where you might think they’d be at even more risk to get eaten alive by negative criticism. Unlike Facebook, Twitter welcomes profiles that don’t require the real person behind them be readily apparent. In situations like this, getting beaten up verbally can go haywire as people can hide behind an ambiguous profile name and complain to their heart’s content.

The interactions on Twitter, however, are far different from those on the Facebook Group page above.

Do we have the right goal?

I’m paraphrasing from what I’ve read about BofA Help on Twitter. In the broadest of strokes the purpose of this social presence is to “provide timely customer service to Bank of America customers.”

That’s a good goal. Social media is well suited to customer service. It’s also a goal that Bank of America could (and likely does) apply real metrics to so their progress can be measured.

How do we define success?

For this question I’m at a loss for an answer. I haven’t spoken to anyone at Bank of America (although I’ve tried), but from an outsider’s view I’d have to assume that their efforts are successful (if you work for Bank of America specifically with their social media efforts feel free to contact me!).

The interactions seem to be reasonably prompt, and people aren’t attacking Bank of America, they’re looking for issue resolution, and it would appear that Bank of America is using Twitter as a place to intercept complaints and concerns, and to then move the conversation to a medium where issues can be resolved.

There’s also plenty of “thank you” tweets commending B of A’s representatives for a job well done.

Who will be the brand owner of the social effort? What should our tone/voice be?

BofA_Help is manned by six representatives. Looking over the interactions they each have with the customers that come with problems, they’re all representing their brand well. Each representative smartly signs their tweets with their initials (good thinking) and communication is professional; empathetic even. All the representatives respond and interact in lock step with a calm, helpful approach.

I did see some representative Tweets that look as though they are canned responses. I’m assuming this is an aid to the volume of inquiries they receive.

How will we handle negative interaction? Are we prepared for the depth of commitment required for this to be successful?

This is all about customer service and issue resolution. The nature of the beast is that the interaction starts out with negative overtones. From where it goes form there everything seems to be handled very professionally and with the (serious) commitment required.

Bank of America’s goal on Twitter isn’t to create something to point at and say “Look how great our customers think we are!” Their goal is to provide better service for their customers. By focusing on that goal, however, they’re achieving the other in the form of the feedback their customers are providing in return.

Google Buzz Poll: Force or Flop?

smcandrew — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:35:49 -0800

Following several clunky forays into social media, today Google has unveiled Google Buzz.

From the Official Google Blog:

Our belief is that organizing the social information on the web — finding relevance in the noise — has become a large-scale challenge, one that Google’s experience in organizing information can help solve. We’ve recently launched innovations like real-time search and Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step with the introduction of a new product, Google Buzz.

So what’s your take? Will Google Buzz make it in the mainstream, or have the front-runners Facebook and Twitter built up too much momentum?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Back it up with comments!

Google puts some more social in its search

smcandrew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:54:38 -0800

Last week I did an internal presentation at Terralever talking about how search engines like Google and social networking sites alike were likely both attacking the idea of extending their understanding of both information and the social graph. Today I tripped over an example of Google Social Search and recollected on the presentation. In broad strokes:

Facebook and its data

Facebook’s value lies in the data it has regarding individuals and how the relate to one another. As it stands now, Facebook has incredibly deep information regarding how people connect to one another, what their individual and common interests are, and to a far lesser degree, how they connect to information on the larger Internet.

Google and its data

Google has a set of information which is in many ways the antithesis of what Facebook has. Google has spent years perfecting the task of providing users of their search engine with the most relevant possible search results based on an incredibly complex algorithm that gauges the latent value of content which heavily relies on how that content is regarded from elsewhere on the web.

Facebook, people and information

Where Facebook is headed toward they don’t need to be so concerned about understanding people-to-people connections (as they’ve got that one covered), but instead they are being more conscious about how individuals relate to information. Facebook’s goal was recently stated by Ethan Beard, Director Facebook Developer Network, in his Le Web ‘09 Keynote speech: (‘We’ refers to Facebook in this context)

“Platform started in 2007, and this platform is our future. We don’t aspire to only be a website. We aspire to be a technology people use to connect with the things they care about, wherever they are.”

Google and a more social search

Google understands that their relationship with users and information is far more personal than it was at its inception. Larry Page, co-founder of Google, says the following about the perfect search engine:

“The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.”

As social has rapidly made advances towards providing users more qualitative information through the gauging its relative importance, Google has followed suit, and one of the ways in which it has changed was unveiled in October last year. Called Google Social Search, it was a baby-step towards providing more socially-relevant content based upon what Google knew about the person searching.

A Google Social Search example

Today, I tripped across a new flavor of Social Search when showing a colleague an example from that presentation about social and search that I made last week. Here’s the example: I searched on “Facebook Connect,” a technology which allows developers to leverage some of Facebook’s potential on other web sites.

The results I got, for the most part, were what I’d come to expect. However, at the bottom of the page, there was a new section called “Results from people in your social media circle for facebook connect” (followed by the obligatory Google “BETA” designation).

The two results that are listed beneath that heading are from friends whom I’m connected through on Twitter, and each piece of information that was supplied is an individual Tweet regarding Facebook Connect.

How’d Google provide those results?

I do Google searches at least a few times a day to see if anything has changed, and this is the first time I’ve seen this type of social result. I did find an article published on the Official Google Blog that was posted last week that mentions new changes, just not this specific instance.

By clicking on the “My social circle” and “My social content” links beside the BETA results, I learned that Google gathered this information for me as I was logged in to Google with an email address for which I have also created a Google Public Profile. It was that profile provided the breadcrumbs for Google to know of my connections to Jay Baer and Justin Copeland.

How Google explains Social Search:

Google Social Search is a feature designed to help you discover relevant publicly-accessible content from your social circle, a set of online friends and contacts. The idea is that content from your friends and social contacts is often more relevant to you than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from your best friend can be even better.

As things continue to heat up between in the search-and-social landscape it should be interesting to see what both Facebook and Google declare to be the best way to connect people with information and provide it in a way that is useful to the end-user.

Who is poised to be the best provider of information in the social age? Facebook, Google, or neither?

Three Facebook Predictions for 2010

smcandrew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:13:26 -0800

I recently had the opportunity to sit on a Facebook Deep Dive panel which allowed me to think about Facebook looking forward into 2010. Here’s a few of my Facebook predictions for 2010 that I shared:

Facebook will go far beyond Facebook.com

Facebook interaction isn’t always on Facebook.com, and that trend will accelerate in 2010. While Facebook would love for you to spend all of your time on their site, they know that they can’t force that agenda, nor do they need to. Content and interactions between real individuals and brands are the bedrock of their value, and while page impressions help with advertising, capturing interaction data and building ubiquity is far more important.

Adding “Share” and “Become a Fan” links are a first step, but they are rudimentary. And, of the hundreds of thousands of sites leveraging Facebook Connect, most are merely scratching the surface. Expect to see progressive brands performing much deeper integrations in 2010 that better take advantage of Connect/Open Graph API, and in turn Facebook itself.

Facebook’s on-site search will evolve

Facebook has dabbled with their on-site search, but they haven’t done anything all that impressive. The promise of a true ‘social search’ where results are catered to the individual user is something that Facebook is uniquely qualified to provide. Facebook’s latest redesign (still not ‘live’ at the time of this posting) is a clear indication that search is something they will be giving heightened importance to.

How Facebook handles on-site search results of its own content as well as content from the greater web will evolve throughout 2010, creating both challenges and opportunities for marketers. What Facebook delivers with search on their own site may very well be something completely abstract to how we understand search at present.

Facebook will do far more for local businesses

Businesses are flocking to Facebook – there are currently more than 700,000 local businesses with Pages. And, these local businesses are important to Facebook. Last year nearly 75% of Facebook’s TOTAL revenue came from local businesses and advertisers ($~229 Million). The rapid uptake in Facebook user mobile usage (currently 65M of their 350M active users) as well as the popularity of sites like Yelp present a further case for Facebook.

On search engines local continues to be a hot topic and area of rapid growth. Numbers vary, but depending on what data source you believe somewhere between 20% and 40% of all Internet searches today are local in nature. Expect Facebook to expand its offering and presentation of local businesses in ways that pay dividends to businesses that are active with Facebook’s various interaction points and have Fans that interact in-kind.

What predictions do you have for Facebook in 2010?

Quick Tip: Click data on any bit.ly link

smcandrew — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:06:04 -0800

Last night at the Social Media Club Phoenix meeting one quick tip that came up was how you can view statistics on any link created with the URL shortner bit.ly. In the event you’re thinking “Why would I do that?,” go try it on a bit.ly link one of your competitors made with bit.ly, not your own. Got it? Here’s the (incredibly simple) way to do it:

Copy the entire bit.ly link
Paste it into the address bar in any web browser
Add a ‘+’ after the bit.ly link
Hit return

You’ll be directed to a bit.ly page that shows the statistics for that link. Nice.

One word of caution: bit.ly does occasionally start offering up the same shortened bit.ly URL when a strong demand for the exact same link comes up. Do click on the “Referrers” link on the bit.ly statistics page and you’ll get a better idea if this is the link you created or one that bit.ly is giving to a lot of others also.

Credit goes to Jeff Widman for the tip (@JeffWidman, BrandGlue). Thanks Jeff!

No related posts.

The long road to FeedBurner and Google Analytics integration

smcandrew — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:01:16 -0800

Since Google acquired Feedburner back in 2007 there hasn’t been much good to say about the acquisition of the RSS reporting outfit. Under Google’s watch Feedburner fans have seen more pain than benefit. So, when Google announced (a long awaited) integration between Feedburner and Google Analytics many were excited about the news. Unfortunately, the integration wasn’t what most were hoping for.

No, you’ll still need to log in to FeedBurner to review the majority of the stats that you’d hope to happily find on your Google Analytics Dashboard. The extent of the integration is merely the ability to recognize FeedBurner as a traffic source the same way you would with URL tagging.

That’s it. In fact, this is something that could be done without Google’s “integration” by tagging RSS feed links with Google Analytics’ standard campaign format.

If you’re using Google Analytics and FeedBurner, you may already be seeing FeedBurner showing up as a source in Analytics. If you’re not, it’s just a few clicks away if you know where to look. There’s a post on the AdSense for Feeds blog that details the settings you need to make on FeedBurner.

It seems pretty straightforward: the ability to get both feed and site analytics in one place is what web site owners want. Why Google is taking baby steps is unknown. Hopefully in 2010 we’ll see a (much) deeper level of integration.

Facebook’s money for nothing

smcandrew — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:19:59 -0700

Virtual gifts are flying off of Facebook’s shelves. Since opening the Gifts store in 2007 millions of virtual gifts have been sent between Facebook friends using the Gift store alone. When words alone can’t express one’s feelings, a virtual cupcake, puppy, roll of toilet paper, bff charm or shot of tequila are just a click away.

Although virtual, the lion’s share of gifts cost actual money in the form of a Facebook-only currency, called Facebook Credits. Credits are purchased from Facebook by credit card at an exchange rate of 10 credits per dollar. Most gifts cost 10 credits, which equals one dollar, but like in vegas, credits likely spend faster than dollars and cents. How many dollars and cents the social networking site takes in is up for speculation.

Facebook hasn’t revealed exactly how much money it is making from the sale of virtual gifts, but Silicon Alley Insider recently guesstimated the breakdown of Facebook’s $550 million annual revenue, pinning $75 million dollars a year to virtual goods. From the July 2, 2009 Silicon Alley Insider blog post:

Earlier this week, we spoke to several sources who each have some insight into Facebook’s financials (none of them know precisely). Taking the sources’ input together, we’d estimate the company’s expected 2009 revenue this way:

$125 million from brand ads

$150 million from Facebook’s ad deal with Microsoft

$75 million from virtual goods

$200 million from self-service ads

Total: $550 Million

If the numbers are correct, in addition to being highly popular virtual gifting also represents a respectable amount of overall revenue. Looking forward, Facebook is experimenting with new ways for users to spend their Facebook credits.

Facebook’s money for nothing

smcandrew — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:19:59 -0700

Earlier this week, we spoke to several sources who each have some insight into Facebook’s financials (none of them know precisely). Taking the sources’ input together, we’d estimate the company’s expected 2009 revenue this way:

$125 million from brand ads

$150 million from Facebook’s ad deal with Microsoft

$75 million from virtual goods

$200 million from self-service ads

Total: $550 Million

Bozeman fired up over officer’s Facebook posts

smcandrew — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:05:24 -0700

Bozeman, MT is becoming a lightning rod of sorts for legal issues concerning city employees and social networks. Back in June the City of Bozeman, Montana and social network sites were in the news for a curious job application request:

Please list and and all past, and present, personal or business website or web pages, memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, MySpace, etc.

The list was to include each website as well as the applicant’s user name and password. The uproar caused by publicity surrounding the request has settled for the most part, but social networks and Bozeman were back in the news last month, this time for a different reason.

The City, which defended itself back in June when the City attorney was quoted as saying “…we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity [...] so we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City” seemed to have a lapse in judgment when they hired at least one police officer.

As a part of a civil rights-related lawsuit filed against the City of Bozeman and some of the police officers it employs, Matthew White and his attorneys cited posts an officer at the center of the case made to his Facebook profile page. The officer, Cody Anderson, who is being accused of violating the prosecutor’s civil rights had the following posted on his publicly available profile:

I think there should be a law saying police can take people to jail for being stupid. Ask a cop a question like, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’ and you get a free ride in a cop car. If I had something better to do, I would be off doing that, and not messing with you. Speaking of messing with people … I like messing with people. Just being in a patrol car looking at people while parked at a red light is fun. Make eye contact, squint your eyes like you know what they just did and watch them squirm and avoid all further eye contact. It makes my day fun.

“I’m always amazed at what people will tell a police officer. I think people assume we are like priests and it is all in confidence. It’s not. We go back to the office and talk about everything we saw and heard. Then we laugh at people. Usually it is all on audio as well so we listen to stupid things over and over. If we are lucky, it happened in front of a patrol car with its camera on. Then we get to watch it over and over,” the lawsuit said.

Following the filing of the lawsuit the Deputy Chief of Police and issued a statement of concern. The officer also apologized, citing his “dry sense of humor” and that the postings had been “taken out of context.” Weeks later the officer resigned of his own volition.

The whole episode created a lot of chatter on the Internet, with commenters taking sides either applauding the officer’s resignation or defending his right to free speech, privacy, and even disdain for the public.

Bozeman fired up over officer’s Facebook posts

smcandrew — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:05:24 -0700

Please list and and all past, and present, personal or business website or web pages, memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, MySpace, etc.

I think there should be a law saying police can take people to jail for being stupid. Ask a cop a question like, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’ and you get a free ride in a cop car. If I had something better to do, I would be off doing that, and not messing with you. Speaking of messing with people … I like messing with people. Just being in a patrol car looking at people while parked at a red light is fun. Make eye contact, squint your eyes like you know what they just did and watch them squirm and avoid all further eye contact. It makes my day fun.

“I’m always amazed at what people will tell a police officer. I think people assume we are like priests and it is all in confidence. It’s not. We go back to the office and talk about everything we saw and heard. Then we laugh at people. Usually it is all on audio as well so we listen to stupid things over and over. If we are lucky, it happened in front of a patrol car with its camera on. Then we get to watch it over and over,” the lawsuit said.

Does local search matter?

smcandrew — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:08:02 -0700

Seen that map on the first page of search results accompanied with a one or a handful of businesses after performing a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo? Those results are considered to be “local search” results, displaying companies whose products or services align with what the Internet searcher is looking for.

Localized search results appear on search engines search results pages if…

An individual business is explicitly searched for: “Apple Computer in Cupertino”
Local intent is expressed by the visitor explicitly when searching for a product or service: “Pizza in Boston, MA”
Although not explicitly expressed, local intent is assumed, based on the nature of the query itself: “Car wash”

Which business listings appear depends upon a long list of factors (suitable for a post of its own).

How much does having a listing there for a business matter? The short answer: A lot, assuming that your business provides a product or service locally from a physical location (or several locations). Keep reading if you’re interested in the long answer.

How many searches are we talking about?

Estimates vary by source on how many searches have local intent. Those on the lower end of the range cite 20% and those on the higher side generally fall between 30 and 40%. Calculating how many actual searches that equates to pushes us to numbers which challenge conventional understanding.

Recent ComScore data indicates that in May of this year 14.3 billion core searches were made in the United States. I’ll forgo doing the math and just assume that we can all agree that local search represents a highly compelling number of searches.

How do user’s interact with a page of search results?

Sometimes images speak louder than words, so let’s start there. Does the graphic below look familiar?

If you haven’t seen it before it’s a visual depiction of Google users’ attention from an eye-tracking study performed by Enquiro in 2005. The area of most interest lies in the triangular area at the top left-hand side of the page. Results from other search engine’s also follow suit. That triangular area (often referred to as Google’s Golden Triangle) is also precisely where localized search results generally appear (they also occasionally appear further down the search results page).

This image (and the study that it emerged from) are at least a few years old, but it tends to hold true. Subsequent studies by Google have revealed a similar pattern, even when additional distractions, such as images, are added to the mix. If anything, its likely that the addition of a map image which accompanies local listings positively influences the attention given they receive.

Do they take any action?

All of this is for not if the Internet searcher doesn’t take action, regardless of the reason. Recent third-party research provides a strong case for local listings. There are several studies out there, the following statistics are from a publicly available ComScore/TMP local search study conducted last year:

The information provided online isn’t lagging offline information. Users are pleased with what they find, whether their search is offline, online or on a mobile phone, with 9 out of 10 searchers stating they ultimately found what they needed.
Search engines have become the primary stand-alone source for local business information, ranking higher than the print White or Yellow Pages or websites specifically focused on localized or niche listings.
After performing a local search the majority of consumers (more than 70%) chose to contact the business (or businesses) offline by telephone or an in-person visit.

That last statistic might be the most compelling of all, connecting that online activity to tangible, offline business. Conclusion? If you provide a service or product locally, put local search high on you to-do list for your marketing and advertising and take advantage of this opportunity!

Original Google Map Marker Photograph by Andrea Cavalieri

Does local search matter?

smcandrew — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:08:02 -0700

Localized search results appear on search engines search results pages if…

An individual business is explicitly searched for: “Apple Computer in Cupertino”
Local intent is expressed by the visitor explicitly when searching for a product or service: “Pizza in Boston, MA”
Although not explicitly expressed, local intent is assumed, based on the nature of the query itself: “Car wash”

Which business listings appear depends upon a long list of factors (suitable for a post of its own).

How many searches are we talking about?

How do user’s interact with a page of search results?

Sometimes images speak louder than words, so let’s start there. Does the graphic below look familiar?

Do they take any action?

The information provided online isn’t lagging offline information. Users are pleased with what they find, whether their search is offline, online or on a mobile phone, with 9 out of 10 searchers stating they ultimately found what they needed.
Search engines have become the primary stand-alone source for local business information, ranking higher than the print White or Yellow Pages or websites specifically focused on localized or niche listings.
After performing a local search the majority of consumers (more than 70%) chose to contact the business (or businesses) offline by telephone or an in-person visit.

Original Google Map Marker Photograph by Andrea Cavalieri

Robert and his locksmith encounters-A Google Local spam story

smcandrew — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:39:30 -0700

Some people are lucky, and some people aren’t. Here’s an unlucky person I ran across today. He’s simply known as Robert, and his problems revolve around the keys and locks in his life. As Google will tell you, he’s one hell of an unlucky person who finds himself in need of a good locksmith regularly.

On November 27, 2008, Robert started sharing his history of bad luck with keys, locks and the locksmiths he loves working with. His soapbox: online reviews. Let’s take a look. His problems all took place in Arizona, all ten of them. Here’s a few below:

If that wasn’t enough, just about a week later Robert had more problems with his keys and locks, and more locksmiths to provide feedback on. All the reviews were good, just like the one’s in Arizona. All of the reviews point to another string of bad luck in Seattle. Twenty-eight reviews of locksmiths were all added on December 5th. Here’s a few of the reviews:

Robert has had some really bad luck with keys and locks. But, he’s had great luck with locksmiths apparently. Every one he’s worked with he’s given a five-star rating.

Okay, everyone’s figured it out by now (I hope). There’s obviously something wrong with this user profile. And, in reality, there probably is no “Robert,” so who cares about his reviews on Google.

Well, the reviews actually play a part in a bigger scheme. Who cares about these reviews? Google’s Local algorithm, and the spammers know it. These reviews, and many, many others point to scores of sites that appear to be (to Google at least) different, individual local businesses.

In reality, they are not. They are lead aggregators or call centers that are reselling leads to the locksmiths that perform the actual work.

Here’s what the Google results looks like to a consumer doing a search on Google for “Phoenix emergency locksmith”. Note the local listings specifically (the ten listings accompanied by the map).

They all look pretty similar, don’t they? The only thing that is different is the phone number and web site addresses. The local listings all point to one (or a handful) of companies that are aggregating leads and reselling them to locksmiths.

Leveraging fabricated user reviews are a part of how the lead aggregation companies can secure all, or most, of the local listings Google suggests.

The average search engine user likely never sees the reviews either. You don’t see them unless you click on the link that states the number of reviews. If you do so, and then take a look at the reviewers themselves and see all the reviews that an individual made, the fake profiles and reviews are easy to spot.

If you look back at the reviews we’ve been talking about, the clearest indicator is that “Robert” is reusing the same reviews over and over again. He also signs a few reviews as “Nicole.”

Upon doing a quick web search you can find the reviews repeated again, and again, and again. Different users, different listings, same exact review. Here’s an example. I searched Google for the phrase “He was quick and did not try to sell us stuff we did not need,” a phrase used in one of Robert’s reviews. It returned 105 results. All reviews.

That path I went down to demonstrate this was easy. I’m not bringing anything to light that online marketers haven’t seen in one form or another. It’s been known for quite some time that the local listings for many trades (including locksmiths) are dominated by lead resellers who are taking advantage of the simplistic, under-developed algorithms that rank local search results.

Chris Johnson, Partner at Terralever blogged about the hijacking of Google Local Business Listings earlier this year. It’s not the same tactic I’m speaking of here, but is to achieve a similar end-game. Blogger and Local expert Mike Blumenthal has been talking about this issue for some time. Here are a few posts from his blog:

What’s unfortunate is that, when gamed, both the consumer and legitimate businesses lose. Businesses with legitimate listings cannot compete and get placement in the local results. The consumer, instead of seeing ten different local choices, really only has a few, or just one, depending on the extent of the exploit.

The manipulators who are creating the multiple listings are, of course, winners, as is Google, whose AdWords advertisements become more enticing to the small business who cannot get into the top local results.

Google has reported that they are working on the problem, but its hard to gauge how important it is to them. The locksmith example has been around for quite some time, and manipulated results propped up by spam are still easy to come by.

It is concerning, though. If I can do a few quick Google searches and find irregularities which could easily be handled mathematically, Google’s Local algorithm has some gaping holes in it. We can only hope they’re working the problem and are close to a solution.

Robert and his locksmith encounters-A Google Local spam story

smcandrew — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:39:30 -0700

Robert has had some really bad luck with keys and locks. But, he’s had great luck with locksmiths apparently. Every one he’s worked with he’s given a five-star rating.

In reality, they are not. They are lead aggregators or call centers that are reselling leads to the locksmiths that perform the actual work.

Leveraging fabricated user reviews are a part of how the lead aggregation companies can secure all, or most, of the local listings Google suggests.

If you look back at the reviews we’ve been talking about, the clearest indicator is that “Robert” is reusing the same reviews over and over again. He also signs a few reviews as “Nicole.”

Millennials: Nothing personal, Twitter

smcandrew — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:30:09 -0700

There’s a recent study that came out regarding Millennials and social meda that is causing a considerable amount of speculation and interpretation. The study, released by the Participatory Marketing Network, shows that while Millennials are active participants in social media in general, what they aren’t is all that interested in media darling Twitter.

The study, which questioned 200 panel members between the ages of 18 and 24, reported that while 99 percent of respondents have a profile on a social networking site that only 22 percent of the group say they use Twitter.

While there’s a barrage of articles speculating on why, I personally don’t find this to be all that surprising. Considering the nature of the networks, and the Millennials themselves, Facebook makes sense. Twitter does not.

High on the list of Millennials core values are authenticity and transparency. And, what do Millennials utilize social networks for? To build and nurture relationships. Stopping right there the preference toward Facebook over Twitter seems obvious.

On Twitter, you can hide behind a profile and be anyone you want to be. Don’t want people to know who you really are? Open a GMail account and sign up. Create your fake bio and go for it. Parade around as whomever you want and say whatever you want. If things don’t work out, start over.

Facebook couldn’t be more different. Facebook is decidedly focused on creating a network of people, not profiles. While it is possible to make it through the registration process with a made up name and empty bio, what’s next? Its akin to showing up at a black-tie party in a bozo the clown suit. You’ll definitely find yourself short on friends let alone interaction.

In terms of servicing their users, Facebook also aligns more closely with Millennials needs than Twitter does. Twitter is a simple messaging platform that allows the broadcast and receipt of 140 character messages. Yes, Twitter has utility. One utility. It does one thing, and not especially well.

Facebook’s offering provides a far richer set of tools, allowing members to interact in a far more dimensional context. Twitter is a simple messaging system, and not one that Millennials have much of a need for in its current form.

Millennials: Nothing personal, Twitter

smcandrew — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:30:09 -0700