Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Today I saw an article in the Minneapolis Star/Tribune titled:  “Med-tech is shy on social media use.”

Among other things it praises a  medical device start-up for its innovative and viral use of  YouTube.  However, it goes on to explain that big medical device and other health care related companies are hesitant to use social media.  The writer points to legal concerns, especially retribution from the FDA as reasons for this.

Indeed, it would be foolish for Medtronic, St. Judes and other medical device companies to rush into the social media wave pool. But guess what?  It’s not foolish at all, providing they take the right approach.

With millions of people tweeting, posting to blogs, commenting on or posting videos to YouTube, chances are excellent that each of these channels are ripe with conversation about medical devices.  Just monitoring and amplifying these conversations hold huge value for an entire organization.  I know; I do this for several health care companies.

From the marketing manager to the CEO, the ability to listen to the unbiased conversation between your company’s staunchest supporters and most stalwart detractors provides insight and direction that no focus group or traditional market research investment ever could.

One need not chime into the conversation.  Remember the old adage: “You become wiser by listening than you do by talking.”   And guess what, no one will even know you’re in the room – not even your lawyers.

Am I off base here?  Is engagement the only real goal for a company with regard to social media?  Or does listening provide enough value on its own? What do you think?

Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

I wonder how many Taylor guitars United Airlines would give to Dave Carroll now that his scathing music video blasting the airline has been viewed 1.4+ million times on YouTube (as of this writing). What’s more, I wonder the level of regret UA has now that the popularity of the playfully acidic video has hit traditional media including big city papers and the major cable news channels.

A nice Taylor costs about $2,500. If I was in charge of customer service at United, I think replacing the guitar broken by baggage handlers with a nice collection of about a dozen new Taylors would be a nice gesture today. I’m sure they could have gotten off much easier had they admitted their apparent mistake and just replaced Mr. Carroll’s Taylor.

Too late.

United Airlines might have been able to ignore the voice of a single unhappy customer in the past. But businesses had better wake up to the fact that the voice of that single customer can now reach millions of potential customers via YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook and other social media channels. And when traditional news media gets wind of that groundswell, look out.

So what can businesses do? Is it enough to just treat customers as if they matter? Or do all businesses need to engage in brand monitoring via social media? Will online brand monitoring ever become as important as market research Or is it already?

Recently I was asked by a client to pull together some high-level social media statistics. I found some interesting facts from several different sources. I thought I would share. These stats are of course changing by the moment but this is a pretty good snapshot of the social media environment.

The next question is always… Why such growth and how should companies best to take advantage of these amazing statistics? Any thoughts? More to come soon.

Twitter:
- From March 08 – 09 Twitter grew at a rate of 2,565 percent – Nielsen. (Ning was number 2 at 283 percent.)
- Roughly 2.4 billion Tweets… on average about 11 million per day and growing – Giga Tweet

YouTube:
- 300 million users worldwide – YouTube.com
- 14.8 billion video “views” as of January 2009 – Comscore
- 147 million U.S. Internet Users watched on average 101 videos per person in January 2009 – Comscore
- Roughly 43 percent market share of video viewing as of January 2009 – Comscore

Facebook:
- As of February 2009 Facebook has the highest monthly active users of any social media site. – Compete.com
- 200 million active users. (Currently closer to 225 million)
- 100 million users log into Facebook daily

Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Tuesday, China’s government has blocked Internet users access to Twitter. Though there has been no official statement from the Chinese government, it is likely due to the approaching 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square. The Chinese government may feel that this will curb any negative conversation that may have occurred otherwise.

This is not the first time China has blocked various social media sites, as they had a ban during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.

There are other reports that other social media sites have been blocked, including Flickr, Bing.com, Blogspot, and YouTube.

My question: would there ever be an appropriate time for the United States Government to block Internet users access to a site?

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Thanks to Paul Jahn of LocalMN for the article below.

Last week, I had lunch with Paul Jahn with Search Engine Guide. We wound up talking quite a bit about social media and managing-per-objectives and impressions rather than the cost-per-conversions avenue many of us are used to.

Speaking of social media, 95% of this interview took place through Facebook IM.

Paul: First of all, thanks Mike for your time. In a nutshell, can you tell us about your company?

Mike: First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity. It is always a blast to get together with smart online marketers. Spyder Trap Online Marketing is a Minneapolis, Minnesota based full service online marketing agency specializing in online strategy, search engine marketing, social media, web analytics, email marketing and web development.

Paul: You brought up managing for impressions and objectives as different sorts of analytics measurement. I suppose it’s not new, but you have a different spin on it. Can you explain?

Mike: What makes online marketing unique is our ability to target qualified leads, control spend and track/test results on a real time/near real time basis. Marketers don’t often consider online marketing channels as a brand building tool but I would argue it is! Whether talking about organic/paid search, Social Media or Email marketing, these mediums are an extension of the brand. Tracking for impressions not only provides you with another metric in your analytics arsenal, it allows you the variability to test and modify individual campaigns, but also measures the total number of eyeballs who viewed your brand.

Anytime we work with a client we always start with defining their pain points and marketing objectives for not only specific initiatives or campaigns but the overall company as a whole. This allows us to work backwards in our strategy and implementation of the physical tactics. Whether this includes increasing brand awareness through impressions, increasing site traffic or increasing overall leads/conversions, defining and managing based on objectives is an essential methodology for any firm.

Paul: You had a recent client who used measuring per impressions as a non-partisan political measure. Can you explain their amendment?

Mike: Along with our partner Wingnut Advertising, Spyder Trap was charged with providing awareness of a Minnesota based clean land, air and water amendment to help restore and preserve natural resources. If passed, the amendment was funded by a small statewide sales tax.

Paul: Please briefly discuss the marketing situation and what you used in terms of online marketing tactics.

Mike: Our target demographic was the 18-30 drop off and swing voters. Wingnut and Spyder Trap were charged with not only driving awareness of the campaign but making sure voters didn’t just vote for President then exit the ballot. Our goal was to simply inform and educate.

Since the only conversion occurred in the voting booth on Nov. 4th we decided to measure and market for impressions vs. clicks or even conversions. The end result was close to 70 million impressions over a three month time period leading up to the election. Impressions included deploying online paid and non-paid tactics including banner ads, social media (ex. Facebook/apps, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube etc.)

Paul: The Vote Yes Minnesota measure passed too! I suppose you could say that the objective was met.

Mike: It certainly did! Even in a difficult economy Minnesota voters approved the amendment. Anytime we solve a marketing pain point or have a satisfied client we feel we did our job. This was a highly debated and passionate amendment, and our job was to foster that passion and to get our message in front of as many potential voters as possible. It worked, and we’re more than happy to say that it passed at a 59% vote! This is a historic event, and we’re proud to be a part of it.

Paul: You mentioned “real estate dominance” in that amendment. Can you explain more?

Mike: When working on projects with clients, our main objective is of course for them to own the number 1 position in Google for targeted keyword phrases. In most cases our work doesn’t stop there as we generally deploy specific tactics using social media and online media (i.e. Blogging, databases, press releases…)any keyword-optimized, searchable content that can be picked up by the search engines. This not only works as a link-building initiative but also allows our clients to own the entire first page within search engine results page.

As I mentioned, our goal was not only to provide direct and targeted content but a high volume of content as well. We quickly owned page one of Google by optimizing press releases, creating and submitting articles to databases and reaching out to local bloggers. These bloggers created a high volume of content, which showed up in search engine results while also providing us with precious links. Finally we also took advantage of social media sites such as YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. As I mentioned not only is this another great way to receive additional links but they all show up within search results. (AKA Google Universal Search)

Many don’t realize that certain tweets show up in search results as does Facebook groups and fan pages. Instead most people are used to seeing videos and images from YouTube and Flickr show up in search results. So this not only drove impressions from the physical site but also ensured that we optimized for impressions viewed in Google, Yahoo and MSN search results. I like to call this SERP dominance!

Paul: You have other clients as well that you’re measuring per impressions and objectives rather than per conversions. Without mentioning names, can you provide the SEG readers some information?

Mike: Measuring for impressions are generally counter intuitive to marketing managers who are generally focused on tracking ROI. I have worked with both large and small organizations who often times neglect tracking impressions for not only social media but paid media as well. I know this sounds simplistic but as marketers we must manage by objectives not conversions.

For example I work with clients who only care about the monthly volume of traffic to their site. A different strategy is deployed from someone who is looking to inform and educate about a constitutional amendment versus someone looking to sell a physical product within the ecommerce store.

Paul: You spoke about Social Media at the recent American Marketing Association (AMA-MN) event in Minneapolis. How did the audience react to measuring by impressions and objectives rather than just conversions?

Mike: Social Media is a crazy beast but not unlike any other media, traditional included. There is almost always a case for using social media in some way shape or form. When asked if Social Media is right for a specific case my response was simple. “Does your firm participate in Public Relations?” (Generally people say of course.) My response to that is usually… “Great, Social Media is a wonderful tool to help create additional buzz for your PR efforts, only with adding impressions, and aiding in your search efforts.” This is one of many possible examples but I think it does a good job demonstrating how managing by objectives can change the way people think about marketing.

Paul: Mike, thank you so much for your time, congrats with Spyder Trap and all your new ventures, and we’ll talk again soon.

Mike: Again, I appreciate the opportunity. Of course I have to throw a plug in by saying readers can learn more by visiting http://www.SpyderTrap.com or by following us on Twitter at @spyder_trap. Thanks and Go Wild!

To learn more about Paul Jahn, visit his blog, LocalMN at http://www.localmn.wordpress.com

Mike Rynchek
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Perhaps this post is meant to be a series instead of a single post as it contains many gray and debatable areas.  Before the debate can even begin, people must first recognize the signs of social spamming, what it is and how this new phenomenon is being handled by social media sites.  With that said lets get started!!

What is Social Spamming?

Communicating with others and sharing information has never been easier than at this very moment in time.  Duh right?  But at what point do these millions upon millions of messages per day become a bother, nuisance or ultimately considered “spam”?  When does forwarding a message on Facebook, or adding constant self-promoting tweets on Twitter cross that boundary into Social Spamming territory?  Martin Bowling (@martinbowling) a fellow Twitterer feels that social media spamming “isn’t about dropping an occasional link, it’s about constantly promoting your message & not giving back.”  I would have to completely agree with Martin.  Whether posting a friend on Facebook, commenting on a blog post such as this one or joining a Twitter conversation, social media is something that is to be shared, collaborated and enjoyed by all.  There are no percentage points or thresholds that must be crossed, rather the common barometer that states you are now adding to the clutter rather than the conversation.  When writing this post I was unable to find a true definition of social media spamming so here is my personal attempt: Social Spamming: The act of receiving or sending unwanted messages and pieces of information via a social media platform.  Hmm… Not bad.

How is Social Spamming being controlled?
Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace are quickly trying to crack down on social spamming, mostly in the form of reporting groups/users and deleting door-to-door messaging offenders (promoting your page or group by going to random pages and posting your link or message).  Monitoring social media raises even a bigger question:  Should social media sites control what people do within their environments?  Does this go against everything that is so great and powerful with social media and the Internet in general?  Another great example of cracking down on social spamming is Twitter.  Perhaps allowing people to un-follow others is their less abrasive form of controlling social spamming; more-or-less giving the power to the people to self regulate what content they receive.  Aaron Weiche (@AaronWeiche) of Five Technology and avid user of Twitter commented on social spamming via Twitter by stating, “Lots of gray area to consider. I’m following you, so I have a filter to un-follow. Audience, context, control, all factors.”

Where do we go from here?  Not too sure right now, but I do know Social Spamming will without a doubt be a phrase that is used much more as time goes on.  It will also be interesting to see how social media sites continue to control the amount and quality of content that is being displayed and how people react to this regulated environment.