With less than 2 weeks to go before the provincial election I thought today was a good time to start looking through my options. I admit that in past I’ve voted for the political party logo and not the person. I compare it to cheering for my favourite sports team – ultimately I’m cheering for the Boston Bruins jersey and not the individual players. Players come and go but I’m really more concerned with the team results.

After looking through the various party platforms I couldn’t come up with a clear winner. I liked what I saw from a number of the parties but my findings didn’t lead me to a final decision.

So I decided to change things up a bit.

I opted to completely disregard the party affiliation and look at the person. I had a read through each website, took a look at the social media profiles of the candidates and checked out mentions on local media. I discovered lots of information and can honestly say that we have some pretty quality people running in my riding. Great news for the people of St Albert… but I was still no closer to picking my candidate.

I started to think about the job of an elected official. If you look at the very core of this whole election thing we’re essentially voting for the person that we’d like to represent us in the big domed building downtown. Although most are associated with a political party and for the most part tow the company line, we’re still placing a vote for a person. I want to vote for a person that actually listens to his/her constituents. I want to vote for someone that will actually take the time to engage with me.

So I turned to social media.

I noticed that almost all of the local candidates (I couldn’t find a Twitter account for my NDP candidate) were on Twitter so I decided to give them a shout out. I was curious to see who monitored their social media and who used Twitter to actually engage with people. Here’s how it all went down…

It was encouraging to see some of the candidates take the time to respond. My ultimate goal was to find a person that was willing to listen and engage. That’s the kind of person I want representing me. Mission accomplished.

Some may say that I’m “wasting” my vote by allowing Twitter to help me decide. I disagree. I simply used a social media platform to help identify the individual that best met my “listen and engage” requirements. Some people watch a debate. Some read the newspaper. Some wait until a candidate knocks on their door. I used Twitter.

Thanks to Tim for paying attention and reaching out. You’ve got my vote!

We all love Google. Well after reading this post, I have no doubt you’ll begin to love it even more. Below we’ve outlined some really helpful Google tricks that we’ve found make finding the content you’re looking for much easier.  This is really just the tip of the iceberg of what Google can do, but these beauties are little-known, and very powerful.  Enjoy!

1) Search by Filetype

Looking for a PDF, DOC, or a Powerpoint on a particular topic? It’s quite often that if your searching for a whitepaper, case study or financial reports that you’re looking for one of these three filetypes. By adding filetype:pdf, filetype:ppt or filetype:doc to your search query, Google will filter its results to find you what you’re after.

2) Fill in the Gap

If ever a word in a particular quote alludes you, or you’re trying to do some research on a particular phrase, you will find the Google “blank” search of some value. By simply adding a * in the spot where your missing word is located, Google will send you results for your search. For example if you search, “The #1 * in Golf” you’ll get hundreds of results on wedges, drivers, balls, shoes that are claiming to be the #1 in Golf.

3) Find Out Who Links to You

We all know the power of inbound links for SEO purposes. To find out who is linking to your site type the following into a Google search: link:yoursite.com

4) Get Clever With Your Searches

Sometimes, with the wealth of information available on the web you can suffer from information paralysis. To get through the clutter, Google has created something called definitive search. While there are a couple of variations available, we’re going to talk about one in particular: allintitle. By adding “allintitle:your search terms” you’ll only get results of article that have all your search terms in the title. This tool is really effective for getting recent articles by typing in a search like so “your search terms” allintitle:2012.

5) Google Recognizes Faces

This little trick allows you to modify image searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. While you used to have to manually enter this into the URL of a search, Google now offers this feature along with many other on its left-hand sidebar of Google image search. You can find big and small images, specific color images, faces, photos, clip art, and even new vs. old images.

6) See Downed Websites

Don’t you hate running a Google search, and find what looks like the perfect site, only to find that when you click on the link, the content if either missing or no longer available? Well, here’s a solution: enter in the url of the website with the word ‘cache’ preceding it, you’ll see the content Google saved. For example – cache:www.thedownedwebsite.com

7) See member-only content, without being a member

Many news sites, like the Wall Street Journal and others are now charging for content. There is a simple way around this nuisance. When you go to an article that is asking you to subscribe to read on, simply copy the browser URL, and paste it directly into Google search. Click the first link that comes up and presto, you’ll have access to the content.

Find Re-usable Content

Sometimes, it’s nice to pull content that’s free to use, and edit as you see fit without referencing the original source. Google made this possible by adding some settings into its advance search that allows you to search for content that a) aren’t filtered by a license, b) all some forms of re-use c) can be freely modified, adapted or building upon.

Got more? We’re sure you do – share them and your thoughts in the comments below.

Long Tail vs. Short Keyword Searches

After working with online advertising for many years, you start to develop a strong understanding of what types of keyword searches result in sales. No matter what a person is searching for, there is a fundamental difference between the keywords used by a person looking to buy, versus those who are looking for information. Studies have shown, the more complex the search query, the more likely they are to be interested in buying. Let’s look at some examples:

User A searches: Clay Pottery = 75% of searches, 5% of leads

User B searches: Clay Pottery Edmonton = 20% of searches, 25% of leads

User C searches: Clay Pottery Classes Edmonton = 5% of searches, 70% of leads

When you are targeting customers via online ads, the longer more complex keyword searches are the ones that lead to sales. Millions of dollars are wasted on short keyword searches for online advertising. Long tail keywords are the key indicator of buyers – remembering this could save you thousands on your advertising campaigns.

The Internet Affects Our Minds

Our brains are using search engines and computers as it’s own personal external drive for information. This phenomenon is not exactly new – we’ve been doing it for ages, with books, with elders and with experts. To limit what we have to remember, we use something to remember it for us. This is called transactive memory. A recent study asked students to enter a series of 40 statements into a computer. This document was either saved into a generic folder, a specific one or erased. The participants who knew the information was erased did a better job of recalling the statements. Those that saved the information to particular folder, could easily recall the folder name, but not the statements themselves. This research suggests that we have trained ourselves to remember the location of information vs. the information itself.

#1 Isn’t Everything

By now we all likely know on a Google search, that you get ads and organic results. What you likely don’t know is what your potential visitor does see. The video below is a map of eye scans for a particular Google search. This study shows that the top three spots of Google are your bread and butter. Looking deeper into this study, 100% of participants looked at the top 3 results. 50% looked at the #4 ad spot on the right. Another study showed that the #1 spot received 36.4% of click through’s, while #2 and #3 received 12.5% and 9.5% respectively.

So what does this all mean?

While click-through-rates are likely what you may expect, your potential visitor is seeing the top 3 results regardless. This is where your relevancy to the search is extremely important. Since most generic searches show 3 ads at the top. The range in price for a click from spot #1 to #3 can vary as much as $2-4 – so strong ad copy comes into play. If you have well designed ads compared to your competition, sitting in the #2 or #3 ad spots could save you a ton of money, while not reducing your leads. You’re being seen regardless by every user’s search. It may be worth testing how your return is on those seen, but lesser clicked locations. #1 isn’t everything.

This combination of using mass media to drive traffic to a web platform was most evident during the 2006 Super Bowl. With companies shelling out millions of dollars to have their ad shown in this primetime slot, you have to believe that a ton all those marketing managers meticulously worked out the user experience from start to finish for maximal affect and return right? Well, the numbers show about 40% of these ads actually mentioned a website. And of those that did, even fewer took the time to ensure their website was ranked #1, with ads or not for keywords used in their ads. Kind of shocking really. Further to that point, only about half of these advertisers were smart enough to realize that Youtube sees a huge increase of search for terms like “superbowl ads” around the Superbowl. If they didn’t take the time to load up their video on Youtube, they were missing out on millions of impressions on their brand.

In a short 5 years however, companies have started to smarten up. Not only are they showing URL’s but they are also posting teasers, and full videos on the web, ensuring they are high-ranking, and also purposely directing their customers to learn more online with interesting content. Go Daddy did this best with their “They wouldn’t let us air our real commercial, go to godaddy.com to see what ABC wouldn’t show” ads.
By understanding user search behavior, you’ll better be able to reach and connect with your target audience. Mass media is great for driving traffic, but harnessing that traffic is most important for seeing a return on investment.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the power of the web for marketing purposes – share your thoughts in the comments below.

We Win!

The World Media Awards were announced on Saturday in San Francisco and we’re proud that our very own SirShanksAlot.com was named “Best Sports Blog”. We started SirShanksAlot way back in 2004 and it’s still going strong today. Other winners included Damn You, Auto Correct!, Netchunks, Alyssa Milano and Brian Solis.

Another Award

We’re excited to have played a small part in another award nomination. Plaid Men is a web series created by a group out in Vancouver including Jen Siddle… the sister of SBX’er Brian. The series is a take on the TV show Mad Men except it stars a cast of sock puppets. SBX Media built the Plaid Men website and helped get their first few episodes posted. The series was just nominated for an award at the upcoming Los Angeles Web Series Festival. I did a quick scan of the other nominees and it looks like Plaid Men is the only series from Canada. The list of nominees will be trimmed down in March and the awards take place April 6-8. Good luck to Jen and her team!

Taking the Show on the Road

Trevor and Brian had a chance to attend the Travel Alberta Social Media Summit in Calgary on Feb 23rd. The event brought together some of the biggest tourism social media folks in the province. It was a chance to meet and mingle with some of the brightest minds around. We’ll often attend conferences where the skill and knowledge level of the attendees is varied and the topics covered are usually pretty basic. The level of conversation at the Travel Alberta event was outstanding and it was refreshing to walk away from a conference with new ideas. Kudos to Nancy Smith and her team for organizing such a great event!

Website Launch

SBX Media also launched the EATC website last week. The site is designed to help support the Eastern Alberta Trade Corridor. The corridor is made up of three economic development regions with the goal of attracting business to eastern Alberta.

Getting Hitched

It’s official – all of the SBX crew are now off the market! Congrats to SBX’r Duncan and Jake on their wedding last Thursday. Despite his wedding and all of the festivities around it, Duncan somehow managed to keep up on emails and texts throughout the week. Jake will soon learn that when you marry one of us, you also marry our iPhones, email accounts and Facebook pages. Don’t worry… you’ll get used to it…

I decided to make one resolution for 2012. I decided that I was going to make an even deeper plunge into social media and explore a new platform. I’m on Facebook, I enjoy Twitter and I’m slowly getting into Linkedin but I wanted something new. Something different. Something easy.

It took me just over a month but I’ve settled on my new social project for the year – Pinterest. It had been on my radar last year but I just never really got around to having a look at it. I’ll typically explore new platforms so I can become better versed in them in case a client has questions so I figured it was a good time to sign up. Up until very recently, Pinterest was relatively unknown. Time Magazine listed it in their list of “50 Best Websites of 2011″ in August and the site has started to get some real buzz over the past few weeks. 

The site is still in beta and you have to request an invite. The process was pretty simple and I was Pinterest(ing)? within a week or so. Once you’ve signed up, you’re given a few additional invites for your friends.

The premise is pretty simple… Pinterest allows the user to create theme-based bulletin boards on which they can “pin” images (you can pin videos as well but it’s not as common). You then share your bulletin boards with your friends and others with similar interests. Users can comment, like and “repin” content… think of the “repin” as the 2012 version of the “retweet”. You’re also able to pin a price on your photo if it’s something that you’d like to buy or something you’re selling. In short… it’s a social site built on the sharing and grouping of images based on the interests of users.

The site reminds me a lot of ibrii (now called Searcheeze)… a service that we’ve used for a few years. Both give users the ability to share and post content from the web and organize it according to interests.

There are a couple different ways to pin content. I use the “Pin It” button on my Google Chrome browser. You can also add content from your computer while on Pinterest or use their mobile app.

Pinterest is becoming a real traffic driver. Every image on the site is linked back to the original source. It’s also quite a social site. In my limited use so far, I’ve found that a lot of my posts have had some decent action (likes and repins mainly)… surprising because my profile is fairly new. The site also offers the option of sharing your content on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Big brands are hopping on the Pinterest. The Gap has loaded their full Spring Collection on their boards, Gary Vaynerchuk is using it to enlighten and inform his followers about wine and the Wall Street Journal is trying a bit of everything. It’s interesting to see how some of these early adopters are using the service.

SBX Media on Pinterest - Let's get pinning!

I’ve just set SBX Media up on Pinterest and am looking forward to having some fun with it. A few things to think about….

• Pinterest is all about the visuals. Don’t limit yourself to pictures and video though. I can see (and have seen) Pinterest becoming a home for infographs. And from what I’ve seen so far… they get some fantastic play.
• Self promotion isn’t going to fly here. If you’re going to make it on Pinterest you’d better be a worthwhile member of their society. It’s a rule you should adhere to when marketing on any social channel but pay special attention to it on Pinterest.
• It will be interesting to see how brands monitor the site. Conventional social media monitoring is done by scanning words and conversations. With Pinterest being such a visual site, the only text available for search is in the description. We’re left to rely on users creating quality descriptions with keywords.
• Having the ability to embed a board on your website or blog is intriguing. It sounds like this will be possible in the coming months.

In short… I really like Pinterest. It’s easy to use, it has the ability to be very social and it helps connects individuals through common interests. As we’ve already seen, there’s a place for businesses on the site but you’ll want to be creative.

Happy pinning!

Who comes out on top? Well that depends, the numbers don’t tell all.  ”How many” is not as important as “how well”. Do you follow these profiles? Who do you think does it best?

1)     QR Code Doesn’t Work

Not all QR scanner are created equally.  It’s unfortunate, but true.  Some smartphone QR code scanners are ill equipped to translate your long-winded QR code.  The solution? Keep your QR simple.  If you can, stick to a simple shortened link or something similar – this will ensure maximum exposure. Also consider the size of your QR code, and how your audience will be scanning.  Billboard QR codes need to be massive because your customer is scanning from many feet away, business card QR codes can be much smaller, but still need to be big enough to be read by the scanner as well.  Also consider print quality – a fuzzy QR code won’t scan.

2)     Medium Not Considered

The point of a QR code is to make a static medium more interactive.  TV is an interactive medium, and thus QR codes on TV are pretty useless. QR codes online, are equally useless.

3)     QR Destination Not Mobile Friendly

This is by far the most common mistake made by QR code marketers.  QR codes are designed to be scanned by mobile devices… thus, if your destination page isn’t mobile friendly, you’ve just failed the QR code marketing game.

4)     Wi-Fi or Network Unavailable

Depending on if you can control where your QR codes are being published, you may want to do your research to determine if a free Wi-Fi signal is available, or at a minimum a Network signal is available for data usage. Making your QR campaign a hit may be as simple as ensuring a signal is available.

5) Awful Content or Landing Page

The quickest way to lose your customers interest is to send them to a poorly designed, static landing page.  You have all but 5 seconds to keep their interest, if your landing page doesn’t do this… you’ve failed. Finally, to spread news of your campaign, you must make it easy to spread the news.  Encouraging sharing on your landing page is highly recommended to increase the awareness of your campaign.

We hope these common mistakes have helped you for your next QR campaign. As marketers we are responsible to consider the entire customer experience for a campaign.  Further to that, the more craptacular QR campaigns in the marketplace, the quicker this technology will just become useless background noise to consumers.  We have to use it correctly – so please take this tips into consideration.

Have any other mistakes you want to add to the list? Have we missed some?  We’ve love to hear your thoughts.  Share your feedback in the comments section below.

As we start another year, many of us stop to reflect how we can learn from past mistakes and improve in the future. Here’s a list of five simple resolutions to ensure your social media efforts are successful in the coming year.

Resolution 1: Be genuine.

With so many products available to compile messages, automatically respond or post when you’re unavailable, too much of this can be a downfall. While there’s nothing wrong with using these services in some cases, over-automation can stifle conversation and engagement. Take the time to respond to comments and inquiries and don’t be afraid to make things personal.

Resolution 2: Take the good with the bad.

Social media has allowed individuals to speak candidly and openly with companies like never before. However, this also opens the door to negative and sometimes hostile feedback. So what can you do about this? Some companies react defensively, don’t respond or even unnecessarily delete comments. This can destroy the credibility you are working hard to build. Rather than always viewing this type of feedback as a negative, see it as an opportunity to find out more and show you care about finding a solution. Sometimes a conversation over Facebook or Twitter can actually diffuse the situation while also building your credibility for other customers who witness the dialogue.

Volkswagen got off to a rough start in 2012. Here’s an example of what can happen when companies don’t respond…

Resolution 3: Focus on relationships, not selling.

While return on investment is important, try not to make it your focal point. Focusing on sales to the detriment of building a community will ultimately leave you unsuccessful. Rather, try to view sales as a by-product of having a strong and effective relationship with your client base.

Resolution 4: Keep things fresh.

Nothing’s worse than following a link to a Facebook business page to find out that it hasn’t been updated in months. Not only are you losing opportunities to spread valuable information, but you’re leaving a bad impression that you don’t care or don’t have anything interesting to share. Social media requires hard work and requires creative thinking about how to best represent your company and generate meaningful dialogue. Having regular and quality material keeps your followers engaged and ensures they will return for more.

Resolution 5: Be interesting.

How many times have you followed a company or product on Facebook or Twitter, only to never think about them again? More than ever before, attention spans are short and vast amounts of information are being shared. Posting something that will immediately pique someone’s interest and then draw them into a conversation is essential. Try to imagine you are following your business’ page. What would make you stop, read and join the conversation? Putting yourself in a fan’s place can be valuable in developing interesting and engaging content.

What are your social media aspirations for 2012? What are you planning to start doing (or stop doing) in the year ahead?

1)      Sticking to Broad Terms

2)      Thinking Global – People like to know you’re a local company, don’t make them guess.  If you’re advertising in Calgary, put Calgary in your ads. Yes, this will force you to build multiple targeted campaigns, but your conversions will surely make it worth your while.

3)      Sticking to One ad – First set your ads to run evenly (despite Google’s warning) and always be running two ads against each other.  This is called A/B multivirate testing, and all the pros do it.

4)      Letting the Content Network Fly Solo – the content network is one of the largest contributors to useless clicks. Be sure to keep a close eye on the networks your ads are showing on and “exclude” ones that are not relevant.  Better yet, consider picking them yourself.

5)      Forgetting Negative terms – Negative terms are your lifesavers in the Google search pool. To ensure your ads are being shown to the right eyes, use negative keywords to weed out bad searches.

6)      Using Telephone Numbers– Telephone numbers in ads are nearly useless.  This person is searching via their computer, they are much more likely to click than pick up a phone.  Use all the copy room you can to encourage clicks.

7)      Stagnant Copy – If you’re trying to produce run of the mill ads, copy the competition.  If you want results, you have to be unique and different.  Be seasonal, be funny, be different, and reap the benefits.

8)      Forgetting URLs – Google allows you to customize your display URL… so take advantage and add relevant keywords.  These keywords will show up bolded if someone searches them.  Bolded keywords draw your customers eyes and results in more clicks.

9)      Not Refining Keywords – If you have deadbeat keywords sucking life out of your CTR, drop them like a bad habit.  The end result is a higher click-through rate and a lower CPC.

10)    Not Using Google Extension – Google extensions is also often overlooked.  This add-on allows you ads to be “click-to-call” ads on mobile devices, or they integrate with a Google Places account to show you on a map – cool… and effective.