Leveraging SEO to Find New Clients - Research Phase

After the interview with Jun Loayza for Awesome Bloggers a few days ago, I have received a few emails on how to best use SEO to get new clients. In the interview Jun asked how I was able to land clients like Miller Lite, Coca-Cola, Disney and others at such a young age. My answer was through organic traffic to my blog. SEO was one of the first things I learned in Internet Marketing and is still my number one outlet for client work, general knowledge and traffic.

I am no SEO Super Ninja, but a few Rock Star SEO moves and you can increase your visibility in the SERPS (search engine results pages) quite rapidly. I hope this helps and please keep the questions and comments coming. The Rock Star Course we are designing is geared towards helping you guys out and knowing what you want to know is only going to make the course better and you stronger. Here is part 1:

Research and Niche Grabbing

This is everyone's favorite part of the process. I hear the moaning and groaning as I am typing this. When do we get to the fun part? When do the clients start calling my cell phone? The thing is they will never call your phone if you do not position yourself to be seen by the people doing the looking. I like to breakdown the research phase into 3 parts:

• What are you good at?
• Are people looking for that?
• What is the competition like?

What are you good at?

When I started out I wanted to be the young marketing guy that had ideas, thoughts and vision that my peers and even other ad agencies and marketing firms didn't have. I got involved in some Gen-Y circles (Brazen Careerist, YPulse, MobileYouth, YPBlogs, etc). I was also working as a Social Media Specialist way before that job was cool for 20something's that wanted to get paid to blog and Twitter.

Were people looking for this?

So at this point I needed to know if people were actually searching for a young marketer. They weren't. Instead of being disappointed I looked for offshoots of this to find keywords that agencies and brands were looking for. After a not so formal process, my website was titled" Gen-Y, Youth Culture and Social Media Marketing by Greg Rollett." Wow, that sounds boring as hell, but do you know what?

Google #4 - Gen-Y Marketing Blog
Google #3, 4 and 8 for Youth Culture Marketing
Google #7 for Gen-Y Social Media
Google #9 for Youth Social Media

(note - these results may vary - Google likes to do that and I also just changed the theme of this blog to reflect the new Rock Star Life angle so I will lose some Googleness but have now positioned myself for my next move to get customers instead of clients!)

Next thing to note. These are not heavily searched terms. How do I know this? Google tells me. By using their free Adwords Keyword Tool you can get some awesome data (*NOT 100% accurate*) that can tell you how many times a keyphrase is searched every month, give you different variations of that term (the Long Tail) and some other key stats depending how in depth you want to get.

Here is a screenshot for the term "youth culture marketing"

(Click image to enlarge)

What is the competition like?

The last thing I look for when choosing my keywords and niches is the competition in the field. There are obvious terms like "marketing" that no matter how good of an SEO Rock Star you are, you are going to need a great deal of outside factors and a good time line to break into those pages. So we need to break the terms down further (again, the Long Tail) to lower the competition. How do you know the competition?

Google tells us!

Do a search for the keyphrase that you are considering, for this example I will again use "youth culture marketing." Google tells me that there are 1,980,000 web pages that are indexed for that term. That is a heck of a lot of competition, but not nearly as much as "marketing" which would pit you up against 608,000,000. I'll take my chances on the 2 million. You find this number on the top right side of the where Google says:

Results 1 - 10 of about 773,000 for youth culture marketing. (0.21 seconds)

Putting this together:

Now that I am working in more than 1 niche here is what I look for when expanding into a new one using the 3 principles above:

1. I have to know something awesome about the niche that others do not or at least have a quality that makes me better than everyone else
2. Multiple long tail keyphrases that have at least 500 searches per month
3. Competition of less than 500,000

Why did you choose that?

Knowing something about your niche gives you something to care about when you are working on it. I have tried many sites and failed due to not knowing anything about the product or industry. I have had eCommerce sites that sold bird feeders and when customers asked a question, I had to Google it and get the same content as the people asking the questions were getting. If you are trying to package in design offerings to your text message marketing campaign, you better be prepared to talk about design and not rely on a partner. This is imperative when picking your site topics and keywords - just because it gets traffic, DOES NOT mean its the right traffic for you!

The second point should be obvious. You need to know that real people are searching for your keyterm and they do so consistently. 500 is just a number that I like to use however its just a benchmark for me. Locally we have clients that rank well for terms that get 10-20 searches a month, yet the return on a lead is so massive it makes sense in their business. Do what makes sense to know and know how many visitors it takes to find the one that is going to convert.

The last one is something that I have been refining and keep refining and different folks will tell you different things. Here is my theory - the less competition the more opportunity. The more content you produce for those specific keywords the more visible you become. Big fish, small pond concept. With 500,000 or less competitive web pages I know that I can write some great copy, titles, get a few links, write a few guest posts and throw up some videos and get close in a very short period of time. In some niches with less than 100,000 pages, I have seen results on page 1 in Google in 24 hours.

Homework

I hope this helps in selecting your niche and doing some research, but to make it even easier, here is a link to a Google Spreadsheet Doc with a worksheet to get started in the research phase. This is what I use in my business and for my clients and WILL get you better search results.

-Greg Rollett

Why I Love Infomercials But Hate The Telephone

I have a fear of the phone.
Something about the person that picks up not wanting to talk to me and hanging up all pissed off just bothers and scares me. Cold calling is the worst. When I was doing real estate investment with Jen a few years back, the process was pretty simple and highly effective.

Find people that owed a ton of back taxes in a specific undeveloped area, research them, cold call and ask them to sell to us so that we could flip the property and make some cash.

I couldn't do it. I saw the money piling up in my imaginative back account, the house that we could buy, the boat that I would be sipping Corona's on while wakeboarding on a Tuesday and the freedom that came with the real estate boom of the early 2000's. But I still couldn't do it.

The phone scares the shit out of me. Still to this day I will shoot an email 100% of the time over making a phone call, but I have gotten better. I have gotten better because I have been studying and understanding people and relationships. Most people want to talk, they want to learn and they want to better themselves. If you can solve these conditions for them, you will have a much better chance of getting them to open up, become vulnerable and make a sale - or at least make a legitimate pitch. However I find it to be a very unpleasant approach to a first impression.

Why Infomercials Rock

The exact opposite of direct selling via the phone is direct selling via an infomercial or direct response tv ad. Here you have a scripted salesman, sales crew, whatever - talking into a camera, using sales copy and client testimonials to tell a story about their product, the history behind its design and success and what you can achieve if you act now! My favorite part is the opt-in. If you don't like the infomercial - you change channels.

And I love Saturday morning and super late night infomercials. Hearing the way these people talk to the camera, the way they invite you into their mindframe and the way they get you into their buying cycle is absolutely priceless. But why do you get sucked into the 30 minutes of madness and get hooked?

It is results oriented selling.

These people are selling on the premise that by buying their shit, you will have a better life in someway. Here is the breakdown:

• I don't care how many flavors it has - only that it will quench my thirst or make my date happy at the movies
• It doesn't matter how many exercises I can do - only that I will have Marine like abs in 30 days
• House moms care about getting the stain out at all costs
• I will be rich in 30 days

When you are creating your marketing plan, focus on the end results of what you want your client, customer, whatever to see. The bells and whistles are cool, but at the end of the day they want results. If you can show them results, they will continue to buy, continue to do the promotion for you and continue to give you kick ass testimonials to keep making cheezy infomercials.

We are going to be breaking down some infomercials, internet marketing sales letters and other sales tactics in the next few days because what marketing boils down to is producing more sales through interaction at some level with the product and the consumer. While some people will claim that these long form methods of selling are old school, annoying or do not work - I can tell you that they still 100% work, but (you knew there was a but coming) you will have to keep coming back to find out why these damn things are so infectious.

Today's homework

Recall the last infomercial that had you hooked and ready to pull out your Amex. In a sentence or 2, explain why it had you hooked. Write your responses in the comments and we will explore and break down the best infomercials you kids can bring into the conversation. Looking forward to seeing your insight.

-Greg Rollett

P.S. Yes, I am working on a product launch. More on that to come. It has to do with Rock Stars, Personal Branding and Selling, but mostly its about, "Really Cool Lifestyle Design." I am pretty excited about it, although it may shift the focus of this site, like I always do every 6 months or so, to more of a lifestlye design or business design or marketing design - post themes. Hopefully it will add value and steps and most importantly action to help you get the results you want for yourself, your company and your life.

It's Okay To Drift + It's Okay to Make Money

I am shifting way off course here today and I think that's okay. I was reading Skellie's blog a few days ago and his focus was on escaping niches. I thought it was a great post and worth a read and is something that I think my own site has done over the last two years. I tend to write about things that pertain to what is happening in my life and relating that to Social Media, Gen-Y and entertainment/music/whatever. At the end of the day it all comes back to this being my personal site, written by my crazy ass ideas. It's about the things that I do, see, think about and experience.

He then went on to talk about sites like Tim Ferriss's blog, of which I am a big fan. When you think of his site you might say he blogs about time management and lifestyle design. But would you categorize writing about the Amish, Twitter Giving and How to Lose Extreme Weight in 24 hours to be in the same blog?

Niches Don't Matter if People Love "You"

We all tend to focus on our niche, and I have done the same as well. I force myself to think about topics that lend ideas to marketers and other members of Gen-Y about the new marketing landscape. Most of the time, I think the posts are good (not great) and have to be forced out of my brain while telling myself that I have to post today.

In the business world, we were focusing strong on hospitality, we even released a Whitepaper on Gen-Y and Hospitality to get some attention and show some credibility. The last 3 clients we sold - a start-up music site, a real estate "community stabilizer" and a law firm. WTF?

What really happened was that these companies fell in love with us and what we do and not our niche. It didn't matter that our site is geared towards restaurants, hotels and timeshare people, they saw value in us, so we got them on board.

Get that money while its still worth something

my personal money hungry quests I have been looking into some Internet Marketing ideas and trying to get into the affiliate game. It has been fun, eye opening and exciting thinking about the truckloads of ca$h that are going to show up at my house when a product launch goes through the roof. Everything from list building to relationships and trust magnets - I think they all hold merit in the real marketing world and if we don't start asking for the sale, we are never going to get it.

Gary V (damn I am name dropping today) had a great talk the other day (I can't find it but when I do I will link it up) about getting paid vs being true to the social media ethos. The purists who say not to put affiliate links in Twitter, or don't sell shit on your blog or generate traffic through PPC or other advertising are hating on those that are making a dime or 2 in this industry. I say

if you can get people to pay for the value you bring, then you should.

These Web 2.0 companies that are living in the "give all their shit away for free world" are going to wake up one day and realize that their 100gabillion users don't mean shit because they can't monetize them via shitty ad networks and they can't up-sell them because there is no value in their premium model.

There is money in this economy, the proof is in the $5million dollars that Frank Kern made in 48 hours launching a ridiculous $2,000 IM product. Hate the industry all you want, but when products like that sells out and you can't charge $5/month for your web service, something in your marketing, value prop or target audience is wrong.

It's Ok To Shift Focus and Drift

When looking to market your products to the youth market, you also need to understand this principle. That focus group you had 6-9 months ago is useless for a product launching in the summer. Buzzwords come and do like clothing styles and even musical tastes. 37 Signals has a great philosophy, release early and release often. I think that speaks very loud and clear when pushing products to Gen-Y and teens. Get your product out already. Build buzz and release. Test in a live market, get feedback, improve, supply great customer service and do it again. Waiting only gives them time to focus on something better, cooler and flashier than what you have cooking.

Ok, I'm off to watch some video on how this revolutionary PPC system will drive 5 figures into my bank account this afternoon. wOOt - I'm not going to miss the wave - but I also won't fall for your crap.

-Greg

The Digital Music Generation Panel at Atlantis

I wanted to throw up a quick post tonight and show the success from the event today and also provide some of the links that I tossed out today on stage. I think the panel went great and everyone had something to say that could impact what the musicians in the crowd were doing today! I hope it was helpful at least.

Artist Data - send your shows everywhere
TubeMogul - Video Distribution
Google Analytics - Website stats
Statcounter - Website stats
Band Metrics - Music metrics (closed Alpha, sign up now!)
Blogger - free blogging platform
Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org - free and open source blogging platforms
AdSense - make some pennies for placing ads on your site
Grooveshark - next generation music streaming and discovery site

If I missed anything, let me know in the comments and I'll hook it up. Very great meeting so many artists and music business professionals.

And now some pics!

The crowd from the stage

The panelists (most of whom are not paying much attention)

Public Enemy at the Red Bull Panel

More wrap up coverage of Atlantis coming tomorrow, including 1 artists amazing promotion that I am even astounded by and some video from Chuck Dizzle and myself on Center Stage (2 different videos unfortunately). To all the bands I met today, kick ass in your showcase and create some magic with your fans!

-Greg Rollett

Marketing Jobs to Gen-Y College Grads

I've been on a Gen-Y kick lately, so let's stay on it! Face facts:

• The economy is screwed.
  
• Mortgages scared everyone away from buying houses.
  
• Tuition is expensive, and yes, you have to pay back those loans you spent at the dive bars.
  
• Companies are scared to hire and when they are hiring they cannot get their message to the people that need to see it. 
  
• Mom and dads place and a bartending gig, doesn't look too bad right about now.
  

Those college folk who finally crossed the stage in May or over the summer are not having a fun time in the job market. (Quick background and disclosure; I work for a job board, helping to make jobs more appealing to job seekers AND search engines) These eager Gen-Y workaholics are not confident right now. 

Why should they be confident right now? 

The messages that they are hit with everyday on the news, on tv, from their teachers, from their peers and from their parents is that there are no jobs, you might have to take a pay cut and, well, those 4-6 years you spent cramming for tests on the eve before the mid-term well, they don't mean dick right now. 

Marketing For A New Recruit 

Marketing for recruits in Gen-Y is similar in marketing products to us. You need to stand out from the loads of BS that is floating around on Job Boards, at Job Fairs and even at Interviews. The free pencil or frisbee hoopla is good for some, the some that are not interested in your job, but the spectacle of the event. 

Reaching Gen-Y with an opportunity to work for your company should bring pride to your company and showcase the future prospect of working there. Even with a dead end piece of crap telemarketing job, you can hit the heart of someone that can make miracles out of apples and mayonnaise. 

How? 

• Tell a story. It works on blogs and 28% of us Gen-Y kids now author a blog. 
  
• Video. We didn't make billionaires out ofSteve Chen and Chad Hurley for lack of giving our time and money away. 
  
• Tell me how I am going to learn. Ryan Healy of Employee Evolution and Brazen Careerist suggest that our first job be about education. The education about the workforce that we did not learn in college. Knowledge is power, so teach and tell me how I am going to continue to learn even after I know how to do my job efficiently. 
  
• Get up to speed on technology. You don't have to have iMac's and Bean Bags, but a bland, sand colored cubicle running Windows Me is not going to get you any Gen-Y superstars anytime soon. Yes budgets are tight, but please, that projector screen is so 4th grade. 
  
• Social Networking. Learn it, live it and use it. 
  
• Don't bull shit. If your company is tanking, tell us how we can help to make it better. If you are not going to promote us for 3 years don't tell us we are going to be VP in 2. We can see right through it. We are the king of excuses and can surely tell when you have one coming. 
  
• Find us. We put enough information on the web to where you can find who and what you are looking for by typing in a few words into a Google search. I would almost be scared if someone found me for one of the million blog posts I have online. 
  

So Where Do We Go From Here 

I am far from an economist, but I do know there are good jobs out there going unfilled. I also know that job boards are full of shit jobs, pyramid schemes and sales jobs with no base. That makes it tough. Gen-Y, well at least the career minded and motivated ones, have a great advantage. They can network, build their personal brand, move back home or grab some cheap rental property (as there are lots of real estate investors begging to rent their condos away for pennies) and skip there way to new jobs from companies that want their help now. 

The College Graduate Career Confidence Survey suggests that the key motivators for grads and jobs are:  

1. Opportunities to develop new skills 
   
2. Appreciation for work/life balance 
   
3. Establishing and maintaining a good rapport with their managers 
   

Does your company meet these motivators?

I would bet my small salaried check that they cannot. That's ok, we'll just spend company time reading blogs, networking with peers and planning our weekends. Hmm...

-Greg Rollett

Barack's Real Change is Happening Now

Yes he can.
He can hire the best minds in Social Media and Internet Marketing and they can make a difference. And he did. With former Facebook employees, CNN producer's and more, the Social Media All-Star Team was put to the test.

The Washington Post has a great article on the collective and how they used the Web, a Social Network, leveraged other Social Networks, text messages and online video to take a guy many never heard of and turned him into a superstar and one of 2 people that has the opportunity to become the next president of the United States.

Why this matters?
It matters because it shows that Social Media can be used and leveraged in a way to position and brand businesses that has never been done before. It shows that YouTube is not just a fad for teenagers and text messages are mainstream.

How did it happen?
They took chances. The article depicts how the text message plan came about even with heavy doubts from inside the camp. They tried it, it worked and now the Presidential running mate is going to be announced via text to the world any day now. This does 2 great things for the campaign:

1. Creates an enormous amount of press (Google Blog Search)
   
2. Gets a whole lot of new sign-ups for his text message alerts.

Not obsessing over results:
Everyone I know in Social Media and Internet Marketing is a "stat fiend." I used to be this way. Now I gauge stats by the level of engagement I have created in my campaign.

• If I Tweet a question, how many replies do I get?
• When I post a blog, how many comments do I get?
• How many links?
• Any Digg's, Stumbles?
• Are people talking about it on Twitter or FriendFeed?

The Obama campaign works in a somewhat similiar way. Kate Albright-Hanna, the head of the video team states in the article;

"Here, we don't worry about how many views our videos get. That's not the priority. One of our goals is to get people talking about what's going on in their lives and why they're supporting Barack -- and hopefully not only will they watch the videos but also comment on them and forward them to relatives and friends and co-workers."

While stats still play a major role, look at engagement and action as a factor to determine if a campaign is really working. I was always a fan of quality traffic over quantity of traffic and maybe that's why I don't write for Digg or the SERPS, but why I write for the readers and the reactions that I want to receive.

Leveraging off of your fans
By getting videos from supporters, and showcasing them on the Obama YouTube account, it is empowering the fans and letting them spread the message through their own network. Give your fans "your voice" and see what songs they come up with.

Leveraging off other Social Networks
Knowing how other Social Networks work and finding niche sites can be a huge boost. While some niche socnets might not have the numbers of Facebook or Myspace, they have dedicated users who are all interested in the subject of the site. Barack has made pages on sites ranging from AsianAve.com, MiGente.com and BlackPlanet.com. He has 50 profiles on BlackPlanet. One for each state. His team found a way to connect with the sites' users and now they have leveraged a whole army broken down by state. Way to go Barack.

How to put it all together
I won't say whether I support Barack or not (I really don't know the positions of either candidate, but I know we need a change) but I will say that his team of Social Media superstars and Internet Marketers are hitting a home run.

When putting together campaigns of your own, look to get on the level of the people that you are trying to break through to. Send your message and respond on their terms. By not using a certain medium, you are alienating people that can become advocates and with the affordability and easy of use of the Internet, there are no excuses not to be anywhere. Why sell on exclusively on iTunes when half of your fans buy from Amazon or BestBuy. Not having a Twitter account or mailing list or RSS feed is simply not excusable anymore.

When a Presidential nominee can get his head around using Twitter, YouTube and social networks and in real time, I think its time that everyone else joins the party.

-Greg Rollett
(for anyone into hip-hop, is the support of Jay-Z, Nas, Jeezy and others hurting his campaign? Check out an article from MTV to find out more)

How To Kill Your Own Buzz

photo by leff

In today's over crowded world of everything from bands on Myspace to Applications on Facebook to Digg clones and beyond, getting your product to be truly "buzz-worthy" is not an easy feat. When a company does get the attention of the Social Media elite and possibly even mainstream media, they truly need to capitalize on the traffic, users and site maintenance to ensure that everyone who comes by has a great time and continues to funnel new traffic to the site.

As we have began the business plan situation for jamblr it has been difficult to gauge what our potential "buzz" is going to be. Will we be unhappy with only a few thousand users in the first few weeks/months? Will we have enough money to support a site that doesn't hit the "mass appeal?"

Then I take a look at some companies that had buzz in the last few weeks. Plurk comes to mind. Twitter was disastrous the last few weeks, just utterly bad. Some people started talking Plurk and all of a sudden, half the Tweets I was receiving were from people talking about Plurk. From how cool it is, to how awful it is, to how "not Twitter" it was.

Chickens With Their Heads Cut Off
I then started to think about what was happening at their offices. I would assume that they were running like chickens with their heads chopped off making sure their servers could handle the load. If they went down, well then, they would be no better than the service they were "supposed" to replace.

What about their PR and marketing people? Where were they? No interview with Scoble? Come on, that's a standard now.

All joking aside, doing a quick search for Plurk on Summize, which tracks Twitter queries, will show that there was indeed a demand, and Plurk users were using their competitor to get the word out. Free marketing via users, that's the best kind of marketing in my book.

So to get onto the theme of killing your own buzz, here are some things, tips and ideas that I have been pondering today:

• Know how to make things happen for yourself - You get attention from attention. Get the attention of someone who matters, tell them about your product/service and then let your product deliver. Word will spread.
• Prepare for the unexpected. - Plurk knew Twitter was going to go down again sometime. When a competitor goes down, a front page on TechCrunch happens or 60 minutes shows up on a tip, be ready.
• Prepare in general - A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Jason at Wired Magazine. I wasn't used for the story. I had some interesting points and I think he liked what I had to say, but I couldn't come up with the specifics he was looking for because I wasn't prepared for the situation. Now I am sure that I am up to date and ready for every meeting, happy hour, web chat or video I shoot.
• Don't Over-hype - I sign-up for enough of these web services that I know suck. Most were over-hyped by the media and some were over-hyped by the client. I really don't care about the services you are going to have, I only care about the services you have now, when I am logged in and you have my attention.
• It's better to have something now - As frustrated as you can get with developers, sites take time. However there is a fine line between getting something up and making something perfect. When you have some attention, get something online. Gimme a blog, tell me how the site is coming along. Tell me your servers went down. If I am at your site, or you are at mine, I hope that you can find something that will tell you what we're up to. At jamblr we have a blog and a corny video. It should fly with most people long enough to get your email address.
• Jump - Take chances, send blind emails and make cold calls. This goes back to the first point, but most people are cowards to make the initial contact that will get them closer to their goal or help them get their hype. I am a chicken shit sometimes as well. The end justifies the means every time though.
• Admit your mistakes - When traffic comes pouring to your site and you have to have a "we're down page," find a way to explain it, for those that want to know. Own up to it.
• Forgetting about "the list" - We have been taking in emails for jamblr for almost a month now. We have not sent out anything to the kind folks that are giving away information to be a part of a community that doesn't exist and might not until the end of the year. Knowing when to inform them of our status and get them re-involved is a huge aspect of our "buzz marketing" as our users are the focus point of our whole operation.

When you get your 15 seconds of Internet fame be ready for it. It can come at any moment. If you want to help me get a few seconds, please share this story on StumbleUpon or Digg or Facebook or something cooler that comes along in the future. Till next time...

-Greg Rollett

Gen-Y Demographics

Great stats on Gen-Y from eMarketer:

We spend a lot of money:

We shop online. Nearly half of Gen-Y bought something online in the last 12 months.

Gen-Y is ethnically diverse:

• 60% white
• 15% black (non-Hispanic)
• 18% Hispanic
• 4% Asian

To compare the baby boomers are:

• 72% white
• 11% black (non-Hispanic)
• 10% Hispanic
• 4% Asian

Millennials play video games. Nearly everyday. XBox owners do play everyday.

Quick observations:

• Gen-Y will make more money and will spend more money. We do have a knack for material things and will spend and spend until we have them all.
• Advertisers need to reach Gen-Y over multiple mediums, in a way that is not obstructive to what they are doing. Brand recognition is key and the more times we see something the more likely we are to remember it. This also has to do with Gen-Y being the ADD Generation.
• Advertisers need to reach more and different backgrounds, household sizes, interests and cultural differences that ever before. Look at the Rachel Ray / Dunkin Donuts fiasco.
• Make games. Make then funny, bloody and urban. We dig that stuff.

-Greg Rollett

How Fast Are You?

image by josef.stuefer

Between instant messaging, Twitter, all the real time Social Media monitoring tools, mobile and even cable companies with DVR boxes and Smart remotes, how fast is your business?

• How quick can you respond?
• How fast can you engage your customer/fan/client?
• How fast till the project is done?
• How fast till you know someone is talking about you?
• How fast till you do something about it?

I saw today that Verizon is showing off some tools at movie theaters, where you text in a reply, watch a commercial or video promoting a Verizon product and then all the results of the texting show up on the movie screen. That's fast.

I mentioned that Grooveshark answers their fans near instantly.

In a recent campaign, I wanted my client to play pop culture text message trivia with patrons while the waiter or server got their drinks and put in their order. You don't have to wait. You don't have to go home and enter codes. You play at the table with your phone. If you win you get a coupon that you can use instantly. Not on your next visit. Not on certain dates in the future, instantly.

Clients are impatient. They want to know when their product is ready, but they want it ready faster than you can produce it. Show them things. Make them feel the project is getting closer to having their hands on it.

Clients also want results. They also want them today. They want traffic and conversions now. Is the content you are creating Digg worthy? Is the traffic Digg brings results worthy?

Mark Krupinski and I have been talking about Social Media Measuring tools. We did this over a conversation and then on Twitter. Within minutes, Mark had set up demos with Radian6 and Techrigy.

On my end, Radian6 started following me on Twitter before I knew they existed. They proceeded to join Doterati, a Central Florida Interactive Marketing Community I am helping to build and market. The CEO then sent a direct Tweet to me.


Let's quickly add that I got a comment on my last post from someone at Collective Intellect, another Social Media monitoring too. It's good to see all these companies using FAST as a selling point.

That's fast!

How fast are you?

-Greg Rollett

Know the Social Media Audience

photo by sadaiche

There are a lot of people jumping into Social Media. Setting up Twitter pages, Facebook groups, jumping into FriendFeed or whatever the latest gimmick or hot spot is. I like to think that they coming for the right reasons. To be a part of a community of like minded professionals, to chat with friends, to meet people that share similiar hobbies, interests, etc or even to talk about their accomplishments to people that opted in to listen.

The problem most companies, business or individuals face is that they enter the club without knowing what crowd is there.

Imagine walking into a night club expecting to see a rock band:

• You get to the parking lot (the homepage | landing page)
• You wait in line (get the super secret ALPHA or BETA invite code)
• You pay the cover charge (Fill out their sign-up paperwork)
• Walk inside and start ordering 2 for 1's, only to realize that they don't serve alcohol and play a style of music that you don't find too appealing. (SEO's on Digg, Pedafiles on Myspace, etc)
• Instead of going somewhere more suitable you start talking to the girls at the bar, they walk away, you walk back up, they walk away, you walk back up and so on and so on (SPAM, SPAM and more SPAM)

This is my problem with a lot of the marketing going on with Twitter. My latest case in point is Music Marketer David Hooper. I think most of his articles are good and offer value to his readers. I had a problem though with his latest e-book on Twitter for musicians.

I value Twitter, and the relationships that I have on the site. I agree that being an early adopter gives you an advantage and extra vision before the bandwagon comes in. Where I disagree is the fact that Hooper is not a good Twitter user. In fact, he doesn't follow anyone. He does not participate in conversation. He does not use a tracker to see conversations about his own name, let alone music marketing conversations that are happening across the platform. Oh, and the link spam is just awesome.


If you do not understand the platform, do not tell others to abuse the system. It will destroy the community that Ev Williams and Biz Stone have created and that so many of us love. You cannot "master Twitter in 10 minutes a day." If you think so, you are missing the conversations. You are not getting to know your fans, your peers or witness the beauty of the site. It's just blind, waste of time promotions.

With all Social Networks and Social Media sites, you need a 2-way conversation. Where Myspace failed was not in its crappy architecture, it was in the users who abused it for promotion, and the bigger bands who never wrote back, kept their site static and had a 1-way conversations with their fans.

They pushed out news. They pushed out shows. They NEVER listened.

Before you walk in the club, find some people who go there. Find users who use the site and get results and conversions.

Grooveshark is a company that gets Twitter. Andrew Wise, their business relations partner, has his ears glued to every mention of the work Grooveshark, and is sure that within minutes there is a response made.

I remember saying that I was looking for an oldie on Grooveshark via a Tweet, and within seconds, a message from @Grooveshark asked if I found what I was looking for.

The key to Social Media is to listen. Are you listening?

-Greg Rollett

Why Mobile Matters More than Internet

photo by shapeshift

We’ll have one mobile phone per child before we ever have one laptop per child.

– Inspired by Jason Grigsby’s talk, "Going Fast on the Mobile Web," at WebVisions

I saw this quote today and was blown away by it. Why? Because it is so obvious we overlook it.

Take a look at your friends. Go ahead, turn around, look in your "cell phone" contacts and really take a deep thought to how many of them have laptops vs. how many have cell phones. I would dare to say that all have phones and a good percentage have MacBooks.

Everyone has a mobile phone. Web and mobile strategist Jason Grigsby states that there are currently 3.3 billion mobile devices versus 900 million PCs. (FastCompany.com - Look in the comments)That's a big gap. And with phones getting smarter and smarter, and marketers getting more creative with mobile advertising, the phone is where it is at.

Heck, people with iPhones, and even some Blackberries, have no use for a computer. MP3 players are declining in sales due to cell phones being the supreme being. (At least Apple has the iPhone - a Zune phone anyone?)

Wait until coupon companies get it right as well. GripOffs has a great idea in place where users will click into the Grip Offs mobile site from your mobile-web favorites, browse for coupons based on your location and preference (movies, food, oil change, etc) and then you can show your phone to the business to get your discount or free-be.

Google offers free 411 style information through texting. Just text a query to "Google" or 466453, and get results via SMS almost instantly. Fandango mobile kicks ass when you are on the road on a Friday night and need those tickets before all those high school kids do.

I already mentioned how Papa John's is using cell phones to order your favorite pizzas.

What about Qik for video and Utterz for photos? Instant mobile uploads and live streaming and only getting better to boost. No need to carry around a video or digital camera anymore.

With the rate that Gen-Y, business professionals and stay-at-home moms are on the go, mobile needs to be in your future business plans.

How are you using mobile to grow your business? Is your blog mobilized? That just moved up on the priority list for me.

-Greg Rollett

Using Google To Sell Your Blog

I am always looking at ads that people make on AdWords for their products and sites. Today I was scanning the ads on my site when I came across a Millennial marketing his personal blog through AdWords.


Not too strange I thought.

Intrigued I clicked through to the site, Millennial Life. The landing page was the homepage of the blog. A common trait of AdWords users. The problem I see is that you want to take people to your best stuff. If your latest post is just a photo, or an update or something of no value to a first time reader, you may turn that reader off before they hit the subscribe button.


We'll put that fact to the side and get to the reason for this post. If he monitored the AdSense ads that were appearing on his site, he would notice that he is inadvertently advertising for his own site on his blog. In fact, Google thinks this is the most relevant ad to his site.

I would like to think that BT, the bloggers screen name, would still be breaking even on the deal, as he would be getting paid through AdSense for hosting the ad and the click, and paying out to AdWords for the user making the click.

All of this nonsense just to being the viewer back to the very same home landing page.

I think its great that Millennials are marketing their blog and spending some money to get more readers. And why not use Google? They serve up the most ads and let your earn some quarters on the back-end with AdSense. Just be sure that you are monitoring stats from both accounts and also your own site. You can block ads from certain advertisers, and that may very well include your own ads from appearing on your own site.

BT, I hope you see this and your Millennial Life blog gets some traffic from the Google ads. We do not need to lose you as a Gen-Y blogger due to losing funds and bad marketing tactics.

Gen-Y question of the day?

How are you advertising your Gen-Y blog? AdWords, StumbleUpon Ads, Facebook Ads, WOM Marketing, the Brazen Careerist network, nothing? This will prove noteworthy to all Gen-Y bloggers looking to expand their network!

-Greg Rollett

Twitter with me. You know you want to. All the cool kids are.

Papa John's Gets Gen-Y (Almost)

I stumbled across the Papa John's website today and was both pleasantly surprised and disappointed at the same time. They come off as a very Millennial friendly corporation and are trying to make their ordering process as easy and as seamless as possible. I think the ideas are great, but they are failing to capitalize on a few opportunities.

The Good

Ordering a pizza is a pain in the ass! You have to find the coupon that was on your door, or came in the mail, then find the location closest to you, even though there are 5 locations within 10 miles, then place the order, wait 45 min and deal with the delivery guy. Not a lot of fun.

Papa John's has simplified this process. By creating a profile with PapaJohn's.com, you can order from a variety of options. After entering your normal profile sign-up info; name, address, password, etc, Papa John's knows your location.


By going even more in-depth you can set-up "Favs" to make for easy re-ordering. Where do these "Favs" really come into play? Text Message ordering! By texting "Fav1 -4" to 4PAPA your order will be sent via SMS to your nearest Papa John's. A confirmation text comes next and then one with an expected delivery time.



Next up is the Desktop Application. This blends your personal preferences and local coupons and offers a way to order your Meat Lovers without even opening a browser. This is great for convenience of the frequent user. I don't see many one off customers taking the time to download the application.

Where they fail to really hit the market

While both of these features, the SMS Ordering and the Desktop App, are great ways to get people ordering more efficiently and conveniently, the viral spread of Social Media and WOM from Gen-Y is missing.

Instead of a Desktop App, think Widgets on Social Network Profiles. Have teens proudly display their menu items of choice and let them order from within their communities. Showcase their orders to let their friends see pizza is on the way. (Make an anchovie throwing up on Facebook for food fight's sake!)

This gives Gen-Y, or any user of the widget, an easy way to order and also a great way for friends to copy the app and try it for themselves. Let your customers market for you.

No blog or conversation

At least it's not advertised anywhere on PapaJohns.com. There is no Twitter account showing coupons or time sensitive promos. In fact twitter.com/papajohns is a blank page last updated a month ago. There is no blog on Papa John's culture. Although there is a boring history piece a la Web 1.0 with a terrible URL attached on it.

Research shows that Gen-Y is more likely to be influenced on buying decisions with Social Media and when there is trust from a brand (Marketing Vox)

If Papa John's isn't going to talk to their customers, then someone else will.

Great Start - Need a Strong Finish

Papa John's has shown innovation in the way that they deal with customers and orders. Now it's time to start really getting their feet wet and engaging those customers and turning them into advocates who will promote their brand over all the other pizza chains.

Would you be inclined to use new ways of ordering your munchie food? Sound off in the comments!

-Greg Rollett

Only People Can Market to Gen-Y

Sometimes when you are lost in a conversation, you get to points that you didn't plan, but that make total sense and help solidify your points. I had one of those tonight!

In the middle of a marketing presentation, I was talking about integrating Social Media into a pretty large company's summer marketing and branding plans. I was trying to explain why they needed to blog, be on Twitter and integrate their plan to make seamless integrations between platforms.

While spitting this out, I came to the conclusion that Gen-Y, or 16-25 year olds in this case, loves getting brand information from a person. We like connecting and building trust with a live human being who has likes and dislikes and tells it how it is.

I don't give 2 shits about what "Insert Fortune 500 Company Here" thinks I should like. I wanna know what the kid down the hall likes. I don't even mind if that kid works for "Insert that same company here." I only care that he is honest. I care that he is human being. I care that he is "Green," likes indie hip-hop and hates Kool-Aid.

Companies need to invent this person for their company if they want to market to our generation. Apple has Steve Jobs, Wine Library has Gary Vaynerchuk and IZEA has Ted Murphy.

Facebook used to have Zucks, but now he's so full of corporate bull that no one cares what he says. DirectTV tried to joint the Twitter revolution, but pitched it from their company and not from a person helping to promote the company. Plus they didn't understand Twitter101.

So, this is an open call to all the brands out there that want the dollar I am still willing to spend! You don't need a million dollar SuperBowl commercial. You need to connect with me. Not the me that other big companies think "I am."

MTV doesn't know me. They know the me that E!News says I am.

Brands get to know me. You do this through listening and then entering the conversation. Do this on Twitter. Do this on influential blogs. Do this with Social Spark and get real reviews of your products.

Don't do this on Myspace with a Friend Blaster!

Where my people at?

-Greg Rollett

When Your Boss Finds Out You Are a Double Agent

I am an advocate of working towards your career goals while working a stable 9-5 to sustain your life, your wife, your house, car payments and a beer when you get 5 minutes of free time. I don't just preach to the choir, I live it.

I play a great role at the 9-5, keeping everyone in tune with everything going on in our company's online world, the economy, cool Social Media and marketing tips and making their clients happy by applying on site SEO to their packages.

When I get out the doors, usually at 5:01, I put on a new suit, and usually a backwards hat! I jet down and swerve through the great traffic that is I-4 and get to the after hours office. I then proceed to make my life interesting and attempt to go at it on my own (and with the help from some more than amazing team members).

I try as hard as humanly possible not to inter-twine the 2 lives. Well, I do check non work emails at work and live off my Twitter feeds, but hey, there is time to kill in an entry level position, right?

So what happens when your boss finds out about all of your post work activities?

I cannot speak for everyone on this one, unfortunately. I am very lucky to have a cool boss, who also doubles as my guitar player when I decide to bust a few rhymes. He was very excited and happy for me and really hopes that the projects I am working on are going to be greatly successful. There is also the factor that my work at the 9-5 never slips. In fact I make sure to kick ass everyday so there is no doubt where my head is at during clock hours.

Here's a few tips that have helped me in my double agent status for those that are looking are are in the middle of working for a corporation with bigger dreams of going at in on your own.

1. Keep up productivity. While I do make time to check my non work emails and browse a few choice blogs, I also kick ass in my assignments. I am still coming up with productive ideas and staying sharp with all of my clients and colleagues. This is vital. Once your daily work starts to suffer, you may be in trouble.

2. Understand your boss. I have a cool boss. He gets business done, but is also understanding and knows that work, and this job isn't the end-all-be-all of life. Maybe your boss or supervisor is the opposite, either way get to know how they handle situations.

3. If possible, be honest. The last few weeks I have shown up red-eyed and wrinkled. Rather than think I was hitting the bong on the way to work, I stayed after on a Friday and showed my boss what I was up to. This happened to be the jamblr site and blog. He was totally impressed with the work, understood what I was up to and offered to give me a few days off if needed to talk to potential investors. He is also trying to get me to make a video similar to the "what is jamblr" spot for our local job fairs. Pretty sweet for coming clean.

4. Know that they know. I got a really cool gig this Friday. What did I do when I found out, I hit up Twitter and told all my followers the good news. The bad news, my Facebook status is updated by my Twitter feed. Boss checks his Facebook, and poof, there's my news all over his homepage. Damn!

5. Understand your non-compete's and NDA's. If you signed a non-compete at your current job, be sure that your new venture does not interfere. This will get you in a heap of trouble and legal issues with your current employer. Also be sure that you are not using company materials and policies when starting your new company.

It's great for Gen-Y to be so active in seeking out there own path and starting their own ventures in their own niche. It's also a smart option to have a stable income while doing so. Just be sure if you are on company time, you are staying in line with what is expected of you. I would hope that your employer would promote career growth, whether its within their organization or out on your own. They don't want you entry-level forever either. That's for next year's graduating class.

-Greg Rollett

Want to Go Viral? - Help Your Fans Make It Viral!

Everyone wants to go viral, whether it be a video, their new CD release, a press or marketing campaign and all those widgets and applications on Myspace and Facebook. Going viral is great, the problem is that not everyone and not every campaign can go viral.

When promoting your music, a new video or even a show, the key to going viral is the ease in which your fans and users can help the process.

YouTube does this with its ability to embed videos on any website that allows for HTML code. Newer video sites such as Viddler, Blip.tv and Kyte also allow for an easy way of transplanting a video from their site to another.

Facebook applications have made it incredibly easy for it to go viral. When you have chosen to install an application on your page, it asks you to send it to any and all of your friends who may be interested in the fun you are embarking on. Some see this as an annoyance, app makers see this as cha-ching!


Trent Reznor and NIN have come out today with a brand new 10 song free album, The Slip, for everyone as a thank you for continued support. Trent has gotten the hang of this internet thing and found a great way for this release to go viral. Not only does he have the blogosphere going crazy with features on Wired, Mashable and others, but when you get to the download page, he does 2 things exceptionally well.

1. The album is licensed under Creative Commons. Trent encourages his fans to re-mix the album as they see fit. The viral reaction will be fans creating mash-ups and telling their friends about them, which puts NIN in the ears of more listeners and the potential for them to become future fans.


2. After you enter your e-mail address for the download link, a new screen appears asking if you would like to send this album as a gift to 3 friends. The thinking here is that the distribution will expand exponentially as each person will tell 3 people who tell 3 people and so on. With this model Trent gets their email address for future promotions and a lot of music into listeners computers.

The moral of the story is that it is great to have free material that you want to get into people's hands. The content is strong and people want the product/service. Now make it easy for them to take the information and spread it.

For extra credit, you can Digg this article and help spread my information all over the internet. (I won't be mad at ya!)

-Greg Rollett

Stop Being Lazy, Start Creating Content

photo by dead_squid

I have set up a few blogs for friends, clients and family. It is my number one recommendation for people looking to get ahead in their filed, make some beer money and generate connections that wouldn't exist without the internet.

The number one problem lies in the Field of Dreams quote,

"If you build it, they will come."

Sorry folks it doesn't work like that. Most clients give up after 2 or 3 posts with minimal hits, no comments and no additional sales. Just a big fat bill from the mean old social media marketing guy (thanks G-Ro for nothing, and try to get me Twittering either!).

Where they fail is in the "build it" portion of the quote. It is not just about throwing up a Blogger or Wordpress template and slapping up a post about your products. And while I make that perfectly clear, they think that all the hoopla surrounding blogging and Social Media will draw thousands of new users to their site tonight, or maybe in the morning.

The build it part requires the following parts:
1. Consistent, interesting and compelling posts and content.
2. Engaged conversations on your site and outside of your site.
3. Link building
4. Reputation Management (Google Alerts = free and easy)
5. More content that your clients, fans and customers want to read.

For some people, coming up with content on a regular basis is not the easiest thing to do. For artists, musicians, extreme sport athletes and other creative types this should be an easy task. For students or experts, I am sure your field has enough interesting and breakthrough material to keep you going for a long, long time. I've seen blogs on everything from laundry techniques to sneakers.

Content isn't all about writing novel sized posts with crazy research. It's about engaging your readers. Photos from your night on the town, last show and your fans is a great conversation starter. Videos of your latest trick you landed or a videoblog with a joke of the day will keep people coming back for more and hitting the subscribe button.

The problem with all of this is that your marketing team cannot hold your hand and make the content for you. It needs to be authentic. It needs to be thought out and come from the maker. It needs to take time. But I guarantee that it will be time well spent.

Blogs are an amazing source of inspiration, great place for information, networking and resources. But they are also a place to keep eyeballs glued into your brand, your company or your industry. You just need to start posting, commenting and building your audience. Patience pays off for a great blog.

What do you think? How did you get over the hump of minimal readers and inconsistent engagement? We've all been there.

Greg Rollett

(additional photo by daysies)

Facebook Profiles in Organic Results

I knew that Facebook was beginning the process of showing up in search engine results. Today, while stumbling through search results for a client a ran across the Facebook Page I created for them. What blew my mind was that it was for a term that was listed only once on the page and through an application. Here is a quick screenshot:

The term was "job outlook in Orlando, fl" The landing page was the actual Facebook Page for the Orlando JobSpot.



It ranked 9th for that term. Pretty sweet I think. So I dugg deeper. (No pun intended)

So next I searched for my name. Pretty simple search. Here's the results:

I pulled my Facebook page number 7 in the Google searches. The landing page took you here:


Great for privacy, its the same as if someone searched for me within Facebook with the addition of some of my friends showing up for the party as well. I do not like the randomness that these friends appeared. In all honesty, I do not think that I have spoken to any of the 5 anytime recently. Maybe a system of top friends, a la Myspace, or even the most recent activity between friends, just a thought.

So my digging continued. I looked for Rock For Hunger. They have 2 Facebook Groups and one Facebook Page. Nothing in the first 7 pages for their name resulted in a Facebook listing. The groups and the Page have a great deal of member and incoming links, where the JobSpot Page has only 1 incoming link.

So far I have seen no relationship between incoming links, number of friends/fans and the organic rankings of these Facebook pages.

Mind you that I have only searched for local terms. So I decided to look for 'Stephen Colbert for President.' There group boasts over 1,000,000 members and has been linked to from blogs to large news networks. The first Facebook related search result:

Number 61 it is. Ouch and it is for an Application, not the group! Another interesting clue in the puzzle. In the first 100 results there were 3 Myspace related results. Facebook failed to return the group with over 1,000,000 users in the first 100 results. Hmm, Google spider problem or Facebook problem.

How is a Facebook Page spidered? What gives it the rains to show up on page 1? Is this just a test? I don't remember opting into anything to get my results listed. Will Facebook results show up as often as Myspace results for bands, brands and entertainment?

Thoughts anyone?

Greg Rollett

Work at McDonald's Via Facebook - The New Gen-Y Job Hunt

Facebook has been making some big headway in how they help companies promote jobs to Gen-Y. Recently they teamed up with Career Builder (hat tip Cheezhead) to bring in non Beacon style ads to showcase Career Builder positions. Now with some success behind Facebook Targeted Advertising, I am seeing more and more companies pop up in my NewsFeed offering job opportunities. The one I saw today was from McDonald's. The ad was showcasing a McDonald's super marketer and that's what I claim to be. I think this is how they targeted me. That's just my initial guess as that is how the ads are distributed and targeted. (McDonald's or your advertising company, please talk to me about this!!!)

Barring my curiosity, I clicked on the ad to see what McDonald's had to say and how they thought it was more important to show me an ad for a job opportunity vs. a BigMac. Here is the ad:


Cool ad campaign. Play on the fact that I wish to take over the world and market products for a super huge company. Next comes the Facebook landing page.

Pretty sweet corporate Facebook group. The group also boasts over 1,000 members and shows me the info I need if I happened to be interested in a position with Mickey D's. So, let's play along and assume I'm interested. There is a link right below this screenshot that takes you here:

This is probably one of the most Gen-Y friendly job site landing pages I have ever seen for a company. Very sleek and clean. I see the job I want and I click it.

Overall, I give McDonald's an A for effort and execution. It was easy to navigate and within 3 clicks I was applying to my dream job. Well, not exactly, but you get my point.

As Facebook really gets into their targeted marketing approach, I think we are going to be able to see more and more companies get their message across to the people that are genuinely interested (or more prone to interest) than with programs like Adwords.

I can see bands having Digital Download ads that target country fans who list Taylor Swift as their music preference.

My hope is that application data can also be used to target advertising demographics. Especially in the case of musicians. If we can gather Pandora and iLike and Last.FM data from applications on user pages we can really get in and target the people that will convert higher and show a greater return on our marketing investment.

So McDonald's (er, Facebook's advertising platform) read the marketing text somewhere on my Facebook page, that's great. I have no problem seeing their ad. Even though I am not applying for their position, they are getting some linkbait and blog world mentions for the campaign inadvertently. Even if they never thought of it that way, I hope they get Google Alerts and see the possibilities.

Talk to you kids soon.

-Greg Rollett