Digital Pulp Blog

TopRank asked its readers, “What 3 online marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2011?” The number one answer? Not social media, not email marketing. The top digital marketing tactic for OMB readers in 2011, out of 44 choices provided, is Search Engine Optimization.

Excerpt from Article:

“While social media marketing continues to get a lot of media attention and companies are investing more ($1.2 billion 2011, Forrester), search marketing (PPC and SEO) gets the lion’s share of digital marketing budgets ($20.7 billion 2011, Forrester).”

Read More at: SEO Tops Digital Marketing Tactics for 2011

At Digital Pulp, we recommend monitoring organic search and reporting the findings at least quarterly. For paid search we like to see a sustained effort, so optimization is possible and learnings can be built upon. If search is on your mind and you have questions let us know.

Blogs take effort and sustained effort at that. You’ll need to “feed the beast” weekly if not daily so it’s more important than ever that your blog have the focus and purpose that comes from a well crafted digital strategy.

Have Vision
For some it’s projecting thought leadership. For others it’s creating a deeper emotional connection to readers. Clarity about your vision will make it easier to stay on course.

Be Valuable
Value can be felt in a number of ways. Are you comprehensive or a much needed filter? Do you offer perspective or unwavering objectivity? Define your value and readers will feel it throughout their experience.

Get Personal
Despite the ability to reach mass audiences, write for a single person. Writing for your ideal reader prevents filler content from watering down your blog and obscuring the highest quality posts.

Create Impact
Do you remember the last time you read something significant? It wasn’t necessarily what was said but HOW they said it. That’s your voice and critical to leaving a deep impression on new readers.

Make Connections
No blog is an island. You need readers and a way to generate activity. Comment on and post links to related blogs. When you demonstrate the caliber of your associations, bloggers of influence will share the love (and links) with you.

We hope these tidbits help. To get your blogging questions answered or for a more comprehensive blog strategy, we’re always here.

The first step in any social media campaign starts with Facebook. With 350 million users they are undoubtedly the king of social media. But once you’ve got a Facebook Page, what do you do with it?

Know Your Audience
You want Facebook fans, sure but quality always wins over quantity. Be specific about who is reading, and tailor your writing to their needs.

Think Entertainment, Not Speech
Think of Facebook as your moment at the mic. Envision your audience in the room with you. How would keep their attention?

Relax and Roll Up Your Sleeves
While your team always conveys a sense of professionalism, the Facebook platform is very informal. So leave the suit in the closet, and think business-casual.

May Seem Obvious but… Be Social
Too often, we see posts that mimic a press release and end there. That’s like sitting in a bar with a friend who does all the talking. At the end of each announcement, ask a question.

Start Learning
Every organization is different, and how you should approach social spaces will reflect your needs and aspirations. There are no cookie-cutter solutions, so start the learning process and see what works for you.

We hope these tidbits help. To get your social questions answered, or for a more comprehensive social media campaign, we’re always here.

There are three major things that effect how search engines rank your site:

1. Traffic
2. Inbound Links
3. Page Content and Coding

The reality is that if you don’t have decent traffic, it’s unlikely that google will see your site as relevant. If no one (of quality) is linking to you then you’re potential to satisfy the needs of google users is even lower. And finally if the content on your pages is not identical to what searchers are looking for there will be other sites that will appear first.

While this seems like bad news, it’s the situation every website owner is in so you’re not alone!

So what to do? With 65% market share google should be your main target. We recommend taking the long view and starting from the bottom up. Decide the 10 key phrases where you’d like to appear. Check out who appears in natural search results for these terms and how you measure up. Craft your page content to suit the phrases and code your pages with standards in mind. Find sites that should be linking to your content (like bloggers) and pitch them a story chock full of your key phrases.

Over time your page rank will improve. If it’s not improving fast enough, you’ll need to consider purchasing google adwords. As a side note, google says having an adwords campaign doesn’t improve your rank but having a google webmaster account and submitting an XML sitemap to google will help.

Recently the NYTimes took a deeper look into targeted Facebook ads that use personal information to grab attention and found they either work brilliantly or come across as seriously creepy…

“The site’s pages are also home to countless ads from smaller companies that can be funny, weird or just plain creepy — those suggesting you are, say, eligible to get a free iPad because you are exactly 26 years old, or entreaties to see what your offspring would look like if you had a child with a celebrity.”

As in the real world, it seems there are limits as to how familiar you can get with someone you’ve never met. Read the full article at: Ads Posted on Facebook Strike Some as Off-Key or check out the related multimedia piece that shows actual Facebook ads as seen by four demographically diverse users: Facebook’s Targeted Ads

We’ve all read the wikipedia definition of FAIR USE and have spent more hours than we would care to admit reviewing the four factors in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. But we still struggle with how to apply the rules in the real world. This weekend NPR’s Scott Simon interviewed Joel Rose in an attempt to bring clarity to the issue of what exactly is ‘fair use.’

Mr. ROSE: Artists, filmmakers, reporters and commentators have the right to take copyrighted materials without permission or payment, says McIntosh, as long as they’re using those materials to make something new. It’s the same principle that the producers of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central employ every night.

What we found really interesting in this interview was how important the Sony-Betamax case was back in 1984.

Mr. ROSE: That applies not just to content but to the devices that deliver it. Sohn says fair use is what gives you the right to record TV shows and watch them later, thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the so-called Betamax case.

Ms. SOHN: Imagine if in 1984, after the Sony-Betamax decision had come out, we had said, OK, we’re going to stop there. You can record things for home use, and that’s the limit of personal fair use. You wouldnt have MP3 players like the iPod; you know, we probably wouldn’t have TiVos that could send things to your computers.

Read the Full Story at NPR | Wikipedia Definition | U.S. Copyright Office Definition

Because this blog post is meant for educational purposes and we only published a small portion of the interview with the goal of driving users to the original work, we see providing excerpts from this interview as fair use.

NPR’s show On the Media interviewed Nicholas Kristof on the psychology of selling soap and how those tactics could be used to get people to care about some of the most compelling causes of our day. What surprised us was research by psychologist Paul Solvic showing the number at which we tune out… it’s not hundred… it’s two. Here is an excerpt from NPR:

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: Well, I came across social psychologist Paul Slovic who has done a great deal of work in this area, and the experiments typically involve exposing people to a particular scenario and then seeing if they will contribute.

One of the classic experiments involves a seven-year-old girl from the country of Mali who’s starving and asking if people will help her out. Everybody wants to help Rokia. But if you ask people to help 21 million hungry people in Africa, nobody particularly wants to help them.

Maybe what I found even more depressing is that the moment you even provide more background information to Rokia, if you say that she is hungry because of a famine in her country, then interest in helping her tends to drop.

You know, we all know that at some point people tend to get numbed and tune out, but [LAUGHS] one of the things that I found fascinating was the number at which we tend to tune out. It’s not a million, it’s not a thousand, it’s not even a hundred – it’s two.

Listen to the Interview at NPR

As more and more people become comfortable with transacting business over their mobile device, mobile giving is becoming a critical factor that fundraisers ignore at their peril.

Though the size of a mobile gift is limited ($5 and $10), the audience is generally younger, the size of the market is potentially millions of smartphone users, and the speed with which nonprofits and their supporters can react to a crisis is dazzling.

This is clearly reflected with the current earthquake disaster in Haiti. Through mGive, one of the providers that facilitates mobile giving, the Red Cross has already raised $3 million dollars (as of Jan. 14th 9 a.m.) via ‘text-to-give’ and is reportedly collecting $200,000 per hour. By comparison, during Hurricane Katrina the Red Cross raised only $400,000 in total via this channel.

A mobile giving strategy, as part of a nonprofit’s Online Fundraising Plan, is the first step. Whether an organization provides emergency aid or ongoing support, it is important to establish a plan at the outset that clearly establishes how the organization can take advantage of mobile giving to support the mission. Then, it’s building the structure, communications, processes and assigning resources that will make it all work.

To donate $10 to Haiti relief, text “Haiti” to 90999.

Making a donation doesn’t just feel good. It is good. And a gift donation, made in someone’s name, is one of the few things you can still get in time for the holidays, without standing in line. We asked DP’ers to send along their favorite charities for this year –and got back a list of organizations that provide needed aid to fight disease, hunger, climate change and poverty, in New York City and all over the world. If you want to give a gift that matters this holiday season, please think about supporting them… [MORE]

Pete Blackshaw, customer service guru and Nielsen executive, spoke at the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) Conference recently and during the Q&A he listed some best practices on how to approach negative bloggers. In short…

• have the right message
• be perceived as credible
• be prepared for backlash
• be conservative

Before approaching a blogger, Blackshaw recommends empowering them to find your side of the story online. Post a video or article responding the the issues on your site and make sure to a search function exists to make that content quick to find.

If you do engage, Blackshaw recommends being respectful and not to try and turn the conversation further emphasizing that you should solve the problem and not advertise. If their facts are incorrect, clarify the data. For more: Watch the video