My Employer Unveils Badges

Ryan    Uncategorized     Social Badges

Today, (Employer Reference Removed) unveiled 3 badges directing users to follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

With many efforts around the online communities looking and veering towards proactive social campaigns, what else is available to online degree institutions such as GCU in bringing more qualified leads and relevant traffic? Does one platform over another market to a different set of people? What about professors’ blogs. Who is reading what?

(Employer Reference Removed) (ex) Social Marketing Strategist, Elliott Lemenager has taken it upon himself to pave a new approach the university can meld in reaching out to potential students. Through my conversations with him, a key point is reflective in almost all of his strategies. While communication is necessary, CONTENT is key.

How do you find if your institution is creating content and communicating it? Is it relevant to your market?

(Employer Image Removed)

Influencing Myself: How Loud is Your Social Space?

Ryan    Uncategorized     Followers, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter Influence

What are the most noticeable tweets in your tweet flow? Out of everyone you follow, who makes the biggest noise? Do you even monitor your following, or just watch your TweetDeck custom searches pop up?

In today’s social media universe, and especially in the world of Twitter, the act of following or being followed is continuing to affect the way we act and socialize with each other. As a rule of thumb, we feel that the amount of people following us directly relates to how much authority or importance our profile has. This is not only true, but clearly evident in some of the most respected Twitterphiles and Twitterco’s out there. But while we are focused on upping our followers twit by twit, one thing to keep in mind is influence… and noise.

Take your own profile for example. As you watch twits come in day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, what are the most influential posts that strike you most? OR… what are the ones that you find yourself clicking the links to, more often then others?

Depending on how you answered that question, and depending on what your own personal goals for Twitter are, what do you think are some good ways to improve your influence? Maybe… stop tweeting about the same thing once in a while!

For me, I’m professionally motivated by anything revolving around #SEM, #SEO, #PPC, #SocialMedia, etc, etc. To anyone in those fields, chances are, if you’re on Twitter, you’re looking for influences to follow. Back to me… At the same time, as I continue to follow more and more people, I’m finding that what these people actually have to say, are turning more into gray matter, then information I’m really looking into researching more deeply. If I get news once a minute every minute regarding ‘Thought A’… ‘Thought A’ begins to look a little less flashy in my stream of updates. In fact, it can almost look a little bland. Now, what if a post regarding ‘Thought Z’ pops up once a day within that gray area…. ‘Thought Z’ though maybe not associated directly with what I am doing, starts to sound a little more interesting, and the people talking about ‘Though Z’ are seemingly having a bigger impact in what I’m taking away from my Twitter experience. What does this mean for someone who is actively trying to make use of Twitter?

I think the most important thing to realize is, pick who you want to follow carefully. Sure, you can search for every expert in Social Media or SEO or PPC out there, but as you evolve that list, are they really going to make a difference in your twit stream? Pull from your hobbies, and enjoyments in life. Find your local radio station’s personal Twitter profile and check out what they’re doing in their own social space. Find local groups, charities, or associations you are passionate about, and get involved with their social space. Better yet, use your geographic location to help you find interesting people in your own communities. If it can ignite a social relationship outside of your small computer screen, then who knows the kind of impact that can be made on something as short as 140 characters. The plausibility of associating your online relationships into humanistic friendships grow stronger when you actively seek a real interaction.

Although diversification is often related to stocks, think about it in terms of your Twitter profile as well. Maybe influencing ourselves is just as important as influencing others.

Peace

Mike Volpe vs. TechCrunch – I've Got Social Capital.. More Than Some

Ryan    Uncategorized     Facebook, Grader, mvolpe, Social Media, techcrunch

Across the Twittersphere this afternoon, I came across a Tweet from Mike Volpe (@mvolpe) regarding a reply to a posting from Michael Arrington (@techcrunch) regarding HubSpot’s Facebook Grader. Have you seen/heard about this debate yet? Well if you haven’t, do some searches, you might find some ReTweets, Replies, or whatever else out there.

Any ways, Arrington published a post at www.TechCrunch.com yesterday reviewing HubSpot’s latest online grading application, Facebook.Grader.com What does it do? It “Measures the Power of a Profile” says the website. Alright this is all well and good… I’ve seen Twitter.Grader.com as well as PressRelease.Grader.com, and they all pretty much do the same thing. Gives you a score depending on numbers of followers, following, groups, and whatever else they want to look at. The tools are cool, and I’m sure are widely used, but why is Arrington coming out and blasting the FB Grader? He says that  “…it’s beyond useless” Is it?

Maybe, but to start off, I think it is important to take a step  back and really define where SOCIAL really comes from. People have started doing this lately, and some people haven’t. Although there are mixed ideas about what IT really is, there are a few terms you should NOT overlook.

SOCIAL: (One source says:) relating to human society and its members; “social institutions”; “societal evolution”; “societal forces”; “social legislation”

CAPITAL: (One source says:) assets available for use in the production of further assets

Now hold on a minute. If I’m trying to measure the “power of a profile” does that entail that every profile is not equal? Does that mean that if my profile is more powerful then yours, I should be regarded as having more capital than the average producer… universally? Is there a form of universal capital at all in Social Media? Does that even make sense? If that’s the case, you’re sort of limiting yourself on who you are trying to relate to. A common good is always nice, but nobody can tell one person or another what or who they think they should be listening to/preaching at.

While HubSpot has it’s grading tools, and pretty cool grading tools at that, use of these tools should be understood that depending on where you are looking/who you’re looking at/who you want to hear you/and so on, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. Thinking smart about your own personal social efforts is the best way to be, in essence, SOCIAL. Sure there are leaders in the world, but sooner or later, the underlings rise up and elect new leaders. Change happens. But everyone knows that right? ;-) (Congrats Obama)

Peace

P.S. Don’t abuse your position. It’s about the people, whether they like you or not.

P.P.S. Theres some good link juice in here guys, so don’t blast me.

The Curse of Landing Pages… Well My Curse

Ryan    Uncategorized     IT, Landing Pages

After a big landing page overhaul in Google in an attempt to correct some of our reporting issues, I’ve noticed that the redirect that people see once they click the link, looks pretty dang crappy. Oh how I wish there was some universal design and usability to all of these landing pages.

After recording our current conversion ratios, I suppose I’ll just have to keep an eye on them while IT uploads my redirect change to a page that looks decent. Please be quick. I’m already seeing some pretty bad conversion rates.

Updates to follow.

Peace

Update: 12:05pm

So they say it’s an easy fix depending on where the redirect is going to. Yippee! Hopefully we should see some results by the end of the day.

Tuesday Afternoon, and Nothing Much to Report

Ryan    Uncategorized     Gudmundson

For a Tuesday afternoon in Phoenix, I’m feeling pretty good. Not only is it a warm low 70 degrees or so outside, but I’ve been able to participate in some positive meetings with our Exec. VP/COO. Nothing big or anything, but at least I finally got to meet him, after 3 months.

And though i’m not big on politics… (A political blogger by the name of Per Gudmundson is attracting some tweeters to follow my www.Twitter.com/gudmundson account.. Sorry Per)… I am trying to keep my professional to personal postings even. I suppose you can classify this as a strong personal post. I mean come on, look at it’s title.

Any ways, in the life of Ryan, I’ve been aquiring some old friends on Facebook, and new, so if you see me, drop a line and say hi. I know I’m not too interesting or anything, but I’ll make a conscience effort. Heh. Andrea’s been busy with BEGIN classes SEI and everything else revolving around her job, and I can see it’s a little draining for her at times. It’s also a little frustrating for me since she’s always gone.. well not always but last Saturday was pretty uneventful.

This weekend should be fun though since we get Monday off! Yippee! Of course I don’t need a 3-day vacation but whenever it comes around, it’s a nice little time off. I guess I’m lazy.

Peace

AdCenter Brings a Time Machine to Fruition

Ryan    Uncategorized     AdCenter, Paid Search

Opening up my AdCenter account today, I was pleasantly surprised to find some custom date range setting options. Yippee! Bring out the champagne! Honestly, isn’t it like years overdue?

Any ways, why is this such a big deal to me? If you or I wanted to make any kind of trend analysis, cost analysis, forecasting, or anything similar.. custom date ranges would be probably one of your most frequented clicks. Although I am probably preaching to the choir here, I think we can all agree that having that little extra filtering is huge. Especially now when we’re trying to optimize campaigns with the resources we are given.

But while you might not be spending the money you are in say AdWords or Yahoo! Sponsored Search, AdCenter is right up there… to some degree. That being said, what kind of search distribution do you see for your own personal marketing efforts. Yeah, I know there are the overall search statistics, percentages, and market share, but how does that differ with your own information. Industry standards, audience, type of webpage… you should definitely see some variances in SERP referrals based on who you are and what you do.

Care to comment?

Peace

Web Usability and the Relevance to Lead Conversion

Ryan    Uncategorized     Landing Pages, Lead Conversion, Organic Search, Paid Search, Usability

So after a few days of trying to figure out how some of my leads were leaking through the pipes into other systems, I’ve discovered that there are many flaws within our own particular system. In our industry, or any industry for that matter, we deal with web usability on a daily basis.

What do people see first, or what are their eyes attracted to? Are there relevant links/phone numbers/addresses/email addresses there?

In my case, it was a combination of faulty landing pages, bad usability (which might take a while to get fixed), no call tracking, as well as wrong conversions pixels.. ugh. While it’s nothing urgent, a failure to see these kinda dinky mistakes can be irritating to someone who isn’t really looking… its just an issue. That doesn’t mean these people are outta the loop though. When you have a system that is working, and you have multiple account across multiple campaigns, across multiple partners, you’re gunna miss something. The thing is, if its as close to home as your own homepage.. that could be affecting everything all together, the fix could flip your world upside down. Let’s hope it’s not too huge of a 180 (ie. a 360.. but then again I guess that would be fine… I dunno).

That being said, what do I personally have to say about it? … Well,

When creating SEO campaigns, PPC campaigns, or whatever else you’re doing, make sure and create clear and simple navigation routes to your converting actions. Remember your click rules of thumb and sitemap strategies. If you have phone numbers, make them different across different campaigns, or accounts. Maybe even using call tracking to monitor just exactly the number of people coming through. Sounds like heaven to me.

Also make sure your landing pages are clear enough and inviting enough for people to want to convert. Yet… have options for other conversions as well. A landing page with a web form as well as a tracked phone number is a great asset when dealing with hundreds of people going in and out of a simple PPC campaign.

Organically, let loose in devising SEO conversion goals. SERP wise, you never know why someone is going to use your site, so give them options, but make sure you can see it. That way, later on, you’re not trying to figure out why your numbers are wrong.

Any other ideas?

Peace

Elliott's Blog Up and Running

Ryan    Uncategorized     elliottlemenager.com

Yesterday Elliott just released his new Social Media blog at elliottlemenager.com! Check it out when you’ve got the time… going to be some great stuff in the social arena coming soon.

With that said and done, I just wanted reinforce his personal “About Me” page with my own follow up. You can check it out at my updated “About” page. It’s not long or drawn out or anything.. just an update. I don’t mean to bore you, ever!

Peace

Overwhelmed, but Looking for Conferences

Ryan    Uncategorized     Conferences, Organic Search, Paid Search, SMX

After my meeting with Christel today, all I can really say is.. Holy Crap. With Keith gone, and everyone else picking up some of the slack all around… with the added bonus that this is the beginning of the year, we’ve just recently are making some structural changes, and so on and so forth, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed. A lot.

As my job description has increased by maybe 4 or 5 paragraphs, I think I really need to take a minute or two to revaluate where I am at professional, what I think I can do, and what I’m going to have to step up to do. It’s not all too hard stuff, but the more I dig down into the system, the more I’m realizing that there are quite a few flaws that need eleviating. Quite a few. I’m all about a good challenge though. As long as I can keep my head above the water, feet moving, arms wailing, I might just come out of this alive, and when I do, I’ll be well on shore with more than just a paddle. Oh the imagery and dreamlike helplessness.

That being said, another task I have at hand is looking for some good SEO, PPC, Social Media, or just any kind of Online Marketing Conferences out there. Know of any? I’ve seen a lot of sites out there for SMX… and it’s many dates, but was just wondering if there are others. Any ways, as the week winds down, I’ll be doing a little bit more research. Just thought I’d plant it out there. It’s about time to start thinking about going home though.

Peace

Integration, Linking, It's a Hybrid SEO Thing

Ryan    Uncategorized     RyanJin.me

So, not that I want more people reading the tid bits of dumb information and status updates I use for RyanJin.me, I’ve stuck the URL on my Twitter profile. It’s a scary thing for me. Why? I’m not sure. It shouldn’t scare me, it just opens me up to more scrutiny I guess. Mostly personal though… I tend to keep my professional postings rich in personality and dumbness.. I’m not an expert in anything.

That being said, I think adding links is good I suppose. And while my new revelations aren’t going to be flooding me with millions of new eyes, it is allowing more people (who like reading personal blogs… don’t kill me)… to me.

Maybe one day, it’ll make a shift towards less personal and more professional; I suppose you could say I’m in that shift right now, but I think it’s important to realize that I’m still passionate about the things that make me who I am.. nothing that pushes my own agenda. But like I said, who knows. I’m a reasonable person!

Peace