#Hashtags Come to Facebook

June 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Hashtags on Facebook

If you can’t beat them, you might as well join them, right?

I’m actually a little surprised that it took Facebook so long to jump on the hashtag wagon, but here they finally are.  We’ve been seeing hashtags on our news feeds for months, mainly as a result of people linking their tweets and Instagram pictures to Facebook.  But although they were there, they had no real functionality.  Yesterday the social network announced in a blog post that they will be adding the ability to follow conversations via hashtags:

“Every day, hundreds of millions of people use Facebook to share their thoughts on big moments happening all around them. Whether it’s talking about a favorite television show, cheering on a hometown sports team or engaging with friends during a breaking news event — people on Facebook connect with their friends about what’s taking place all over the world,” Greg Lindley, a Facebook product manager, wrote in the blog post. “To bring these conversations more to the forefront, we will be rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people and topics.”

With this said, we have to wonder how this will work due to Facebook’s privacy restrictions.  This is one area where Facebook’s hashtag use will certainly differ from Twitter’s.  Because many Facebook users have some degree of privacy restriction, there are not as many “public conversations” as there are on Twitter.  According to a Facebook spokesperson, from a privacy standpoint, hashtags will work similarly to Graph Search.  In other words, you’ll only see the comments that you’re authorized to see. So if I type a hashtag in a friends-only post, then it would only come up for my friends in a hashtag search.

The capabilities of Facebook’s new hashtag feature include searching for hashtags, clicking on hashtags that come from other services, and writing posts directly from the hashtag feed. It’s already available to about 20% of Facebook users, with the rest getting it gradually over the next few weeks.  Facebook said that it’ll be rolling out additional features, including trending hashtags, in the near future.

As an internet marketer, I have to wonder where Facebook is going with hashtags.  They’re certainly not just adding them for the sake of keeping up with Twitter and Instagram for fun, so how are they going to use it to leverage advertising?  Facebook already uses what we “like” to serve us tailored ads, and now with the hashtag they will have even more insight on what we’re interested in at the moment.  Facebook is not yet making any money off of hashtags, but with every shareholder’s eyes on Mark Zuckerberg, I’m sure that will change pretty quickly.

Many marketers seem to agree that best part about Facebook hashtags is that it takes something marketers are already using, and magnifies it greatly by utilizing Facebook’s huge user base.  Campaigns can now flourish across multiple social networks, Facebook included, which is huge.

There are also some risks to hashtags on Facebook that marketers must consider.  Marketing Land’s Greg Finn suggests that Facebook hashtags are “anti-Facebook Page,” as in they could dilute a company’s real Facebook presence.

“Facebook’s brand pages are rich, robust and can act like a website for many,” he writes. “When you head to a specific topic page (like the NBA) fan discussions can be seen. Unlike Twitter, conversations and reactions can be viewed on a specific page. Now users will be required to utilize both hashtags and tagging to tie in brands. Instead of bringing in brands and pages, the conversations will be on separate hashtag streams.”

Finn also points out that hashtags on Facebook will likely be dominated by brands rather than users, which could weaken the appeal to the users these brands are trying to reach.  As I mentioned before, many Facebook users have private profiles, whereas brands are public.  Due to the privacy restrictions of many users, a very brand-heavy balance in a lot of hashtags on Facebook could be created.

Just as with Twitter, marketers must be careful when creating Facebook campaigns centered on hashtags, as they can easily be hijacked.  Who remembers McDonalds’ hashtag nightmare last year, #McStories?  If you didn’t catch that one, I’m sure you can use your imagination to guess the dirty directions that campaign went.

How do you think Facebook hashtags will change internet marketing?  Let us know in a comment.

 

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Project Glass Update

June 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Exciting stuff!

Darin just got a Twitter message that his Google Glass is now ready! He will be able to buy it within the next two weeks and find out where he must travel to pick it up!

Darin Google Glass

Filed Under: Google, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Algorithm Updates vs. Data Refreshes

June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Google launched the latest major update to their search algorithm on May 22.  This update is actually the fourth Penguin-related change that Google has rolled out, but since it’s an update to the algorithm rather than just a data refresh, they called it Penguin 2.0 rather than Penguin 4.

In addition to rolling out the Penguin 2.0 update, Google’s Matt Cutts has also mentioned plans to provide relief for sites that have been impacted by the Panda update.  With all of the changes Google has been implementing recently, I figured that now is a great time to remind everyone of how algorithm updates differ from data refreshes. In a video released earlier this week about misconceptions in the SEO industry, Matt touched on the subject, suggesting that many webmasters get the two confused.

“When you’re changing your algorithm, the signals that you’re using and how you weight those signals are fundamentally changing,” Matt said. “When you are doing just a data refresh then the way that you run the computer program stays the same, but you might have different incoming data, you might refresh the data that the algorithm is using. That’s something that a lot of people just don’t seem to necessarily get.”

Google frequently updates its algorithm, and sometimes these updates have major effects on a lot of sites.  In a blog post that dates way back to 2006, Matt summarizes an algorithm update as the following:

Typically yields changes in the search results on the larger end of the spectrum. Algorithms can change at any time, but noticeable changes tend to be less frequent.

He summarizes a data refresh as this:

When data is refreshed within an existing algorithm. Changes are typically toward the less-impactful end of the spectrum, and are often so small that people don’t even notice. One of the smallest types of data refreshes is an index update, when new indexing data is pushed out to data centers.

Data refreshes happen more often than major algorithm updates. Matt uses a car metaphor to show the difference between the two.  He compares an algorithm to changing a part in the car, whereas a data refresh is more like changing the gas.  I don’t know about you, but I pump gas a lot more than I change out my car’s parts.  Data refreshes happen all the time, he says.

Google’s overall goal when updating an algorithm or refreshing data is to make the site better for users, whether it’s by eliminating web spam or low value web pages and by providing more relevant results.  I think it’s safe to say that these changes are not going anywhere, as I doubt Google is about to get lazy on their mission.  As a search marketer I’m just glad that they often provide a heads-up on what to expect and give tips on how to protect your site or help it recover after it’s been affected.  As long as webmasters and search marketing professionals play by Google’s rules, their site has a much better chance of surviving the devastation of the updates and refreshes.

Watch the full video about misconceptions in the SEO industry here:

Filed Under: Google, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

5 Lessons LeBron James Can Teach Us About Marketing

May 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Push yourself

In order to be one of the greatest athletes in the world, one must figure out the physical limits of their body and exceed them.  There is definitely no shortage of competition in the internet marketing industry and it’s only getting harder to stand out.  Rather than looking at competition as a threat or a bad thing, it’s important to use it as motivation to push ourselves harder.

Have you ever watched LeBron’s pre-game workout routine?  In the same way that LeBron is pushing to be stronger than his competition, marketers much push themselves to exceed to continually provide the best service and technology in the industry.  Whether you work in an office or an arena, beating your competition takes hard work and dedication.

 

Keep your cool in every situation

As many basketball fans know, LeBron’s mother, Gloria, can be a handful.  During a game, she once tried attacking Paul Pierce from her courtside seat after he fouled her son.  LeBron told her to sit down and went on to win the game.

Through it all, no matter how awkward things get, LeBron keeps his cool and doesn’t let tension affect his game.  Despite the Paul Pierce altercation, the King still finished that game with 21 points, 13 assists, 6 rebounds, a crucial 3-pointer and a dunk to give Cleveland a 9-point lead with 1:45 remaining.

With the constant change in the marketing industry, it’s easy to sweat the small stuff and turn a simple misunderstanding into something that ends up making you look bad or terminating a relationship.  By watching LeBron, we can learn to cool down, take a deep breath and keep it moving.

 

It’s hard to succeed all by yourself— surround yourself with a great team

LeBron was an all-star player in Cleveland, but he knew he wasn’t going to win a championship without some real help.

No matter how great you are, it’s very hard to succeed in the marketing industry alone. Surround yourself with other great talent and together you guys can achieve a lot more.

 

Learn from the best

Every successful person has someone that they look up to and learn from.  While LeBron undoubtedly looks up to basketball greats, it’s his unique relationship with Jay Z that stands out to me.  The two have been friends for years, and it’s safe to say that Jay has served as a mentor to LeBron.  He has guided LeBron in using his success to branch out of basketball and think like a businessman and entrepreneur.  As a result, LeBron surpassed Kobe Bryant this year as the highest paid basketball player in the world with earnings of $56.5 million.  Moral of the story- If you want to set out to be the best, make sure that you are leaning from the best.

 

Have a thick skin and keep on going

Despite being one of the best, LeBron has been ranked one of the most disliked and scrutinized athletes in the world.  People have picked on him about everything from being a traitor to not winning a title for 9 years to his hairline.

As marketers, we understand that clients all have different personalities, needs and demands and we must strive to make them happy.  But even when you’re really good at what you do, it’s impossible to make every single person happy all of the time, and some people will turn on you the minute something doesn’t go their way.  In times like this, it’s important to remember to have a thick skin, don’t take things personally and keep on moving forward.

After LeBron left Cleveland, people called him names and made fun of him, and what did he do?  He kept going and became a champion.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Search and Destroy Report: Yahoo! Ain’t Shit

May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I know I’ve been away long enough for y’all to wonder if the post I made before was going to be a one-off. Well, rejoice–I have plenty of more material in my ongoing quest to expose the whole search world. Since we discussed Google’s successful attempts at mind control last time, I figure it’s about time to talk about Yahoo. Darin wanted me to remind everyone that the opinions expressed in this feature are not necessarily those of Darin, and should not be taken as an endorsement, etc etc insert legalese here. Let’s get down to it, shall we?

**Edit: Since this post was written before the announcement of Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr, I didn’t have the chance to comment on it before it came out. But you can see what the lovely Casey Kurlander has to say about it here and what I have to say about it at the end**

 

A lot of us in the industry can remember a time when Yahoo was the biggest name in the game—before the rise of the Evil Empire Google and the Pretender to the Throne, Bing. At one point, in fact, Yahoo was THE search service. Sure you could go to Ask, or one of those other search sites, but they wouldn’t give you what you wanted.

And then there were the services: Yahoo! Mail. News. Chat. Weather. You could, in theory, accomplish 75% of what you needed the internet for back then without ever leaving Yahoo and that was a powerful model at the time. But then the internet grew. And grew. And the model that Yahoo held onto—the “portal” model that so many search services of the time were rushing to build on—turned to shit in their hands. But more on that later.

There are some people who have said that Yahoo is making a distinct comeback in search. Some have even pointed to the fact that Yahoo has held on to a certain percentage of search all along—not a huge one, mind you, but certainly something, blah blah blah. Most commonly cited research places their market share somewhere in the territory of 14%. But boys and girls, today I’m here to tell you: Yahoo ain’t shit.

The biggest non-secret is that if you do a little digging, you’ll find out that proper Yahoo traffic is in the single digits, a tiny little sliver of the search pie. A serving your constantly dieting sister-in-law would even tell you is too small. Based on actual traffic and actual usage, Yahoo only got about 6-7% of the market for search in 2012.

The problem is that Yahoo has no idea what to do with itself. It’s constantly a day late and a dollar short. Seriously—let’s take a look at their strategic history:

Back in 1998, Yahoo! had the opportunity to license and/or buy Revenue Loop, a new technology for sorting shopping-based search results similar to the algorithm that Google would go on to use for its ad service. Paul Graham of all people, who met with Yahoo to sell them on the tech, commented later that Jerry Yang didn’t even seem interested in the new tech; in an essay about Yahoo’s decline, Graham commented, “The reason Yahoo didn’t care about a technique that extracted the full value of traffic was that advertisers were already overpaying for it…Hard as it is to believe now, the big money then was in banner ads. Advertisers were willing to pay ridiculous amounts for banner ads.” Yahoo would stick stupidly to its banner ads model until it was already too late.

There was also that debacle with Yahoo Paid Inclusion. After years of running what basically amounted to a fucking Ponzi scheme (Hey SEC…), Yahoo launched a program that gave commercial websites guaranteed listings on the SERP after payment. The scheme was—of course—lucrative for Yahoo but it was not terribly popular either among marketers or users. So Yahoo had to do an about-face and just provide those who were actually willing to pay for the service with more frequent site crawls and providing statistics. Seriously, guys. Companies bought into the program on the basis that Yahoo would just feature their site, with no notation that it was advertising—stacking the deck, basically—and got screwed out of it. I wonder if Yahoo gave them a t-shirt.

And before any of you get on me about “Yeah, well… Bing,” I got something to say about that too. When Bing and Yahoo made their historic agreement, one of the provisions was that Microsoft was going to provide a guarantee: if Yahoo’s Revenue Per Search did not match up to an agreed-upon amount (closing the gap with what Google earns per search versus what Yahoo was earning per search at the time), Bing would make payments to Yahoo to balance the shortfall. Guess what. Yahoo’s revenue per search (RPS) has not, since the agreement started, EVER reached that goal. The provision keeps having to be renewed; Microsoft keeps having to pay Yahoo money. And here’s the real shitty part of that: by the time Yahoo is able to contractually get out of the agreement—sometime in 2014, when the five-year mark arrives—they will have spent five years NOT working on search and have to start from scratch or get themselves bought up by some other company. Because it’s not bad enough that Yahoo is the only search engine that has consistently LOST traffic in the last year or so—they’ll be the only search engine that doesn’t ACTUALLY HAVE A SEARCH ENGINE.

Then consider too that just… fuck, every time you turn around Yahoo has a new CEO. Now people want to bitch about Marissa Meyer cutting back on work-from-home and taking an active role in the hiring process. You know what? The smartest thing Yahoo has ever done is hire an ex-Google exec. And Meyer’s probably involved in the hiring process because Yahoo has quite enough idiots already working there. So stop giving Meyer such a hard time. It’s got to be tough being surrounded by folks who think taking 3 years to make algorithmic search happen is a fine timeframe.