| LED Digest 2470: Wal-Mart's Stupid Brilliance |
|
|
|
================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. August 14, 2007 Issue no. 2470 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Marketing on Facebook ==-- ~ Andrew Bourland "...individual marketers are building their personal brands through Facebook." ~ Eric Ward "Brilliant. Dumb. Clueless. Clever." ~ Debra Mastaler "...both Wal-Mart and Facebook are winners here..." --== Pop-ups and Pop-unders ==-- ~ Mark J. Welch "...the best argument is that it's just wrong." --== SEO and Web Standards ==-- ~ Al Toman "...the 6 bridges that I helped design some 30 years ago remain standing." --== Keyword Density ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "I never measure keyword density." <Moderator Comment> ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Andrew Bourland Subject: Facebook > Wal-Mart just launched the "Roommate Style Match" > group on Facebook, in the hopes of grabbing a larger > chunk of back-to-school shopping dollars. - Steven Birk, LED Digest 2469 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1880/190/ Hi Adam, IMHO, the Walmart attempt at marketing via Facebook is doomed to fail, primarily because Facebookers will not take to Walmart, no matter how you try to dress that pig. And when they do, that is no reflection on Facebook as a marketing medium. If Apple got in there with groups for iPhone owners or MacBook owners or online video specialists, they would rule the roost. So it all boils down to who is doing the marketing and how much in sync they are with that audience. What's more interesting to me is how individual marketers are building their personal brands through Facebook. Take Robert Scoble (http://www.scobleizer.com) for example. In a recent video he did exclusively for his "friends" on Facebook, he revealed he had 4500 FB "friends" who he regularly communicates with via video and blog. He spoke of how he spent time going through the profiles of his friends, getting a read on their interests, their professions, their affiliations, etc, and spoke of how he could potentially review that information with sponsors, giving them a far better insight into the market they would be reaching by sponsoring Scoble's Facebook videos. You in particular are posting daily editions of LED-Digest on your page, which is a great way to get the message out about this fine group. You have also set up an LED Digest group [ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3478110537 ], which could take LED to a whole different level in its ability to facilitate high quality networking amongst its members. I would encourage all LED'ers to join Facebook and join the LED group, making each other your friend, building out your own personal marketing network through but not dependent upon LED. For that matter, if you're on FB, don't hesitate to make me your friend as well! ;-) Great topic, Adam.... I hope we can keep this conversation going. Andrew Bourland http://www.bourland.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Eric Ward Subject: Facebook What Wal-Mart is trying to do on Facebook is so unbelievably stupid it ends up being brilliant. The value is not in the roommate product recos ($300 HiDef TV? Huh? That's a lot of beer) The value is in the publicity Wal Mart ends up getting for trying it at all. Wal-Mart has enough money to be clumsy in a facebook world and survive it, even benefit from that clumsiness via the mainstream media's coverage of the whole thing. For me this is the web 2.0 version of corporate cluelessness that succeeds in spite of itself. It's far more challenging for a small company with no money to have a social media strategy, and in the end, far more interesting to learn from. :) Once upon a time Volkswagen's lawyers asked me to contact the owners of all the Beetle fan sites and tell them they were using copyrighted VW images and to stop it. I laughed so hard I think I offended them. The Wal-Mart facebook thing is the same type of cluelessness in reverse. Hopefully Wal mart lawyers wont try to get those comments censored or removed. I'd have more respect for WM if they let the facebook crowd rant away... And the Wal-Mart facebook rant section here http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=2784351093... would then become inadvertent linkbait. Brilliant. Dumb. Clueless. Clever. It's all of those. Eric Ward http://www.ericward.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Debra Mastaler Subject: Facebook Smart on Wal-Marts part. In the beginning this community was only open to college students and administrators with an .edu email / URL so it's core is exactly the demographic Wal-Mart or anyone pedaling back-to-school ware wants. I'd go after them too if that's what I sold. > Wal-Mart must address this type of criticism if they're going to > enter the demographic they're targeting here (college kids)... - Adam Audette, LED Digest 2469 I think it's pretty smart of Wal-Mart to tap into an established base and market from there, the cost is far less than starting a 'facebook' on their own even if they know they'll take some heat. And they know, it's nothing new, controversy follows them everywhere they go. And that's probably exactly why they didn't start their own community. It's highly doubtful that college students would be part of a Wal-Mart forum if for no other reason than it's not cool. In addition, when Wal-Mart launched on Facebook they didn't stick to the traditional "back to school" sales message or items, instead they developed a neat little tool that let's you design your dorm room and focused on household items to fill it. Another 'smart' because if they had focused only on selling traditional school supplies they'd be targeting the wrong demographic since parents pay not students and that type of shopping is traditionally done offline. > Facebook allows absolutely anyone the ability to leverage > it for marketing purposes... Is Wal-Mart prepared for marketing > on Facebook? It remains to be seen. IMO, both Wal-Mart and Facebook are winners here, Wal-Mart gets to market into an exact demographic and Facebook gets maximum exposure at no cost through media coverage and word of mouth just by being the host vehicle for Wal-Mart's reputation. Which some people love as much as hate! Debra Mastaler http://thelinkspiel.blogspot.com/ ============ Sponsor Message =========== Will the real King please stand up? Sit down Content, you're no King. You're pictures, logos, imagery ... all kinds of stuff Google and the other SEs totally ignore. You, copy! Stand up! You're the Real King! You're words. You're the only page elements SE bots even look at. For the best search-engine-optimized website text in cyberspace, see the Copy Kings at www.GetWebContent.com/LED ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mark J. Welch Subject: Pop-ups & Pop-unders Brett Atkin asked for help persuading his client NOT to use pop-up or pop-under advertising. Unfortunately, pop-up and pop-under ads are used by many "important" web publishers (including the online editions of many respected newspapers and magazines). And for many advertisers, pop-up and pop-under advertising appears to work, when evaluated by nearly any standard metric: obviously there are lots of "adviews"; frequently there are respectable-looking clickthrough ratios or lead counts; and sometimes there is even a profitable conversion rate. But standard measurement tools don't reflect "negative branding effects," in which consumers associate the advertiser's brand with abusive advertising or "spam." Nor do they count the number of times that their domains get added to "block lists" by "internet security" or "internet privacy" software. It's also important to realize that many of the companies engaged in "pop-up" and "pop-under" advertising have questionable ethics that lead them to engage in other unethical or even illegal practices, including fraudulent delivery, fraudulent reporting, click fraud, and/or fake leads. Some folks report that when they bought "targeted" pop-up and pop-under advertising, they instead were "over-delivered" with non-targeted placements that resulted in a flood of complaints (and unmeasurable negative branding). Quite frankly, the best argument is that it's just wrong. Yes, some people can make money using unethical practices ("I rob banks because that's where the money is"), but it's wrong. If your client isn't persuaded by your strong argument that this practice is unethical, then they probably shouldn't be your client any longer. Mark J. Welch http://www.MarkWelch.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: web standards > First, Web standards evangelists are evangelists. - Shari Thurow, LED Digest 2463 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1874/190/ First, One thing Diablo Al ain't, is an evangelist. Maybe because it contains the word 'angel'!?! As one with a science-math-engineering background with many, many years of yucky schooling, I take the recent Minnesota bridge failure tragedy as an example of "why web standards". We all learned in this case, how definitions are as important as standards. The word 'evangelist' carries a very strict definition. However, some extend that definition to suit their purpose. The word 'deficient' when applied to the integrity of bridges carries a very strict definition. However, some extend that definition to suit their purpose, "we can wait another 10 years before allocating funds to repair the bridge". Hence, we should pay as much attention to our definitions as we do to our standards. It may save a life, in the case of bridges, or save a client some serious cash, in the case of designing a business web page (site). I noticed several replies from SEO, if you will, experts. Most all the replies were narrowly focused on search engine performance only, totally disregarding the client as a business person. Mr. Tom Aman brings up this observation in issue #2468 [ http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1879/190/ ]: > There is a better chance of a page functioning as expected > if it is compliant (although I do admit to seeing the occasional > page that is compliant and does not display as expected). Validated code does not guarantee that a page will not blow up. Validated code only defines it as obeying the law. You can obey the law and still get your fenders bended. What web standards does, ultimately, is SAVE your client tons (potentially) of cash. Here is how. A bridge is designed by a room full of designers. If each were using their own non-compliant, non-standard, free-for-all hoopla, then we'd be experiencing Minnesota failures each and every day. Thank God for standards, hey? The same applies to web pages. If I step into a web page designed by a non-compliant designer, I have to tear it apart or abandon it all together. Whereas, otherwise, the client's request may have only taken a 30 second fix. Add up the cash! If you require a business web site and diss web standards, then, personally, I question your business cents! Don't let wanna-be web designers fool with you, either. Validation, compliancy, standards, CSS, is easy, easy, easy. No extra charge. Insist upon it. Regardless, the most important question that I posed remains without answer, "how are we teaching our youngsters?" And yes, the 6 bridges that I helped design some 30 years ago remain standing. Al Toman studio9 web design -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Keyword density > I know it's a never-ending story and there's lots of debate > about it. But what do you think is the perfect keyword-density > of a webpage. And what's the maximum / minimum you'd > like to achieve? - Hein van der Honing, LED Digest 2466 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1877/190/ I never measure keyword density. To emphasize that this may be a valid approach, I am going to do something none of us usually do and use two real examples. Please excuse me if that seems inappropriate. It seems to be useful, or even necessary, right now to make the following point. First, Fiona Raven. For her primary keyphrase, book designer, she is #1 out of 78 million in Google. She has remained #1 for most of the time, through all the Google updates for the last four years, since the page returns were a "mere" 9 million. She has experienced just a few dips down to 2 or 3. For her secondary phrase, book design, she is #3 out of 564 million. Another client is a corporation. They have number 1 to 3 positions across sixteen corporate sites, for multiple phrases distinct to each site. These positions involve no measurement of keyword density, whatsoever. Not even approximately or informally. I think the best way to work with keyword density is this... If you don't have enough occurrences, neither viewers nor search engines will understand the theme of your page as you want them to. If you have too many, viewers and search engines will both evaluate it as low quality. So you obviously need something - some way of evaluating. But what exactly the numerical density should be can vary hugely, depending on surrounding text, how many similar words there are, whether you have ten or ten million competitors, whether the phrase is completely unique or utterly common, and a large number of other factors. The search engines are way past a formulaic approach where a particular numeral (or even range) can represent the correct density for all keyphrases in all industries. The best solution is to keep the reader first in your mind. Although experience can most certainly enhance one's feel for this, a good rough guide is given by, "If it's good for a human reader, it's probably good for the search engines." Works for our clients. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com <Moderator Comment> Lisa Barone wrote a great post about the "keyword density curve" in reaction to this thread that's very worthwhile. Check it out: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2007/08/understanding_t.html -Adam ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. Free no-obligation proposal: http://GetWebContent.com/LED SEOToolSet.com Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification Join the certified SEO directory: www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/189/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/187/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/201/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "He listens well who takes notes." - Dante Alighieri |
