| LED Digest 2480: Wal-Mart Gets Facebooked |
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================================================== 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 28, 2007 Issue no. 2480 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Wal-Mart Gets Skewered on Facebook --== Do Photos Improve Credibility? ==-- ~ Carol Moore "[We're wondering] whether photos of the owners increase the conversion rate...?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Recommended Web Awards? ==-- ~ Kythera Ann "...web awards (primarily rated ones) can really help [with] traffic." --== Who's Editing the Wikipedia ==-- ~ Elliot Borin "If ignorance is bliss, Wikipedia is rapture." ~ Veronica Yuill "Please check your facts (in wikipedia??) before posting ;-) ..." ~ Ron Coble "[Wikipedia] has become nothing more than a devolving forum." ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> Recently I wrote about Wal-Mart's foray into social media with a Facebook "design a dorm" group (LED Digest 2469 http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1880/190/ ). I wrote about why it was a mistake for Wal-Mart to do this, and how clueless it made them look. I predicted the group would be overtaken by people slamming Wal-Mart. Quoting from those comments: ------------------------- "One of the assumptions you make when you launch a Facebook group is that the community will do the driving. No matter how careful and strategic the messaging is by any company engaging this network, in the end it's the users who populate and thus define a group. In other words, Wal-Mart is opening themselves up to public criticism on Facebook." ------------------------- In effect, Wal-Mart has created a platform with which people can skewer them, with the added bonus that it's hosted on a third-party social site with huge leverage and reach, a young hip audience, and a lot of media coverage of late. Well, I was right. It's being reported now - Facebook users are destroying Wal-Mart on their page, and have overtaken the group. I think Wal-Mart should have hired someone versed in online communities before launching this campaign; it just makes them look foolish and shortsighted. But the real question is, what can they do now? There's a huge opportunity here. Wal-Mart must become part of the conversation and enter the discussion. Market how they used Facebook to get in touch with a younger audience and redefine their brand image and customer relationship. PR it in full glory. Use your haters to springboard a new brand extension targeting those very users. As I wrote earlier this month: ------------------------- "In a sense this is good for Wal-Mart because they must address this type of criticism if they're going to enter the demographic they're targeting here (college kids). So the key is what they do with that challenge: they've created a group for discussions to happen, now they have to work on company transparency in addressing the complaints and criticisms launched at them. ------------------------- Coverage is here: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article... A discussion is here: http://slashdot.org/articles/07/08/26/176253.shtml -Adam --------------- From: Carol Moore Subject: Do Photos Improve Credibility? Since our web site www.quovadis.ie went live, our traffic is steadily increasing. However the level of web site enquiries is not increasing, despite having what I think is a good "contact us" form (Thanks Steve) and a regularly updated blog. We provide professional career guidance services so our personal approach is probably what matters most to potential clients. It's been mentioned the lack of a photo of us on the web site is part of the problem. Do fellow LED'ers have any views on whether photos of the owners increase the conversion rate of contacts to site visitors? Or is there another issue we're missing ? I enjoy reading the LED, as a non techy I've learned a lot. Looking forward to opinions Carol Moore Partner Quo Vadis Solutions www.quovadis.ie ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Kythera Ann Subject: Web Awards > I'm not really too sure what [web awards] > do for you... - Frank Zipperer, LED Digest 2478 > Nothing. Except provide a link off your site. > Your visitors don't give a toss about web awards. > They only care if you can solve their problem > or fulfil their need. - Steve Pronger, LED Digest 2479 I disagree, perhaps that is true if a visitor is looking for a specific product or service, but there are a lot of sites that deal with other things and web awards (primarily rated ones) can really help their traffic. I specialize in building small independent, eclectic web sites. The majority of my customers are artists and authors with a smattering of other self employed home type businesses such as catteries, catering services, counselors, etc. These people do not have advertising budgets to buy keywords, etc. Yet I consistently get their sites to rank high in their subject areas, how? Awesome title tag, complete meta tags, key word rich content with lots of pages, outstanding graphics and items such as jigsaw puzzles to do on line (great for artists sites) or down loadable free screen savers (great for catteries, author subjects, etc), no flash, no frames, no css, just plain but totally compliant HTML that is cross browser capable and shows on all resolution monitors and is seeing impaired navigable. The above is basic, but I add to that, if the client is willing to invest in my time, the energy it takes to create an award winning web site. Why? - Making the client feel good to get awards and accolades thus psychologically making them feel the $ paid and the effort they made to have a web site is well worth it (with the sites I do, direct sales is not an easily definable measurement, usually). - If the site has an inherently weak element (not enough content, poor navigation, not enough copyright notes, consistent fresh content, etc) going for rated award site ranking will immediately tell the client about that. Sometimes clients will not completely listen to a web designer about such things. The items reviewed by ranked web award reviewers say why a site didn't win a top award and that is usually enough to get the client motivated to allow the web designer to change things. On the other hand, if a small business person is building their own site, it is an AWESOME way to have others objectively review one's work and learn what they need to do to make the site better. - Yes, it gives a site incoming contextual links. A wonderful thing for the "little guy." - Magazine web site reviewers, such as /Salon/, often cull rated award winners for interesting sites to write about. - There are people out there (honest) who like to surf rated award winning web sites. Those people also recommend cool sites to other people, etc. Yes, this is a much more, word of mouth approach and time consuming, but it reaps awards also. For the low budget client it is a great tool. Kind Regards, Kythera Ann ============ Sponsor Message =========== 2007 Is Aging Fast, So Is Your Content! Remember when search bots visited every four or five months? Now their noses are in your tent constantly. Weekly. Maybe even daily. What's a webmaster to do? Give 'em what they want! Fresh copy. Great copy. Relevant copy. http://www.GetWebContent.com/LED copy. ============ Sponsor Message =========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Elliot Borin Subject: Wikipedia > Everyone knows... that Wikipedia.com is not a very > reliable source for factual information... - Michael Linehan, LED Digest 2477 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1888/190/ If you can't do it, teach it. If you know nothing about it, Wiki it. If ignorance is bliss, Wikipedia is rapture. Elliot Borin -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Veronica Yuill Subject: Wikipedia > The problem is that Wikipedia holds itself up to a repository > of solid-as-steel fact. And they hold up anonymous editing > to be the most wonderful way to guarantee accuracy. - Michael Linehan, LED Digest 2479 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1890/190/ Not true. Please check your facts (in wikipedia??) before posting ;-) This is an interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:10_things_you_did... Particularly this paragraph: ------------------------- "We do not expect you to trust us. "It is in the nature of an ever-changing work like Wikipedia that, while some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are admittedly complete rubbish. We are fully aware of this. We work hard to keep the ratio of the greatest to the worst as high as possible, of course, and to find helpful ways to tell you what state an article is currently in. Even at its best, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a primary source, with all the limitations it entails. We ask you not to condemn Wikipedia, but to use it with an informed understanding of what it represents. Also, as some articles may contain errors, please do not use Wikipedia to make important decisions." ------------------------- Michael also wrote: > We can hope that Wikipedia... will at least be viewed not > as the ultimate place to find truth but as a possible *starting > point* for research - that is then followed up in more > rigorously checked sources. I think those of us who defended Wikipedia all mentioned that you should not use it as your sole source of information. I wouldn't use any encyclopedia, even a conventionally published one, as a sole source for any respectable piece of research. Veronica Yuill http://www.larecettedujour.org -------- new post - same topic -------- From: RonCoble Subject: Wikipedia Here is another story about Wikipedia in Search Engine Watch: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070822-154136 As you will see the article states "187,529 different organizations have made at least one anonymous Wikipedia edit". By the original intent of Wikipedia, it may have been a good idea, but clearly rather than being an online encyclopedia it has become nothing more than a devolving forum. An encyclopedia is "supposed" to be "facts", not the mindsets of hundred's of thousand individual ideas of what they "each" believe is fact. Amy stated in a previous edition of LED: > How accurate can a printed encyclopedia or text > book or other 'factual' book be if it is edited by white, > male, Protestant, middle / upper class people? - Amy D. Moore, LED Digest 2478 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1889/190/ I would also like to ask if she ever investigated the gender make up, financial status, race and religious background of the employee editors of the printing companies who make the printed editions of encyclopedia's and text books "commercially viable?" Sorry, your bias is showing through as were most of the articles about the Wikiscanner having the evil corporations listed as being the top offenders in making anonymous edits. Wiki might be a good social gathering place for people to express their opinions and their individual conclusions of what is fact (i.e., forum) but to refer to it as a reliable resource is simply not something we should be promoting. Ron Coble Coble International - International Marketing Services http://www.ImportExportHelp.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by: GetWebContent.com The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. 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