An RSS feed is merely an XML file that you host on your Web server — it kind of looks like HTML code. But don’t let its simplicity fool you; in the hands of a sophisticated marketer, the potential applications for RSS are huge.
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Blogging is one of the hottest trends on the net. A blog (short for “web log”) is a web-based diary where the author can ruminate on whatever strikes his or her fancy. The blogger may share photos, poetry, political views, gossip, industry trends, business advice, or the latest on their personal life. By definition, blogs are organized in reverse chronological order. Many are updated daily. They can have one or multiple authors, such as a community blog.
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DMA Annual Conference — Atlanta, GA
Is something missing in your marketing mix? New channels are opening doors to the increasingly, tech-savvy consumer. RSS feeds and alerts, blogging, mobile communications and “mapping and monitoring” online conversations are among the newest marketing tools available.
Moderators:
Stephan Spencer, Founder & President, Netconcepts
Marc Tramonte, Director of Integrated Marketing, Microsoft Corporation
Panelists:
Royal Farros, Chairman and CEO, MessageCast
Gard Gibson, Account Group Director,VML Inc.
Mark Goldstein, CEO, Loyalty Lab Inc.
Mark Grindeland, Co-founder, m-Qube
Dana Vandenheuvel, Director of Business Development, Pheedo
Debbie Weil, President, WordBiz
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“When done well, a blog can help establish a reputation for thought leadership and provides a human face for your customers,” said Netconcepts president Stephan Spencer in an interview with the Dominion Post. “People like doing business with people, not companies.”
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I love Google as much as the next person, but their official blog just doesn’t do it for me. The “voice” just does not seem real, or anything I can relate to. It feels scrubbed by the PR department; I might even go so far as to say it comes off as a mouthpiece of the PR department. I don’t get that feeling from Google engineer Matt Cutts’ blog. The official blog, however, has its face to the company, and consequently its butt to the reader. That’s just a gut feeling I get reading their blog, but the specifics of what bother me I found harder to put my finger on… until now.
I’m not telling you anything new when I say that business bloggers who are overly self congratulatory or self promotional are anathema to the blogosphere. But where do you draw the line? When is it too much? In trying to quantify what bothers me about the Google blog, I came up with what I believe is a quantifiable “sniff test” to ascertain if a blog is too narcissistic or inward-facing: it involves “keyword density.” Keyword density is simply the ratio of a particular word to the the total number of words in a page (or in this case, in a post). Read on, to learn how you can apply this test to your or others’ blogs.
As an SEO (search engine optimizer), I scoff when I hear the words
“keyword density”. Calculating and fine-tuning a page’s keyword density
in order to appear higher in the search results is a fool’s errand.
Yet, I think I’ve finally found a valid application for a keyword
density calculator, and it has nothing to do with SEO. Here’s what you do…
Add up the number of occurrences of “we”, “us”, “our”, and your company name in the blog post. Do the same with “you” and “your”. Calculate the
ratio of these two numbers. And calculate the keyword density for both.
What about “I” and “me”, and “my”? I’ve intentionally not counted them, because I recognize that the blogger needs to claim their thoughts and opinions as their own. It’s the faceless self-important corporate voice that really bugs me the most. And that’s what this sniff test ferrets out.
Let’s work through an example. Take for instance this post from the Official Google Blog:
Compare that with this randomly-selected post from the Yahoo! Search Blog:
In this very small sample set, Yahoo’s blog seems to talk to the reader
much more effectively. Not to mention their blog supports reader
comments, unlike the Google blog.
Now to make this more scientifically valid, we just need an automated
tool that analyzes all of the posts from both Y!’s and Goog’s blogs to
compare. That’d be a nifty little tool if it existed. Perhaps I’ll get
someone here at Netconcepts to code it…
– Stephan
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Ann Meyer, author for Multichannel Merchant, discusses the power of natural search over paid search listings. This article goes on to mention the importance of proper keyword usage and the need for scaleable optimization techniques.
Included in this article are quotes from Netconcepts’ VP of Client Services, Jody Hartwig. Jody shares her views on natural search and the best practices needed to succeed in today’s market.
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Leveraging Technology in Marketing — Auckland, NZ
RSS is poised to revolutionise Internet-based content delivery. With it, you can syndicate your latest and greatest content to other websites. And simultaneously you can deliver that same content directly to your subscribers’ desktops, completely avoiding their spam filters.
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You may already be familiar with the concept of character blogging, where the blog is actually a fictitious charcter, such as a cartoon character from a cereal box, or a doll perhaps.
I think an interesting twist to this concept would be to have an historical character blogging from the past, as if it were the present day. I think American Girl, with their dolls from various historical periods would make for excellent character bloggers.
As a step in that direction, American Girl has recently launched a Felicity Blog. Felicity is a doll set in the time of the American Revolution. I think it would be a great idea for Felicity and the other dolls to be speaking to girls from the past.
American Girl is done a little bit differently though than a character blog. One of their editors poses questions Felicity faces, and also deals with themes/issues that are relevant to girls today, and asks girls to say what they think Felicity should do.
This Felicity blog doesn’t really give the impression of a character blog, but it is certainly very successful in soliciting comments from readers, with over 250 comments for their first blog post. That is really impressive!
Maybe there are some lessons here to be learned for business bloggers in how to engage with their community of consumers as successfully as American Girl seems to do.
(DISCLOSURE: American Girl is a client of ours.)
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Shop.org Annual Summit — Las Vegas, NV
See the results of actual trials and implementations of alternative marketing techniques used to drive online sales. Learn how online retailers eHobbies.com, Ice.com, and Steve Spangler Science have utilized alternative marketing tactics such as blogs and RSS feeds to expand their marketing reach and build customer loyalty. Panelists will share tips on executing a successful campaign, implementation costs, and how to measure the impact of these new marketing tactics. A must-attend session for retailers looking for alternatives to increasingly expensive online marketing tactics such as SEM. Retailers looking for alternatives to increasingly expensive online marketing tactics such as SEM must attend this session.
Moderator:
Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts
Speakers:
Pinny Gniwisch, EVP Marketing, Ice.com
Seth Greenberg, CEO, eHobbies
Steve Spangler, SteveSpanglerScience.com
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Our client Steve Spangler is quite the renaissance man. In addition to being the CEO of a catalog company, he is also a toy inventor, an Emmy award winning television personality, a magician, an educator and a certified professional speaker. Just the sort of person you’d want blogging and podcasting.
The audio podcasts featured on Steve’s blog are targeted towards science teachers and include interviews with leading educators and monologues from Steve with helpful teaching tips. The video podcasts, targeted towards both teachers and parents, are some of the most amazing experiments you have ever seen. From exploding pumpkins to flying potatoes and erupting soda bottles, each episode is a hoot!
Functionality on the blog includes email subscriptions to posts and comments, buttons for readers to submit the post to Digg or del.icio.us, tag clouds and tag pages, RSS feeds, a audio podcast player built right into the blog, and more. Read the case study to learn more about this project and some of the results, including the fact that over 13% of their online sales can be attributed to Steve’s blog. The company’s products, which include science toys and experiment kits, are worked into the blog in a very soft sell way, so the blog doesn’t seem like a shill for the ecommerce shop.
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Visit The Site: Steve Spangler Science
For Further Reading: Testimonial, Case Study and Steve Spangler Portfolio
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HEADQUARTERS
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Madison, WI 53718 USA
Phone: (608) 285-6600
Toll-free: 888 207-1109
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Auckland, New Zealand
Phone: (+64) 9 476-4601
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