Google's Sidewiki: The Only Thing to Fear Is...Not Much?

Proving once again that it is the Santa Claus of the Internet, Google last week announced yet another free toy: Google Sidewiki. Sidewiki is an addition to the Google Toolbar (so far only for Firefox and Internet Explorer) that allows anyone to leave comments and links on any web page anywhere on the Internet. The comments appear in a left-hand slide out that can be opened and shut either from the toolbar or by a small handle icon that appears on pages when you have the toolbar active. This video shows it in action:

This morning Sean Carton of ClikZ ruminated over the possibilities and pitfalls of Sidewiki for businesses and marketers. On the fear side, Carton asserts that this is one more giant leap toward complete loss of control by marketers over their message. That has certainly been true for some time now; do something that pisses off consumers and it will be all over social media, blogs, forums, and product review sites. Sidewiki significantly ups the ante, however, in that now those comments can appear right on your own web site, and there is nothing you can do to stop or block them. (Actually, that's not completely true. One commentor on Carton's post said that he had successfully used an SSL certificate to block Sidewiki. This has some backfire potential, however, as a Sidewiki user visiting a site so blocked may have suspicions about what the site is trying to hide.)

Two things occur to me that are not brought up in Carton's post:

1. It is not yet clear how widespread Sidewiki usage will be. How many people will actually bother to install it (and have to take on the Google Toolbar if they don't already have it)? And among those who do install it, how many will form the habit of using it and checking it regularly? I'm a Google toy addict who installed Sidewiki the moment I heard about it, but even I forget about it most of the time I'm surfing.
2. Marketers who have already gotten over the fact that you can't hide anymore--and better yet have embraced the idea--should welcome whatever community does end up using Sidewiki with open arms, viewing this as one more channel for valuable listening and interaction. Google has put in place some safeguards to try to minimize spamming and abuse (comments can be voted up and down, and there is an easy link to report abuse), but it remains to be seen how effective they will be.

Finally, here's an example of a Sidewiki post I just did. Recently my family enjoyed a wonderful weekend on Bald Head Island off the coast of North Carolina. While there I capture a number of videos of the island's gorgeous sights with my iPhone and uploaded them to YouTube. I was able to embed one of these YouTube videos (of pelicans flying over the surf) as a Sidewiki at the home page of BaldHeadIsland.com, the web site of the island's prime vacation home developer. If you have Sidewiki installed, go to BaldHeadIsland.com and view my brief video.

In fact, I love Bald Head Island and its scenic beauty so much, I'll even share my video with you if you don't want to install Sidewiki. Here you go:

TwitBlock: Best Tool Yet for Fighting Twitter Spam

It was inevitable: as fast as Twitter became the fastest-growing social media outlet, it also became a primo target for Internet spammers. Most people I know on Twitter who use it regularly have said that they've noticed a sharp uptick in the amount, persistence, and outright obnoxious-ness of Twitter-spam in the past couple of months.

It used to be that most Twitter spam was generated by over-eager but (relatively) honest Internet marketers simply trying to build as large a following as possible as fast as they could by following as many people as they could, regardless of any possible real relationship with those people. The next and more annoying wave of such spam came as various robots and apps were developed that auto-followed people based on keywords they had tweeted. The latest wave has two characteristics: the pornographers/prostitutes have found Twitter, and auto-generated Twitter accounts (the ability to create dozens or even hundreds of accounts from which to launch spam attacks).

Twitter spam has reached a volume level where I've seen people quitting Twitter because of it. Until now, cleaning spammers out of your follower list was a laborious process, made horrible by the clunkiness of Twitter's following listings. But no more.

Twitblock (http://www.twitblock.org) to the rescue. TwitBlock uses a combination of several red-flag factors to evaluate any Twitter account for possible spamminess, assigning it a spam score. The higher the score, the more likely the account is a spammer. TwitBlock's simple interface gives you two key functions:

1. Right on the homepage, you can enter any individual Twitter account name to get its spam score. You can even enter your own, and then tweet your score (assuming you haven't been tagged as a spammer!)
   
2. To see the real power of TwitBlock, log in using your Twitter account. TwitBlock will scan all your followers and then display them by their spam score, worst offenders at the top.
   

You can block accounts you believe to be spam right from the TwitBlock listing with one click. TwitBlock wisely advises you to block carefully, and allows you to see the rationale behind their analysis before you decide. (TIP: right-click the analysis link and open it in a new tab or window; if you open it in the same and then go back, you have to wait for TwitBlock to rescan your list.)

A very nice feature of TwitBlock is that user blocks are figured in to the spam score. Thus you're blocking serves the whole TwitBlock community. To balance this, you can also mark any account as "not spam" (TwitBlock acknowledges that it is possible for an account to have a high spam score but not really be spam. For example, some automated Twitter services have very "bad" follow-follower ratios--because they don't need to follow back anyone--but provide a useful service.) TwitBlock claims that, so far, this system has not been "gamed," but promises they will be diligent in watching for that.

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Update on SEC's Bad Call

RE: My post yesterday "The SEC Makes One Hell of a Bad Call"

The New York Times reports today that the SEC has clarified their rule. Turns out they weren't really after Joe Bleachersitter sending his blurry phone cam picture of pinpoint-sized outfielders to his Facebook page. The real targets of their rule, they say, are the bloggers and web site owners who capture video, images, and descriptions of the games and then post them on their ad-supported or subscription-based sites. In other words, people who are making money off what the SEC and its schools seek to (exclusively) turn to profit. And it's not just the lucrative TV contracts that are at stake; they also worry about losing their monopoly on game and season highlight reels through DVD sales.

All ethical or legal considerations aside (such as whether it is right for sports leagues to maintain a monopoly over images and descriptions of their games), I'm still left wondering if the bad feeling raised by such ultimately unenforceable policies will end up being a bigger loss for the SEC than any actual dig into revenues by bloggers and fan site owners (paging the RIAA).

The SEC Makes One Hell of a Bad Call

College sports' Southeastern Conference (SEC) has probably had to overrule a few bad calls by umpires in its day. This week it was forced to overrule one of its own calls.

The conference had actually proclaimed a ban on any and all social media postings about its games by fans at the games. This meant no posting about anything happening on the field to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, wherever. The main target was uploaded video, as the SEC feared endangering its lucrative television contracts with CBS and ESPN, which forbid the producing or disseminating of "any material or information about the event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information.”

Not surprisingly, the conference is now strongly considering rescinding this ban (as reported by the Charlotte Observer), citing unfavorable media and social web attention.

This is yet another indication that although we are many years into the social web revolution, many established entities still don't get that the world has changed. Those who are winning now are organizations which have decided to join and encourage rather than attempt to ban. The simple truth is that you will be unable to stop people from talking about (and posting media from) your organization or events. What was not indicated in any of the articles I saw was how the SEC even thought it could enforce such a ludicrous policy.

By contrast, the Big 10 conference has an official social media policy that encourages fans to post from games. Social media is the true "information super-highway" of our day; it is where the buzz happens. You can't "beat it"; but if you try, it just might beat you into the ground. On the other hand, encouraging the flow is the ultimate leveraging of the old dictum "there is no such thing as bad publicity."

Another Facebook Fail for Marketing

I have previously written about "Three No-Brainers that are No-Shows on Facebook Pages for Internet Marketing." In that post I detailed some aspects of Facebook Pages that limit the feature's utility for effective social web marketing. 

Mashable's post "Facebook Needs Its Own Version of the Twitter Retweet" points out another area where Facebook lacks the viral power needed before marketers or message spreaders can consider it a serious tool for their needs: there is no way on Facebook to easily share content posted by a friend. Sure, you could copy and paste it into your own status message, but that's so 1990s. Plus even if you do that, unless you make the extra effort, there is no credit back to the original poster. Twitter's RT (ReTweet) convention (where you begin a share of someone else's content with "RT @usrname" with "usrname" being the Twitter ID of the original poster) is one of the most effective way to build interested followers. I know of many cases where present followers followed one of my accounts because of something of mine ReTweeted by one of their friends. And most Twitter clients make posting a RT a one-click process.

While Facebook may be sensitive right now to the accusations that it is trying too hard to be like Twitter, this is one function they simply can't ignore if they want to achieve their goal of being replacing Google as the center of the web universe. 

Maybe You Should NOT Use Social Media for Your Marketing

A co-worker pulled me in on a phone consultation with a client yesterday. The client wanted to know if they should be on Twitter, and my associate told them I was our "Twitter guy." 

I only got one sentence into my pitch--"Successful marketing on Twitter works best with a commitment to interacting with your customers or prospects"--when the client interrupted: "Wait a minute! Interacting with customers? That will take time. Twitter ain't for us!"

I happily left the conversation. He was so right. If he had let me continue (he immediately changed the subject), I would have advised him not to waste his time with Twitter or any other social media.

See, though I'm a huge advocate for incorporating social media into one's overall Internet marketing plan, I recognize that it's not for everyone. Those still marketing with the mindset of throwing heaps of spaghetti at the wall in the hopes that some will stick (and with little concern if any of the spaghetti stays or returns after it sticks once) should stay away from Twitter and its cousins.

I'm getting enough spam on those channels as it is. I don't need to encourage any!

Social Media and Reputation Management

Are you an ace? I don't mean you've shot down boucoups enemy planes in some WW I video game. I'm coining a new usage of "ace": to have all the first page references from a Google search of your name be your own links--or links about you--and have them all be positive. I'm an ace most of the time, except for when a certain D. C. lawyer with the same unusual name as me gets in the news. Of course, if your name is "John Smith," you'd better be the most famous John Smith in the world, or you're out of luck. Acing Google's first page is a worthy goal for any company name, trademark, or brand identity as well.

The popularity of a number of social media sites has made them valuable real estate to claim if you are concerned about what people see when they search for your name online. This may be one of the most overlooked benefits of having a widespread social web presence. Most marketers just concentrate on the possible contacts/prospects to be gained. But the tremendous "Google juice" many social media sites have can result in high rankings for your name or brand.

Obviously, the first step is to claim a profile for your name/brand on as many social media sites as you can. A great one-stop tool to accomplish this is knowem.com. But just having a profile is not enough; you need to begin to regularly post content to these sites. After doing this for a while, you should begin to see many of these site filling in the first page of Google for your name or brand. For my name, my personal blog comes up #1, followed by FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Amazon. I also created a Google Profile, which shows up at the bottom of the first page for my name.

Three No-Brainers that Are No-Shows on Facebook Pages for Internet Marketing

As a Facebook user for several years now I've become pretty numb to the hysteria that greets each new major change of the user interface. I suppose all the "1,000,000 Strong Against the New Facebook" groups gave people a cause to live for for a while. I usually try to assume the best about a new interface on a major on a major application or site, believing that there is too much at stake for the developers to put a major screw-up out live. Sure, there will always be bumps and mistakes, but for the most part I see each of Facebook's upgrades as adding value to the site.

So I was pretty excited earlier this year when Facebook announced that its Pages feature was getting a similar major overhaul. First peeks at the new Pages interface did not disappoint. Pages now worked more like personal Facebook profiles, with the Wall feed front and center. Best of all, from a marketing standpoint, Wall content would now be pushed out automatically to all fans of the page, meaning it would appear on their newsfeeds as well, increasing the chance that new potential fans would see it. Brilliant!

Well...while sitting today having my mind numbed by a "Facebook for Business" webinar I'd signed up for*, listening to the presenter get all bubbly about the positives I'd mentioned above, I found myself thinking, "Yeah, but..." every few minutes. Here are some of the Yeah Buts I've discovered about Facebook Pages:

1. The templates are way too limiting, especially in the blanks for "info." For one client I signed up for a "non-profit/charity" page. The only contact info allowed in the form was a street address and web page URL. No email address?!? Is this 1982? Wait....1982 is too contemporary; there's no place to enter a telephone number.
2. While putting the Wall front and center was a good move, there is little else you can do to the front page, other than place some apps in the left sidebar. I blessed the day I found the Notices - FBML app so I could finally post a campaign ad for the organization next to the Wall where it might actually be seen. You should be able to place customized content on your front page without having to install a third-party app.
3. This I think might be the worst: There is no benefit to your page whatsoever if someone "shares" something you posted on your Wall. Facebook seriously needs its own version of the ReTweet for its Pages. As it stands, if someone shares something you posted, it appears on their wall as if they found it and posted it themselves.
4. UPDATE: Just thought of this one - Facebook is much more "closed in" than other social web sites (FriendFeed, for example). It doesn't encourage sharing outside its own network. How much is that a hurt to the usefulness of Pages for marketing?

Have those of you who have been using the new Pages for these past few months found any other no-brainers that are no-shows on your Pages?

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*Aside rant: I want to shoot my brains out over how many social media webinars or presentations I've sat through where three-quarters of the time is spent on noobie basics. "Now, to sign up for your Facebook account, type your name where it says, 'Your Name:'" Just shoot me now. Post a link to a Facebook or Twitter or Whatever 101 page for the noobies and get to the announced topic!

Using Google Analytics to Track Social Networks

Ran Nir at econsultancy.com has posted a great, easy-to-follow tutorial on how to track links to your site (or your clients' sites) from social media sites.

For professional, proven results with your social media campaigns, check out Virante.

Are You a Social Media Failure?

[From imediaconnection.com] "Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness." - Oprah Winfrey

Market research firm Gartner projects that more than 75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies with websites will attempt some kind of online social media initiative for marketing or customer relations purposes. Gartner also projects that 50 percent of those efforts will fail. 

Recognizing failure and learning from it is the nature of our business, especially for emerging channels such as social media. Repeatedly, it is a brave few who take risks while the rest point fingers and follow. When a company does dare to risk, we are quick to judge and condemn rather than celebrate. 

To be realistic, most of us are accountable to multiple stakeholders -- brands, consumers, our own organizations, and colleagues. There are, however, ways to minimize risks, learn from the stumbles, and move forward without leaving a trail of flames.

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Social Media Marketing: Where are the Measurables?

(From clickz.com:) In its simplest form, SEO (define) is a three-step process: break down crawling barriers to help the engines efficiently index a Web site; craft keyword-targeted content that appeals to search engines and visitors alike; and, most critical, practice link-building for targeted terms and phrases.

Social media optimization, on the other hand, is primarily about knocking down the walls of user-generated content to be a dynamic part of an online community. It's not a simple process and it takes time. Just because a "Digg This" button has been added to a blog or Web site doesn't mean every post or product is compelling enough to be considered socially buzzworthy.

Social media is just another liberating facet of content optimization tactics that can lure in thousands of new visitors and hundreds of inbound links. When it works, it's scalable. But it doesn't always work in a predictable manner.

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