Have you heard about the new movie ‘The Social Network’ about the rise of Facebook?  I first heard about this movie while watching a behind the scenes look at Facebook that Diane Sawyer did for ABC News.  On October 1st, ‘The Social Network’ will be released in theatres nationwide.  The movie is based on the 2009 novel ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ by Ben Mezrich.  The movie chronicles the true story of the creation of Facebook which included intense rivalries and backstabbing.  The movie is told from multiple points of views, including that of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as other young entrepreneurs who sued him saying the site was their idea.

The movies tagline is ‘you don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies’ and labels Mark Zuckerberg a “Punk, Genius, Prophet and Traitor” – view the full trailer below:

I think this is a fascinating take on something that millions of us use every day and may never think where its origins came from.  While Mark Zuckerberg said that he “probably” won’t see the film and that it’s “fiction’, I will definitely be there on October 1st with a bag of popcorn!

What about you – will you go and see ‘The Social Network’?

Using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to promote your brand and its corresponding site is a great idea – it provides a variety of ways to spread awareness and it is an effective marketing tool for your business. However, you should tread lightly when using Facebook to spread the good word online.

In a recent Coca-Cola Facebook campaign, what started out as a clever and entertaining way to be interactive with Facebook users ended in a lot of negative word of mouth and the potential fall of the marketing agency Coca-Cola used. The social media marketing plan’s goal was to promote Dr. Pepper on Facebook through the use of some clever programming. A program was designed to override the Facebook status box of an opted in user with entertaining, embarrassing quotes that were randomly chosen.

It went smoothly until an inappropriate quote (“What’s wrong with peeing in the shower?”) appeared on a 14-year-old girl’s profile page. The reference was to adult material that did not belong on an account associated with Facebook or Dr. Pepper… let alone the account of a 14-year-old child.

When the girl’s mother saw the status update in her account, she contacted Coca-Cola. “MrsRickman” (the mother’s username) submitted a complaint to the company … and as a response Coca Cola offered her free theater tickets and a hotel stay as an apology. Offended, MrsRickman took her complaint to a UK mom’s website. She received 1300 replies and caused quite a stir for Coca-Cola – so much so, that the marketing agency they used (Lean Mean Fighting Machine) is facing hard times ahead because of it.

According to New Media Age, Coca-Cola claims, ““We were unaware of the meaning of this line when the promotion was approved and have launched an investigation into why it was included. We take full responsibility and will be reviewing our promotional procedures.”

“We have stopped all our ongoing work with Lean Mean Fighting Machine and are reviewing our relationship with the agency. We will take all steps necessary to ensure this does not happen again.”

What you should take away from Coca-Cola’s debacle is this – it is good to become involved with your company’s profile page by updating it with media, statuses, and interacting with users. However, one needs to be diligent in protecting their company’s reputation and brand while employing social media marketing tactics. Any inappropriate status or media that’s posted for an adult audience could easily wind up being seen by minors… and then snowballing into a situation that will cause your company harm, no matter how many people are searching for your business because of the incident.

Read about some of the benefits of social media marketing.

Now that social networking is an important part of running a business, privacy is fast becoming a big issue for users.  Privacy advocates and social media experts took on this issue at the Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) held for 4 days at San Jose State University.

The social media bill of rights was on the agenda during the conference and they brought up many concerning issues such as how websites should handle private consumer data, security of data and honesty.

A first draft of the bill was created and you can read it below. You can also get more information or vote on the social networking bill by visiting the website.

“We the users expect social network sites to provide us the following rights in their Terms of Service, Privacy Policies, and implementations of their system”:

1. Honesty: Honor your privacy policy and terms of service.

2. Clarity: Ensure that policies and terms of service are easy to understand.

3. Freedom of speech: Don’t censor without a clear policy and justification.

4. Empowerment: Support privacy-enhancing and assistive technologies.

5. Security: Treat my data as securely as your own, and notify me if it is compromised.

6. Data minimization: Minimize the information I am required to provide and share with others.

7. Control: Let me control my data, and don’t share it with others unless I agree first.

8. Predictability: Don’t change who or what sees my data without my consent.

9. Right to know: Show me how you are using my data and allow me to see who and what has access to it.

10. Right to self-define: Let me create more than one identity and use pseudonyms. Do not link them without my permission.

11. Right to appeal: Allow me to appeal disciplinary actions.

12. Right to leave: Allow me to delete my account, and take my data with me.”

Now that you have read the Social Media Bill of Rights above – how you will vote?

Just when it seems like Facebook has been integrated everywhere possible, I learned that the social networking site has entered somewhere new (no it’s not Twitter): Microsoft Outlook. Last year, when Outlook launched their Social Connector plug-in it was only integrated with LinkedIn and MySpace. The integration with Facebook as well as Windows Live Messenger was announced yesterday. Social Connector is now available on Outlook 2003 and 2007, making it available to millions.

There are people out there that will frown on this new feature because they only use Outlook for ‘work’. However, I think that connecting with other professionals is important and almost expected nowadays. Networking has always been a key component of starting and advancing one’s career (just ask recent college graduates, it was pounded into our heads!). Now networking is easier than ever before due to social sites including Facebook.

Facebook can be used personally as well as professionally as long as it done correctly and with caution. Do you utilize social networks such as Facebook professionally?

Guest blogger:  Collyn Floyd

With the attention span of web users only slightly longer than that of goldfish, it’s awfully hard to keep potential customers engaged on your site.  You’re going to need some snazzy copy if you want them to stick around for a while.  Here are a few tips to get you started:

Make your copy customer-centric. Before you start hammering away at the keyboard, take a minute to identify your target audience.  Think about why they’re visiting your site.  How can your product or service address their “pain”?   Structure your copy around solving the concerns of your customer, not tooting your own horn.

Write for the Web. When you’re writing for the Web, keep in mind that most users skim content; they don’t read word-for-word.   Keep your copy in bite-sized chunks by using copy strategies like shorter paragraphs, bolded text, bullet points, and “call-outs.”

Write with the Inverted Pyramid in mind. Since you know your visitors could stop reading at any moment, put your most important information at the top of the page.  This includes any kind of call to action or conversion point (i.e., newsletter signup, “add to cart” button, etc.).  Less “sexy” copy like product specs or details can go lower on the page.

Get Rid of the Useless Chatter. A wise copy strategy is to minimize distractions and get to the point.  Things to avoid: too much copy on a single page, too many links (especially links that may take your visitors away from your site completely), and too many ads or graphics.  Notice that online retailers like Lands’ End or Target don’t let much get in the way of their customer and products.

Make Your Copy Count. Don’t you hate copy that doesn’t really SAY anything?  For example: “Thank you for visiting company XYZ’s website.  We think you’ll find outstanding value in our products and services.  We’re proud to serve markets around the world and provide solutions that fit your needs”.   Yes, but what do you DO?

Of course, good copywriting for the Web entails these things and much, much more.  Hopefully theseoblog.org will ask me back, and I can share some additional tips!

Back in May, Google was awarded a patent for a new methodology in rankings. Everyone understands how important links are and prior to this new patent, a link was a link (in theory). The new patent puts more emphasis on the psychology behind web users.

Google’s new “Reasonable Surfer” patent in it’s most basic sense tries to determine what a links a user would be most likely to click on. This new patent allows links to carry more weight than others. Eric Enge over at Search Engine Land explains how this will change the SEO landscape.

This new patent is a very easy concept to understand. What would a visitor be most likely to click on when landing on a page?

The real question that needs to be asked, how do we influence users and funnel them into important pages?”

Here are some very basic things that you should consider with this new patent:

• Pages that you want to rank should be linked within the homepage. I’m not just talking about the main navigation. Create a bulleted list of your most important content. When a user lands on your site, what do you want them to see first? Make it easier.
• Utilize unique sub navigation that is specific to the content with links that are relevant. Create a list of related pages and related content.
• Use more images with keyword rich captions. Embed links within the captions if appropriate.
• Start utilizing bold links more often. Add color to your links.

This new patent is definitely a good thing. Google has built their brand on having a good user experience. People trust Google search results. This new patent tries to look at how users think and is really enriches the user experience. It’s clear they have been looking at these types of things for a long time, but now its out in the open.

As many in the Twitter community know, the social micro-blogging site announced plans yesterday for a new ‘Find Friends’ feature. It will allow users to easily find their Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections on Twitter. Users will be able to instantly follow their friends on Twitter and add them to a list without having to exhaustively search for them. Exciting, isn’t it? Well, it was until Facebook decided to block it! It has been discovered that Facebook intentionally blocked the feature and is in a similar battle with another site called Power.com.

Power.com is a site that aggregates the social networks of users into one spot making it easier to manage multiple profiles and friends. However, Facebook considers this a copyright violation (according to their terms of service) and is suing Power.com for hacking. Twitter is attempting to do the same thing with this new search feature, so the question is: will Facebook sue Twitter?

In my opinion, if Facebook wants to remain a favorite among social network users it needs to unblock this new Twitter feature. Otherwise, Facebook runs the risk of losing more users like it has in recent months due to the debate over user privacy. I think that Facebook is overstepping its boundaries on this one…I mean it is my information after all and if I want that to be given to Twitter, it should be my choice.

Guest author: Megan Jeffery

We’ve been talking a bit about landing pages, and how they are really a very important part of your online marketing strategy. Going over the basics, I’ve already talked about how you need to make it as easy as possible for the user to get to the product or information they want.  Can’t reduce all friction, as that would mean no sale, but you get the idea.

The next thing you need to take a look at is, does your landing page have a motivator? Something that makes the user happy, makes them want to close the deal?

The number one most important motivator is… relevance. If a user does a search, clicks on your SE results, but they don’t find what they would expect to find, you almost instantly loose that conversion. That’s why it is so vital to really nail down what your page is about. If you sell tropical fish, you probably have different types of fish, right? In order for your landing pages to be as relevant as possible, you need to create a page for each type of fish you sell. That way, when someone is looking for say, ‘angel fish’ , hopefully you have optimized your page well for this phrase, included some pictures of angel fish, with the alt attributes in place. With the proper steps taken, your users should be well pleased with what they find on your landing page.

If, on the other hand, you have angel fish showing up in your SE results, but your page is about all the different fish you carry, the user will become frustrated and probably click away pretty fast. The motivation for having clicked through to your page is gone, or converting is harder to accomplish than your average user is willing to do.

So, when building your pages, do your best to be concise, make the page about the specific phrase (topic, product) you are going after. Make it as easy as possible for your potential clients to find the information or products they are looking for, and make sure that the checkout process goes smoothly. Any hangups along the way can cause cart abandonment, and we don’t want that!

Guest blogger: Megan Jeffery

The SEM community has been really generous in sharing it’s knowledge and expertise. There are many places where you can find viable tips and information to point you in the right direction. It can be a little overwhelming, as there is so much information out there, so I have complied a list a some of the sites, articles and blog posts that might be of help.

1.    Anita Campbell is the founder of Small Business Trends, and a great friend of TKG. She often speaks at TKG’s  Search Made Simple seminars. One of her recent blog posts included a “reading list” as it were. A compilation of a number of blog posts that are a great read for anyone using SEO to promote their site. This reading list was compiled by a panel of SEOs that presented a webinar for the Verizon Small Business Center on SEO  strategies for small business.

2.    Mashable.com promotes itself as “ The Social Media Guide”.  Several sections are devoted to “How To’s” and guidebooks for Facebook and Twitter. If you need help getting started in this area, this is a great place to find a tutorial on just about any social media application.

3.    SEOmoz.org has a remarkable number of tutorials and tools for anyone trying to increase the rankings for their site. The daily SEO blog and free tools make this site a regular stop in my daily browsing.

4.    The SEO Book of course has many tools and posts that you will find quite valuable in your efforts. The Link Building guide is very helpful, and  one of my favorite posts from this site is a link building article called 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity. It’s a bit on the older side, but still has a lot of really pertinent ideas.

5.    Any good SEO campaign starts with a great keyword list. But, perfecting that list can be daunting. Search Engine Land has a great blog post with every keyword generation tool you could ever want  – sweet! So hopefully you’ll end up with the appropriate phrases for each page you’re optimizing.

As always, TKG is here to answer any SEM questions you might have, so if you haven’t gotten quite what you were looking for in this list, drop us a line – we’d love to be your go-to resource!

The Google Caffeine update has been in the works since August of last year. Last night at SMX Seattle Matt Cutts who heads up Google’s Web Spam team spoke out about the update.

The Caffeine update is officially live on all of Google’s data centers and all users are seeing the updates. From the official Google Blog:

Today, we’re announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.

As the name implies, the Google Caffeine update makes Google faster and more relevant. They are able to crawl the Internet at a much faster speed and provide instant real time results.

Image Credit: Official Google Blog

As a side note, the Caffeine update has also been called the “May Day” update by webmasters.