I recently noticed the announcement on my search results explaining the latest updates. 

This takes you to a page that further explains their new service and in typical google fashion includes a video and tells us that “search gets better by including photos, posts, and more from you and your friends.” Maybe.

So first things first, if you’re looking to be part of this latest Search iteration get yourself a Google+ profile. For businesses, create a page. Set up your circles, start following, engaging, sharing. Start getting comfortable with it, I think it’s only going to continue in its importance.

So for us, it’s really just a matter of here we go again, how do we adapt what we do without diluting impact for our clients? Right now we’re not 100% certain, we continue to do what we do and start to address any anomalies in our reports as they come through but you should expect to see a reduction in the number of keywords driving visitors to your website (so far it’s a pretty small number). Rankings (for what they are worth) will remain trackable but the detailed keyword referrals will no longer apply.

So that’s a shame, not the end of the world as some SEO companies fear but a real shame. Forget about SEO and Internet Marketing companies who report on these statistics. Think about the website owners, especially those who use this data to help focus their business strategies and goals. Again, not the end of the world for them but a loss of some very valuable information.

iGoogle – this is my own little dashboard with relevant information that I have gathered and continue to gather. My page is pretty long but it contains quite a few very useful pieces which includes my email, calendar, client blog feeds, industry blog feeds, google hot trends, sticky notes…a lot of good stuff that can be viewed at a glance.

Raven – there’s a lot to like about Raven, they’ve provided a great deal of value under one roof. All of our clients go straight into this tool including target keywords, Google Analytics not to mention the keyword research tools that they provide. For us though it’s the reporting capabilities that we love, taking what was once a very manual process and automating many parts of it.

Social Mention and Google Alerts – a bit part of what we do is listening on behalf of our clients. What’s going on? Is there buzz? Are customers complaining? Are there opportunities we can leverage? For this, Google Alerts has traditionally been our tool of choice but increasingly we have been in need of something a little more comprehensive which is where www.socialmention.com comes in. Pop your keyword in (or URL) and create an email alert or grab the RSS feed and pop it into iGoogle.

Open Site Explorer – this tool built by the folks at SEOMoz (also a very useful resource) provides a wealth of relevant information about a website or competitors.  It shows the number of links, anchor text distribution and  linking pages as well as their own rating scales.

Tweetdeck – This has become my tool of choice for updating my Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Foursquare accounts as well as a very useful realtime listening option. Best of all its free….for now (it was recently bought by Twitter, so we will wait to see what happens next).

What tools are in your daily toolkit?  Share with us in the comments.

Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/604255

Let me preface this by suggesting that we are not a PR firm. Some folks seem to mistake us for one but honestly we do not do PR. Press Releases on the other hand, we will use and abuse (not really abuse, let’s call it leverage) for our personal gain. So here’s our favored process:

1. PR person puts together press release.
2. PR person distributes press release through their usual channels.
3. PR person gives us press release
4. We research press release contents to determine best keyword strategy (we’ll choose up to 3 targets)
5. We adjust press release (generally pretty slight modifications to include keyword phrase groupings and anchor text) to accommodate keywords.
6. We send back to PR rep (or client) for approval
7. We distribute through our online channels
8. We track and measure online visibility

Sometimes we do it alongside the PR person’s process in order to expedite but it’s important that we still adjust the press release enough to differentiate between our distribution and theirs. It’s not that we don’t care how many people read the press release in fact we encourage it, but this is not our primary objective. We want incoming links. We want controlled anchor text. Increased visibility is merely an added bonus.

Some people consider our role in the process contributes to diluting the power and value of the press release but naturally I am not of that mindset. Let me just borrow Shank’s phrasing here and suggest that

“for the time being, and done well, press releases continue to be a high-ROI way to tell your story to your most important audiences and build credibility and visibility.”

All we’re really doing is extending the life and findability (which I’m pretty sure is not a real word but seems more appropriate than any others I can think of) of content that is already created.

So for us, it’s really about the incoming links. Often the actual quality of incoming links is questionable, but we do see these releases getting picked up and reposted on other websites and blogs, and with it a handful of high quality, relevant incoming links. Very nice thank you. While I kind of skipped over the keyword research stuff, this is actually the most valuable part of the process so do not ignore it. Maybe one day I’ll take you through it.

Most savvy Internet users are quite aware of the percentages when it comes to reviews. First of all, they know that there is no way to qualify these individuals (unless they follow them) so taking the opinion of Debbie Downer will probably have you going nowhere. Secondly, many competitors have taken to slamming their competition on these places, again without qualification other than they are competitors. Third, a lot of people are idiots, especially online. Back in the day it was comments on Digg and now it’s YouTube but essentially you get the sense that under the veil of anonymity, people are pretty content blurting out without much thought.

What you should be looking at though are the percentages. If you’re seeing a couple of poor service reviews out of several hundred, chances are these folks were either Debbie’s or just got unlucky. It’s probably not going be a worthwhile exercise criticizing your staff based on those percentages as it will most likely not sway a persons opinion about trying your place. Generally if you get enough reviews, even your competitors won’t be able to keep up posting negative ones on your listings and while I have suggested that ‘a lot’ people are idiots, it actually only feels that way and more often than not, these folks are the minority and most are reasonable, good people. People who read reviews generally get a sense for what’s going on.

Now if you are seeing bad percentages, it is time to take stock. What are people’s issues, where are the problem areas. This can actually be a great opportunity to address it based on a focus group that you don’t even have to pay.

Something I do understand is Search Marketing which has its own set of justification requirements, some of which carry over to measuring Social. Fortunately, to a certain extent, Search is a much easier activity to demonstrate value even though questions still arise and the gap that exists with the data is still problematic. So I understand Social Media to be an even tougher challenge. In thinking about the “proof” that many ask of Social Media Marketing, even if you’re just dipping your toes into this brave new world, I can see a few key areas that you should pay attention to.

Listen – this has to be the primary reason for adopting social media for your business. We’ve spoken about this before, and since it’s not a huge time investment for us its a no-brainer. Set yourself up with a simple company name search in Twitter, get your Google Alerts going and you’re underway.

Analytics – you knew I’d bring this one up. At the very least measure traffic. While not directly able to justify your campaign, it should be one indicator of its effectiveness. I assume you’ve set up your goals and possibly your funnels; if you have you’ll be able to determine who converted and where they came from.

Engagement – definitely a tough one to track. I’ve seen folks set up a basic database system that simply outlines social mentions, comments, feedback, DM’s, whatever. Can also be easily done on an Excel spreadsheet. I imagine it’s got to be pretty painful to keep track of but the conversation is one of the great benefits of participating in a Social Media Marketing campaign.

Brand - While I don’t really want to get into this area due to its poor measurement ability, I can see the benefits of using Social Media to enhance your brand and image. I have to think that the number of social mentions can be a contributor. If you’re a small company and can regularly discuss your activities with the customer service reps to help determine if there has been a reduction in complaint calls or the like, one should probably look to your online activities as possibly being a reason for this.

So while the contents of this post are uneducated and based solely on my own experiences (hey I didn’t even consult with our Social Media expert), the main point here is to think about some form of measurement. I still don’t think that “proof” should be the overall goal here but like most marketing activities an objective or outcome must be part of the strategy.

Then I started noticing things. I didn’t really give it a great deal of concern but I discovered that several of my reviews weren’t showing up. At first I thought it might have been at the request of the establishment I had reviewed but some were negative and some were positive so that didn’t make sense. I had also by this stage, been running a couple of paid client yelp accounts (against my wishes mind you) and I asked to remove some negative reviews which they didn’t do so I figured that wasn’t the case. (FWIW I didn’t really want them to remove them, I was merely probing). So it turns out to be Yelp’s review filter that is responsible for the disappearing reviews. OK well I’m sure they’ll be working on that problem (it still exists).

So earlier I told you that I took over management of a couple of sponsored accounts, the ones that just allow you to do a little more with your account like add a slideshow and special announcements and directly contact reviewers and it didn’t take long for me to realize these were next to useless, especially considering the $300 – $750 they were charging. There’s also the option where your ad will appear on other listings which is ridiculously based on impressions rather than clicks and as such, was a lot more expensive. I also learned that the clients were locked into an annual agreement so we had to wait until it ran out. The results were very ordinary too. One of the accounts averaged 15 visitors to the website from Yelp with 0 conversions, the other did generate a good amount of traffic to their site but about the same as before the “sponsored” account making their $3600 a pretty poor investment.

And now the latest is that I’ve been watching a client listing lose good reviews due to the “review filter” to be told that they didn’t feel the reviews to be genuine and meanwhile a competitor quite obviously has his own review (including his picture and name) on his own listing. It was flagged a while ago but it’s still there. One can only suspect they are paying for the privilege?

So I’ve gone cold on the service. They keep talking about transparency and changing options but I’m pretty much boycotting it and think they’ve screwed the pooch by not listening to the community earlier and creating some pretty ridiculous options for customers and businesses. I’m backing UrbanSpoon right now.

Both as a private and corporate citizen, Gary Barbera has worked selflessly for children through support of the Autism Society of America, Northern Home for Children, St. Vincent’s Home for Children and the Principal for a Day Program. In addition, Gary Barbera has served on the board and supported the West Philadelphia High School Automotive Program. They are also proud to have recently completed the record-setting Gary Barbera’s 24^th Annual Archbishop Ryan Golf Outing whose monies, which included a personal donation of $20,000, go towards scholarships for needy youth.

Gary Barbera has been recognized by the Susquehanna Community Festival Board of Directors as a Corporate and Community Champion and was named PhillySport Magazine’s 2007 Dealer of the Year. He has also been recognized by the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for work in the community and integrity in business.

This year’s Chevrolet Showcase has merged Gary Barbera’s corporate and community interests providing much-needed revitalization of the block on Route 1 between Robbins and Levick Streets where the newest dealership resides. Taking General Motor’s national GO GREEN, SAVE GREEN environmental program to task, the Gary Barbera cleaned and renewed the entire area, paving the way for a cleaner Philadelphia.

Gary Barbera was also an active participant in raising and donating monies to the family of slain Philadelphia Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski.

Gary Barbera will strive to set the bar of corporate citizenship by helping the Philadelphia area through their commitment to community responsibility.

About Gary Barbera:

Gary Barbera Auto group provides Philadelphia and the surrounding area with a huge selection of new and used Dodges, Chryslers, Jeeps and Chevys at two Philadelphia locations. Gary Barbera is devoted to helping and serving their customers with friendly and knowledgeable staff and is active in the community. See www.garybarbera.com for more information.

We all know the motto. Heard it a hundred times in between “40 minute music marathons” and mouthed it a hundred more in the shower, office stairwell, or train, but when it comes to commitment to community, Gary Barbera really is the best (boy I guess).

The Gary Barbera family of dealerships has grown since it first opened in Philadelphia and with each car, SUV and truck sold, has grown closer to the community. With two dealerships, Gary Barbera Chryslerland and Gary Barbera Chevyland, and four brands (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Chevrolet), Barbera has seen consistent growth and have even received recognition from Chrysler LLC for being number one in sales in the Mid-Atlantic region.

This success is equaled only by their charitable contributions to the Philadelphia area. Gary Barbera has been supporting local charities for over 10 years and this support is the cornerstone of the dealership’s values, principles and devotion to help and serve their customers beyond the purchase of a vehicle. Both as a private and corporate citizen, Gary Barbera has contributed to a host of child support organizations such as the Autism Society of America, Northern Home for Children, and St. Vincent’s Home for Children. Barbera himself has also served on the board and supported the West Philadelphia High School Automotive Program. Gary Barbera Autogroup was also a title sponsor for the 24th Annual Archbishop Ryan Golf Outing. Barbera (class of 1982) also personally donated $20,000 to the event whose proceeds go towards scholarships for needy youth.

But the Barbera family has provided support beyond the small hands of children. This year, Gary Barbera reached out to Philadelphia’s finest and helped to raise money for the family of slain police officer, Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski. He also contributed to the reward for information that ultimately led to the capture of the final suspect.

These contributions have not gone unnoticed and this year Gary Barbera was recognized by the Susquehanna Community Festival Board of Directors as a Corporate and Community Champion, named PhillySport Magazine’s 2007 Dealer of the Year, and has received commendations from the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for his work in the community and integrity in business.

It seems as if Gary Barbera’s commitment to his customers has spilled into his community. Is Barbera the best? Emphatically, Yes!