After reading Rebecca’s post this morning (which rocked by the way so go check it out), I felt the need to rant at 6:30 in the morning! Thanks again, Rebecca!

A majority of people do not get social bookmarking; they just don’t. Their first glimpse of a new way to market their business gets them all excited like a kid chasing an ice cream truck drooling, but at the same time like the ice cream man with dollar signs in his eyes ready to charge them $5 for a push-up . So what do they do? They submit crap! Or, they submit half-way decent content the wrong way. At the end of the day, it just looks poorly on their business (especially to the parents of those poor kids).

Here are some great examples:

What the hell are these titles about? I laughed so hard at this that I took the time to print the screen (which is more time than people will spend clicking the link to their actual site)! Don’t ever put your damn domain name or URL in your title!

Along with the crappy title, look at the domain! Wow, that looks spammy. Let’s – see – how – many – hyphens - we – can — use – when – purchasing – a – domain! The digg community is very critical on where submitted content comes from. You can always set up a micro site with an attractive domain and 301 it later, smart guy; if it takes off.

SEO? Pshaaa! Good luck. The digg community hates everything and anything related to “SEO.”

Title is a bit bland, but this submission would have a better chance if there was a thumbnail.

This description is not compelling and is in multiple languages. Try to be short and concise with your descriptions.

ALL CAPS LOCKS SUCKS! Do not capitalize every letter in your title. I get it… you are TRYING TO GET MY ATTENTION. But doing it like this will only get you so far with me. I know what I am looking for, and it isn’t YOU (It’s especially not OK to think that JT is an exception)!

This is sooo bad! Wow. Do I have to tell what is wrong with this?! Only submit content that people might find compelling. Not sure if someone is looking for a new corner to venture to, or if they just got dumped; about 6 million people in China just don’t care, and neither do I.

Moral of the story. When submitting your content to digg or any other social bookmarking site, please, PLEASE (see the caps? Only use it to exaggerate) remember the following:

• Write rich and compelling titles.
• Do not put your domain name or URL in your title
• Beware of the domain name you are submitting your content from. If needed, build a micro site and 301 it later.
• Do not submit “SEO” stories. Use sphinn for that!
• Get an eye grabbing thumbnail for all submissions.
• Make your descriptions short and to the point (preferably in one language).
• Do not capitalize every letter in your title.
• Most importantly– only submit content that people might find compelling and useful!

Ahhh. I feel better now!

There was an all-star panel that included Rand Fishkin, Micheal Gray (graywolf), Barbara Boser, and Neil Patel with Vanessa Fox moderating. 34% of influencers are using blogs, the power of social media has been established from the get go, thanks Rand. With Google now looking at the intent of links and content alot more, the best way to benefit is to connect with “trusted sites” and get links from the “likaratti.” Can anyone say, eVisibility robots.txt schwag t-shirts? We have generated a ton of buzz at this conference with our funny and cool shwag t-shirts. The result will be lots of link love and subscribers to our blog. The power of networking at industry conferences simply cannot be measured…. well kind of.

Neil Patel stepped up to the plate next talking about link bait and social media. He gave examples of uber large companies all the way down to mom and pops. He illistrated the power of doing creative content and how no matter how boring the topic is that you can find a twist to make it interesting.

Barbara Boser was next, letting us know that she has hit the homepage of Digg 60 times and has been given the prestigious label of top stumbler! I think that this qualifies her as a social media expert. She notes that one must understand what the different social sites/communities like or dislike in order to be successful. A great way to do this is to study what the top sites in each social site do; subscribe to their RSS feed. Try to remain un-obvious by setting up unique name and a cool avatar, use a unique Gmail address, get an IM attached to that Gmail account, and participate. Other things to do are comment alot, vote, respond to people’s Digg requests, stumble when you vote, do not submit more than 2-3 stories per day, do not submit your own site, send stories to others that send you stories, encourage people to contact you, do not create multiple accounts on the same IP, and do not take things personal. Whew! Barbara REALLY knows her stuff!

Now the Graywolf eagerly steps up to the plate in his usual controversial manner, dogging on others that give the same slides at different conferences. First thing I noticed is that he talks really fast, no wonder he Twitters so much! He first notes the idea of jumping on current hot topics or seasonality to target social media sites with your content like the Oscars, going Green, etc. Again, get creative with your writing and your approach. Next he talks about Twitter, noting that it is typically a younger/hipper crowd that uses it. Twitter takes advantage of pull technology, like RSS. Tie your blog posts to twitter, broadcasting your latest posts. Try to not spam twitter, post useful stuff as much as possible and not just your blog posts. The way to utilize twitter is to announce things. Graywolf gets a really high CTR and uses scheduling tools to broadcast his twitters. Of course use tracking URLs for your tweets. Graywolf notes that he has several Twitter accounts for specific niches that he promotes, other than his Graywolf profile. Reply to people that address you via Twitter, it lets people know that you are for real and that you are paying attention. Large brands utilize Twitter as a sales channel and to keep fans updated, JetBlue, Disney, Amazon, Woot, etc.

A question from the audience brought about the idea of getting your office banned from the social sites for having too many people from your office, or same building, vote things in the same day. Graywolf commented that he know of people that have gotten their entire building banned for this and Rand admitted that the SEOmoz team was victimized by the same kind of activity. It stinks that even though the intent is not spammy, it is legitimate, that you can still get penalized by the social sites. I guess that is the price we all pay for all the spammers out there!

Barbara Boser noted that you need to be careful about the way you approach social media profiles. That you need to setup unique accounts tied to unique Gmail accounts with IM accounts that match your Gmail account. You really need to make sure that you appear to be unique and disconnected from your brand or industry or else the social sites will bury you. You also need to make sure that you submit during the optimal times. And to pad yourself from a corporate branding standpoint you need to secure your brand name with all the social sites, before someone else claims them and start running havoc!

This was one of the best sessions so far. There was an all-star cast and the advice was stellar. The audience questions were also very good and the session was much more “fun” than most.

Well Greg Sterling is moderating today and he starts off with a VERY controversial statement. He believes that search is a better medium for branding than it is for direct response (conversion)! Our online media planner, Dan Redman, would love Mr. Sterling! James Lamberti from comScore starts off with, of course, some VERY cool numbers. He notes that most people are still using generic terms for search, as opposed to branded terms. Branded terms are still great and need to be addressed, but if you are missing the generic terms, you are missing out on a large segment. Another point that James makes is that people in the consumer packaged goods industry, and probably others, are looking for information and help. Most CPG marketers use the Internet as a big coupon drop as opposed to a medium where they can provide good information to consumers.

An overlying theme in this session seems to be the idea that search fuels brand awareness, not in a direct response manner, but in a longer term (branding) manner. It has long been known that people use search primarily for research and will typically purchase much further down the funnel. Well, this idea is being proven to be stronger than ever given all of the superb information that is being presented in this session, real hard data!

Connecting your brand to your customer’s passions is the best way to build a relationship with them. Appealing to the passions of your target audience really helps put your brand in the forefront. This really helps in creating the coveted brand advocates. Search is a huge partner throughout the entire relationship with your customer. From a paid search perspective, you need to match your “95 characters” to the consumer’s intent. Bob Tripathi, of Discover Card, notices that brand fixations occurred in the URL and title of their paid ads, not in the description, through eye tracking studies. They still spend a majority of their marketing budget in TV but have been doubling their budget in online and are currently at 16%. They definitely notice the impact TV ads have on both branded and non-branded terms, there are significantly more searches and conversions after running their TV ads.

Cam Balzer, of DoubleClick/Performics, notes that they are on a mission to build value with clients in the keywords that build the brand or purchase long before the actual desired end result. It is very difficult to track and to explain this subject to advertisers. Conversion is typically measured by only the last click, or Direct ROI. Adjusted ROI measures sales credit distributed across all paid search clicks in the stream. Investing in high-performance “assist” keywords will help boost the overall campaign. Eliminating under performing keywords and improving negative terms, are just some of the benefits of detailed clickstream analysis. Of course, you are going to need a very robust analytics to do this clickstream analysis, and from what I have seen, this investment in clickstream analysis is well worth it.
Cam shows us very convincing figures on the benefits of clickstream analysis from a fortune 500 client.

Overall, I do actually believe in the power of search in building the brand, creating awareness, and driving conversion. The only problems I see with the focus on branding over direct conversion comes from the standpoint of the small to medium sized businesses. The business that only has a few thousand dollars per month to spend online cannot afford to dedicate resources to detailed clickstream analysis, they need to drive conversions. Asking a small to medium sized business to spend more on branding is super difficult, even after showing them tremendous gains with conversion focused Internet marketing. On the flip side, the clients that we do work on, who focus on branding, do see great success. And their success is seen across all of the marketing initiatives on an aggregate level. It is these types of large clients that covet even just a minimal overall increase who realize the importance of brand building online.

In the modern world of cell phone features, things have gone from normalcy to lunacy. You can watch television from your phone, or use it to track the whereabouts of your unfaithful, less than better half. Gone are the days when a phone’s primary use was for making calls. Why would someone want to limit their phone to such a primitive “phone-y-ness” when they can play video games, listen to MP3s, GPS themselves to the nearest Starbucks, or type in the code for the secret of life. Everyone knows that the true secret of life – or at least life in America– is to make everything easier.

So, with this in mind, I’ve written my own diatribe to this social phenomenon. Below is a list of the cell phone features of the future. These features will no doubt make the phones a must-have, but will also drop us further in to the excessive technological excrement that we’re already up to our necks in. It’s time to sink or swim.

iTutor - We knew this was coming; a day when students will look no further than their trusty cell phone to find the answer to that pesky pre-algebra predicament. It won’t be long until human teachers are replaced by electronic versions.

Cell-Cell - Been convicted of a crime? Well, in the near future there may be no worse penalty than having your phone privileges taken away. As it is, you already can’t talk on your phone while driving unless you have a hands-free device. The government has turned in to mommy telling you what you can and can’t do with your phone. And you’ll cry, cry, cry when you learn that you’re going to miss the season finale of Big Brother.

Portable Household Helper - You’ve found cobwebs in the corner of your ceiling? No problem. Just use your cell phone to vacuum them up. With the Portable Household Attachment to you cell phone, your phone’s power source can be used to power all kinds of helpful gadgets. You’ll be the king of home improvement and finally be your wife’s hero when you bust out your cell phone equipped with a power screwdriver, band saw, laser level, power drill and nail gun. But it’s perfect for her, too. The Portable Household Helper also comes in the pink “For Her” version which includes a spatula, power mixer, lint roller, hair curler, vanity mirror, and spray bottle which can hold hairspray or her favorite perfume.

Cell Quencher - Dehydrated feeling be gone with the new Cell Quencher. This remarkable product will receive so much critical praise it will have to be an “As seen on TV” product. This combination phone and drinking fountain will never, I repeat, never run out of water. Impossible, you say? The technology lies in the phone’s ability to suck condensation from the atmosphere throughout the night while you’re sound asleep. The water passes through a five-step filtration process as you drink it, giving you the cleanest drinking water on the planet. This is important, because by this time, there will be no clean water left. The greatest part of this phone is that due to Cell Quencher’s popularity, some areas will have clear skies year round. Now if only it could reverse global warming instead of contribute to it.

MyCougarFinder - Having trouble identifying cougars, or finding an escape route? Your days are no longer numbered if your phone is equipped with MyCougarFinder. This nifty little device senses cougar pheromones and will give you the precise location of any desperate cougars in the area. Not only will it locate cougars with pin-point accuracy, but will also alert you when they’re on the move. Staying one step ahead of the hunter is key for your survival, and MyCougarFinder will keep you in the bush for another day.

DUI No More - Too much of an alcoholic to avoid the Jager Bombs on the way home from work? Not a problem. DUI No More is a new phone attachment that will not only take your BAC through a breathalyzer tube, but will lull you to sleep if you’re too drunk to safely operate a motor vehicle. Praised by police worldwide as the one true way to stop drunk driving forever, the DUI No More will lower the highway fatality rate by 34 percent the year it’s released. What’s more, the DUI No More will act as a breath freshener all night. That is, until you’re behind the wheel and over the limit. That’s when you say nighty-night, sweet prince.

Little Mister Know-It-All – Ever need to know how to crochet a blanket? How about milking a goat? You’ll find the answers to these and many other of life’s important questions when you add Little Mister Know-It-All to your phone. It’s pretty annoying, actually, because its True Voice Technology™ answers your question in a mockingly condescending tone. There will be nothing more irritating than your phone showing you up in front of your date for not knowing the lira conversion rate. Try talking back and you’ll be sent home crying since Little Mister Know-It-All is equipped with put-down recognition and distribution software.

All these advancements in cell phone technology will make some purists run for the hills, but to no avail. Phones of the future will sync-up to the chips embedded in your brain, leaving you defenseless to their powers. They will track, locate, and annoy you until you claw your eyes out. Phones of the future will make life easier, work efficiently, answer all of life’s questions, and give you an overall feeling of inadequacy. As a matter of fact, soon after these phones are invented humans will be used as nothing more than a power source for them; rendering us as merely a vessel for a little piece of plastic we invented in the first place.

Social Media provides the means to attract the strongest brand ambassadors who have the greatest opportunity to influence the buying decisions of others. Today’s Web 2.0 branding campaigns typically fall short of their potential without substantial social media distribution.

Other than branding, the question remains for marketers, How can Social Media clicks be turned into conversions?
The gap between branding and long-tailed direct response media can be bridged with these 4 keys:

1. In order to drive traffic, a viral interaction must be implemented. This sounds easier said than done, but not everyone has the ability to attract the interest of 250,000 candid social-surfers. Viral-ability is achieved when you can engage your target enough to make them an ambassador of your brand.
2. Tracking, tracking, and more tracking. If you can’t decipher your analytics well enough to figure out where, how, and when you are driving traffic, then you might as well flush your budget down the toilet.
3. Cross-promotion will plant the seeds of sales intent when the consumer moves from the researching or novel interest stage to purchasing intent.
4. Continue to serve ads to your clients and prospects even after they buy or die. Several things will happen if you keep your message handy once you have created a click from social media. First, you will continue to generate leads months after your campaign has ended; and secondly, you will receive referrals from those who do buy from you (leave them with a good taste in their mouth).

Very few companies can offer you potential sales projections on a social media campaign. Ask your Internet marketing agency those tough questions. They will probably scramble for an answer. I wouldn’t blame them; social media advertising is still emerging. Other than my own, most agencies may even be dumbfounded if asked what their solution is for reaching blog happy demographics.

Contact eVisibility today to find out more about how social media advertising can become and effective means to drive traffic and increase branding for your business.

In the wake of the Web2.0 revolution, social media sites are still popping up everywhere providing SEOs with unique viral opportunities and link building strategies. If you are on the look-out for resources that attract and target specific demographics, check out SEOmoz’s annual Web 2.0 Web Awards. More than 700 websites reviewed, of which 200 categorized, investigated and directly used, interviewed by the SEOmoz team.

Their goal? To find those players in the “Web 2.0″ space contributing to the growth of the Internet. For most I agree with what was said, but it would be interested seeing where these companies stand next year.

View the SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards.