J.C. Penney As A Blog Company?

I picked up my deadtree version of AdAge, and found to my surprise, a great case study on the use of blogs by J.C. Penney. The key was aggregating content around a community of blogs (in this case, mommy blogs), and reaping the search engine rewards without investing heavily in their own SEO.

The site aggregated content from blogs such as Heather Armstrong's Dooce, The Mommy Blog and Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. JC Penney didn't have rights to review or influence content. The site launched mid-September; a few of the contributing bloggers mentioned it on their blogs, some did not. But traffic started to grow. Federated execs started to notice traffic coming from places such as StumbleUpon, a social-bookmarking site, and RSS readers, which meant people were beginning to subscribe to the content.

"Once people start engaging in that, they feel part of the experience. And when they feel part of the experience, they share it with friends and upload it to social-bookmark sites," said Chas Edwards, publisher and chief revenue officer at Federated Media. "And then Google starts to take notice of this. ... A month after the campaign, this site was showing up."

Today, it shows up as No. 5 of 13 million results for the search term "fall shopping" and second out of more than 4 million results for "fall shopping guide."

We make it clear to all of our clients that the single best SEO option the can pursue is to get involved in an active blog community and take advantage of the SEO benefits of links, relevant content, and built-in audiences. It's very difficult to build a community, but it's relatively easy to join one.

This was the tactic pursued by J.C.Penney and Federated Media, and in a short time, they appear in the search results for a highly sought after search term. I spend time with clients who spend thousands per month on SEO, and more thousands on PPC, but none of them have blog strategies, or at least none of them have coherent blog strategies.

Blogging takes time and effort, but its miniscule in comparison to the giant ad budgets that are accepted media buys. For a price starting around $10,000, you can join the communities most relevant to your company, and for less than $50,000, you can replicate the success of J.C.Penney and also bring that expertise in house. What are you waiting for?

Body Worlds Exhibit Review

Body Worlds, the anatomical exhibition of real human bodies, is winding up its display at the St Louis Science Center.  Franki and I got a pair of comp tickets for the review, and so we headed over to the Science Center last Friday.

We originally looked at goin back in December, but the crowds on the weekends had been so heavy, we waited until we could take some time during the week.  The crowds were still there, but we were able to get in inside 30 minutes.

The first thing you should know is that these are real human bodies.  Donors agreed to have their bodies plastinized so that people like you and I could look at him, and understand more about how the human body works.  Plastination is a process  invented by Dr. Gunther von Hagens to preserve human bones and tissues, which then can be arranged to create aesthetically pleasing views of our insides.

The Science Center is of course a treat to take kids too in general, but the Body Worlds exhibit is a bit more than your typical scientific field trip.  You're looking at hearts, livers, muscles, bone fragments, and when you get past the visual display, there's the recognition that this sculpture in front of you was actually a person at some point.  That's a pretty trippy experience.

The way the exhibit works is its set up in a conference type hall, with entry times every half hour.  You purchase tickets (for the weekends, its recommended you buy them 72 hours in advance through Ticketmaster), and then enter the exhibit.  You have the option to answer a survey prior to the exhibit, which if you fill out, and then fill out a post-exhibit survery, will entitle you to a Body Worlds DVD as a free gift.

The actual exhibit is broken into categories.  Muscles, Waste, Fetal Develpment, Disease. Each category displays and then explains how the body functions, and in some cases, how it ceases to function.  The blackened lungs display was far more graphic than I've seen before, if only because it was 3D and in front of me. 

Health information is actually prevalent throughout the exhibit.  The goal is to show you healthy tissue, and then show you how your actions affect the function of that tissue.  I imagine as a child, that seeing this could have a profound impact on how you look at your body, and if handled correctly, can be a useful catalyst for a conversation about the why of health.  It's one thing to say eat healthy and don't smoke.  It's another to show an actual person's inside who didn't follow that advice.

The Fetus information is also really informative.  Checking out the difference between 4 week and 28 weeks, or even 24 weeks and 28 weeks, was incredibly cool.  They make sure you know the displays are from pre-exisiting samples, and not from aborted children for the experiment

The exhibit was neat.  I enjoyed it, and thought my nieces and nephews would enjoy it, at least the two older ones.  It might be a bit scary, but if you're prepared for the questions, its a good place to take children.  And if you just want to see the insides human body without creepy music and a guy in a hockey mask, this is the place to go.

My final thoughts were actually kinda cool.  Seeing the bodies before me, it struck me that the body is the not the sum total of human existence.  These were real bodies that were displayed in front of me, but the person, was no longer there. We are more than the sum of our fleshy parts.  And one other thing...with the skin removed, you can't tell what race a man or woman is.  On the inside, we're awfully alike.

To purchase tickets, head on over to the SLSC.org website and click on BodyWorlds.

Amazing McDonald's Commercial

Finally, a commercial that plays the kind of music I grew up with. I'm lovin' it.

Cheerios Television Ad Promotion

I think we all remember the unfortunate Chevrolet promotion where Chevy asked users to make promotional web videos and pranksters responded with parodies about global warming. In following the advice of social media mavens to turn the brand free, Chevy got some unwanted publicity for their time and effort.

The experience of Chevy, and the rise of CGM is putting big brands in a tough spot. They want to engage their audiences, but when the risk of backlash from anti-corporate bloggers hits the executive suite, the creatives decide on less appealing, more career strategic promotions.

And that's too bad. But we did it to ourselves Case in point. Cheerios has a new promotion out to make your own television commercial. I was pretty excited about it, as one of my clients is Flektor, the video and photo editing software that makes it easy to mash up songs, pictures and video. My Fleks (the name for the videos) have been a big hit in the political realm, and I've been looking for ways to showcase the software to the marketing audience.

I saw the advertisement either on television or in the newspaper (strange I can't remember, as it was only Friday night), and made a note to go the site. Cheerios.com is simple and friendly, and the promotion link is on the front page. But it's not a video promotion. It's a promotion for copywriters.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to write 4-6 lines on a pre-made spot. It's a television caption contest.

I admit, I'm disappointed, but from a marketing standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. Cheerios gets to control the message (to some extent, as bloggers can still write about it on their own sites), and the fan gets the chance to make their own commercial, which honestly is still a pretty cool thing.

So I congratulate Cheerios on a well-managed promotion, integrated into several channels, and I imagine it will achieve its goals. I think I'll still make a video of it. Maybe a good one will inspire other companies to start doing the same.

If you are using the Flektor software to make commercials or videos, please let me know, and we'll feature it on the Flektor-blog.

Where Can I Get a Sven?

Jim had me pegged when her TiVo'd this commercial for me. And I have to agree with EverRev over at Two in the Box when I say I want a Sven way more than I long for a SmartPhone. The idea of a live-in "life coordinator" just sounds like a dream come true.

I can hear it now... "Chop chop, Franki! You've got Spinning at 6 and a breakfast meeting at 8:15. And don't forget to proof those business cards this afternoon on your way back from the office." Heaven, I say. Absolute heaven. Hmm.... I wonder if Sven could also do dishes, laundry and vacuuming...?

Clients Saying Nice Things About You

It's always a pleasure when you do business with people you like, but it's still a surprise when clients say nice things about you online. Especially when they have a high-ranked and well-read blog like Jeff Rosenberg has at Blogenberg's.

Jeff runs a PR shop in D.C., working with businesses and institutions that help improve the economy and provide training and workforce development to cities. My contact there was Derek Karchner, who I first heard of when he contacted me as a recruiting blogger. In a recent post, Jeff says some nice things about Durbin Media in the context of resource allocation.

I mentioned that I like Rosenberg Commnications, but the other aspect is they're competent at what they do. As I've written before, they're the model of PR/blogger relations. Thanks, Jeff.

Durbin Media Selected As Gold Level TechDirt Insight Community Member

The Techdirt Insight Community is a website used to provide information to corporations similar to an RFI. Companies ask questions, and set a level of compensation based on the answers. The money runs from $100-$1000, and I just received noticed that I've been selected for an answer I gave on ways to defend a social media strategy (you have to be a registered member to see the post).

The Insight Community has been a great exercise in stretching my understanding of social media. There are lots of insights on the board that are outside my realm of expertise, but it's been stimulating (and financially rewarding) to match my expertise against that of other social media consultants.

I've earned the Gold Level badge for the community, the highest rating based on number of approved answers.




I'll be adding the badge to our sidebar, and if you have any questions, as a company looking for information or as a consultant looking to join the community, feel free to contact me (though their website does a fine job of explaining what they do).

And don't forget the Techdirt blog, which belongs on all of your RSS readers.

Durbin Media Rebrands

Sometimes even beauty queens need a little 'work' done to look their best. Such is the case with our own house brand here, Durbin Media. Prior to this we suffered a bit from what I call cobbler's kids syndrome. Meaning, we've been too busy making our clients look fabulous to stop and check in on ourselves.

So in the spirit of the new year and a fresh outlook we've rebranded. If you look around the site now you'll be able to take in the results of the recent face lift.

And while for the time being, we've only injected our blog with a little Botox to keep her going, you can expect the majority of the work to come next week when we move to the TypePad platform.

If you see any of our stitches out of place or anything looks a bit 'off' just know that we're still working and will iron out any wrinkles as we go. For now, enjoy the new look!

Build-A-Bear Launches New Site

I was searching through the mobile marketing world, looking for information for the situational marketing.com (the Blast Companies blog), and I ran across a Kansas City based marketer who was involved in a recent launch of a new Build-A-Bear site.

Build-A-Bear is based in St Louis, and is really a small business phenomenon, growing in leaps and bounds over the last several years, and lifting the hearts of children with personalized bear creation. It's a fun company - where are all of the titles are either bear-specific (and sometimes unbearable), so if you want to be the Chief InBearmation Officer (I'm not making that one up), BaB is the place to be.

Mark Logan covers the creative launch of BuildaBearville on his site bemomobi.

Today we launched the new Build-a-Bearville, it's a virtual world where kids can bring the Build-a-Bear Workshop animals to life. The team putting together the world has done an outstanding job, and the world looks wonderful and should be a ton of fun.

It's also a huge development that really enhances and extends the brand. It will be fun to see the population and play patterns develop over time.

It's an exciting site, one I'll have to set the nieces and nephews on, if they haven't already experienced it. A screen shots of the front page.

Mobile Post... Utterz

Mobile post sent by jdurbin using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Social Media: No Longer Why, But How

Peter Levinsohn, the president of Fox Interactive Media, has a short blurb in Variety on their tech impact report. FIM is the parent company for MySpace, and has overseen the addition of Photobucket, Flektor and Strategic Data Corp in his first year.

Why is this important? FIM is one of the big boys, and they work with major brands that run multi-million dollar campaigns. They don't do affiliate ads or run Adsense to make money. They sit down with major advertisers and figure out ways to market to their users.

I found this quote instructive:

"On the advertising front, big brands are no longer asking us 'why' but 'how' to advertise in a social media environment. The development and expansion of new technologies that enable us to better serve the right ad to the right person at the right time will only further transform the way we are able to grow the business in the coming year."

The last few years, small companies have been using social media to gain a competitive advantage online against the major corporations. Smaller, nimble, and with time to spend over money, online marketing has been an effective tool.

For social media consultants, the big companies have been more problematic. Too many know they should do something, but are paralyzed by the what. As giants like FIM sell larger and larger campaigns, the what and how questions are being answered.

The objection that large companies aren't doing social media is now being answered.

I expect 2008 to be the year when social media gets mainstreamed into marketing community, not as a trial, but as a separate and respected tool in the interactive arsenal.

Vote For The Social Media Mom As A Ninja

Kristen Munson, the Social Media Mom, has been nominated as a Social Media Ninja over at Collective Thoughts. If you're a fan of her work using Stumble Upon, Twitter, Digg, or blogging, head on over and cast your vote in the comments.

You can also check out Kristen's posts on how she uses social media to build traffic, make friends, and foster community.

While you're at it, check out Chris Brogan's, Social Media for your Career.

Changes In Google Algorithm Suggest The Need For Corporate Blogging

Google has gone and done it again. Two very important changes in the way that Google ranks webpages have rocked the SEO world, and bloggers, especially corporate bloggers, stand to benefit.

First, SEO Roundtable says Google is no longer counting unlimited subdomains as separate sites. Subdomains in the future will now be treated as folders, a major blow to websites that create extra sites like news.company.com and careers.company.com.

From the WebmasterWorld thread:News flash from Las Vegas PubCon. Matt Cutts informed us that Google will very soon begin treating subdomains and subdirectories the same in this fashion: there will be only 2 total urls from a domain in any set of search results, so no more getting 3, 4 or however many spots via subdomains. We didn't get any more information than just that basic heads-up.

In the future, the company will only have its main domain, and one subdomain ranking high in the Google SERP's.

That's a pretty big deal if you built your search engine optimization strategy on a single brand. In the future, the need to create several different brands will become a major part of a companies SEO strategy, and the easiest way to create multiple domains is powering them with blog software. For small companies, the opportunity to create an outsized presence on line is a big win. For large companies, the need to build high quality blogs with their list of domain names just became a necessity. Expect to see a rise in auction prices as well.

The second piece of news is that Google is moving away from high-ranking sites, and increasing the value of recent material.

Google Operating System points out something interesting in Google’s algorithm recently: a preference in favoring recent content. The example provided would seem to favor the conclusion; TCP/IP’s anniversary today has resulted in Google preferencing recent posts, including from Digg, over informative articles related to the search term such as Wikipedia who would have normally had the top or near to the top position.

No more living off your SEOwork from three years ago. If you're not writing regularly, you're not going to rank on the first page of Google. This is a positive event for the consumer, which means less four year old webpages, but it's great news for bloggers, whose steady stream of information is going to rank even higher in the search engines.

SEO for 2008 just changed, and blogs are going to be the answer for many companies. The old saw that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, just got proven true. If you're one of those corporate marketing, technology, or communication executives that wonder you're going to adjust, the time to speak to a social media company is now. I guess now is the time to remind you that we've corporate blog consultants?

If you're in St Louis, and you're looking for a social media consultant, you can't afford not to call.