Brandstorming Has Moved

We've finally done it. Our blog has now officially moved over to Brandstorming.com. We've been preparing this for a few weeks, and the blog is now up. Of course, it looks the same. The only difference is it's on it's own domain. This blog will remain up for our website SEO, but future posts will be at Brandstorming.com.

Hasta la Blogger, baby.

If your RSS feed isn't working, or you have any problems, please contact us at info@durbinmedia.com

Right On Target

It's time to give a big round of applause to Target. We've been ordering items from them online lately, and it has given us the opportunity to see how an industry giant handles interpersonal communication.

The story began when I ordered an RTA (ready to assemble) coffee table for our office. It seemed fine until we had it completely put together. At that point I noticed they there were some damaged areas to much of the wood. The table itself was gorgeous, and - to be fair - when you order RTA furniture you are not expecting perfection. But this was considerable damage, so I contacted customer service using the web site.

What did I expect? That's easy. Based upon previous experiences with online vendors I anticipated having to ship it back at my own expense, re-order the table and wait for a refund to arrive. Not the case. I received a personal, compassionate response from a specific customer service representative who actually offered their name and contact information (first shock). They apologized for my inconvenience, told me a new table was already on the way and thanked me for my patience.

After I recovered from the shock, I went out of my way to find a way to send Target corporate an email letting them know how amazed I was at the personal service I received. Let's be fair, in this day and age most people are disenchanted with how customer service issues are handled. It's either outsourced, automated or an afterthought - or some combination of the three. But Target, it is clearly a priority to handle each issue on a one-on-one basis.

Last week, I received another item from Target.com that appeared to have been damaged in shipping. In my note, I conceded that it looked like something I could possibly fix, but doing so had not proven easy. I asked if I could take the offending item to the store and order a replacement. Within hours of sending in my note, I received a genuinely kind note from a Target rep. They told me how to have UPS come to my home to pick up the item. And - oh, by the way - a new item was already on the way to my home.

Is that the end of my story? No. I noticed that the item above had just gone on clearance. I could have saved $30 if I'd just ordered it this week. Since I'd not yet received the replacement, it seemed possible I could intercept the shipment and rebuy it at the new price. I was informed that normally I would need to return and repurchase the item to receive the new price, but in light of the situation surrounding my order they had already issued me a $30 refund. Can you believe that? I am 3 for 3 in terms of positive (very positive) experiences with Target.com.

Let me back up by telling you about my behavior as a consumer. I am a very engaged consumer. I price shop, I demand quality, I am not shy about asking for better service or products. But I am also fiercely loyal when I find a product or merchant who does things right. What Target.com did for me ranks them among the very peak shopping experiences I've had. Who knew a mass merchant could reach out and be so personal? I am truly impressed and have no qualms about telling you they have won my loyalty. Kudos to the powers that be for their courteous, professional and customer-centric approach to doing business online. My experiences with Target.com have been absolutely stellar.

Working On Moving Blog Over To Brandstorming

Franki is working feverishly on converting the blog over into Typepad, so we want to make sure all of you reading this on Feedburner are prepared.

The blog will look the same, but the address will be http://brandstorming.com. Right now it's a redirect, but it will be standalone in the next week. When we first started back in 2006, we used the Blogger.com site to create the blog, mapping the site to http://durbinmedia.com/brandstorming using FTP. The goal was to increase the SEO for DurbinMedia.com. Every link to the blog was a link to our main site, and the site and the blog quickly rose to PageRank5.

It's dropped since then, but it jumpstarted us, and the regular traffic is about a 100 a day, with over 42,000 visits. That's pretty good exposure for a small company - and the blog itself brought us over $100,000 in revenue. How's them metrics?

We are going to leave the blogger site up, but it won't be the main blog. Mainly, we're leaving it up so that we don't leave the SEO traffic on the table. Converting the site into Typepad would break the links, so we're going to take choice posts, repost them, and update this site once a month.

But starting next week, we'll be writing at http://brandstorming.com. We'll redirect the feed, but if you get lost, come on over. And thank you all for reading, commenting, and linking.

Check out some of our other projects:

Venticafe.com Franki's store of fine designer products (coming soon)
SocialMediaHeadhunter.com Looking for social media employees? We find and place them.
SituationalMarketing.com Self-Service Voice Broadcast, E-mail Marketing, and SMS messaging at http://store.blastcompanies.com

Love Note To My Wife

You'll probably read this when I'm in the air tomorrow, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm thinking about you. It's almost midnight - I'm finished, and yes I'm going to bed, but I'm listening to to Lifehouse's "Everything" on your iPod.

It' s a beautiful song about God, and our love for Him. But I'm listening to the lyrics, and they make me think of you. The lyrics are about Him, but they're about you, too.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

I had a great time with you yesterday. You should have seen my soul smile when I saw you down at the office. You're beautiful in everything you do. I love you. I'll see you tonight.

Tide-to-go: Hate the Product. Love the Ad.

I've used this product. It ruined a brand new white shirt. A mild (and small) stain I probably could have lived with (or easily removed with Oxyclean once I was home) was replaced with a large yellow spot too permanent and grand to ignore. So I'm no fan of the Tide-to-Go stick.

After a bit of research I discovered that Tide doesn't recommend you use it on white fabric. Interesting, considering every commercial I've ever seen demonstrates its amazing stain removing powers on actors wearing (you guessed it) white shorts.

But I'm putting aside my hostility to confess that I love this commercial. I love it. It perfectly illustrates the distraction that a stain causes when another person is looking at you. It's like having parsley in your teeth or your fly unzipped. You could be delivering the most eloquent message, but all I can think about is the oversight. Kudos to the ad firm who created this spot.

Silence In Social Media? Are You Giving Content Away For Free?

I was reading through the Smart Page Rank blog, written by the estimable Mike Call, an SEO expert. He writes a post called, Silence Is The Key To SEO Success. I found it a fascinating read, because it really hits at the heart of blogging when you're a consultant. If you give away everything you know, who is going to pay for it?

For the SEO consultant, passing over SEO secrets is a real revenue killer. If clients read how to fix their SEO problems, why would they call you? And if competitors figure out what you're doing, why give them the leg up? It's a conundrum for all consultants, who crave the publicity of online fame (to bring in more clients), but who fear giving away for free what they formerly charged for.

When I first started blog consulting, my wife, who has a decade of interactive marketing experience, was concerned that I was giving away all of my experience. She came down on the side of silence is golden (as in it brings in the gold). I was of a different viewpoint. So little was known about social media (we were calling it new media when we started), the sales cycle was unbearably long because I had to educate first, and then sell.

More important, the things I do can be explained, but you can't really do social media unless you're in social media. Thus clients were paying me for the execution, not the idea. As I've matured in this business, and added over 40 clients big and small, my reluctance to share everything I know is beginning to show. It's not that I don't share my ideas with clients - but I'm not the open book I once was. Competitors have started to creep in and muddy the waters promising what they haven't yet delivered. Scam artists still abound, selling "blogs" that are little more than GoDaddy templates. And many companies are willing to listen to your ideas and even take a proposal, never planning on acting on it.

Them's the breaks in business. I understood that from the beginning, but the difference between Durbin Media today and Durbin Media two years ago is pedigree. I have one now. I don't have to give away my ideas for free.

In the last two years, social media consultants have popped up everywhere - or at least people who call themselves social media consultants. There is a glut of people who use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, and podcasts, and who build up impressive online reputations with them, but there are very few people who can point to successful campaigns, satisfied clients, or to be honest, even paying clients.

Getting famous with social media is not the same as providing a service to paying clients with results that can be measured.

This is one of the hazards of any new technology. It's easier to be cutting edge than it is to be profitable. And there is always a multi-level marketing effect that takes place as the early adopters are hailed as gurus when it was the timing, and not the results of their campaigns, that made the difference. As new people enter the field, traffic, links, friends, and followers accrue to the early adopters in a process known as preferential attachment (the rich get richer effect).

I'm not trying to attack anyone here, at least not personally. And I'm certainly not saying that just because someone is popular that they are the Amway of Social Media. Many of the top bloggers got where they were with business acumen, social networking skills, and good old- fashioned decency. They seek to improve the social media space (I'm thinking chiefly of Jeremiah Owyang and Rohit Bhargava here, two of my favorite social media bloggers), and they are rightly rewarded with traffic and publicity.

But prospective buyers of social media, and those who seek to add social media to their resume, would be well-advised to look past the hype and ask questions about metrics, successes, and former clients. Social media in business is a vastly different beast than social media in your personal life. In business, SM is just a tool. To be considered a good tool, it has to bring results, and any competent social media consultant will be able to give you solid, concrete, profitable results for your social media campaign. These metrics may not be what you're looking for, but we can clearly define what social media brings to the table in both tangible and intangible ways.

At the same time - if you already have metrics, and know how to pitch them to clients, are you really better served giving those secrets up? The recent panel at SXSW, marked by a Twitter and Meebo revolt, was based in part on a panel of experts who were supposed to talk about measuring social media, but never really got to it in the panel. Some might say that the panelists were at fault, because they were empty suits, unmasked by the Twitter mobs. I find that hard to believe (mainly because Rohit was on the panel), but if I were on that panel, I wouldn't have given my secrets to selling social media away to a roomful of competitors, either.

It's not that my secrets are that super-confidential. Everything I've learned can be easily deduced - but only if you've done your own work in social media. My concern is the twisting of my words to sell products and services to clients by other firms who lack the experience to execute. There is a lot of that out there - and clients are all too often eager to find a silver bullet, and ready to listen to someone who can promise them social media nirvana.

Step 1:Start a blog (or a wiki, or join Facebook, or join Twitter)
Step 3: Profit!

There are right and wrong ways to sell social media. The more I do, the more I wonder at the paradox that the best thing for the industry, and my pocketbook, might be silence. Is it a sign of industry maturation, or the typical greedy caricature of all consultants?

Twitter Is Too Serious, And RickRolling Is Bad Karma

Chances are I'm the first person to ever write that, but it's true. Twitter is too serious. Maybe it's the people I'm following, but I see a real lack of playfullness in the Tweets people.

I find out when people get on and off planes, what they're making for lunch for their kids, what they're posting on their blogs, serious thoughts on social media, instant analysis of trade booths, keynotes, and television.

But where are the jokes? Where are the closed loop deep knowledge of the internet memes that run rampant through the rest of the Internet?

I want to see more AYBABTU, and Bonsai Kittens, and Flying With Ghetto Delta, PeanutButterJellyTime, and my latest personal favorite, RickRolling. (ed. I went searching for the best RickRoll, and found it. It was so horrible, I can't link it. It took over my browser, played it on an endless loop, and I had to shut the computer down to get rid of it - that's so evil).

As it turns out, RickRolling someone on Twitter doesn't work. And maybe that's a good thing. I'm investigating ways to use Twitter to make money (which is supposed to be the point of anything you're doing for customers), but deep down in the 1990's part of my soul, I'm remembering classic Internet pranks. Now if only we could find a way to play classic Nintendo games in our browser.


You can follow me at Twitter at http://twitter.com/smheadhunter.

PPC Suggestions: Cost Comparison Versus Blogging for Small Businesses

One of the things that always gets me in online marketing is the number of small businesses that purchase PPC campaigns and get little value from it. I'm not going to go off on PPC, because there is a time and a place for it. Some companies use PPC very effectively to drive millions of dollars of revenue. My view on PPC is that if you're not an expert, follow these simple rules.

1) Have a Product to Sell or an Instant Transaction: Don't use PPC for brand recognition without a larger campaign behind it. If you are selling services that don't require an instant purchase, or if you are trying to drive traffic so you can make money advertising, PPC is probably not for you. This doesn't mean PPC can't work for you, but you have to know how to make it work in a full campaign, and that's more complicated than just buying keywords (or paying someone to buy them for you).

2) MAKE LANDING PAGES: This one baffles me. There is no excuse for having your PPC campaign point to your website or blog. It takes very little time to create a landing page that directs clickers to buy a product. Sending them to your website, where they then have to search for a product is a waste of time.

3) If PPC Works for You, Plan For When It Doesn't: You should hear this. PPC Campaigns are only as successful as your dumbest competitor. If PPC works for you, it can work for your competitors. When they realize this, they enter the PPC space and bid up your keywords. This means that any advantage is short-lived, and the cost of PPC grows over time while the value declines. What are you doing to plan past your PPC success? And worse, what if you're the last one in the pool?

A few words on longevity. I worked with a client last year on a birth announcement service that was strictly online. We stopped blogging in August, but since then over 1700 people** have visited the site from search engine referrals, and even dormant, 10-15 a day come to the site. The cost to keep this blog up is $50/year. Do that math. Having once blogged, and even on a dormant site, the client is getting a PPC value of $.009 per visitor that should last several years. And they do nothing to maintain it.

The value of blogging is long-term returns. The value of PPC is immediacy.

Regular blogging yields even higher returns. StlRecruiting.com brings in 80-90 referrers/week just from the search engines dredging up old content. That's a PPC value of $.001 per visitor for work already completed. When I first started, I targeted people with SEO and PPC budgets for blog campaigns. It was my primary method of measuring metrics. When pitching firms on social media, compare the returns on your traffic and SEO ranking with that of the PPC, SEO, and press mentions (from PR). You'll find your sales pitch more compelling.

**I realize this is a small example. 1700 visitors isn't a lot, but it's relevant to that particular site. Blogging increased traffic to the site 150% when it was active, and drove the rank of the site up in relevant search terms.

Social Media Interview Questions: Client Side

Over at Social Media Headhunter, I list questions social media candidates should be asked by prospective employers.

Be sure to link, comment or trackback responses so I can collate them.

Chester Returns...

I have vague memories (or assumptions) about Chester the Cheetah, the iconic feline of Cheetos. But we've seen the new commercials, and none of the mental images I had of this creature are visible in the TV spots. To say they are uncomfortable is an understatement...but I'll give the creative pros behind the campaign major points for being memorable and leaving a strong impression.

Here's the creepy airplane one...



But I will concede that this one - which pokes fun at neat freaks like myself - is actually very funny. (Maybe its because Chester isn't massaging a stewardess's shoulders.)