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Facebook Vanity URLs – Claim Your Name Today! (And Saturday at 12:01am)

Facebook has just announced the long-anticipated vanity URL/username feature for users of the popular social networking service. Anyone with a Facebook profile will notice a little note about usernames greeting them today at the top of their homepage. What is a bit less obvious is that Facebook is also rolling out vanity URLs for Fan Pages – a big plus for companies using the site for social marketing and customer service purposes.

 

What is a Facebook Vanity URL?
It’s a URL that will include a legible company name, rather than the non-sense parameters and ID numbers that Facebook has been using to date. So, your fashionable shoe company that currently has a long Facebook URL (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Denver-CO/Lovely-Shoes-Official-Fan-Page/37248253610) would have a newer, prettier Fan Page URL that looks like this: www.Facebook.com/Lovely-Shoes/ 

 

This will help your organic search rankings, and it will make it much easier for your fans and customers to remember and type into their browser.

 

Learn more about this exciting new development from the official Facebook blog here:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=91106469821

 

There are a couple of conditions that you must meet before choosing your username. You must have had your Facebook Fan Page live prior to May 31, 2009 and you must have a minimum of 1,000 fans as of that date. If you meet these requirements, make sure to choose your username at midnight (12:01am Saturday).

 

However, if you have a page, but don’t have enough fans yet, make sure to register your trademarked company name so that no one else can choose it.

 

Follow this link to register your legal trademark:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights

Frustrated Writer + Law Blog = Seven Figure “Hobby”

(Written by Jack Nuanes)

 

Recently we were asked to put a dollar value on a blog.  Certainly this is not the first time this question has been asked.  But how do you calculate the value of a blog?

 

For a retail website selling a product one could calculate sales <less> costs to get a estimated figure of how much the website is worth.  But how about a B2B website with a 9 month plus sales cycle?  Moreover how do you place a value on a blog for a law firm?

 

So faced with this question the answer is:  North of $1,200,000 and growing each day.

 

First we took a look at the Google analytics data.  Then to arrive at this figure we simply had to apply math based on the law firm’s billable rate.

 

Here is our calculation:

 

Take the average visitor time on the site (1:09) x 287,833 visitors x billable rate ($200 per hour) =  $1,045,793.23.

 

Then factor in 400 lifetime blog posts @ 2 hours x $200 per hour = $160,000.

 

Total value = $1,205,793.23 at $200 per hour.

 

If the billable rate increases to:

 

$250.00             $1,467,241.54

$300.00             $1,728,689.85

$350.00             $1,990,138.16

$400.00             $2,251,586.47

 

The intangible variables that are not included in the calculation are:

 

1)  Business to this particular law firm from website searches based on expertise of subject matter found and updated on the blog calculated per case or per hour for $$$.$$

 

2)  Google and other search engine rankings at $$$.$$.  This blog consistently comes up in position one in Google for the subject matter and we all know position one in Google is priceless.

 

 

Here is another way to think of it.

 

If a law firm had to prepare for a trial and

 

1)  Write a 400 page brief.

 

2)  Then meet with 287,833 clients for 1.09 minutes; (some of them twice which factors in for unique visitors).

 

3)  How much would the firm charge for this??

 

Answer:  287,833 x 1.09 = 313,737 minutes / 60 minutes in an hour = 5,228 hours at $200, $250, $300, $350 per hour + 800 hours to create blog.

 

Message to all frustrated writers that became attorneys:  Keep track of all figures that were put into the blog you “volunteered” to create for your firm.  In the future you may never know if you will need to substantiate the value of your “hobby” within your firm.

Marketing Haiku

Like waves on the sea

Buying cycle frequencies

Don’t sail at low tide

Marketing Haiku

In the age of Twitter and 140 characters or less, we thought it would be fun to incorporate a Marketing Haiku series into the Blue Moon Works, Inc. blog.  Brandon Morris, our SEO specialist and resident poet will deliver a fresh haiku to our readers each week. 

 

So, without further ado, here is our first haiku:

 

 

Recommendations

Without implementation

Are trees without soil

What Is The Right Discount? Some Math For Your Online Marketing Efforts.

With our current recession, we are seeing online retailers offer various discounts on their merchandise.   A question every online marketer ponders is what offer or discount will get the best response.  At what price point will they get the attention from their customers and site visitors that will result in a purchase.  At the same time online marketers have to watch the gross margin and get the ROI required.

 

Understanding the sensitivity between price and demand is critical to all marketers.  We want to find the smallest change in price (ie, smallest discount) that leads to the biggest change in quantity demanded, resulting in the optimal increase in sales.   In addition to doing an A/B split test to see if one discount works better than another, it is important to measure the actual sensitivity.   If the price sensitivity is known, then more effective online promotional campaigns can be designed to get the desired sales result.

 

In math and economics measuring this sensitivity is called the price elasticity of demand, which is characterized by the symbol “η”.  And there is a reasonably simple formula for calculating that.

 

η = price elasticity of demand

 

η = - (% change in orders) / (% change in price)

 

η = - [Δ Q / (Q1 + Q2) /2] ÷ [Δ P / (P1 + P2) /2]

 

If η is > 1, then you have elastic demand, and a change in price can make a big difference in demand, and total sales made.  But if η is < 1, than you have inelastic demand, and a change in price is not going to affect demand.   You’ll just sell the same quantity but make less revenue because you gave a discount.

 

Let’s take an example of an online apparel retailer.  They sell a wide variety of women’s clothing.  They want to promote their spring trench coats and their new line of polo shirts.  Demand is lagging and they are contemplating doing a sales promotion to sell their spring inventory.  They would like to test different discounts with their email list first to determine how effective the discount would be on their website and in their search campaigns.  They run the following A/B split tests in their weekly email campaign and get these results:

 
 
 
 

 

Spring Trench Coats
Discount Price Quantity Sold Total Sales
Regular Retail   $ 150.00 20  $3,000.00
With 17% discount  $ 125.00 36  $4,500.00

Plugging in the numbers to the formula for price elasticity we get:

η = - [(20-36) / (20+36)/2] ÷ [($150-$125) / ($150 + $125) /2]

η =  3.14

 

Every 1 % discount represents 3.14% in increased orders.

 

Basic Polo Shirt
Discount Price Quantity Sold Total Sales
Regular Retail   $   25.00 45  $1,125.00
With 20% discount  $   20.00 48  $   960.00

Plugging in the numbers to the formula for price elasticity we get:

η = - [(45-48) / (45+48)/2] ÷ [($25-$20) / ($25 + $20) /2]

η =  .29

 

Every 1 % discount represents .29 % in increased orders.

 

While they could just look at the sales results and see that the spring trench coat sale of $25 off (or a 17%) discount was effective, by measuring the price elasticity of demand for the trench coats they had better statistical data to support publishing the sale through search and on their website.  Trench coats had a very elastic demand and it was worth adding the $25 off promotion to the website and to the search campaigns.

 

The basic polo shirt sold more orders but was it effective?  By measuring the price elasticity it became very clear that the polo shirts had an inelastic demand.  They actually made less revenue.  It was now clear that it was not going to be effective to run a discount promotion on the website or in the search campaigns for the polo shirts.  It actually would hurt total revenue.

 

Next week we’ll use a bit more math to help you calculate what a statistically valid sample size with an acceptable sampling error should be.  This will help you determine how large of a marketing test do you have to conduct before you can have a high degree of confidence that full campaign will get you the results you are forecasting.

 

 

Sharing how to use math in marketing, Cindy.

 

The Academy Awards - Great Show But Missed The Mark Online

Did you watch the Academy Awards last night?  It was a great show.  Hugh Jackman was a terrific host and I learned that he is not only a great actor, or just the sexiest man in the world according to People magazine, he can also keep up with Beyonce when it comes to singing and dancing.  Slumdog Millionaire took the evening, winning 8 Oscars.  It was great to see the legends of Hollywood hand out the Oscars to the new winners.  Everyone looked beautiful and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

 

Prior to the broadcast, I went online and surfed the web to check out who the nominees were, if I had seen any of the movies, did I know who was up for the leading actor awards.  I did find the official site www.oscar.com quite easily.  I tried to play their “Play Along” contest but it was just too slow.  I did sign up for the mobile alerts.  I was ready with laptop, mobile phone, popcorn to enjoy a multi-channel, integrated evening at the Kodak Theatre.

 

You can imagine my surprise once the broadcast started that I was told by the ABC host to go to www.ontheredcarpet.com to sign up to get alerts through Twitter.  I quickly joined the other 1,420 people that followed along.  But how did Hollywood miss this opportunity?  With all the money and effort that is spent weeks before the Academy Awards, some how they failed to brand it, let alone promote it, effectively online.

 

I did get the tweets as each Oscar was handed out.  But that is pretty much all I got.  No great behind the scenes gossip, no effort to get me to read more.  I would have loved to see how other people around the world were reacting to the evening.  It would have enhanced my overall experience.

 

Hollywood can make great movies.  Maybe next year, they’ll learn to also make a great online experience.

Using All Channels - The Commander In Chief Does

Denver gets a lot of attention from the President.  We hosted the DNC in August and yesterday President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. 

What is amazing is that I received a blog post through an RSS feed, a tweet, and an email all within 4 hours of President Obama signing the bill into law.  In the email, I could click on a link and read personal stories submitted from people all across America on how they are struggling in this recession.  That is a lot of user generated content.  I was also encouraged to submit my own story.  And tell a friend.

And not only that.  Behind the speakers announcing the President, (Governor Bill Ritter, Vice President Biden, and the president of Namaste Solar) a screen projected Tweets from viewers, literally in real time.  Out of respect for the office, Tweets were not posted while the President spoke.  But if that isn’t a new form of communication, I’m not sure what is.

Whether you support the stimulus package or have different political affliations, we must all agree that this president is going to change the way the federal government communicates and receives feedback.  Sure, he has a staff to do a lot of the work for him.  But the technology exists, at minimal cost, for every commander in chief of every company to use all channels to communicate.  If the federal government can figure this out, then I’m encouraged that the rest of us can too.

Join in the Conversation - How To Get Started

I think we all agree that social marketing is here to stay.  We are spending more and more time with our clients helping them put together a Social Marketing strategy for their brand.  We are well past the belief that social networking is only for entertainment, and are clearly seeing that social marketing works and can have an ROI that competes with SEM.

 

But how as an individual and a business professional can you get more involved in the social sphere and truly join the conversation?  Sure, the first step is to get your own profile on Facebook, LinkedIN, and Twitter.  And then keep your profiles updated.  But I also suggest that you start by exploring which Bloggers you want to follow. 

 

So how do you do that? 

 

I decided to Google search my favorite authors.  I just finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  He also wrote Tipping Point and Blink.  Sure enough, he has a blog: http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/.  His post this morning is quite interesting and I just left a comment.  Very easy.  And now I have begun a new relationship with a best selling author. 

 

Compiling all of the blogs you discover into an easily accessed page that feeds RSS, such as iGoogle or My Yahoo!  is a great way to start.  Find your favorite authors.  Subscribe to their feeds.  Read their blog posts.  Take time to write a thoughtful comment.  Join in the conversation.<br>

 

Cindy Brown, CEO Blue Moon Works, Inc.

“One Web” Vision Suggests .Mobi is a Short-Term Fix

An interview with SES speaker Cindy Krum.

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Earlier this month Ron Jackson posted about an interesting session at Search Engine Strategies’ San Jose Show, taking place August 18-22. The session, titled “Mobile SEO: Death of the ‘.mobi’”, suggests that web developers shouldn’t create a mobile version of their web sites. Instead, they should make their “one web” site work across traditional and mobile platforms.

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So when SES asked me if there was anyone presenting at the show that I’d like to interview, I quickly jumped on the opportunity to get some answers from one of the speakers on the panel, Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works, Inc. (OK, so first I asked to talk to Google but that didn’t go anywhere :)

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Regardless of whether you think .mobi has a future or not, Krum provides a compelling argument that designing a mobile-only web site is shortsighted, and companies should instead focus on making their main web site mobile-friendly.

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Read the full article at domainwire.com