PardonMyFrench

Do You Really Need a Website for Your Business?

I'm back home after spending the past 2.5 days in Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel for some meetings and one of the more interesting comments mentioned was whether businesses (and to an extension campaigns) need websites.  This isn't the first time this has come up so that's why I decided to write a post on it. 

Before I put some thoughts down, if you are an eCommerce site you need a website.  Sure you can use Google Shopping/Checkout but that really isn't an online store for you.  Yes you can go the Amazon-eBay route which will work in the beginning, but eventually you'll need an eCommerce site.  Personally, I'm leaning towards not having my own corporate website and just go the blog route.

10 THOUGHTS YOU SHOULD HAVE BEFORE YOU SPEND BIG $ FOR A WEBSITE

1. Website are often just static pages that tries hard to get you to return over and over again via SEO, bookmarks, emails, etc.  Sure you can add blog components to keep content fresh, but if your site is not primarily about being a blog-news generating site, you are probably better off with other options
2. Now if you have a blog, you probably notice that a lot of your readers get your content off-site via email or more likely a feed readers.  You can still make money in the blog feeds with advertising and then if they want to make a comment they can click over to your site.  However, notice that you can get your message out and brand yourself as effectively offsite as you can onsite.
3. I don't know about you, but my traffic on my site has plateaued in the 150 daily page view range.  Granted I've focused less on traffic in the past 6 months, but I get the majority of my traffic now to my blogs from Twitter links and SEO results.
4. Twitter has changed the way you promote yourself and push information out.  People subscribe to your brand to receive quick, pithy messages and then decided whether to dive in or not.  Basically Twitter can act like your Outlook Preview Pane and once again remember people are primarily interacting with your brand offsite. Also, I personally have way more Twitter followers (560+) then I've ever had on my RSS subscribers or average unique website visitors.
5. Social Network sites like  Facebook have way more utility and way quicker updates then you can possibly have unless you are the king of spending like President Obama.  Your brand in Facebook is more powerful because of the embedded tools, linking, widgets, and commenting functions embedded within Facebook's basic functionality.
6. Have I told you that you can build a great looking website in about 1 hour of work by using Typepad or WordPress?  Now it would be blog based which helps quickly generate content but the ease of use and price (basically cheap + consulting/design fees if you need help) makes it invaluable. 
7. You can even add in Google Checkout to process your eCommerce activity if it isn't too large of a store on your blog site.
8. A combination of landing pages, YouTube channel pages, and Facebook profiles can deliver a cost effective and efficient marketing campaign.  For example, here is the Captain Morgan for President page on YouTube which links over to the key page at Facebook.  I can't go into the marketing details but this combination was very cost efficient at getting 20K+ Facebook supporters.  Think of what you would know about your supporters with this efficient combination.
9. A static website takes resources to keep running including an agency to host and build pages, plus some content management tools.  The cost doesn't just stop once the site is built.
10. Finally, think about how you are going to get traffic coming back and the tools you need to measure what people are doing on your site.  That probably means Google for SEO and advertising and Analytics for your tracking.  Big sites require big expenses for tracking while the blog-Analytics costs you around a cup of coffee.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Zannel Is My New Favorite Social Network

Do I have a Facebook page?  Of course I do and I log into it but not as much as I did in the past.  I'm actually a fan of Facebook and I think they are trying to take a leadership position in aggregating all of your social media.  Do I have a MySpace page?  Yes, but I only log in on a rare occasion and as some of you readers know, I'm definitely not a fan.  Twitter?  Yes I do make tweets and actually enjoy reading what other folks are doing.  Friendfeed?  Yes, but other than help to provide aggregated feeds I'm not sure why I should visit it.  To be fair, I tried using it before my Dad died, but ever since then I haven't given it much time.  YouTube yes of course but I don't post a ton of videos.

That's a lot of social networking and without a playbook it is hard to figure out where to spend your time.  Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are my favorites but then I got this great new cell phone and I sure would like to use it for making posts.  Sure I can post to twitter but then getting all of those tweets on your phone is enough to make your friends think you are perverted with all of the vibrations going off in your front pocket.  So enter Zannel.

Zannel is basically like Twitter on steroids.  It is integrated with Twitter so your posts to Zannel can also appear as tweets (that of course feeds into Friendfeed and then to Facebook).  However, the best part of Zannel is the crisp clean videos and photos you can post from your cell phone.  All you do is take your video-picture, email it to your Zannel account, add some text to the body of the email and wham instant Zannel post in one minute or less.

As you can see from my posts I'm just testing it out, but I do need to spend some time figuring out my new phone and how the camera works.  I'm planning on broadcasting from the Republican National Convention starting on Sunday when I fly out to be part of the NJ delegation team.   You want to see what it looks like behind the scenes?  You got it.  Just follow either on this blog (widget on right hand side) or on my Zannel channel.

Zannel will make you pull out your cell phone manual to figure out how your camera phone actually works.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Lessons Learned In Web Marketing While I've Been Gone

So I starting blogging today after being on a vacation since my Dad died.  To be perfectly honest I didn't really feel like writing anything.  I had no ideas in my head and ignored reading a lot of my news feeds. 

It gave me a chance to figure out why I've been writing this blog for the past few years.  It definitely isn't due to the ton of traffic or the cup of coffee I generated every few days in advertising revenue.  Anyway before I answer that question, I thought you'd like to see some numbers and what I think of them.

DATA OBSERVATIONS AND MARKETING TACTICS LEARNED FROM A BLOGGING VACATION

1. The number of RSS subscribers increased from 81 to 99 even though I made no new posts.  This means that more people are using RSS feeds to get their news rather than email or cruising by websites.  You need to stay focused on RSS as your outbound communication platform and not email.
2. My site visits averaged out to about 100 per day.  While this is low for me, I didn't have any new posts.  The vast majority of this traffic came from articles that I wrote that appear very high in search results.  These include politics, online advertising, AT&T, and Ballistic Coins.  Don't forget when you write your headlines that catchy titles may be creatively cool, but direct search engine friendly ones help you with traffic.
3. My number of Twitter followers has grown to 234.  In fact I get one or two new subscribers everyday now.  You can't run a blog now without cross posting and directing traffic to it via Twitter.
4. I started playing around with FriendFeed but forgot all about it.
5. Understanding what people do on your site, where they come from, and what they click on are very important.  For example, I found it interesting to know that someone decided to look to see when I mentioned Barack Obama in posts on my site.
6. Whatever happened to my del.icio.us link posts?
7. Does anyone use technorati any more?

Basically in the end I write this blog as what it was originally intended for.  A web log of what's going on with me.  I do get a kick out of when people come up to me at events and call me out as PardonMyFrench.  It does help me demonstrate that I do know a lot more about online marketing than just online media buys and search marketing.  People can easily find me on the internet and it helps me control my own spin and build Google Credibility.  Seriously it is fun for me and is my voice.  That's all it ever was and it feels like I can speak again.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric 

Off To Crystal City for Meetings So A Few Quick Posts

I'm taking the early train to DC tomorrow morning for a series of meetings in Crystal City, VA so I have political advertising on my mind.  Before I close down for the night (I need to wake up at 5:30 AM), a couple of random thoughts....

1. Have I told you how awesome it is to have a meeting with Meg Whitman of eBay fame?  We had another one today and every time she has something to say I always just smile.  It is kind of like having a guardian online advertising angel overlooking what you do.
2. I've seen a lot of chatter online lately regarding a few of our McCain online ads we've launched recently.  The only report that seems worthwhile is this one over at Politico.  People who think the ad in question is nasty need a history lesson in political advertising.  As flash ads go, this one is brilliant.
3. Google is a political advertiser's best friend and if you haven't tapped into them at any level you need to hand in your political marketing membership card.
4. I get asked a lot what website I read for political news besides JohnMcCain.com.  So, here's my short list of must reads everyday. If you have a good site you think I'm missing drop me a note...
   1. McCain Google news feed - you cant go a day without it
   2. The Next Right - a collection of right bloggers who just started this site.  Mostly inside baseball stuff but sometimes very interesting
   3. The Hotline - political scoop
   4. The Politico's Jonathan Martin - Great mix of news, marketing, and inside baseball
   5. Kung Fu Quip - fired up commentary by Bush-Cheney's former eCampaign director
   6. Marc Ambinder - you want political scoop?  Marc is your guy.
   7. Electoral Vote - I remembered this site from 2004.  Internet cheese but always liked the electoral map and the way it integrates polls.  Sure Real Clear Politics is probably your #1 source, but sometimes I like going old-school internet without the online ads.
   8. National Review - a main source for political news
   9. Townhall - a good aggregation of political and national news from a variety of sources and bloggers
   10. Redstate - if anything is happening in the conservative blogosphere it starts and ends with Redstate.
5. You'll notice that I left off plenty of well known sites and bloggers, but this is my short list of must reads everyday.  One in particular however, I never read on my own unless prompted by a friend.  That's the NY Times.  I stopped reading them a long time ago and after their hit jobs on Senator McCain I go out of ny way to avoid them (WSJ works much better for finance and national news).  I don't go there for any type of news - sports, politics, dining out, book reviews.  Nothing unless it is properly vetted by friends before it is sent on.

That's it for today.  See you when I get back home (tomorrow night).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Twitter Forcing Me To Use New Tactics to Get My Message Out

Back in the day (circa 2 years ago) after you wrote your post you needed a way to let your readers know that you have new content.  A co-worker of mine at Harrisdirect named Lisa Perez told me, just send out an email blast whenever you have a new post.  That was solid advice, but I'm too lazy to email my personal list. 

I focused on search results rankings from day 1 and that pays off for me all the time but that attracts new readers.  I subscribed to FeedBlitz for free which still works, but sadly I'm down to 28 subscribers now (I think I topped out at 150).  Feedburner for RSS feeds is still a must have and I have 100+ subscribers, but in a Twitter world, you have to change your tactics.  Here's why.

Right now I have over 185 followers and it grows every day. I get new requests all of the time and when I post a lot on Twitter I get a ton of new followers.  I use Twitbin so it posts new Tweets from the people I follow and it makes it very easy for me to Tweet.  I post work related meetings, personal events, but what is a must do for every blogger now is to post links to you blog articles.  It is just basic good CRM now and you can't live without it.

Believe it or not, I think more Corporations should be using Twitter for short message updates too.  Sure you can't put a lot of content in your Tweets, but at least you can write a quick summary with a link to your new content.  I've had a love hate relationship with Twitter in the past, but I've worked out my own differences and I've been in the love category for a while now.  Bloggers and corporations shouldn't ignore it anymore.  Otherwise you might wake up one day and realize that your email list doesn't perform like it did in the past.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Anonymous Blog Comments Should Be Outlawed

In an internet area of social networks, Twitter, and blogs where does anonymous blog comments fit in?  Isn't it about time they were outlawed?  Do they have a place in today's digital society?  For me the answer is no - they should be sent to the internet scrap heap.

What possesses someone to post a comment anonymously?  Isn't it nothing more than a combination of spam and bad linking?  When someone posts in this cowardly fashion there are only a few reasons:

1. Hate posts
2. Personal attacks
3. Linking to boost SEO rankings
4. Cheap links to products and websites
5. Gives the illusion of support for or against an issue

Nothing, I mean nothing good can come from anonymous blog comments.  If you have something to say and are responding to a post or another comment from someone who put their opinions out there, then why don't you do the same as well?  Afraid because you might say something stupid?  Most people have done something like that at one time or another and usually you get the chance to correct it and you move on.  Also, a lot of companies now have blogging policies and you should go look yours up so you know what you can and can't do. 

There is no valid reason to make a post anonymously.  There isn't a place for it in today's social networking digital space and it should be outlawed.  If you can't provide a valid email address so people can track you down, you should have no business participating in an open communication environment of today's digital space. 

Heck, you can't publish a letter to the editor of your local newspaper without giving a name and address.  Why shouldn't that apply to the internet?  It absolutely should be a pre-requisite or else the internet will never grow up and will be filled with vile, personal attacks, spam, and generally other unprofessional tactics.  It is time that anonymous comments leave the modern digital space.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I'm Outing Myself - I'm a Closet Blogette Fan

(Disclosure:  I've never personally met Meghan McCain.  I literally bumped into her in a bar at the South Carolina victory party in the Charleston Hotel.  This is my own personal opinion on having a blog and has nothing to do with my work on the Senator's campaign as part of Connell Donatelli)

I just finished reading this Washington Post article called Fortunate Daughter which profiles Meghan McCain and her blog the McCainBlogette.com and I have to tell you I personally believe that the Washington Post did everything they could to belittle the site.  Their entire article seems to make snide comments and make it seem like the blog is something that people are not interested in because it makes posts about music, shoes, insider photos, clothing, and people's top 10 lists.  However, The Washington Post seems to forget one thing - the actual purpose of a blog.

Back in the early days before I had a blog or allowed to have a blog (as a Managing Director at Harrisdirect I was strongly encourage to not blog), I was first given a definition of a blog by BlueStreak co-founder Eric Picard.  Eric said a blog is the sound that is made when someone says "webblog three times very quickly" and it is a written history of a life story or an online journal.  A blog used to be about people's life experiences and not some marketing tool.  And for me, that's what the McCainBlogette blog is all about.

I get personal information and behind the scenes information.  You can see up close and personal photos about what happens on the campaign trail.  You can see for yourself the humanity in the campaign and it is unfiltered so it really gives you candid looks.  Do I care about what's on the Blogette Playlist?  Personally no, but I enjoy taking a peak once in a while.   Same as knowing what kind of shoes someone is wearing.  There is some information that doesn't show up in briefing documents and if it doubles as brain candy - fine by me.

The Washington Post should have remembered what blogs were originally designed for - to give people an inside view of their lives and not for corporate America or uncovering political news before the MSM.  Sometimes people just want to know what kind of shoes you'd wear to a primary results party and not what the actual results are.  Yes I just outed myself.  I am a closet McCainBlogette fan - and in case you are wondering I'm wearing a pair of black ankle leather boots and dressed in all black today (surprise).

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S.  The only complaint I've ever had about McCainBlogette is that there is no RSS feed from the site.

The Twitter Pull

Almost a year ago I wrote a post called I Just Can't Get Into Twitter and while I believe my original justification for that post was accurate, I can't help but feel the Twitter pull.  Back when I wrote that post a lot of the tweets were boring and unwanted updates, but now I get just as much information as I do entertainment from following folks.  Plus, I get daily pings of new followers so now my Twitter followers outnumbers my blog email subscribers and their number is also approaching my RSS feed subscriber number.

There are tons of posts out there on Twitter and I won't drone on about the business aspects of it (other than CRM, not much) but here's what I like and don't like about Twitter.  You'll see that the likes outnumber the dislikes:

WHY I LIKE TWITTER

1. Unlike instant messenger, I get a log of my friends and business associates so I can see what interesting updates they have
2. You actually can find entertaining posts in 140 characters or less
3. You can find quick breaking news stories
4. You get updates on conferences
5. Unlike RSS feeds you get a very quick overview of new posts or articles
6. Did I mention it is actually fun to look into people's lives based on the info they post in 140 characters or less
7. You can have questions answered
8. Believe it or not, it takes little time to get updates or make tweets

WHY I STILL DISLIKE TWITTER

1. I don't like hitting refresh
2. In order to solve #1, I need to install a browser add-on which I hate
3. It isn't integrated with Yahoo IM or AOL IM like it used to be
4. Not enough conversations going back and forth, yet

Yes, I feel the pull of Twitter now.  It is actually kind of fun and I get quick updates now.  I don't have to stay logged on to see the updates and can check in anytime I want now.  I'm not sure how long it will last or if it is a fad or not, but for now I kind of enjoy it.  My time spent on Facebook has definitely taken a hit, but it wasn't much to begin with anyway.  Twitter probably isn't for everyone, but if I keep growing my followers it will definitely keep me engaged.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Political Blogs Are Starting to Feel Fake to Me

On the eve on the Republican Primary in Florida, I'm getting more and more down on political blogs at least when it comes to discussing Republican candidates.    I read tons of them every day including Townhall, Malkin, Powerline, RedState, Race42008, Instapundit, Politico, etc and for me the majority of them seem over the top, fake, and willing to write just about anything.  Of course ones that really want to fool you will even make disclosures about who they support, but that still doesn't change the fact that they will write anything and take huge leaps of faith to support their candidate or bring a competitive candidate down.

Some bloggers like Michelle Malkin are truly in a league of their own.  Malkin won't hide her disdain for a politician and even when I don't agree with her, I feel that she at least will try and act like a real journalist and back her opinions up with facts, links, and pictures.  Jonathan Martin's blog is another I enjoy reading and not because he uses his blog to write stories; he already writes for Politico.  Jonathan uses his blog for what blogs were originally designed to do - background information, quick breaking stories, and insider perspectives.  Instapundit, Little Green Footballs, and Powerline are some other blogs that I respect a lot too.  Those to me are good examples of political blogs even though I might not agree with their perspectives.

Other good examples are the average small individual blogger.  I pick those up in my Google News looking for posts that people write about clients and one in particular.  Again, I'm not expecting much and the average blogger is just giving their opinion to their readers - sort of like water cooler talk via the internet.  Again I may not agree with their posts and often I will comment if I believe they are misguided, but as I wrote above, the individual blogger making posts is a good thing.

The bloggers in between Malkin/Martin level and the individual blogger is where it gets squirrelly.  These bloggers are trying to jump into the big time and really seems to ignore journalistic standards.  Perhaps they don't care because they are going out of their way to help a candidate, but the sites that publish these posts take the long term hits from it.  I already have a few sites on my list that after this primary season is over, it is highly unlikely I will visit them on a regular basis again.  Besides the blog posts, the comments are even more venomous rendering them mostly unreadable and really useless.

Besides losing readers in the long term, I'd imagine ad dollars will be harder to come by unless of course the site's candidate of choice ends up winning the primary.  Sure some of these sites have multiple bloggers who support different candidates, but when the most vocal blog poster goes one way in a big way, that site gets labeled.  At the end, these middle tier sites just end up driving traffic to the actual journalists who have a companion blog.  Sites like National Review, Washington Post, Weekly Standard, Politico, the other good examples mentioned above, and heck even the NY Times Caucus Blog, The Hill, and many others with real standards will end up squeezing out these middle players or rendering them irrelevant; that is until they get lucky and actually get information before others.  However, with newspapers, radio shows, and tv commentators finally getting around to embracing digital and blogging, that seems less likely every day.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Not All Bloggers and Social Networks Are Evil, Just Some of Them

Coming on the heels of the post I made yesterday regarding how to (unethically) scam YouTube, there was another initiative to have people paid to make positive posts about Hillary Clinton.   

This reminds of a post I made a while back called Bloggers versus Political Bloggers where Political Bloggers seem to get away with a lot more than what I've seen around the marketing blog world.  In my two years of actually working in the political world, I've seen posts made that were based on no facts and when pointed out to that, the author just ignored the comments.  I've seen well known columnists shill for a politician and create negative comments about their competition.  Add to that the brew ha with over zealous commenting bots and pay for comments and you can see that it really is a wide open range for what is acceptable and not acceptable.

From the corporate marketing world pay per posts are frowned upon.  Making obviously fake posts and websites (like WalMart flogs) are quickly discovered and reported on.  Shilling for a corporation or product is considered unethical unless you properly disclose it.  Marshalling tactics like some of those mentioned in the YouTube post above are not kosher; why else would Dan refuse to name clients of his that participated in these schemes.

As with any reporting or writing you really need to understand the motivations behind the author.  Whether it is to make money, retire early, support a candidate, or whatever it really matters to understand what the blogger's storey is (mistake on purpose).  Besides figuring that out, your best bet is to get multiple views on a subject that interests you and that includes main stream media.  Personally I've found that the "truth" is always somewhere in between the different views and who knows you might learn something new in the process when you listen to an opposing view point. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google Pumps Up The Volume on Video Content

Google today announced that you as a site owner can now access video content via your Ad Sense program.  For more details see this press release from Google and the AdSense blog post called Introducing Video Units.   As a content owner I love the idea of having someone power some content especially on days when I'm super busy or just to enhance the link posts that gets done during the day.  According to the post you can customize the content or let Google pick it for you and of course Google will insert ads so maybe you can earn some cash.  If you own a site or blog, this is like manna from the sky.

As a marketer who relies heavily on Google, I think the ad insertions are actually a decent idea.  This shouldn't get confused with the video ads that get inserted into the content (see the Introducing Video Units for the two ad units). 

What is interesting is how much control do you have on your advertisements when they are placed on this content.  I've often shied away from CGC especially video because I don't know where my ads will get placed.  However, I'm sure Google will tell you if you don't have a problem with content you shouldn't have a problem with the new video content.  Do the content placement reports show the actual site they run on or does it show up as YouTube?  Can I opt out of having my ads placed on a certain video type or a certain video creator?  Don't know yet.

From a content owner, I'm very excited by the video content units.  As a marketer, I'm definitely on board for running ads through it, but as with any content plays the more visibility you have the better you understand your marketing campaigns.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Sell LinkedIn Short and Go Long on Facebook

So a week after my post called Hey Eric, What's With All of The Facebook and LinkedIn Invites?, I've received plenty of friends/networking requests and watched myself log into Facebook more often.  It isn't that I'm spending a ton of time there, but it is much more user friendly and visually pleasing to use.  I still have a ton more contacts at LinkedIn (125) versus Facebook (21) and I just think it is due to that most of my former colleagues are not on Facebook; plus being a 1989 college graduate pushes out my available Facebook friends to next to nothing (20).

Anyway, I guess I wasn't the only one who thought about using Facebook for professional purposes.  According to Jeff Pulver, writing an article over at BusinessWeek he makes Confessions of a LinkedIn Dropout.   Now, I won't "drop out" of LinkedIn, but use it like I have in the past - a repository of contacts and job searches when I need it.  However, here are highlights from the BW article and see if this is familiar to you because it is to me:

• After a few years on LinkedIn, all he was left with was a bunch of contacts in his network that he doesn't know.
• Easier to join groups and networks on Facebook
• Easier to include your every day life too

I'd be remiss if I didn't link to this post from LeeAnn Prescott from Hitwise which shows that LinkedIn traffic is up  323% in past year.  So, doesn't that show that I'm a little off when it comes to going against a trend?  No.  Take a contrarian view and perhaps you should be selling LinkedIn short now and going long on Facebook before every one 35+ years old ventures over.  The traffic uptick is impressive, but perhaps that's just due to a new marketing team focusing on increasing eyeballs. 

If LinkedIn doesn't want to get Amazoned by Facebook, they should open up their platform and let their tech users create applications and widgets that professionals want.  As I wrote before, I'm not leaving LinkedIn, but find the pull of Facebook's usability strong.  I'm pretty much a newbie over at Facebook so if you want to send me groups to join or if you know me, a friend invite, please do so. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

So Your News Is Slanted - Wow That's News

I'm so sick and tired of the issue of whether Ruppert Murdoch/News Corp is going to keep the journalistic integrity of The Wall Street Journal now that he has purchased it.  Please, this is just sickening.  Here are some links to articles where The Journal had to point out that it will maintain its journalistic integrity that you've come to enjoy.

• Reader's Hopes and Fears....
• Dow Jones Deal Faq with an explanation of the independent editorial committee
• The Bancroft Family Statement
• A New Owner
• And, not to be out down, The New York Times weighs in

I love The Wall Street Journal and read it every day.  I never felt that the news articles were slanted, although the editorial pages slanted to the political right.  However, if you watch enough news, read enough blogs, or read enough newspapers, one thing is clear. 
Every writer, editor, news reporter has their own slant to the story.  They have their own reasons for writing what they write.  Sure some writers, reporters, and bloggers are way over the top and you can recognize what their motivation is, other it is not so easy. 

For me I always keep in mind that all main stream news channels are in it to make money.  They are not there to serve the public good, unless the public is a shareholder.  I stopped subscribing to The New York Times because I couldn't stand their National, International, and Editorial pages; I just thought the news perspective was slanted too much left and even anti-Israel.  I do miss the Sports, Business, and Entertainment, but thankfully I can pick up free RSS feeds.

I'm reading a book right now called The White Tecumseh which is a biography of General Sherman.  One of the things inside the book is the abuse General Sherman and General Grant took from newspaper reporters.  In fact, Sherman had reporters banned from his army and when one of subordinates allowed one to follow that subordinate around he had that general brought up on court-martial charges.  The news reporter even admitted to publishing incorrect statements but didn't care.  Why?  He was in the business of selling newspapers and knew what his public wanted to read.

 

Even back then your news was slanted.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be.  The best way to get your news is via the internet where you can quickly get different viewpoints and hopefully you can form your own conclusions.  Figure out what that person's Blogging Storey is, that way you know what their frame of reference is; I've even noticed a difference between political bloggers versus bloggers with the political bloggers definitely having their own political motives.  Me, I set up Google News Feeds on my favorite political subjects (John McCain) and see both sides of the political spectrum.  That's the only way to get a better picture.

I hate to say it, but family owned newspapers are a thing of the past.  If journalistic integrity is important to you, stick to reading just the associated press or spend more time online where you can now get a better view.  The story of The Wall Street Journal standing up to News Corp because of integrity just seemed to me to be a little self-serving as they tried to hold out for better terms or more money.  I still love them though!!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Hey Eric, What's With All of The LinkedIn and Facebook Invites?

So the last few days I expanded my Facebook and LinkedIn network and I got a bunch of emails and instant messages from people asking, umm why? Well a few big name blogs (yes people have more traffic than I do :-) like Jason Calacanis (yes my tough commenter on bloggingstocks.com) has declared Facebook Bankruptcy and Social Networking Exhaustion.  Robert Scoble countered back with pro Facebook posts and now recently posted around his favorite Facebook apps.  Also I saw this link I believe from Scoble on 12 ways to use Facebook professionally, so I decided to give it another try.  However, with a different twist which is how it compares to LinkedIn for professionals.

So, I'm giving both a go and here are my quick observations from the past few days:

• I have many more people in my professional network on LinkedIn.  I have 116 real contacts at LinkedIn and a whopping 18 on Facebook.
• Both were very easy to upload my Outlook contacts and then look for friends on both; however, I don't know about you but trolling through LinkedIn's add a contact  has always been very tedious while Facebook is actually kind of fun and easy to use.
• LinkedIn's format and profiles are very bland even for a professional site and reminds me most about those old Who's Who in American Business books that you try and get sold on.
• While Facebook has that underlying feeling that people are kind of there to find a date (notice the questions on your profile: relationship status, looking for...), LinkedIn feels like an easy place for recruiters to look for their next job applicant.
• Facebook of course has a ton more applications and is much more dynamic when it comes to current status and updates.  Plus, by being able to join Central NJ as a network I get to see what is happening in my local area; posted by other Facebook peeps.

Net, net to me LinkedIn just feels like something you have to do in order to be a professional and feels like a safe step for busy management types (the people I used to work with for 10 years at AT&T and 5 years at Harrisdirect) who want to test networking online.  It isn't something that keeps you coming back and checking on people unless you need to look for a job or connect to people that could be hiring.  Most people that I've talked to use it as part of their job search and for finding recruiters in a quiet manner - again it reminds me of that coveted directory of professional recruiters that you used to need in your job search.

However, Facebook is really a fast grower for professionals because there is more to do and as Jason Calacanis pointed out, more ways to spend time (or waste time).  Searching for people is fun and it is easy to leave messages for people.  You can look for people in past jobs, past schools, or in and around where you live.  It is the perfect mash up of MySpace and LinkedIn - it is becoming professional enough for co-workers not to look down on you, yet it has a much safer environment for more social past-times.  It is definitely less creepy and less raunchy than MySpace which I have very little use for; my favorite past time is to look for neighbors who really get into MySpace.

For me Facebook looks like a real winner long term while MySpace as I've written before is just the year 2010 version of GeoCities.  If LinkedIn doesn't up their applications and usability it will become as useful as the Who's Who in American Business reference books of the past.  I'm starting to believe in Facebook again, even if I don't have a ton of contacts and you can definitely waste a lot of time.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Bloggers versus Political Bloggers

Yes, I'm borrowing a heading from Joe Jaffe who I've known a while ever since he profiled my Harrisdirect Direct Investors campaign and I've also been a faithful reader of his blog for a while.  Jaffe wrote this post called Bloggers versus Bloggers which highlights some grief that the author of a corporate blogging book Debbie Weil is getting because she sent out emails soliciting comments on one of her client's blogs.  You can read the post for Jaffe's opinion and follow what's happening, if that's what interests you, but one of the most important points he raises is towards the end when he says that she was completely transparent.

This got me thinking as to the differences between corporate/marketing bloggers and the political blogosphere. Corporate and marketing bloggers get so fired up about transparency, pay-per-posts when those issues are routinely ignored in the political blogosphere.  Recently a bunch of fellow bloggers had to go out of their way when they accepted an invitation from Nikon to participate in their blogger program.

In the political blogosphere it seems to be common practice to just ignore or make one post about transparency and forget about it.  Want to say something negative about a candidate because you are behind the scenes helping another - go right ahead.  Get called on the carpet for making an erroneous post and never respond or offer a correction - that seems fine.  A potential candidate like Fred Thompson blogs on Pajamas Media and Townhall and that seems to get him a free pass on those sites - that's OK too.  Or how about my favorite when Townhall's Hugh Hewitt/Dean Barnett does any analysis on 2008 Republicans when Hugh is clearly with Mitt Romney and has written a book about him which if elected President would increase wildly in sales.  Need proof?  Check out this analysis on Q2 Fund Raising which really got me fired up; not because it was anti-McCain but because it painted such a rosy picture of Romney's fund raising when he had to loan his campaign millions of dollars. Finally, according to Michelle Malkin, The Daily Kos revoked Cindy Sheehan's posting privileges because she is exercising her right to run in opposition of Speak Nancy Pelosi.

After 20 months or so blogging and working in politics, it still surprises me how serious corporate/marketing bloggers take transparency  and will jump all over a blogger or company like WalMart when they violate that, but when it comes to political bloggers it seems very common to do what you want without regard for how it looks.  Marketing bloggers take time to cite sources or use credible metrics, but some political bloggers can make wild exaggerations based on one or two observations.  I guess it wouldn't hurt to set your own ground rules and then try to stick to them, huh?  That's why it is important to always keep in mind what a writer's blogging story is.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Key Peeps Like Curt Schilling Should Scare Newspaper Reporters

A very interesting past few days in the world of Sports.  Yesterday I heard an interview that Dan Patrick had with David Wells about comments that Wells made regarding Roger Clemens'  perks he has with the New York Yankees this year.  Evidently according to Wells, the comment he made was taken out of context and if the reporter printed the entire story than Wells would not have come across as saying something negative about a former teammate.

Fast forward to comments that Curt Schilling makes on Barry Bonds.  How does Schilling apologize?  Through a reporter or interview?  No, but via his blog, 38 Pitches.  And if you take a quick read of his blog he of course has a lot of good posts on a variety of subjects plus tons of comments.  I wonder if 38pitches grows and grows will Schilling ever need to talk with a newspaper reported again?  Of course he will, but I'm sure in the not too distant future a popular sports star with a popular blog will just refuse to talk with newspaper reporters and only conduct live radio or TV interviews and then communicate via their own blog.  Seriously no more misquotes, right?  Ability to say what you want without having it filtered.

As you can see from the Alexa graph, 38pitches has a lot of traffic already, especially considering that it looks like it has only be around for a few months.  And, when you compare it with boston.com (Boston Globe's online website) you can start thinking, hmmm I wonder if Schilling can get enough traffic so the only place to see written comments from Schilling is via his blog? 

What happens if he starts selling advertising on his website?  Video blogging, pod casts, the list goes on and on.  The web can theoretically eliminate newspaper sports reporters especially if super stars decide to take their communication into their own fingers. 

Back in the day, newspaper reporters were such a critical component of our opinion of sports figures.  They got access that fans could only dream about and really set the tone for how a sports personality was viewed by the public.  Case in point... watch 61 again to see how the news press portrays Roger Maris' pursuit of Ruth's single season home run record because they deemed Mantle the legitimate successor (BTW - Maris is the real single season home run record holder.  The 'roid boys have no claim on that record).

If more super stars follow Schilling's lead, I wonder how long it will take until the newspaper sports reporter becomes a baseball relic like counting 9 balls for a walk...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

So, I Got This Service Mark and Learned How to Make Her Talk

About a year ago, my lawyer friend Howard B suggested that I service mark/ trademark PardonMyFrench.  He thought, while we were having lunch in Parsippany NJ, that if my website got big enough it would be important to have it registered.  I of course laughed thinking, well there is no way I'll be in business on my own (minus my Connell Donatelli work) for a long period of time that a service mark would really matter.  Anyway, he was serious so while I was on my way home I thought to myself "well maybe it wouldn't be so difficult on my own".

That night my cousin Nikki (she prefers to be called Nicole....) called me to discuss her new business selling political t-shirts under the company name Team Candidate, because politics is a team sport (there - how is that for a link Nikki?).  One of things she brought up was how easy it is to get your own trademark or service mark using the government's online filing system for trademarks.  So without the help from a lawyer (lunch will only get you so far), I used the online filing system, researched the mark, filed the paper work, and dropped about $300 or so on the filing.

After about 6 months I started hearing from the attorney assigned to review my mark.  She was both helpful and knowledgeable on filings.  After a few phone calls and follow-up information, she sent my mark onto public comment and approximately 14 months after my initial order, I am now the proud owner of the service mark PardonMyFrench.

That's right people, I own the mark on PardonMyFrench.  That means every time you say PardonMyFrench, you need to say "oh that's owned by Eric Frenchman"  or how about Eric Frenchman's PardonMyFrench.  Just so you are clear, I can't stop you from saying pardon my french or collect any money when you say pardon my french.  So please try and be careful on the use, or just like Viacom I'll send you letters asking you to refrain from saying those words or I'll ask you to pull down content when you use PardonMyFrench.

On a serious note, I'm still not sure what I'm doing with my service mark of PardonMyFrench.  I guess I can ask Google and Yahoo to stop selling PPC ads on the term.  Wouldn't that be crazy?  All this should teach you is that the US Government has a great online process especially for small businesses and if you want to get a mark just be careful and follow the rules.  Oh, one more thing, you'll get a lot of junk mail from former ambulance chasing lawyers saying that they will help you - guess what - it is all a bunch of BS.  You don't need them....

PardonMyFrench (sm),

Eric

John Chow Dot Com Shows Me How To Make Money

John Chow dot Com is a blog that helps you make money online. He is offering to link to your blog if you review his blog. 

Ok, there I did it, but I had a good reason.  A lot of purist will think I did this just for the link and that's not entirely true.  I've been subscribing to John's website for over 6 months now (maybe longer) and it is a very informative website and shows you, as a blog or website owner, how to monetize traffic.

What first attracted me to the site was his willingness to share real counts, how much money he makes from his blog, as well as strategies for increasing your traffic.  Plus, in general it is a fun read and as opposed to other "experts", he really backs up his talk with facts and figures.  This recent post is a prime example of why I'm a loyal reader and why I took the review offer.

In today's post called How to Increase RSS Subscriptions, he gives enormously valuable advice to bloggers and website owners on how to increase subs as well as monetizing traffic.  Here's what I found so valuable about the post:

• First, I saw plenty of blogs going to partial RSS feeds to get you to read the full article on the actual website and I thought about it for myself.  John writes: "Do not use RSS as a teaser in the hopes that the reader will click to the blog in order to read the full post. Unless your blog is updated 20+ times per day, reader won’t sign up to the RSS in the first place."
• Next, I don't show my RSS count because I thought it was too low ~85 but he wrote: I don’t recommend a blog shows this chicklet until the subscriber counted reaches at least 50, so now I will display my count.
• Finally, he gives great advice on which services he uses to sell ad space in his RSS feeds and how much he makes: Income from RSS accounted for only $99.80 of the blog’s $7011.05 February income. That’s really bad when you consider over 3,000 people read this blog from RSS everyday.

Did I take the link offer, you betcha.  However, I wouldn't have taken it if I didn't think it was valuable and I had an example I could show you readers.  John, the site is awesome and should be a must read for any blogger or wanna be blogger.  Thanks for the link!!!!

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Incoming Traffic from Outpost-Earth

A few months back I received a message via MyBlogLog inviting me to check out Outpost-Earth.  Usually the messages I receive are people who enjoyed reading my post and sent me an encouraging message.  This time, I realized that Outpost-Earth was a blog directory, but aside from the typical one I've joined in the past, I could see that my posts might actually get on their homepage and I might actually get some traffic.

When you just start out with your blog the first thing you discover is that the only people that really read your blog are friends and family.  I once had a fellow blogger tell me that whenever she made a new post she emailed her list; while that is a good strategy, it kind of defeats the purpose because it is a one time traffic hit.  So, your next step to get traffic is to join a series of blog directories and get yourself listed in the major search engines.  Again, all good strategies, but what I've found is that you see very little return for your time invested.  That is until I actually tried Outpost-Earth.  (BTW for more traffic generating tips read these posts).

What makes Outpost-Earth so good for a blogger is that you get your post featured on their homepage plus in the sections that categorize your blog including your topic as well as region.  Another key feature is the readability of the posts and user interface to actually find content you are looking for.  So, instead of sites that categorize you based on existing traffic and/or votes by people who think you had a good article (bringing up a chicken-egg problem) you actually have a fighting chance to be discovered. (Side note: new bloggers find that they can't get listed or voted until they get traffic and of course can't get traffic without getting listed or voted sending you into a dizzy traffic building stroke)

Outpost-Earth is a great traffic driving tool for bloggers as well as readers looking to tap into new authors without following the herds of everyone else in the blogosphere.  If you own a blog, check them out and join their community.  It is also a good place to discover new blogs to read.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Politics, Posts, and Me

I get asked fairly often, why I don't write posts on politics and instead only focus on political online advertising.   Those of you who know me from my non-political life, know that I am very opinionated when it comes to politics, policy, and current events.  However, in the blogosphere and internet in general, there are so many better sites for news, commentary, and opinion that a) I couldn't keep up with it b) I  couldn't match their opinions c) I would really be out of my league when it comes to traffic.

So, what I am doing however, is tag articles that I'm reading that I think might be of interest to you.  That's why you'll see posts that are just links.  You can see what I'm reading and really go to the experts who generated the content.  Again, not that I don't have an opinion, but I have limited time to post and need to focus on a little niche for myself.  Plus, it is good to share a little link love with the rest of the internet and bloggers.  I do have an idea for tracking the most popular blogs, but I have to convince my friend Jim to help me with it.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Helping The Small Fry in Google

This week's BusinessWeek has an article called The Small Fry Sour on Search Ads and it reminded me of two posts I made a while back called What's Your Blogging Storey and What Came First The Chicken or The Blog.  The article basically describes how smaller search marketing advertisers are getting squeezed out of PPC advertising by the bigger and much deeper pocketed national advertisers.  Of course the Googles and the Yahoos of the world really are not in a position to do anything because if cost per clicks rise and big advertisers are the reason than they make more money.  My personal guess is that this is only just beginning and will only continue to get worse when Madison Avenue starts recommending more and more spending on search marketing.  So, what's a Mom-Pop advertiser supposed to do:

1. Don't just rely on Google for search marketing - very often for my clients I find that Yahoo and MSN have MUCH lower CPC rates than Google.  I also find that click rates are also much higher on them too.  Sure the traffic on Yahoo is half of Google and MSN is probably a tenth, but you just might be able to make up the impression loss with more traffic at a cheaper rate.
2. Focus on the Long Tail and try 3 and 4 word search terms if you haven't already done so.
3. Try starting your own blog as I mentioned in the posts above.  You might never be able to compete with the big advertisers, so try building your own community with your own content to generate traffic.  Then turn around and monetize it by selling or linking to your own products.
4. Get involved in social marketing either by loading up your own home made commercials (assuming they are entertaining) or joining communities that are already in your products.
5. How about a wiki on your product?  I'm sure people would find it interesting to share uses and other ideas.

Yes it is going to get harder and harder to rely on search PPC ads to drive traffic to your website.  So, try building up your content which will cost you nothing more than time.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Technorati versus Google Blog Search - Ho Hum

I saw this post from LeeAnn Prescott from Hitwise called Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati and I thought well, that's nice but not very relevant at least not based on my experience.   What was most interesting was that Blogger is slip sliding away, but that was it.  I filed the post in my mind as interesting, but not relevant.  Nothing against Hitwise, but what my experience shows is to optimize posts for organic search on good old Google.com and not worry about blog search.  Maybe that explains why the site isn't more popular but as I've written before I focus on content, not traffic.  I use Technorati for tagging because, well tags are awesome ways of directing people to your site and I don't want to ignore the blogosphere.  Anyway, I thought this was dead until I got this email in my junk mail folder:

Hi Eric,

The recent data suggesting that Google Blog Search had surpassed Technorati received a lot of hype, so we took a look at our data to see if it showed the same results.  We found that Technorati continues to hold a significant lead over Google Blog Search in terms of unique visitors and have a post about the findings on the Compete.com blog today. Please check out the post to see the numbers.  We would be happy if you want to link to or write about our post, but either way we thought this would be an interesting read for you.

Link: http://blog.compete.com/2007/01/07/technorati-google-blog-search-compete/
Thanks a lot.  Andy Kazeniac

    

So it seems the Technorati folks by way of Compete are fighting back on the data.  Only difference is that I have as much interest in this fight as watching the battle between two Olympic basketball teams going at each other for the bronze medal.  Blog specific search is great when you just want to focus on what is being said on blogs only, but if the blogosphere continues to grow, won't the end game be just plain search.  If you have a good blog and write your posts, it will show up in regular search and opens you up to more audience.  Seriously, the #1 source I have for traffic is Google.com and so it should be for you.  Technorati versus Google Blog Search is like the band that was playing in the parking lot at Giants Stadium during Springsteen's Rising Tour shows in 2003.  Great if you are near the lot, but me , I was just there for the Boss.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Web Traffic and Your Blog

It's almost the end of the year and with the kids being off from school, they are staying up later, cutting into my computer time.  Anyway, I was expecting to see little traffic on the website, but surprise I have good traffic.  In fact, I've had good traffic for a while now.  It couldn't possibly be the Reagan/MSN post I did from a few days ago;  what I thought was going to be a good post, didn't even make the cut over at Marketing Prof's Daily Fix Blog.  So what gives?  It is a combination of the Z-Lister Meme and my content popping up in search results; this experience should be helpful to new bloggers.  Of course, it is meaningless if you already have a name for yourself out in the real world.

One of the keys to getting traffic is to have momentum with your fellow bloggers.  Sure you might start out to attract other readers, but at the end of the day you need the blogging community to link to your articles to boost your ability to be found.  Personally, I haven't focused too much on Technorati, but with the boost in links from the Meme, my rank has dropped from around 195,000 to 47,113 which is great.  The links also help with your search rankings.

The second tip I'd give new bloggers is to focus on trying to get associated with a larger blog or network.  That was a tip someone gave me a long time ago and I can vouch for it.  I can't tell you how many links, emails, and comments I've received from folks that read my posts over at Marketing Prof Daily Fix.  I can't thank Ann Handley enough for inviting a year back when she started it.

Also, focus on your own content.  Write your own material.  Constantly commenting on others blogs won't do it and will not build an audience.  If you want to link to articles that you think your readers will like, then just make a post of links and don't waste people's time with comments.  I like using Del.icio.us to auto post to the blog.

Finally, don't make the same mistake that I did and have two URLs pointing to your blog.  That's the single biggest mistake I made in the past year.  What this did was split the blog traffic between pardonmyfrench.typepad.com and www.ericfrenchman.com.  I didn't think it would be so critical when I moved over to Typepad from Blogger, but it has.  Pardonmyfrench.typepad.com has a ranking of 362K probably from all the search results while www.ericfrenchman.com has an Alexa of 483K.  If I only had one URL pointing to the blog, it is quite possible I'd make Mack's Top 25 Marketing Blog list further helping my traffic.

That's it for today.  Check back tomorrow night.  I have a What The Vonage Post on the way for you fans of my Vonage series.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Z-Listers Meme

My fellow Marketing Prof blogger Mack Collier from The Viral Garden tagged me with the Z-Lister Meme going around.  Thanks Mack.  Anyway, here's the list of blogs.  I can't say that I've read all of them, but there are quite a number on this list that I check in on a regular basis or subscribe via RSS.  Who knows, maybe you'll find some more you like to read in a day.  I plan to visit them all in the next few days.  BTW - for you non-bloggers that read my blog (yes you know who you are), this is like a chain letter only the benefits are a blogger will get more links to their website helping with traffic.  Plus, it is a great way to discover new people to communicate with.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Creative Think
Soloride
Movie Marketing Madness
Blog Till You Drop!
Get Shouty!
One Reader at a Time
The New PR
Own Your Brand!
OTOInsights
bizandbuzz
Work, in Plain English
Buzz Canuck
New Millenium PR
Pardon My French
Troy Worman's Blog
The Instigator Blog
AENDirect
Diva Marketing
Marketing Hipster
The Marketing Minute
Funny Business
The Frager Factor
Mindblob
Open The Dialogue
Word Sell
Note to CMO:
That's Great Marketing!
Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
darrenbarefoot.com
Two Hat Marketing
The Emerging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew's Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
NewsPaperGrl
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett's Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly
Jeremy Latham’s Blog
SMogger Social Media Blog
Masey.com
The Viral Garden

One Year Blog Anniversary

A few weeks back I passed my one year anniversary of writing and caring for the PardonMyFrench blog.  I know I didn't celebrate it because it really isn't that big of an accomplishment.  Sure I've had some good posts and some bad posts but what I'm most proud of is that I have a mission as to why I do this and I do my best to stick to it.  I also think I found a little niche.  One of the things I've noticed of late is some interesting traffic patterns to the website.  Take a look at these stats from December 1st through just a minute ago.

According to MyBlogLog which I use for tracking my site, I had 744 visitors and that excludes my email and RSS subscribers (about 100 per day) who don't have to visit the site to read my posts.  Of those 744 visitors, 99 came directly to the site and 35 came from a redirect posted on a Google press release.  So,  13% came directly to the site, 5% from a Google press release and the other 82% mostly from search results.  Take a look at the screen shot - it really is a Long Tail on content.

So, what does this traffic pattern tell me and what should it tell all new bloggers.   A lot, so here's what I learned while blogging for a year.

Eric's Blogging Lessons Learned

1. Create your own content and eventually you'll get enough organic traffic from your posts
2. Linking to other famous blogger's original posts may help you in the short term, but then again what's the point; the only way to benefit from that post is to be the first one to report on it
3. A-list, B-list, C-list, and D-list blog ratings are mostly due to traffic and linking ratings as reported by Alexa and Technorati.  So, focus less on your traffic and more on your content and why you blog.
4. If you have no industry name recognition that's fine, but realize it will take effort for your traffic and audience to build.  For example, if Derek Jeter started his own blog, he would have enough traffic from his first post to be an A-lister while an average blogger with great content will have traffic coming from mostly friends and family.
5. Staying with #4, be persistent and keep posting.  Like anything else, the more practice you have the better you'll be.
6. Know your audience.  If your audience is busy corporate executives then write posts that cater to them
7. Speaking of #6, those types of people won't be using Alexa and will probably not list you as a friend on Technorati.  Again, that's ok as long as you focus on your audience and don't get too worked up over your lower ranking.
8. On the rankings front I have two urls that get you to my site because I was a bit of a novice when I moved from Blogger to Typepad.  My Typepad URL is pardonmyfrench.typepad.com and then I have ericfrenchman.com.   ericfrenchman.com has a Google PageRank of 5 and an Alexa ranking of 493K while pardonmyfrench.typepad.com has a Google PageRank of 3 and an Alexa ranking of 350K.    What does this mean?  Besides being an idiot for setting my blog up this way, ericfrenchman.com has a higher pageranking because of people linking, typing in the url and its high natural search rankings, while the individual articles  have the pardonmyfrench urls which appear in search results.  Moral of the story - don't screw this up and make your rankings work harder than the need to if you care about rankings.
9. Google AdSense on your website are just ways of people leaving you a tip and the best thing about them is to see how well Google does matching advertisers with your content (on a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 5)
10. Everyone has advice and rules, but my one piece of advice is stick to what you like to do by focusing on what your audience likes to read.  Forget about all other experts unless they have a similar background/situation like you.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Walmart Flogging Top Bloggers

Well the fall out continues from the paid Walmart blog I originally wrote about in a post called What's Your Blogging Storey.  The post was really mostly about figuring out the point of view of the author of your content, whether it is traditional news media or a blog. 

The PR firm Edelman has confessed to making a critical mistake by not being totally transparent behind the Walmart flog (fake weblog) and it is not only nailing the firm, but also premier blogger Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion fame who also is an Edelman employee.  As of right now there are over 90 comments at Edelman's blog confession and Richard Edelman is doing an efficient job of answering the posts.  Then comes a shot from AdAge and also a pretty nasty critique about Edelman and Rubel's blogging transparency from ZDNet called Edelman Blogs. Exclusive Country Clubs?

This last post is what caused me to write my own which hopefully you'll finish reading.  Donna Bogatin writes this about Rubel's blog "Rubel uses his “personal” blog (although he writes under "we," for himself and Edelman) to promote his employer’s business relationship with a blog tracking service and then uses his same "personal" blog to reprimand a third-party blog tracking service for not acknowledging his own promotion of his employer’s blog tracking efforts."  I'm not sure you could be more blunt in saying that Rubel is using Micropersuasion to promote Edelman clients.  My thought is, so what?

Rubel has been very open about his employer and has given as much transparency as possible; even posting a badge.  I too have had this feeling for a while, but at the end of the day, as I wrote in my What's Your Blogging Storey post, it doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't to you. 

Do you get good information from Micropersuasion?  Do you like the links, the data, and analysis even if you think it might be slanted.  Who's blog isn't slanted to something.  Look he works at Edelman and if he wasn't aligned with their goals then he wouldn't work there.   That would go for any of us, unless you are hanging on for a severance package from the new, new, new, trust me it is really new AT&T.

When I write about political online marketing it isn't that I think other agencies aren't doing good work or that there aren't good online Democratic campaigns.  I don't know if there is, and if I did know, why would I talk about competitors?  I don't have the time or energy.  I even take regular shots on the SBC version of AT&T; clearly I am negative about them, but if you've been a reader here for a while you know why.  Besides, isn't the first rule of blogging to be controversial?

Will Edelman learn from this experience?  Yes and I'm betting in the long term this scandal will be nothing more than a case study on how not to be transparent.  I'm not forgiving them or even saying that it is over.  However, let's not through the Rubel baby out with the Walmart bathwater.  Decide what the story is behind the media you are reading and decide whether you can continue on.  If not, there are 1000's of other places you can visit - so just move on.....I do once in a while but every time I want to unsubscribe from Micropersuasion I see another interesting post.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Vote on New Banner

Yes - I need your help.  That includes you RSS and Feedblitz readers.  Come back to the site today and vote on my header for the website.  My friend Casey designed this header and I want to know whether I should keep the current boring one with my photo on the left or replace the top border/photo with this image from Casey.  Let me know by voting in the poll below.

***********UPDATE****************

The people have spoken and I've changed the header.  It still needs to be a little wider, but it looks better.  Thanks.

Thanks,

Eric

What's Your Blogging Storey? (mistake on purpose)

A while back I wrote a post called What Came First The Chicken or The Blog regarding advice I gave my sister for starting her own blog on raising chickens.  The background on it was:  my sister wanted to sell decorative eggs online but she couldn't get enough traffic to her site by SEO, she tried PPC but couldn't compete with big gift advertisers like Hallmark, so I suggested she write her own blog to build up traffic and link to her decorative egg site (see continuation of story for an update). 

This is the same advice that I gave our friend Muffin Storey on her life coaching business, What's Your Storey.  Muffin wanted to have a web presence so I helped her with buying URLs, setting up her email, and talked with her about basic site design.  Sadly, I didn't have enough time to design the site for her, but she enlisted some help.  Muffin started a blog over at blogger.com and just started posting a few days ago over at http://mkstorey.blogspot.com/. 

Ok, so what's my blogging Storey?  I get that question all the time.  Sure there are sites with more traffic, but you have to start somewhere right?  When I started this blog back in September 2005, I wanted to be the voice of the marketer because business blogs out there either linked to other sites with  no commentary, were more educational, or geared toward agencies.   Wow, that was a little idealistic, no?  A year later why do I do this? 

1. It boosts my Google credibility with more links and listings than I could have imagined back in Sept. 2005
2. I've met a lot of great people and built online relationships like then one I have with Ann Handley over at Marketing Profs.
3. Just like the advice I gave my sister and Muffin, I use this blog to help generate and land new business.  Based on the three new ones I have, I'd say it is working.

You really need to understand what are the motivations behind your news.  When it comes to MSM (main stream media) it is to sell advertising space by increasing readership or viewers.  Think about how many extra newspapers the Daily News sold today with its headline on Joe Torre about to be fired from the Yankees.  What's the motivation behind the DailyKos and other political bloggers?  Traffic, support for their chosen candidates and causes?  When you read posts from other viewpoints like I regularly do, you need to understand what their Storey is and why certain headlines are posted.  One of the first rules of blogging is to be controversial.  Don't forget that.

Some bloggers have an excellent following and perhaps push public relations on behalf of their employer.  Hopefully, if they are above board, they disclose it properly.  Otherwise, they are secretly blogging on behalf of an employer or worse, they are getting paid to post by advertisers as the folks over at PayPerPost.com are now engaging in. Your Storey for blogging or having a website should be painfully obvious. 

*****UPDATE AS OF 10/9*****BTW - I just saw this over at BusinessWeek.  It is an article called Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story.  Yes they are real people but according to BusinessWeek, Working Families for WalMart is sponsoring the couple and that organization was setup by WalMart's PR firm Edelman.  Is this a cute little website or a PR strategy that is paying to have a freelance writer and a professional photographer make posts.  You decide.  Is enough information disclosed?  BTW - their Alexa and Google Page Rank is zero so perhaps people have figured it out already.

Understanding why someone is posting commentary is key to forming valued opinions on subjects important to you.  Anyone can stretch the truth or be controversial in the name of generating traffic, increasing sales revenue, or just getting their name out there.  Until you know where your information is coming from and their motivations, you really can end up with a hollow ghost storey.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Business Week Best Blogs - My Changes To It

Business Week has a special report called Best of The Web Your Favorite Bloggers, so let's take a look at their top 12.

1. Techcrunch - This is a must read for me everyday or at least a must browse to see what is new in the internet world.
2. Infectious Greed - Again no issues with this vote, but I just don't have the time to be a regular reader.  I always liked the layout with the headlines at the top.
3. The Gothamist - No problem with the vote, but not my personal cup of tea.  As much as I love the City, living at least 1 hour away puts a damper with the amount of visits I can make.
4. Seth's Blog - Seth Godin's blog on advertising and marketing.  I forget why I stopped reading his blog, maybe it had to do with the lack of comments scandal from a while back.  I still think blogs are a two way conversation otherwise, all you have is a newspaper article.  Seth Godin does have a lot of fans....
5. Chris Baggott - This one I really don't get, but obviously had a ton of write-in votes.  What do you think?  Sure Chris is co-founder and CMO of ExactTarget, but there are not a lot of recent posts and as a veteran of email marketing (both acquisition and retention) I don't find the commentary helpful.  Plus his Alexa ranking is about a quarter of mine, which doesn't say much about his traffic.
6. Scobleizer - A classic read that should have cracked the top 3.
7. Blog Maverick - Obviously I'm a fan even though I virtually ignore his basketball posts.  Cuban's blog should have made the top 5.
8. Internet Outsider - Analysis of the business of the internet which is another must read for me.
9. Scripting News - I have no comment because I've never read it, viewed it, or seen a link to it.  You know I have to work once in a while.
10. BoingBoing - No denying the traffic, but I always just viewed it as a directory of other posts.
11. Engadget - I don't visit it regularly because I don't spend that much time reviewing the latest techie gadgets.  When I need a new tech idea, I speak to my friends Adrienne and Clay.
12. Feld - Not a regular reader, but I can see why people voted this in.

So, who would I add in to the list to replace the 2-3 that I would bump from above?

• GigaOM - I really enjoy the mix of tech, telecom, and internet news.  It makes a nice complement to TechCrunch.
• Bambi's MarketWatch Blog - I've been a regular reader of her MarketWatch column for years and I love the combination of financial services news, analysis, and internet commentary.
• Adrants - Websites, good/bad advertising analysis, and just general fun.

Well, that's it.  I hope nobody took offense to any commentary because it was in good fun and critique.  Obviously anyone on the Business Week list should be celebrated.  On a side note, Steve Rubel had a good post on bloggers and whether they Join The Blog Herd or Be Their Own Cow. I personally like making my own posts or at least give my spin on a subject that I think I know a little something about.  I made a decision a while back when I figured out the traffic game for my own site (link to more popular posts, put a little commentary in, and then comment on other sites) and that is to worry less about traffic and more about content.  Sure I can sift through Digg and link to popular blogs (my favorites are Google Press Releases), but the traffic doesn't come back often.  I get more kicks out of people tracking back, making comments (when I'm right or wrong), or seeing someone link to me.  Then I know I'm doing something right.  Besides, I've met a lot of good people along the way and wish I started this sooner.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Website Changes

Well it has been a while since I made changes to my website and if I can spend time making those changes instead of playing World of Warcraft they'll happen quickly.  One of the changes I made tonight was to update the links.  As anyone will tell you, links to your site are very important to grow traffic and readership and it has been bothering me that I've been linking out to sites that a) really don't need my traffic or links and b) I've been finding myself questioning what is motivating the authors of these sites besides fame and glory.  So, without further ado, here are my current links in no particular order.

• The Madison Avenue Journal - an insiders look at Madison avenue with fresh insights and from fellow online marketing genius Tim McHale
• Connell Donatelli Inc - the leading online political advertising agency that I work for as Chief Internet Strategist
• Piehead Productions - A creative agency founded by friend Mark Troy that I've been partnering with on non-political clients
• Marketing Profs Daily Fix - Marketing Profs daily dose of marketing and advertising commentary run by Ann Handley.  As I've told many of my friends, there are a lot of really smart bloggers and me on the site.
• Daily Quinine - A true blog tracking the travels of my cousin Ethan Frenchman in the far east
• Techcrunch - a super popular website that showcases all of the latest and greatest Web2.0 companies.  The clearly don't need my link, but it is a must read.
• The Viral Garden - fellow Marketing Profs blogger Mack Collier dishes out doses of music and commentary on internet social communities.  He also doesn't need my link....
• Whatsnextblog - Another fellow Marketing Profs blogger B.L. Ochman; I don't agree with her political views but she is a must read for me every day

The last two links are for my corporate site that desperately needs a facelift and my Google search results to read more about me.  Both of these links will disappear when I redesign the header.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Can Bloggers Make Money - Yes With A Little Help From Friends - Part 2

In this month's Business 2.0 (yes I still read it) is an article called Blogging for Big Bucks where it examines some of best and well known blogs started by Michael Arrington, John Battelle, Jason Calacanis, and Drew Curtis all of whom I read almost every day.  The best points of the article are how with little to no overhead it is possible to make a great living with nothing more than a laptop, URL, and some content.  Everyone in that article should be applauded because they are getting well deserved money.  I guess the one issue I have with it is how it makes it seem that it is relatively simple to make money.  In fact, maybe if you follow their 7 habits of highly effective bloggers you too can make money writing posts in your boxers.  Here are their top 7:

1. Focus intently on a narrow niche
2. Setup blog so each post gets its own permanent URL
3. Think of your blog as a database
4. Blog frequently and regularly
5. Use striking images in your posts
6. Enable comments and interact with readers
7. Make friends with other bloggers

If only that was it.  No, I'm not complaining that I've made about $50 in ad sense and I'm not starting the A-list, B-list, C-list argument of blogs.  Look this is America and blogging is democracy at its best.  Anyone can start one with little money and take your best shot at making some bucks.  Before I jump in with some additional steps  based on my own experience, let's take a look at what you are up against.

According to LeeAnn Prescott at Hitwise, the top blogs are either political, tech, or just great links.  So, if you are not in one of those categories how can you compete?  Don't you need more than just the top 7 listed above?  Yes.  However, you need to figure out one thing first - why are you blogging?  I do it for personal PR and maybe find more business opportunities.  I should have started this a while back while at Harrisdirect because I probably would have built a following sooner.  The next thing you need to realize is, that there are 50 other people already writing on your topic.  So with that backdrop, here are my top 10 other best practices to earn money based on my experience and if that throws you back into reality, well Pardon My French.

Pardon My French Additional Best Practices in Blogging to Make Money

1. You need to have a following of people long before you start posting
2. It is all about your content; posting links to other blogs unless you have an easy URL is a waste of time
3. Using just the standard template for blogging is not good enough, try customizing
4. Having your ads running across the side is not good marketing; they need to be embedded within your comment (fyi  - I haven't had the time to redesign, but I plan on updating)
5. Get off your blog and visit other blogs; that way you can see what other people are doing (thanks Mack)
6. Other than your content, nothing matters more than links to your site
7. When you visit other sites, leave a comment and trackback if necessary to get traffic back to your site; also Techorati is your only friend
8. Write about politics, tech, or celebrities because that's what people care about the most
9. Try and get picked up in a network or post for a more popular site like I do for Marketing Profs
10. Finally, figure out why you are blogging and stick to it.  If that means you don't care about ad dollars because you are after a new job or consulting opportunities then that is great.  Just be true to yourself.

That's it.  I hope you didn't find this negative because it wasn't meant to be.  I really enjoy all of the people I've met online and I am really upset I didn't start this sooner.  Imagine the following I would have had while at Harrisdirect when I had multi-million dollar ad campaigns in market.  If only....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Ghetto BigMac

I know I have an OnlineGuy post, but I just watched this video on how to create your own Ghetto BigMac for around $1 and it is AWESOME.  It consists of ordering a double cheese burger with special sauce, onions and a sesame seed bun and then slapping some fries on it.  I'm sure McDonalds is having a fit.  This might make me order a burger there for the first time in 2 years.

PardonMyFrench,
Eric

Cuban Turns To Community for Movie Marketing

Ok, so I've been reading Mark Cuban's blog for a while and I usually find his non-basketball posts interesting especially the one he posted the other day called The Movie Business Challenge.  The post starts off with this line "This is an open challenge. You come up with a solution, you get a job. Seriously." and continues with the challenge:

    "Only HDNet takes more time out my day than trying to solve this problem. Its the holy grail of the movie business. How do you get people out of the house to see your movie without spending a fortune. How can you convince 5 million people to give up their weekend and go to a theater to see a specific movie without spending 60mm dollars."

I have to admit I was interested enough, not to get a job, but just to throw my hat in the ring to see if I can come out with a reasonable solution (more on my solution later).  The first comment came in soon after the post on 7/23 at 10:41 PM and I checked in at #30 on 7/24 at 12:26 AM.  Well now as of 7/24 at 9:49 PM he has over 300 comments.  Now I'm not saying my post was pure genius, but I at least gave it some thought and tried to keep it short.  However, most of the 300 comments are pure garbage (you can surf through them) and I sure hope he has some good people going through them and weeding out the more serious responses if they were posted there at all.

So, Cuban turns the apprentice model on its ear and turns to his blog community for ideas which is what I think is pure genius.  What does he lose?  Nothing but wading through the comments.  And, I'm sure those comments are going to grow as more people spread the news of the post. 

Why would people make a post if they have a good idea?  Well for me I took the tact of a resume post figuring there will be a lot of traffic and if I can make the next cut, if there is such a thing, then I'll flesh out my idea some more.  Otherwise, I didn't waste too much time.  Think you can come up with an idea?  Mine had a mix of upgrading Hollywood Stock Exchange, with an Amazon targeting model and a eBay movie rating system.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric (my solution continues on the link below).

Wegmans Lessons About Content

So, my family vacation in Avalon, NJ is over and that's the reason for the infrequent posts over the last two weeks.  We had internet access courtesy of my Verizon Wireless phone after a work around, but my wife thought I was on the laptop too much so I couldn't make a lot of posts.  However, it did give me a chance to think about formats for this website and why people come here to read what I have to say.

First thing I noticed when I didn't make a lot of posts was that instead of the 150-200 page view per day I normally received, I dropped down to 50 -100 page views.   Those 50 page views were mostly a result of people googling (notice the use of the verb)  on subjects and not the people that normally come to the website by directly typing in the url.  Thank goodness for good content.

Then I went to Wegmans today which is a really upscale super market with one located in Bridgewater, NJ.  It is not upscale because of the everyday goods that you can purchase, but the first few sections that include a butcher, fish market, bakery, sushi, kosher foods, and etc.  So, besides the food, you also notice the self promotion of being the 1st or 2nd best place to work.  Then it dawned on me that even Wegman s knows the value of content.  Sure Wegmans content comes in the form of food and the people that work there, but it is their form of content.  So what does this mean to my website.  Well a lot.

1. I'll try very hard not to reprint content that you can find elsewhere.  When I do, it will be in the form of Marketing Rapid Fire which a lot of readers seem to like.
2. When I do reference an article, I'll provide my own perspective on it and what it means for you marketers.  Does that violate #1 above?  I don't think so.  If you watch enough network news during the day you'll see them commenting on other articles.
3. On the weekend, I'll publish a week in review; this post will be only links, but they will be my links.
4. I'll focus only on internet advertising/marketing, political advertising, finance, and telecommunications; and, when I do write about politics it will only be about advertising.
5. I'll try and keep shorter posts, but no promises :-) Hopefully within a few weeks I'll get a face-lift from my friends and partners at Piehead.

That's it.  Thanks for hanging in there with me over the past two weeks.  Welcome back.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

No Comments For U

I'm finding the heat that Seth Godin, well known author and marketing SME, is taking is fascinating.  You on the other hand may not, so I'll keep this short. 

On June 3rd, Seth wrote a blog that was part tongue and cheek and part serious about how to increase traffic on your blog (BTW - I was going to write a similar one) and opened up the blog to comments.  In this rare openness on his blog he received 43 comments as of this writing which is awesome.  However, following up that post he added a second one that explains his rationale for not allowing posts on his site.  This set off a firestorm in the blog world.  Here's the expert from his site:

Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters. I'm already itching to rewrite my traffic post below. So, given a choice between a blog with comments or no blog at all, I think I'd have to choose the latter.

A person I respect and fellow Marketing Profs Daily Fix blogger Mack Collier has written 2 posts, one over at his The Viral Garden blog and one over at Beyond Madison Avenue on why that seems contradictory especially for a blog.  I have to agree with Mack's view for the most part, but if Seth doesn't want to let comments in for whatever reason or because he is too busy, than that's fine.  Readers know you can't go to his blog for an open conversation.  I started thinking, well what's got everyone so fired up?  Arrogance?  Maybe, but that can't be the whole story can it?  He obviously doesn't need or care about the traffic.

You know what I think is driving this backlash? By Seth not allowing comments on his blog he is thumbing his nose at conversational marketing or social marketing.  He seems to be breaking an unwritten rule that you MUST have comments if you run a blog and if you don't go back and forth in the comments section then, is their such a thing as social or conversational marketing?  If you have a blog with only one way conversations than is it just a plain old static website?   And if a famous marketing expert and author with a HUGE internet following doesn't allow comments, then is the entire Web 2.0 strategy and conversational marketing just nothing but hype?

I think the answer is no.  If Seth Godin doesn't allow comments because he can't or won't respond then so be it.  Who says the conversation needs to take place on his website?  He still offers trackbacks so the conversation can continue to grow elsewhere, spreading out like the 5 strawberry plants that now have taken over my entire backyard.

I don't think the conversation just stops because it can't occur in the spot it started in.  Doesn't Web 2.0 with tags, trackbacks, diggs, search, etc mean that anyone, anywhere, and at anytime can continue the conversation elsewhere?   

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

The Chicken Lady Cometh

A few days ago I wrote a blog about What Came First, The Chicken or The Blog and I had no idea how popular it would be. First of all, I had my all time high of 175 page views (in the big scheme of things, that's a ring on an gnat) in one day. Also, my sister started her own blog today. Unfortunately, she didn't go for the url that I had listed (www.chickens4pets.com), but went with chickens4pets.blogspot.com. I could have updated the original post with Toni's new blog, but according to the mybloglog stats, www.chickens4pets.com is my number one link out so why change? Speaking of MyBlogLog the links on the side are absolutely awesome and are mostly free. I get free tracking on mybloglog and for a nominal fee of $25 per year I get outgoing and incoming links. Through FeedBlitz people can receive emails of my recent posts - for FREE and finally Technorati lets me have a search box. These are awesome. That's it for today. Welcome to the blogging world NYchickenlady PardonMyFrench, Eric