The Maine SEO Blog

Today I created my first ever YouTube ad so I had to share the process here.  It is incredibly simple to set up an ad, it’s very cheap, and hopefully very affective.  According to the video below, users are experiencing great success with YouTube Advertising.

And, so our experiment starts off.

Here are the steps for creating your first promotion on YouTube:

1. Sign into your YouTube account.

2. Go to www.ads.youtube.com

3. Add promotions to your account. *note: There will be an initial non refundable $5 charge when you set up your promotions account.  This is how they weed out those that are not serious about advertising.

4. Set up your billing.  All you have to do is enter your billing information and then establish a daily budget.  This budget will be used across all video promotions, however you can go in and change it whenever you wish.

5. Create a new video promotion

6. Choose a video from your YouTube channel (They will list them all there for you so you can just check the box of the video you would like to use) or you can upload a new video.

7. You must agree to the terms.  The terms state that you have full permission to use the video and that you either own all rights to the material or have been given rights to use it.

8. Write your promotion.  Choose your title and your copy.  Note that there are character limits of 35 characters per line so you must be concise. Also, while create your promotion you will be given a few different screenshots from your video to choose from as the video promotions image.

9. Add your Keywords.  You can do this one of several ways, you can simply add in any keyword that you think is applicable to the video line by line, or you can have YouTube Suggest them for you.  You can also use the demographic tool.  All of these tools are to help get your video in front of people who are searching for this topic and would be interested in it.

10. Set up your CPV (Cost Per View).  You can pick anything you like, it just has to be under your daily budget.  For instance I decided on $0.20 a view and a $10/day budget.

11. Preview your ad.  At this point they will lay out everything in front of you so you can see how your ad is going to look, your targets for you audience and your budget.

12. If everything looks okay, then hit the “Okay, Run My Promotion!” button and your off to the races.

YouTube provides you with a dashboard that you can then track your progress to see how your ad is performing, you can then edit your ad from there.  All in all it couldn’t be more simple.

Looking to learn more about YouTube Advertising? Check out the YouTube Ads presentation at this year’s Social Media FTW.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
YouTube Ad Enthusiast

If you haven’t heard, the East coast got hit with a very interesting series of weather events recently. Hurricanes in the south and earthquakes in Virginia, oh my!

But…what does that have to do with web marketing, you ask? As is turns out, natural disasters and web marketing have quite a bit in common.

They’re fascinating and exciting

People can’t stop talking about them. Like Irene, a photo or video can quickly go viral and is all anyone can talk about. (Remember the Old Spice guy?)

Even smaller marketing campaigns can really take off, just like a seemingly small tropical storm. There’s just something about a big storm or the right campaign angle that you can’t take your eyes off of it.

They can be destructive

We all know how destructive natural disasters can be. Just look at the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis from within the past five years.

Just like Mother Nature, marketing campaigns can also go awry. They can quickly and easily be taken the wrong way or cause a company to get a bad rep within moments. It’s for these reasons companies have taken measures like creating Twitter accounts, like ComcastCares.

They can miss you (or your audience) by mere inches

Originally, St. Augustine, Florida was supposed to be hit directly by Irene, but she ended up 200 miles off the coast at the last minute. Sometimes the same thing can happen with your marketing campaign. If it’s not put in front of the right audience at the right time, they may never see it.

Nicki Hicks
Metaphors ‘R’ Us

Photo credit: gsfc

This is a recap from the Guinness Book of World Records’ Largest Webinar Ever: The Science of Social Media, put on my Hubspot’s Dan Zarrella.

MYTH: Ideas spread because they’re good.

An idea – good or bad – goes viral and spreads quickly at first, then slows down over time.

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness

Exposure > Attention > Motivation

Exposure

MYTH: ‘Engaging in the Conversation’ is the most important thing on social media.

Dan found the more followers a Twitter account has, the less replies/mentions they make. Instead, highly followed accounts tweet far more links than less followed accounts.

Tweeting a lot of links has a correlation with having a lot of followers.

Don’t go after a lot of comments/views with sharing links on Twitter…you won’t get ‘em.

More Facebook conversation does NOT mean more views. (It may even be negative.)

TAKEAWAY: If you can choose anything to do, post interesting content before chit chatting.

Make sure you use photos in your profiles.

MYTH: Don’t call yourself a guru.

Effect of using the following buzz words (better to ok):

• Official
• Founder
• Speaker
• Expert
• Guru
• Author

TAKEAWAY: Identify yourself authoritatively.

However, the more you talk about yourself, the less followers you’ll have.

TAKEAWAY: Stop talking about yourself.

There’s a power to positive thinking. You’ll have fewer followers and less sharing with negativity.

Linguistic types and Facebook sharing (negative vibes to positive):

• Negative (negative)
• Leisure (negative)
• Anxiety (negative)
• Numbers (negative)
• Self-reference (positive)
• Constructive (positive)
• Work (positive)
• Media (positive)
• Learning (positive)
• Positive (positive)
• Sex (positive)

Most of your audience aren’t social media dorks, but they will help you spread your message.

Influence is contextual. It may not come from popular social accounts.

Attention

The more links you share, the less attention they’ll get.

TAKEAWAY: Don’t crowd your own content.

MYTH: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are bad days to post.

More Retweets happen on Thursday and Friday. Higher CTRs are on Saturday and Sunday. Higher unsubscribe rates happen on Monday and Tuesday. More Facebook shares happen on Saturday and Sunday.

TAKEAWAY: Use contra-competitive timing. [When the rest of the world is quiet, your message is a little bit louder.]

Motivation

There’s a lot to social proof.

• Adjectives/Adverbs: not so great
• Nouns/Verbs: much better

The lower the readability, the more shareable content is. Don’t try to sound smart, try to sound readable.

TAKEAWAY: Utilize combined relevance. (like Marketing and Zombies)

MYTH: Please RT doesn’t work.

Please RT gets 4 times more RTs. If you ask for comments, you’ll tend to get more comments.

TAKEAWAY: Don’t forget your social CTA.

Buy the eBook here.

No need to reinvent the wheel here.  I wanted to point out a couple great posts over at Mashable about the new privacy changes Facebook will be rolling out.

Facebook privacy is always such a great concern.  I get asked questions from friends, family members, clients and acquaintances all the time about privacy issues within Facebook. For some of us we are totally comfortable sharing information about ourselves, our friends, our family and our day to day activities.  For others that isn’t so natural.  With these new privacy changes Facebook is helping those that are online simply to share with only a small group of friends the security blanket they’ve been asking for.

Check out  Facebook Makes Massive Privacy & Tagging Changes [PICS] and Facebook’s Big Privacy Changes: An Overview two great articles from Mashable that highlight the Facebook privacy changes.

For instance: “The biggest change to profile privacy controls though is the addition to tag reviews. O’Neill told Mashable that users wanted greater control over who tagged them and how those tags appeared on their profiles. Users will now be able to approve or reject tags before they become visible to anybody else. This includes photos, locations and posts.”

And, my favorite, the ability to see your profile as someone else would see it by typing in their name in a field in the upper right hand corner of your profile.  This option is great if you want to make sure that your settings are correct for individual groups and people.

Tell us what you think about the privacy changes.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Privacy is Not a Passing Fad

Artist Credit: Shao Kun and Ruggero

If you remember a while back I posted about the marriage between Facebook and Skype. Well, now Facebook Video Chat has finally rolled out! I tested it out today with a friend and it works great. It’s very clean and works pretty much just like Skype only it opens up on your Facebook screen.

So, there are two ways that you can video chat:

1. First, go to the profile page of the friend that you are looking to video chat with.  Then you can click on the video chat icon found at the top right hand corner of their page.

2. Or you can open up chat, just like you are going to send a text message and video chat from there.  You will notice that there is now a video icon at the top of the chat box.  This is also a great way to shoot a quick text to your friend to ask if they are available for a video chat.

Once you’ve clicked on the video chat icon, a  pop up will appear showing you that you are calling your Facebook contact. (Note: if someone is calling you, you will hear ringing and see a pop up on your end giving you the option to accept or decline.)

Once the person on the other end accepts the incoming call, you will see a screen pop up, of the video image.  You can see the small image of me up in the corner and when I chat it gets a little bit bigger.  It essentially works just like regular Skype.

If she hadn’t of answered I would have gotten this message below.  Which is pretty neat, considering it will allow me to record a video message to be delivered once she is available.

So, there you have it.  It’s very simple. In fact anyone can do it.  I think it’s a fabulous tool for video chat, since all of your friends are already on Facebook anyway, it eliminates the hassle of going to another platform and trying to search for those same people.

One thing to note:  If it’s your first video chat on Facebook there will be a couple extra steps.  You first have to allow Facebook to have access to your microphone and camera.  You can do this by simply clicking allow and then checking off remember for later, so that you don’t have to do it every time.  Then you have to wait few seconds while it starts it up.  That’s it!

Special thanks to Megan for being my guinea pig and allowing me to post her pics on the blog!!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Video Chat Enthusiast

The number one thing I have missed since I switched from my Blackberry to my Droid HTC Thunderbolt, is by far Blackberry Messenger. It was a way for me to have a conversation with a group of people all at the same time, it was easier than texting and more importantly it was free. Now, Facebook has come out with a mobile app called “Facebook Messenger” that essentially does the same thing plus more… See the video from Facebook Live talking about it’s release.

1.  It’s Connected To Facebook: I can easily pop in a contact name of one of my friends and talk to them while they are at their computer.

2.  It’s not just for Facebook Users: Don’t think of Facebook Messenger as just another extension of Facebook, you should think of it as its own stand alone mobile app that allows you to message not only your Facebook friends, but those friends and people you know that aren’t on Facebook at all. If you message someone that isn’t on Facebook (or is currently offline) it sends the message as a text to their mobile device.

3.  Seamless Communication: Have you ever been chatting via a text message and the conversation isn’t over, but now you are sitting in front of your computer with a big keyboard in front of you and you are thinking how much easier it would be to just finish the conversation online? Well, now you can and it’s seamless, all your old messages will show up on the app on your phone and ones started on your phone will be right there in your Facebook messages.

4.  Geolocations and Photo Sharing: You can attach photos and include geographic locations to your messages. An example given is now when you tell someone you’ll be there in 10 minutes they can look at the map and get a pinpoint of your location to check. (So don’t lie!)

5.  Group Chat: You can have a conversation with multiple people without texting it to many and then having to individually answer and repeat things.  This came in handy when my grandmother was in the intensive care unit and the whole family needed to keep in touch (when I had Blackberry Messenger), now I can use Facebook messenger for group chat.

6.  Available on both Droid and iPhone: Available for iPhone and Android, you can download Facebook Messenger free via the Market or iTunes. Currently it’s only available in the U.S. and Canada but they are working on building out the app for all smartphones and countries.

7.  It’s FREE!: Both the app itself and then the messaging are free. Why sit there and rack up text message charges when you can use this free service? Brilliant.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Facebook Messenger Fan

More often than not, I get questions about what to do when you haven nothing to blog about, but what if you have too many post ideas? What if you’re so inspired that you’re overwhelmed with ideas? [Don't laugh. It's a serious medical condition and researchers are currently looking for a cure!]

Having too many post ideas can be just as troublesome as having no ideas at all. It could lead to long, drawn out posts that no one will spend the time to read. It could lead to losing some of those ideas without making the right arrangements. Never fear, there are a few easy ways to manage all of these ideas!

Write them down

Sounds pretty simple, right? But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been driving or at the gym and thought of an idea for a blogpost that I ended up forgetting because I never wrote it down. Having a running list of ideas is a great way to have some inspiration for those times when you are feeling less than inspired. Whether it’s just an idea for a post, the title of the post, or even some notes on what it will include; you’ll never regret jotting your ideas down!

And when there isn’t a piece of paper handy…

Record them

These days, most phones have a recording application on them. I find that while driving tends to be the perfect time to record ideas – or even full posts – to later write down. Thinking out loud is a great way to get your thoughts together, or maybe it’s easier for you to…

Outline, outline, outline

A great number of blogpost ideas may start out general, with no direction, and have to be whittled into something far more specific. Having been a slave to thinking I have the perfect post, only to realize it’s far to vague or far too long; it’s best to outline your thoughts beforehand to see where this post is really going.

Break them up

If you find that your post ideas are going to be upwards of 750 or even 1,000 words, that’s great news! Why? You’ve got yourself more than one blogpost, my friend! Break your post idea up into 2, 3, 4…however many parts it takes and now you have a series.

Nicki Hicks
More is better, but only if you prepare

I  recently read an article over at Mashable about Newt Gingrich’s Twitter followers being only 8% human, which got me thinking about how many spam bots/eggs/non humans I have following me.  So, I decided to look into it.  This is what I found.

1. There is no easy way of looking at this via Twitter as a whole and blocking all.
2. There are a couple applications that you can use to do this, but they cost money.
3. I don’t really have many bots following me.
4. It’s worth your time to block spammers.

The best way to fight spam on Twitter is by checking your followers daily and making sure they are human beings.  Another great way, and I do this all the time, which must be why I didn’t have many bots following me, is to immediately block and report spam when ever you get a spam message.

Tweepi.com is an application that is free if you want to jump on and start following people and unfollowing those that aren’t following you very easily. Be careful however how you use this power as you don’t want to be perceived as a spammer by Twitter and get your account suspended.  However, it is a good way to go in every once and a while and manage your account by cleaning out the clutter. Clutter being people who haven’t tweeted in over a year, people that aren’t following you, or people that you followed a while ago that maybe just aren’t tweeting information you find valuable or interesting.  You can eliminate spammers and eggs from followers, but you must get the paid version.

Manageflitter.com is another application, that again is great for cleaning up who you are following, but in order to clean up who’s following you, you must purchase the paid version.

So, why go to all the trouble and take the extra time to look into this and eliminate spammers from following you? Well for one thing it will show that you are vigilant with your account to those that follow you making you more trustworthy to follow.  Also, it helps to do your part to eliminate spammers from the Twittersphere.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
‘Spam Fighter!’

Image: Deep Brain Diary

In a recent article by the WSJ, they stated that Facebook is thinking of integrating ads into your news feed.

As of right now, it’s very difficult for advertisers to get in your news feed as that’s decided by the EdgeRank algorithm.  Sticking with the traditions of social media, if you can call them traditions in such a short period of time, would be preferred.  New media is supposed to be about the customer coming to you, not you sticking your ads in their face constantly without their permission.

Not only would these ads show up in your news feed, but you wouldn’t be able to hide them.  You know, like you do now when you get posts in your news feed from people that either post too much, you don’t really know or you just don’t want to hear what they’re saying/doing.

While obviously opening the feeds up so that advertisers would be more happy about their reach and the bang for their buck, it would come at a price.

I don’t know if Facebook wants to go there now that we have other options, ie. Google+.

Learn more over at the Atlantic Wire.

Joan Crocker Woodbrey
Just sayin’ “Don’t Mess With My News Feed”

Google comes out with a new social network, what, every 5 minutes? Don’t get me wrong, I love Google just as much as the next person…maybe even more.

Really? Another place to go?

2 years ago, social media was still in its infancy. We’d all willingly go separately to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Plurk (what, you never had a Plurk account?!), the list goes on and on.

Then something beautiful happened. Some smart people decided that was unnecessary. They decided we should save 30 seconds for every post and status update, post it to one platform (like Ping.fm or TweetDeck), and have it magically transported to multiple social networks.

Unless I’m wrong (and that happens more often than I’d like to admit), Google+ has yet to integrate their platform with anything like TweetDeck or Ping.fm so that you can post the same status to multiple platforms.

Strike one, Google+.

I’ve been hurt in the past.

Remember Buzz? Remember Wave?! Google’s tried this before and I always willingly jumped on the bandwagon. This time, however, I’m way more skeptical. Who knows, though, maybe the third time really is the charm for them.

For the moment, though, only my professional contacts have jumped on Google+. That’s all well and good, but I can keep in touch with them on a ton of other networks…or at least two big ones.

I believe that’s strike two.

It’s a Facebook copycat…for the most part.

I know, I know. There are elements of Twitter in there too. For the most part, though, this is a recreation of Facebook. News feed, profiles, security settings, and all. Even the circles (while way cooler looking) are reminiscent of Facebook lists for me.

Don’t get me wrong, Google+ has certainly done some things to set itself apart from the crowd. The simple fact that it’s a Google product and therefore automatically synced with all of the other Google products is very cool. But at its core, I don’t see anything different enough to be worth it…now.

And if my math is right, that’s strike three.

I will admit…

I haven’t really given Google+ a chance. I’ve played around a bit, but nothing major. I automatically saw all of these things within the first few hours of using it and have essentially dismissed it since.

However, since I work remotely, I’ve found that the hangout function is pretty cool. I can chat with several of my coworkers at the same time and – gasp! – can see them all at the same time too!

I’m more than happy to be proven wrong, but for the moment, I think I’ll stick to Twitter and Facebook. What about you? What has your G+ experience been like so far?

Nicki Hicks
Maybe you’ll convince me by adding me on G+