Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Look Who Came To Dinner!” plus 4 more

Look Who Came To Dinner!
Google Turns Vulture with New Delicious Bookmark Importer
Bing and Yahoo Change Policy to Allow Trademark Keywords
In Video Advertising Size Doesn’t Matter
Waiter? There’s a Social Media Spammer in my Google SERPs!

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 06:39 AM PST

Last night, President Obama went to San Francisco and had dinner with many of the technology elite including Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Dick Costolo and Eric Schmidt. If you would like all the details the San Francisco Chronicle did a great job of looking at the gathering from many angles. Now, if you would rather just have a laugh read the cartoon from The Oatmeal below (hat tip to Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land).

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Google Turns Vulture with New Delicious Bookmark Importer

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 05:31 AM PST

Google is no different than any other company (other than it is one of the top brands on the planet and has a virtual crapload of cash but let's not quibble). When a competitor shows a sign of weakness they need to be able to swoop in and pick the competitive carcass clean to feed itself.

Since Yahoo has made it clear that they are preparing to sunset their Delicious bookmark service Google has decided to make it easy for folks to bookmark Google for the place to go with this information. As Mashable reports

Google has just rolled out a convenient new tool for importing your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks.

The simple importer takes your Delicious login credentials (or lets you use a one-click OAuth button) and imports all your bookmarks, preserving labels or tags.

Considering Google's rather broad reach as a company, the importer is likely more than just a friendly bid for more Google Bookmarks users.

I guess Google figures that Yahoo is taking the service away so why not, right? It's pretty aggressive for sure but let's face it, you usually don't become one of the most recognized brands on the planet and store up a ton of cash by being Mr. Nice Guy even when your intent is to "Do No Evil".

Bing and Yahoo Change Policy to Allow Trademark Keywords

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 02:16 PM PST

As of March 3, Bing and Yahoo will change their policy to allow the use of trademarked names as keywords in search ads. They say the change will bring their policy “in line with search industry practices” and some outlets say this is due to Google’s hard won victories in court over such matters.

Here’s the wording straight from Microsoft Advertising:

“As of March 3rd, Microsoft will cease editorial investigations into complaints about trademarks used as keywords to trigger ads on Bing & Yahoo! Search in the United States and Canada. If there is concern that an advertiser may be using a trademark keyword inappropriately, the trademark owner should contact the advertiser directly.”

What I find interesting about that paragraph is that it doesn’t say use of a trademark is okay, it says we won’t fight the battle for you if someone else uses your trademark. To further protect themselves they go on to say that third-party usage of a trademark will be allowed as long as it’s truthful and lawful. But then it says you can’t bid on a keyword if it infringes on another person’s trademark.

Isn’t that kind of like saying you can ride the horse but you can’t get on his back?

Probably the most important line in the whole document is this one:

“As a trademark owner, you are responsible for contacting an advertiser directly if you believe that your trademark is being used improperly.”

Obviously, the concern here is that competitors will use trademark terms in order to promote their own products. On the other hand, if you’re an online shoe store that sells Vans and Nike, doesn’t it make sense to use those as your keywords?

Google has been allowing the use of trademark names for search since 2004 so trademark owners should already be used to fighting this fight. The question is, will this change help Bing and Yahoo claim more of the search engine pie?

In Video Advertising Size Doesn’t Matter

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 11:44 AM PST

Thirty seconds is the magic number for a TV ad, but for online video, fifteen seconds is much more common. Undoubtedly this comes from the idea that people won’t tolerate watching anything longer when they can easily skip the ad with the push of a mouse button, but that thinking appears to be wrong.

According to a new study by FreeWheel, the length of a video ad had little impact on the ad’s completion rate. What did have a huge impact was the length of the video itself.

Long-form content (20+ minutes) had the best completion rates regardless of the ad length, both topping 82%. Short-form content, which is currently the most popular form of professional content, peaked at a completion rate of 61%.

The study also found that though pre-roll ads are still the preferred form, mid-rolls are rising fast which could be attributed to the rise in longer content. The best news is that even though the number of ads have doubled in the last two quarters, completion rates have remained steady. This suggests that the audience has already grown used to seeing advertising on videos and are more and more willing to tolerate (maybe even enjoy) a few ads per vid.

A few days ago, I covered another study that showed that 50% of the people surveyed watch online videos everyday. Combine this with the rising ability to watch video on mobile devices and there’s no getting around the impact. A reader left a question there that I’d like to answer here.

Andy asked: how do SME businesses leverage online videos?

Good question. I know it can seem overwhelming when you look at some of content produced by the big brand names, but the joy of video is that anyone can do it. Some of today’s hottest YouTube stars are teens who let loose in front of a webcam. A budget helps, sure, but creativity and drive is all you really need. “Hot Chick Pillow Fight” has 290,000 views and yes, they used some creative camera work, but honestly is anyone watching this video for the filmmaker’s technique? No, they’re watching two pretty girls in skimpy outfits hit each other with pillows. Imagine if this were a commercial for a mattress company or tissues (soften the blow!)

I say, take your cue from low-budget, local TV commercials. Gimmicks sell and have a chance of going viral. If you’re not clever enough to entertain, then inform, show your audience how to do something better or faster.

Video is still new for everybody, so I suggest you try something. Anything. You can film yourself and upload it to YouTube for free so the only thing you have to lose is your dignity — but hey, if it brings in a few sales, it may be worth it.

Waiter? There’s a Social Media Spammer in my Google SERPs!

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 11:33 AM PST

I’ve never been a big fan of adding as many “friends” to my social networks as possible. Why add unwanted noise to my socially-connected world?

Well, I’m now even more glad that I’ve been selective with who I friend and follow because Google just shoved everyone into my search results.

First, social search results will now be mixed throughout your results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). This means you'll start seeing more from people like co-workers and friends, with annotations below the results they've shared or created. So if you're thinking about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and your colleague Matt has written a blog post about his own experience, then we'll bump up that post with a note and a picture:

To be fair, Google’s not just forcing these new social results on me–I have to connect my networks with my Google profile–but if you’ve connected your accounts, and not been selective in your friends, you’re about to see a lot more avatars in your SERPs. And Google’s about to get even more aggressive in getting you to connect your social networks:

In addition, if our algorithms find a public account that might be yours (for example, because the usernames are the same), we may invite you to connect your accounts right on the search results page and in your Google Account settings:

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. If we accept that the days of everyone seeing the same ten blue links are over, and, we accept that spammers are still going to want to try and get their craptent in front of you; what do you think is going to happen? My guess? Spammers are going to do their best to weasel their way into your social network so that they can push their content higher up in your search results?

Of course, Google’s not confirming that “shared” content will be given a boost in its search results:

So is Google using social signals to alter the actual results? Yes and no. In some cases they are, in some cases they're not, Cassidy says. He declined to get into specifics, noting that it was a part of their special sauce. But he did say that there are several things that the algorithm now takes into account from a social perspective on top of all the other more traditional signals.

And when Google plays coy, it’s typically because we’re on to something it’s not quite ready to reveal to you, me….or the spammers.