Posted by Ellie Mirman on Wed, Mar 25, 2009 @ 08:26 AM
It's no secret that I'm an Internet marketing geek. In particular, I spend a lot of time learning the ins and outs of Facebook to share how businesses can use the social network for marketing.
Well, in doing just that, I made a discovery! Yesterday I discovered a loophole that allowed me to create links from Facebook to my website that pass SEO (search engine optimization) credit.
This is a pretty big deal because (1) a link from Facebook.com is incredibly valuable, and (2) almost all links from Facebook are either "no follow" (don't pass SEO juice) or "redirects" (first bring you to a page that warns that you're leaving Facebook). But through the custom-coded FBML (Facebook Markup Language) application, I could code whatever link I wanted - the target URL, the link text, everything!
For at least an hour, I was jumping in my office seat. Of course, after sharing my news with the marketing team, I was volunteered to write a blog article about it.
Photo credit: futurowoman
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Mon, Mar 23, 2009 @ 07:55 AM
I love this joke from comedian Mike Birbiglia:
"I get really annoyed with technology. They don't make better technology, they just combine stuff. Like you go to buy something, everything's also a camera. They'll be like, 'It's also a camera!' I'm like, 'I just wanted a grapefruit.' They're like, 'It's a camera grapefruit. You take pictures of yourself eating the grapefruit, and then you eat the camera, and you shit the pictures!' Oh my god, that is the opposite of what I wanted."
- Mike Birbiglia, as heard on Invite Them Up
I was reminded of this last night, as I was at a family function talking to some family friends about cell phones. One family friend, who recently became a grandfather in fact, was talking about his old cell phone that he just loved. "It was just a phone. You turned it on, and it worked, and it never missed a call." He was ragging on all these PDAs and data plans -- he had no desire for such technology in his cell phone. I started to explain how valuable it is to have the Internet at your fingertips at all times. I tried to think of examples of how handy it would be, without giving the use cases of twitter or email, but didn't get far before getting stumped.
And so I started to think about how hyper-connected we all are with our iPhones and BlackBerries and how this can actually keep us from the living in the very moment we are in. I have not actually mastered mobile tweeting quite yet, and so still find it quite cumbersome to try to tweet while at a party or other event. Sparse tweets can actually mean that I'm just having too good a time to pull myself away to tweet. And while I'm a big believer in all this technology helping us extend our community and allow more people take part in our experiences, it may simultaneously serve as a distraction from that which we are experiencing at a given moment.
I was recently telling my friend of the "practical" reasons behind "observing the Sabbath." I grew up in a Reform Jewish household, and still consider myself Reform. Though I did have periods of my life where I became more observant, or was surrounded by those who were very observant. My friend couldn't imagine spending 24 whole hours not being online, not using technology. I told her how invigorating it can be - to put aside your cell phone, but aside your laptop, and just be with your friends and family. Spend the day talking or reading or playing games. Just be in the moment.
Isn't it still considered rude to be on your cell phone at the dinner table? That's at least partly because you're signaling to those around you that you'd rather be somewhere else, talking to someone else. Putting down the phone shows that you want to be right then and there.
It's also incredibly calming. That's what I love about traveling, especially out of the country, where my cell phone won't work and I rarely have access to the Internet. I'm disconnected, in a good way. I can just be where I am, doing whatever I'm doing. My brain isn't somewhere else and it doesn't need to be anywhere else. A little bit of the back to basics can be good from time to time. And that's exactly what I got last night, with the Russian music playing, and the happy couples dancing, and even with the camera phones snapping away... it was good to just laugh and dance in that very wholesome my-family-is-ridiculous sort of way.
Photo by pouwerkerk
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Thu, Mar 19, 2009 @ 07:24 AM
I've been meaning to write about this for a while, and what better time than just after a great trip to Miami for a marketing conference. I think traditionally marketers are seen as outgoing, social people who can strike up great conversations with whomever they meet. That is not me. I'm the shy girl at the party, who might hang out by the food table in the hopes of striking up a conversation about vegetable dips with an unsuspecting hungry guest.
When I first interviewed at HubSpot, I remember getting the "inbound marketing vision" from Dharmesh, our quiet genious of a co-founder. He told me how the Internet gives us opportunities to interact with people in new ways, on their own time and comfort level. While at a party, you might find him quietly standing alone on the sidelines, online he finds it much easier to write and interact on blogs and social media. There's something - and this is my $0.02 - freeing about writing your thoughts versus saying them aloud. Similarly, there's something freeing about interacting with people online versus in person.
But here's where we can take it to the next level. What I find so cool about the uninhibited social media interactions is that by the time you meet a social media connection "IRL" (in real life - social media speak LOL), you already have a relationship with them and you can jump past that awkward hi-my-name-is stage. By the time you meet in person, you're already long-time friends.
And that's exactly what happened to me this week, at the MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Summit down in Miami. At first, being the shy marketer that I am, I was a little anxious about going to the event and socializing with folks. But then I discovered that my long-time twitter friend, DJ Waldow, was going to be there. Of course! How could I forget that DJ worked for an email marketing company. From there, I discovered even more social media connections.
With the designated event hashtag, #emailsummit, all the event twitterers created a pseudo chatroom for the event on twitter. I would be sitting in a session, essentially chatting with the other twitterers about the content being presented, or about plans for that evening after the conference sessions. What was an event of 500 strangers turned into a friendly group of about a dozen twitterers.
I got to hang out with some great people this week, while of course learning all about email marketing, including: DJ Waldow, Adam Covati, Brandon Wilkins, Lucas Weber, Justin Premick, Erin Malone, GregoryNG, Big Jason, Karen Talavera, Luke, Jeff Rohrs, Judith Soto, and more. Unfortunately, there were even a few more tweeps at the event that I didn't get to meet. Hopefully at the next event.
So with all this said and done, I maintain - social media is not (just) for the social marketer. Social media has allowed this non-social marketer - in multiple ways - to make great connections with people whom I might otherwise never have met.
Photo by nereski
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, Mar 13, 2009 @ 07:44 AM
There's nothing like a great conference to really get lots of thoughts and ideas jumping around in your head, just waiting for a blog post to flush them out. Yesterday I drove down to Randolph, MA for Geek Girl Camp Boston to talk to women about how to use inbound marketing and, specifically, Facebook, for business and afterwards I was so energized with blog post ideas about marketing and Facebook and social media newbies.
But that's not really what this blog post is about. I'm actually pretty new to the conference speaker role, and I was excited to get some experience at this event. Feedback was great (thank you all!), but of course I want to improve. I'll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to be a bit wordy and confusing when I try to explain things that I know too much about. I definitely fall victim to the Curse of Knowledge and need to work on better explaining things I know a lot about, like Facebook.
So when I got home last night, I pulled out (one of the four books I'm currently reading) Made to Stick to pick up where I left off (months ago... I really need to focus on one book at a time). Made to Stick has been one of the best business books I have ever read, really helping me with this Curse of Knowledge that I so easily fall victim to. Something that occurred to me - both in observing the authors' writing style and also the section specifically on Concrete ideas being "sticky" - was that concrete examples or case studies can be a huge help in delivering your idea in an effective way while also overcoming the Curse! By using real life examples of what you're explaining, a reader or listener can more easily remember your story. Also, by using case studies, you paint a picture that is worth a thousand words - your audience can fully experience what you're talking about, draw their own conclusions, and all at the same time, you make a lot more sense by not being so abstract.
Uh oh, I'm falling victim to it again. I'm being too abstract and not using concrete examples! So let's try this again.
In my presentation at GGC, I spent a lot of time talking about the news feed, about business Pages, about Facebook applications. Sure, I was giving step-by-step instructions for setting up a Page, but I still got a lot of questions like, "What if I don't want my clients to see my friends' kids' photos?" or "Should I use my real name?" -- questions more easily answered by just jumping in and seeing how Facebook works from a user's perspective.
Here's what I could have done: logged in to Facebook. Shown the news feed. Look! My friend Dan posted a link to his latest blog post. Mike uploaded a video of his son. Ashley became a fan of Flight of the Conchords. From there, we could go look at the Flight of the Conchords Page on Facebook. We could look at Ashley's profile, that shows she's a fan of that Page. And we remember that her action of becoming a fan actually showed up when I logged in. That's pretty cool.
That's one idea. By making it a lot more concrete, people can see exactly what Facebook is and how it works and will (hopefully) be better able to jump in using it.
What I especially like about the case study approach is that I can still allow myself to be wordy... But in this case, my words are used to describe a story. They add color and texture, and at the end, the listener can get a fuller experience of the picture, instead of me throwing a thousand words at them to describe the picture. I'm hoping from now on I'll try to paint more pictures... and not write any more dissertations.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Thu, Mar 05, 2009 @ 08:01 AM
Next week, I'll be heading out to Randolph, MA for Geek Girl Camp Boston to speak on How to Use Facebook for Business.
Geek Girl Camp is an unconference specifically for women who want to learn how to use different forms of technology for business.
I'll be speaking on something I know way too much about - Facebook. Specifically, how to use Facebook to market your business. That includes: an introduction to Facebook, how to create a business presence, how to market your business on Facebook, and what and how to measure your Facebook marketing efforts. I'll also be speaking with Rebecca Corliss on the basics of inbound marketing. (Also my coworker Karen "Katie Couric in training" Rubin will be speaking at the event too. We're going to have quite the crew there.)
Got a specific question about using Facebook for your business? Leave a comment below. I'm happy to answer all sorts of questions, either in the presentation (which we'll hopefully record) or on my blog. And if you're going to be at Geek Girl Camp, be sure to find me and say hi! Will be nice to meet some blogging / social media friends.
P.S. Hear about all the changes coming to Facebook Business Pages? If you want to hear more, I blogged about them over on the HubSpot blog.