Google Analytics is a powerful tool that provides a ton of information and statistics that, if installed and interpreted correctly, will provide most of the answers you are seeking about your website’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall performance. So if Google Analytics is so great, and so free, why would anyone pay to utilize a website activity tracking program? Well, there are a couple of reasons that might make you decide to shell out some of your budget towards a paid tracking tool.

One major drawback to Google Analytics is that it does not store historical data for you. If your website, perhaps the coding or the tagging encounters problems or changes that interrupt Google Analytics, you can lose a lot of data. Forever. With a couple of paid programs out there, however, you can retrieve that lost info without problem.

On Linkedin a little while ago, I actually read a conversation about how the tagging on someone’s website had, for some unknown reason, been changed and as a result Google Analytics had stopped capturing data. They ended up losing a whole bunch of unrecoverable data.

At a conference a little while back, Tim Armstrong, SVP, Google, admitted that Google Analytics needed to improve upon capturing ROI. This is not new information; anyone that makes a living providing online marketing help can tell you that tracking and measuring ROI is not as easy as pasting some code on a client’s site. We also know that this is not an issue that is unique to Google Analytics. Every program out there has its strengths and weaknesses. I am hopeful that Google will improve Analytics ability to measure ROI soon. Until then, however, many of us are utilizing a combination of Analytics and other tracking programs to in an effort to provide data and ROI measurement to clients.

As an Internet and social media marketer, I have noticed that many new and prospective clients tend to fall into one of two camps. The first camp belongs to those who perceive social media marketing as an unknown land filled with reputation sinking quick sand, customer eating alligators, and perhaps even a few secret stealing boogeymen. The second camp is filled with the entrepreneurs who see social media marketing as the land of opportunity, filled with pots of gold, word of mouth fairies, and magical calculators that take all of the guess work out of marketing. My objective for each new client is to guide them to a much more comfortable spot, set up somewhere midway between these two polar opposite points of view.

Social Media marketing is not out to get you, nor is it there for the sole purpose of helping you sell more widgets. My advice to my clients (and anyone else who cares for my unsolicited opinion) is, in order to understand the pitfalls and benefits of social media, you should try to get comfortable with it from end user approach. I am happy to create effective social media marketing plans for clients but I am even happier when my clients take a personal interest in their online presence. So why not author a personal blog? Write about your hobbies or your alternate ego who happens to be a comedic genius. While you are at it, visit other blogs and make sure to leave comments. Set up a Twitter account, join LinkedIn. How many friends do you think you catch up with on Facebook?

Much like pretty much everything in life, utilizing and enjoying social media is one of the best ways to get comfortable with it and stay on top of current trends and issues.

Google’s new SearchWiki allows searchers to promote or eliminate pages from their own personal search results. You have to be logged into Google to personalize your results.

This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives.

While there is some debate about the usefulness of the tool and a small (so far) uproar over privacy concerns, Google continues to move forward in providing searches with better search results.

Search engine optimization will become more difficult as you will be optimizing across behavioral patterns instead of towards a single search engine. The top SEOs are already aware of how personalized search will affect optimizers and are prepared for the future.

You have to forget about rankings and focus in on return on investment (ROI).

For the last couple of weeks, I have been on a Burger King kick with my blog entries. I have decided to keep the theme going for just one more week. I promise, after this one, I will stop for a while!

Before I give the whole Burger King thing a rest, I want to point your attention to a couple of funky Burger King collaborations. These campaigns are not incredibly new and I know it seems like I am discussing at least one of these about a year too late but, I think it is fun to revisit these sites. Also, I think that, in doing so, we are acknowledging the fact that a well thought out, effective viral marketing campaign does not die. It is not like a print ad that will likely lose its value potential when the issue is tossed away.

The first is micro site is a Burger King / the Simpsons collaboration that was created a while ago to help promote the Simpsons movie that came out in 2007. Again, I know it seems like I am writing about old news here (and I am) but people are still discovering and visiting this site, talking about it, and “Simpsonizing” themselves long after the movie left the box office and came out on DVD. This site is attention grabbing, easy to navigate, and a little addictive. Once you do become bored of Simpsonizing yourself, your significant other, your bff, or whoever, you can choose to purchase some personalized Simpsons gear or send your image off to a friend.

The second very cool BK collaboration is with Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy. Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, featured by Burger King, is a series of shorts that, after watching, you can then dub over the cartoon, feature it on YouTube and watch and vote on other people’s creations. The creator of video with the most votes wins the coveted prize of buying Set MacFarlane a whopper.

Both of these sites are entertaining, a little addictive and, like most effective social marketing plans, have taken on a life of their own, thanks to the hard work of a loyal and growing fan base.

The web site design is done in photoshop and the writing for all the chosen keywords is 90% complete.
We are now into coding the site taking advantage of all the on-page factors search engines like to see.

Having perfected our code over the years, we write it as simple and light as possible. <Table>s got thrown out a couple of years ago, although it’s surprising how many people still use them and weight down their code, plus restrict their creativity to lay out a page. We can predict what is going to happen when the css renders the file each browser, however just to be safe every website is checked in all the major browsers on Mac and Windows to make sure the end user has the same experience regardless of the platform. Each browser has it’s own little quirks that we have to be thoughtful of. Images are only used for pictures or logos, always with alt tags, and never for text or navigation bars. We have also started to replace pixels with ems, so that the site has maximum flexibility. If an end user has his fonts set to a larger size than normal the whole site enlarges, not just the text!

The site is now bullet proof, works in all bowsers, all font sizes and has maximum searchability, what more can a client ask for!?

The title and meta tags also need to be researched and written, nothing is guessed we do our research and write most optimized title tag and meta tags with the most compelling words to entice the user to ‘click’. After all the end user will scan the title tags in the search engines and will often click on the one that is the most enticing, which is not necessarily the first one!

I need to get more photo’s this week for each landing page and start to shoot testimonial videos, so that can be edited very soon and sent out to all the video sites with tubemogul.

Last week I touched on the fact the Burger King has fully embraced the concept of online and social media marketing Today, I would like to discuss a couple of their online campaigns in more depth: the Subservient Chicken and Meat Haiku.

The BK Subservient Chicken campaign, a huge hit with the masses, is a completely online and user driven campaign. In my opinion, this campaign was a brilliant idea. It hit the BK target market perfectly, attracting all the right people in all the right demographics. The Subservient Chicken is still around, btw, so even though it might be old news now, I am finally getting around to sending the link to my little brother, who will likely get a kick out of asking the chicken to smell its own armpits.

With the success and subsequent waning interest in the Subservient Chicken, Burger King has introduced a few more social marketing campaigns, including its most recent, Meat Haiku

I am sure that the marketing exec’s at BK are hoping that Meat Haiku will bring in the same amount success and popularity as did the Subservient Chicken but I am not convinced that that is going to happen.

My pessimism stems first from the fact that BK’s prime target market is young and male; In other words, my above mentioned brother. While I can see my brother spending some extraordinary amount of time ordering around a hapless chicken man, I cannot see my brother staying interested in poetry, even humorous, ridiculous poetry, for that long. Another concern is that it lacks the instant gratification of the Subservient Chicken. Ask the chicken to hop on one foot and he immediately does so. Ask him to act like he is on fire and he will start rolling around on the ground, flapping his wings as soon as you click “enter” . With Meat Haiku, however, you have to submit your poem, enter some personal info, and then wait for your haiku to be approved - or not. I am not sure my poem was approved. I might go back and check to see but then again, I might not.

Now let’s discuss a couple of things Meat Haiku does right. To begin with, it actually explains what a haiku is and how to write one. Also, there is a purpose for creating an ode to BK in the form of a Haiku; there is a contest option that gives you the chance to win a BK gift card. The site offers you the opportunity to email a friend info about the page and offer them the chance view your poem and to win a BK gift card. And finally, there are not a lot of visual distractions on the site or buttons that might confuse the purpose of the site. Basically, you write your poem, you wait for it to be approved, you enter a contest, you tell a friend, and you view other poems. After all that is done, you may visit the main Burger King website or, more likely, you have made yourself so hungry by conjuring up images of big juicy burgers whilst creating your poems, you will jump in the car and head to your nearest Burger King.

Whether or not Meat Haiku reaches the same level of popularity as Subservient Chicken, there is no doubt in my mind that Burger King is charging full steam into the social media landscape, and in doing so, establishing as a leader in this platform.

On one side you have a company that creates a products or provides a service that they present to the community. On the other side you have the consumers that a company is hoping will interact with their product or service. Where these two intersect is where a companies brand is created. This brand is a mix of what you are offering and those that are consuming or engaging with your product or service.

The consumers that are loyal to your brand and engage in a profound way would be located on the outer edge of the brand, connecting with the product on the arc of satisfaction.

The consumers that take your product and make it their own, are on the outer edge of your brand, connecting more with the consumers on the arc of experience. This means that your product is being used in ways in which your consumers are living their lives, and the relevance it has to them.

It’s important for marketers to understand that both their consumers and their brand are behaving in a transformative manner, which is mostly facilitated by social media. Consumers behaviour is constantly changing, and companies need to be aware of these changes and be able to respond or adapt in the appropriate manner before competitors do.

Site Map Pro is a an example of tool that was developed to build site maps for your website. However, once out on the market, SEO (search engine optimization) companies began using that tool as a means to check title tags for websites. This is a good example of how a product was created for one intention and over time was changed by its consumer.

Examples like this are happening everyday and it is a companies responsibility to realize what their customers are seeking, and fulfill those needs to their best ability.

I was just speaking to a client about setting up Google analytics on his website. We tried to set it up for him 3 years ago but as a one man show, he didn’t have the resources to follow through on the results so he decided to put it aside for the time being. I think we can all relate to that.

His analytics has been up for one day and already he is marveling at the information that Google can track and that he can use to negotiate with his “referrers”.  Once we set up a couple of goals , he was able to compare each advertising vehicle in terms of return on investment (ROI).

The days of impressions and click throughs are long gone now,  you must be able to track ROI or suffer the consequences. In PPC, you may be bidding on keywords that aren’t producing sales and in SEO, you may be going after keyword phrases terms that simply don’t pay for themselves.

As the economy gets tougher over the next few months, you will need to take the guesswork out of your marketing program. Google analytics is an easy and inexpensive (free) way to start.

I had an interesting phone call today that got me thinking. The topic at hand was do you think social media could be used internally in companies?

We all know if you are surrounded by computers all day, there is a high chance you have checked your facebook account or email account at least a couple of times. Studies have shown that employees spend at least 30 mins a day on social networking sites during work.
Companies are concerned about the amount of time spent on social networking to a point where most (around 43% in England) have banned social networking sites. Companies interviewed asked employees “would you pay your neighbours to grocery shop for themselves?” and stated that it is equivalent to companies paying for employees to engage in personal activities during work hours.

But, what if companies could put a twist on this ever-growing issue. Articles on social networking issues have stated that companies should not ban these sites, but embrace them. They argue that employees will find other ways of engaging in these sites and that it won’t solve the issue at hand. With the Internet growing and with mobile phone applications allowing for easy Internet access, it will be nearly impossible to keep employees from engaging in social networks. Some articles have even stated that some employees, after being warned for using social networking sites, have been fired for abusing company time on social sites.

Should companies embrace this and use it to their benefit?

Allowing employees to engage in social media networks could be beneficial to a company. Employees would be able to communicate easily amongst each other, which in turn could help create a more business friendly culture. Facilitating communication amongst employees could solve potential conflicts of interest, encourage trust, allow for more resources and exchanging of knowledge, and allow a community to be built within a company. Even planned events, news and rewards could be announced through such means. This could be the new way to encourage teamwork and team building.

Using these sites could also increase communication from upper levels of management to lower levels of management. It could help companies track employees concerns and build a better relationship between employees and their company.

Of course, there is no question that a company policy should be created to limit the amount of time spent on social network sites. Perhaps monitoring or scheduled time in the morning, at lunch, and during the afternoon would allow for orderly use of social networking sites.

Although extensive research has not been performed on the following, I do think it’s an interesting take on social media sites being used in the work place and could perhaps change how we communicate in the future.

Many companies are successfully introducing social media marketing into their overall campaign strategies. And why wouldn’t they? There is a ton of research and statistics out there that continually reinforce the same findings: online marketing helps drive offline campaigns. Finally, even within industries that you would not necessarily expect to find championing the way of social media, companies are discovering the merits (and profits) of initiating a strong online presence.

Although there are many companies within a diverse range of industries integrating online and social marketing into their traditional strategies, it is still not very common to find (please keep in mind that I did not say impossible to find, so no hate mail, please) many companies that are skipping the traditional marketing methods altogether.

Burger King is an obvious exception to the above statement. Burger King has presented a few completely user driven social media campaigns; that is, campaigns that do not utilize offline promotions. Subservient Chicken being most famous among these campaigns. There is also Pet Moustache , which is pretty cute, and CoqRoq (I think their site is no longer but check out their myspace page). Most recently, they have also launched Meat Haiku.

Burger King has received a lot of flak for these completely user driven campaigns, for both trying too hard (to fit in) and not trying hard enough (to capitalize on the success of some of their campaigns). Regardless of these criticisms, it is obvious that Burger King is embracing social media as a viable marketing tool. They are rushing headfirst into this relatively new marketing avenue and, as can only be expected, are making a few mistakes along the way. After all, it is not like they have a plethora of predecessors that they may utilize as models. It is my opinion that, while most of the criticisms towards the campaigns are warranted, Burger King is quickly becoming perceived as a leading company to watch in the world of social media marketing, and for good reason.

Next week, my post will be Subservient Chicken vs. Meat Haiku.