Social Media: More Features! Easier To Use! Just Like the Other Guys!

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

The big stories in social media this week were big and obvious:

Metrics: Makes Your Sites Run Faster!

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

Google has a habit of not only playing April Fool’s Jokes, but also pushing out real products on April Fool’s Day (For instance, Gmail was launched on 4/1/2004). And they’ve continued that trend with the launch of Page Speed, from their Labs division. Basically, this tool allows you to enter the URL of a website, and it returns a prioritized list of suggestions you could implement to decrease the length of time it takes for your page to load. There are a number of existent browser plugins that perform the same function, but this is a simple online page that does the same thing.

Design: Keeps Your Colors Bright!

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Today, I talked about the color problem when saving images to the web. Sometimes when an image is uploaded to the web, the colors tend to be different and washed out. One simple solution that I found is to make Photoshop display the web colors instead of the full RGB range. You can do that by going to View menu, choose Proof Setup, and check “Monitor RGB”. This doesn’t actually change the color of your images, but only changes how the color is perceived. The color you see now should represent web colors more closely. The next step is to enhance the colors manually here. Once you’re done, just save it for web. It is recommended to uncheck “convert to sRGB” option in the Save for Web dialog. Upload your image to the web, and voila, no more washed out colors!

Social Media: Editing Wikipedia and You

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

Since Wikipedia’s popularity isn’t losing any steam, the information found on the site is becoming more important. This week I’ve been diving in deeper to the world of Wikipedia editors, acquainting myself with the conventions, expectations, and expectations that make Wikipedia the amazing compendium of knowledge that it is. Today I shared some of what I’ve learned with the team–including how WikiProjects make the enormous maintenance work of the site more manageable, and how opportunities for collaboration create incentives and lead to better experiences. I also discussed Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policies and what they mean for us as an agency.

Leadership: Understanding the Intricate Digital Behaviors of Young Customers

Steve Wolgemuth, Principal

Working off of a recent publication from Forrester Research, I presented some illuminating facts about the online behaviors and attitudes of 12-17 year olds (i.e., high school-aged) and 18-24 year olds (i.e., college-aged). Since YDOP serves two colleges, this is very important information we need to consider. While there was much to glean from this research, one huge summary point is that these age groups don’t want brands to be friends with them. While the older group is slightly more tolerant (12% college age vs 6% of high school age), both groups feel that social networks are for socializing with friends, not for getting any marketing messages, even friendly ones.

The take-away lessons from this extensive research would suggest strongly that brands should monitor and listen intently as their first and primary role. They should be poised and ready to participate in conversations at every opportunity (when the young participant starts the conversation) and be ready to answer questions from the voice of a real person. Posting information on social platforms may not be the best idea as this audience doesn’t deem it to be reliable. While this group feels it is inappropriate to be drawn into a conversation by a brand (especially if it is done by a brand representative rather than a person connection who is associated with a brand) it may be a reasonable idea for a company to ask for feedback or opinions, especially if they are sincere and authentic about seeking this information. This is especially true as a young audience is very prone to write opinions about products and services on social platforms (rather than review sites) and to give opinions peer to peer.

Programming: Return of the Web Browser Wars

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

Internet Explorer released version 9, with Firefox 4 on its heels with a launch scheduled for next week. IE9 updates include a more minimalistic interface, enhanced hardware acceleration for displaying websites, better support for HTML5 and faster JavaScript execution. Also, IE9 continues moving toward web standards, making it more developer friendly. Firefox 4 makes many of the same moves IE9 made, and it has also added built-in support for tabbing by allowing searching through tabs and grouping tabs.

Metrics: Be Intelligent With Your Analytics

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

Following some advice I read in an article by Rebecca Lehmann at SEOMoz, I shared with the team that I recently instituted some custom alerts in Google Analytics for our clients. It’s relatively simple to build an alert in the Intelligence section in “My Customizations” to have Google email you if, for instance, Analytics data has flatlined, there’s a sudden traffic spike or drop, or any number of other situations that you should have a good handle on.

Design: CAPTCHA Alternatives

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

A traditional CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), which usually requires you to decipher an image of skewed random text, can become a barrier between companies and their customers. The solution is to make CAPTCHA easier and more accessible by humans. An article from SmashingMagazine talks about some alternative CAPTCHAs. Those CAPTCHAs that are made of distorted text are now slowly being replaced by logic questions, image recognitions, visitor interactions, and more. Facebook recently began using a friend recognition CAPTCHA which requires you to identify your friends’ in photos they show. All these alternatives may not be the best solutions, but they can serve better compared to traditional CAPTCHA.

Metrics: A Better Picture

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

I introduced the team to a new way of looking at some of our clients’ metrics: using a rolling total/average over time to see where things really stand. For a number of clients, web traffic is very cyclical, whether on a weekly, monthly, or even a yearly basis. Looking at the data cumulatively over the period of the last year helps you really identify if things have taken off, or belly-flopped.

Design: Eye of the Beholder

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

In an article written by Steven Bradley, he claims that the 3 popular layout patterns (Gutenberg, Z-pattern, F-pattern layout) tend to be followed blindly. In reality, those patterns are tested for heavy-text content with a simple design. Therefore, they can’t be just applied to any design. I absolutely agree with Bradley that it is unnecessary to design your web page on these patterns. Lead your visitor’s eye flow by creating design focal points (font sizes, images, contrasts, etc) instead. But be careful not to make the page too cluttered.

Social Media: Getting a Better Handle on the Social Web

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

Content is more important than ever in 2011, but as the number of conversational platforms increases, it is becoming harder to track how people are engaging with that content. That’s why I shared PostRank with the team this week. PostRank is a suite of tools and services, with a flagship service providing publishers (and today, that’s every company that hopes to be competitive) with deep analytics about how people across the social web are engaging with their content. I’m getting a lot of value out of PostRank already for developing content ideas and for monitoring what types of content various audiences enjoy most.

I also gave a brief walkthrough of the upgrades in WordPress 3.1, all of which are useful. One new feature makes it easier for admins to edit the site from the front end (while looking at the site like a normal user), and another makes it easier to add internal links, which are critical for SEO efforts. We’ve also settled on a blank theme we’ll use in most cases when we develop sites on WordPress.

Programming: CMS

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

Mike led us all in a lively discussion in what aspects of Content Management Systems (e.g., WordPress and platforms like that) we like, and what aspects we don’t.

7. Build a knowledge base of answers to relevant questions

Reverse the typical question-and-answer process. Help your client write articles that answer common questions. Any blog platform will work fine for hosting these articles. Once these posts are written, look for people asking those questions (particularly on Yahoo Answers, Quora, and Twitter) and point them to the answer. The interaction is spontaneous, even though the development of the answer is not.

Read the full article on Agencyside.net »

Then let’s say that at that point you were considering ignoring the bounce rate and leaving your site as it was. You had just begun the process of building a new $100,000+ site to replace the existing one. Then a team of Internet professionals convinced you make a big difference by making small tweaks to the site.

Let’s just say that the numbers you’d be looking at for January 2011 would be much brighter: 288,000 visits, with 112,000 bouncing.

That’s an increase of 3,000 visitors and a decrease of 27% in the bounce rate. That’s engaging 115,000 more people this January than last January.

Now let’s say that this isn’t a hypothetical situation. It’s a brand-new success story for a YDOP client.

A little insight from our team goes a long way. We’re proud of that, and thrilled for our client.

Steve and I will address pressing issues that business leaders face as they transition their marketing, communications, and development into a Web-centric culture.

• How can highly regulated industries use social media?
• What are the roles of the “social media manager” in your organization, and how should you hire for or train an existing employee for this new role?
• How do you equip and train the rest of your staff?
• What internal social media guidelines, policies and monitoring protocols need to be in place to reduce risk in your organization?

You’ll walk away with actionable insights, strategies, and tactics for more effectively managing their organizations as they continue to transition into the digital world.

Attendance is free for Chamber members. The event will be held at Southern Market Center, one block south of Central Market in Lancaster. Please register online or by calling Sarah Stevens at 397-3531/x172.

Metrics: The Google/Bing Smackdown

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

I brought attention to the story this week about Bing adding Google’s data to their index. In a nutshell, Google ran a sting operation, where they discovered that Microsoft was using a combination of Internet Explorer and the Bing search bar to catch users’ searches and clicks on Google’s site. That data would then be incorporated into Bing’s search engine results. This is neither surprising, nor really all that noteworthy. Unfortunately, Microsoft instead chose to respond to the allegations with what amounts to a petulant “Nuh-uh!” Even more regrettably, Google in turn responded with an equally schoolyard-esque, “Yuh-huh!” The two have been sniping at each other all week, on official blogs and Twitter accounts.

For Internet marketing firms such as ourselves, it should remain a topic of interest that Bing apparently can be “gamed” into adding results. It remains to be seen whether or not this would help search engine rankings.

Design: Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Today I shared an article with the team about the correlation between eye tracking and mouse tracking. GazeHawk’s article reveals that eye movement on a web page has a high correlation (around 84% to 88%) with mouse movement. Therefore, because of this high correlation and also the high cost of an eye-tracking experiment, it would be easier for a company to just conduct a mouse tracking test. Eye tracking may be a perfect tool to see what the most eye-catching part of your website, but mouse tracking is a better tool to measure the website visitors’ actions.

Social: Potpourri for $200

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

It was a Resource Friday mashup from me today, covering several topics:

• A service for identifying missed opportunities in local search
• Common SEO mistakes in URL structures and how to resolve them
• Advanced social plugins from Facebook for websites
• The need for social media backup services, as highlighted by Flickr’s recent accidental deletion of 4,000 photos of one of its paying users
• The poor performance of Facebook ads, and tips for making them more effective
• Minimal WordPress themes that can serve as a good foundation for custom themes
• The rise of Path as a new social network, and its relation to Facebook and Instagram

Programming: The Big Picture

Mike Newswanger, Lead Programmer

This week, I showed the group a jQuery plugin called Jcrop. With the increase in image-based applications, and the need for users of websites to be able to crop or edit their avatars, this plugin makes things like that really easy to implement.

Metrics: Off With Their Heads! Well, off to the side, really.

Jeff Burkholder, Inbound Marketing Analyst

This week, the tech world saw two important shifts in leadership among high profile companies. First, sandwiched between the massive amounts of hype involving the Verizon iPhone and an astronomically stellar earnings report, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced that he’s taking another medical leave. Conventional wisdom is that Apple could not have handled this situation better, with Jobs still retaining the title of CEO and pledging continued involvement, but letting COO Tim Cook keep things running on a day-to-day basis. Investors are satisfied, the technorati are excited, and all wish Jobs well through his downtime.

The other big shift was in Google’s leadership. For years, the triumvirate of Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin have been ruling Google since 2001 (when cofounders Page and Brin brought veteran Schmidt in to help guide the then-nascent company). Amidst a similarly stellar earnings report, though, Schmidt announced he was stepping down as CEO, and handing that title over to Page. Schmidt remains Chairman of the Board, and Brin, with the official title of “Co-Founder”, will continue to focus on new product ideas.

In neither case is the man-in-charge walking away from their massively successful and profitable company; instead, they’re both stepping a bit to the side to let someone else take the reins for a time; Jobs on a temporary basis, Schmidt in a more permanent setting. Apple’s been through this before and weathered things quite well; Google’s change may be more substantive, but it hardly seems that it will be disruptive to its practices, either.

In the midst of this, Google today renewed their commitment to fighting spammy entries in their search results. Whether this reflects a significant change in their algorithms (which may or may not include more user-generated reviews?), or is merely a PR stunt to respond to recent allegations that spam has increased in results, remains to be seen.

Design: Back To School

Astrid Salim, Creative Director

Design Shack gathered and showcased 50 of the best and worst university website designs, which I shared with the team today. Some of my favorites are: Washington State University for their bold, aesthetically pleasing layout, University of Alabama for their nice use of photo galleries, and University of North Carolina for their attention to details. Unfortunately, some other university websites are not so hot. So it is important to consider updating your website, since it’s the face of the company online.

Leadership: Crisis and Competition

Steve Wolgemuth, Principal

Since Resource Friday is intended to be a time for sharing with the team what we’ve learned that week, I talked about Jack Welch’s book, Winning, as it relates to handling a crisis and how to react to competition. With regard to crisis management, it isn’t likely that YDOP will get involved in any trouble soon, but it is a safe bet that some of our clients will, and perhaps within the next year. Welch details the importance of gathering facts immediately and ruthlessly (my words). This is a key role that our company will likely play for our clients, particularly using our social media monitoring tools and capabilities.

Regarding competition, Welch brings a strong reminder to not become complacent with any market position that your company may hold. He warns that it is tempting to believe that other brands aren’t able to evolve, learn, hire and change. Fortunately, in our industry of Internet consulting and services, the demand is growing at a tremendous rate as businesses are feeling the need to participate effectively online, and as they are pulling monies from print media and branding budgets.

Social: Updates for WordPress, Flickr, and Facebook.

Daniel Klotz, Social Media Strategist

“Ultralight” blogging platforms like Tumblr and Posterous have captured my interest and imagination lately, as our review of success stories shows that building good websites must be a thorough and even tedious process, while creating timely content must be dead simple. Today I shared with the team a WordPress framework that makes it super simple for a team of people to keep a short-attention-span-friendly blog alive and active. It would only be appropriate for about five percent of blogging situations, but it’s a great option to have in our tool belt.

Flickr is now allowing users to sign in with their Facebook login, another instance of the trend of social networks consolidating and collaborating rather than splitting and propagating. What it means right now is that Flickr is easier to access for tons of users, and that it’s easier than ever for users to upload photos to Flickr (which has the better system for handling photos) and seamlessly share them with their Facebook friends.

Last night Facebook began rolling out out a new feature that allows page admins to see detailed, real-time stats about individual status updates: number of impressions, number of users who saw the update, how many “likes,” comments, and clicks the update received, and the overall click-through and engagement rates. This kind of feature is awesome, as it gives solid feedback in real time, essentially teaching all of us how to craft updates that are valuable to our customers and supporters.

At YDOP, the front-end web developer:

• Works with our graphic designer to turn design files (typically Photoshop) into websites and Facebook page tabs
• Provides our programmer with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files ready for use in dynamic (database-driven) websites
• Communicates with clients during the pre-launch phase of website development, making final changes and adjustments
• Sets up and conducts A/B testing and heatmap/click tracking for conversion optimization
• Stays up-to-date on the latest developments in front-end web development (for example, adoption of the @font-face rule and progress on the HTML 5 specification) and keeps the rest of the team aware of these developments

We’re an agency that provides broad service to strong clients on an ongoing (retainer) basis. We don’t crank out websites; we build and launch beautiful, effective sites over realistic timelines, and then closely monitor the sites’ performance and adjust to improve conversion, search optimization, and user pathways. Every site has a CMS, so the front-end web developer’s role includes only a very little bit of updating text and information on websites.

This is a full-time position, but we will consider a part-time arrangement for the right person. Remote candidates and remote working situations are not being considered.

If you’re interested in learning more about this job opening, please e-mail your resume (please do not call) with a cover e-mail to contact@ydop.com.