There were lots of entertaining Super Bowl ads this year, but as an internet marketer, two interested me the most: Google’s first ever TV ad, and the new upstart, KGB.
Forget the fact that Google–the ambassador for new, measurable ads–ran an old-school TV ad, which do you think was the best of the two?
We finally have a Marketing Pilgrim fan page on Facebook!
I know, I know, it’s about time! But hear me out.
You see, I always figured that having a fan page on Facebook wouldn’t be of interest to Marketing Pilgrims. I thought a fan page was just an ugly expression of vanity–did I really feel like people loved this site enough to become a "fan" of it?
Then it struck me.
It’s not about being a fan, it’s about providing you with another way to enjoy Marketing Pilgrim’s posts. Maybe you’re not a big user of RSS, but would prefer to nom on our delicious posts, while throwing sheep or growing carrots. 
So, for those of you that wish to connect with us via Facebook, now you can.
So, a few days ago I was on Twitter and a friend of mine asked her followers how much she should pay a designer for a new logo. My response was, “well, pay them what ever they invoice you for.” She then explained that this designer didn’t know how to price his logos and needed help. I remember when I first started my business I had no idea how to price products. I used to spend days analyzing the market, comparing other products and thinking of different marketing options. And then one day I realized how simple pricing really is.
Last week, Facebook posted instructions on how to make FB your “personalized news channel” and minimize nonnewsworthy clutter on their blog. Inspired, Hitwise looked at the numbers, and it looks like Facebook is already well on its way as a news starting point.
Hitwise’s stats show that Facebook is well ahead of some other news aggregators in terms of sending downstream traffic to news websites:
After Google (17.32%), Yahoo (7.89%) and msn (4.43%), Facebook was the fourth most popular referrer for news websites. Says Hitwise:
News and Media is the #11 downstream industry after Facebook, receiving 3.69% of the social networking site’s traffic. To offer a comparison, 6% of downstream traffic from Facebook went to Shopping and Classifieds last week [check out their downstream retail traffic] and 6% to Business and Finance and 15% went to Entertainment websites (YouTube in particular).
Two years ago, Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240M—and with the agreement that Bing would be providing web search on the world’s most popular social network. That deal is now expanding, according to the Bing blog—to not only take in an expanded, enhanced search but also more countries around the world. Most importantly, however, Bing is giving up its claim on selling Facebook advertising.
Their enhanced search is a joint effort between FB and Bing “to provide even more compelling experiences to Facebook users.” Right now, Bing provides the basic ten blue links through Facebook’s web search option, but that will expand to include “richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions,” in keeping with Bing’s “decision engine” branding. This partnership is also growing beyond the US to a worldwide agreement.
I can hear it now. We normal folks won’t be able to hear this signal (kind of like a dog whistle) but this is being sounded across the US to Washington, DC from Mountain View, CA as we speak.
“Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! (Especially if you still have stock) I repeat – Calling all ex-Google employees in DC! This is your real leader, Eric Schmidt, and we need you to ‘talk’ to some people about this ‘problem’ that the US government has with our book deal. Remember where your allegiance is and who is more powerful. Go and do your duty for the Goog immediately. Thanks and have a great day!”
Online reputation management isn’t always about big corporate brands. In fact, half of my book Radically Transparent is dedicated to building and managing personal reputations.
Just in case you’re not convinced that you need to worry about your personal reputation online, you might want to check out the interview I did with WCCO Radio:
In it I discuss three important themes:
If you’re not an audio person, the same advice was recently published on Yahoo Finance via an interview I did with Bankrate.com.
by 
by 
by 
by 
