Marketing Pilgrim

Demand Media is trying to give the impression that everything is OK down on the content farm.

They have confirmed their financial guidance for the year but that confirmation is interesting considering the following two realities. Their Google traffic is down 40% after it was Panda-ficated. As a result, Demand’s stock as fallen 34% following their much talked about IPO in January. Since pictures are worth a thousand words I’ll save myself a lot of writing and you a lot of reading. The chart below came to us from SAI.

There were many of you who were upset that we talked about Demand in less than glowing terms and had predicted that the content farm game’s dependency on Google was more than just risky. Heck, even their own corporate reports said that. Now the reality is setting in quick and it’s not just Demand feeling the pinch but their stockholders as well. Looks like the latest content farm crop may be a crock.

Facebook is adding to their original deals offering. Now, I can appreciate trying to get in on the deals frenzy because there is money to be made. What is starting to get kind of silly though is that everyone, their brother and their eighth cousin twice removed has some deal set up as well. While there are seemingly infinite deal options people still usually only have a finite need or amount of money so something’s got to give.

Search Engine Land’s Greg Stirling begins his post with

After several months of anticipation Facebook is launching its second deals program: Social Deals. The new effort more closely resembles Groupon-style daily deals, with several twists. The original “Facebook Deals” is now being called “check-in deals” to distinguish it from the new program.

Facebook has just released a new button that allows users to share items with select people as opposed to everyone who follows them.

The new Send button pops up a small email blank with a drop-down address bar that automatically suggests folks you’ve recently communicated with on Facebook. You can override this by typing in a name, an email address or a Facebook group name.

This is actually a very nice feature. I often see things that I’d like to forward to a select group and not everyone who follows me. The downside is, it doesn’t work with Lists, only Groups. For example, I saw a great daily deal today that I would have shared with my mommy blogging friends, but in order to reach all the people on my “mommy blogger” list, I had to select them one by one. Not good.

Last night on Celebrity Apprentice, the teams were tasked with creating a four-page ad for the Trump Collection of Hotels. Now, before you scoff, let me tell you that you can learn a lot about marketing from this show, so read on and hold your laughter.

The judges felt that both teams failed miserably at the job, but what’s interesting is that they failed because they over-thought the task and forgot about the basics.

For example:

Stale Images

The executives on the task told the teams that they didn’t want those same old, typical hotel images, gleaming buildings and a waiter with a towel over his arm. And yet, that’s exactly what the teams gave them. The women even went so far as to put the Playmate on their team in a tub full of rose petals while she sipped champagne. Ah, luxury . . . that we’ve seen a thousand times before. The execs even went so far as to say the ad looked like the ones you see for a low-rent strip club. Yikes.

We say it every time we post about available jobs on our Job Board but it sure is good to be in an industry where there is opportunity.

We wanted to give you a look at some of the most recent jobs posted which could very well be your next great gig. Be sure to check out all of our Marketing Pilgrim job listings for those looking for work.

Oh and for those looking for that next start employee? The combination of our talented readers and a price of just $27 / month / per listing is the best in the industry. List your job with us today!

Here are some of the newest jobs

SEO Analyst – HomeAway Austin, TX

Things are heating up in the offers/daily deal/whatever it is you call it space as the competition now includes employees as well. Google has experienced enough trouble in the recent past around losing important employees that this is nothing new but it may say something about who they are willing to keep.

The latest to leave the Googleplex for greener pastures is Margo Georgiadis, vice president of global sales operations at Google. Maybe she didn’t get the same treatment as some recent near defectors did (millions in incentives to stick around) so maybe we are seeing just who Google values and who they are willing to let go in the talent race.

Reuters reports