Marketing Pilgrim

OK, let’s set the ground rules here. This is a post about the online space but it has to do with politics. I saw a post on Facebook from the Wall Street Journal about political candidates 404 pages. It’s an interesting thing to consider as political races are now very dependent on strong online strategy and execution. Based on a survey of this particular website element, it’s apparent that the Republicans must fully realize just how bad they got their online butts handed to them in the last presidential election, that’s for sure.

So here is a glimpse at the 404 pages of those wanting to get into office. First, out of respect for the office we’ll share President Obama’s 404 page which opts for the informative route and does a nice job of providing options for the wayward site user to check out. Pretty much what one would expect from an online savvy group like the Obama camp.

Now for the Republican side of the ledger and it looks like the front runners are playing hardball.

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Last Friday was 11.11.11. It was a rare occurrence indeed and it brought out everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. I took a look back at how two of the major players in online world, Twitter and Google, looked at the day. Twitter, of course looked at the trending of who was talking about the date and when. This video gives a quick visualization from their blog post entitled “Once in a Lifetime”.

Cute, I suppose. Looking at the novelty of the day is certainly is one online take and fits Twitter perfectly. It’s a world of fleeting trends that come and go like waves hitting the shoreline. They keep coming and we now just expect it to be that way. Whether we pay attention or not is more about our mood than our beliefs.

In a series of posts beginning today, we are excited to have Chris Lorence, the CMO of the Independent Community Bankers of America, an association serving 5,000 members, to share his experience in bringing social media to an industry that has proven reluctant to get involved even in the face of increased scrutiny of banking as a whole. With his members facing the possibility of being targets for any online reputation trouble makers, Chris has been working to help bring his members into the social media age. This series will help you follow this journey and its many ups and downs. it’s not unlike many stories our readers have to tell about their own social media quests.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 16% of online teens used Twitter in the month of July. Not a very big number, but it’s doubled since 2009.

Much of the rise is due to the fact that kids are now growing up with social media. I’d bet that there are more birth announcements on Facebook than in every hometown newspaper combined.

The other reason for the jump, is the ease of access. 75% of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 have mobile phones and one in three sends more than 100 text messages a day. Since a Tweet is nothing more than a public text message, it’s no wonder Twitter is on the rise.

Not all of us are social media mavens. Some people visit Facebook on the rare occasion when they have a photo to share or big news to tell. But to Klout and other networks, one visit is as good as an addiction because one visit is all it takes to leave a footprint behind.

The New York Times has a feature story up about Maggie McGary, a mom who makes her living as a social media manager. She was upset when she discovered a Klout profile for her under-aged son. Klout built the profile because the boy was Facebook friends with his mom, which made him fair game. Klout pulled his info and set up a profile without asking for permission and with no regard to the fact that he was a young teen.

Remember over the summer when we asked you, the SEO expert, to be the judge and jury on ShopCity and its complaints regarding Google’s alleged mistreatment of the sites? It was one of our most spirited post interactions in quite some time (we love how intense SEO’s get when given a challenge).

Essentially the readers of Marketing Pilgrim gave ShopCity A LOT of free SEO advice. It was even a place where ShopCity’s CEO, Colin Pape got into the mix. To his credit, he soaked up all the free offerings readily while trying to defend his tenuous position regarding Google’s apparent lack of respect for his some 8,000 domains.