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FedEx Driver Trashes Computer Monitor & Reputation: How Should FedEx Respond?

posted on December 20, 2011

If you’ve not yet seen this YouTube video of the FedEx delivery driver throwing a shopper’s new LCD monitor over a fence, then let’s get you up to speed.

Did your jaw drop? Mine did! You can read the back story here.

The question I have for you is, how should FedEx respond to this reputation damaging incident? I’ve listed a few ideas below, but leave a comment with your thoughts.

  • Fly the poor guy out to FedEx headquarters–on a FedEx plane–to receive a personal apology from the CEO and receive a new LCD TV.
  • An apology from the FedEx worker responsible, perhaps with an offer to come and personally set up the new monitor.

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Video Ads Increase In Spite of Measurement Concerns

posted on December 20, 2011

Advertisers spent 29% more on video ads than they planned over the past year and two-thirds of advertisers said they’ll spend even more in 2012.

The numbers come from Break Media’s “Digital Video Advertising Trends: 2012″ report and overall, it shows that video advertising is on the rise. Mobile shows the most growth going from use in 39% of video ads in 2011 to an anticipated 55% in 2012.

In order to pay for the increase in video spending, 45% of advertisers are taking the money out of the online display budget while 38% expect an increase in their overall ad budget to cover the difference.

So all this confidence must come with a big reward, right? Could be, say the video advertisers, if only we had a way of measuring our success!

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Study Shows ‘Social Influence’ Is Really Only ‘Social Selection’

posted on December 20, 2011

The whole concept of the social sharing in marketing is based on the idea that people respond better to suggestions from their friends, than suggestions from a stranger.

I like a TV show, I “check-in” on Get Glue, that sends a message to my Facebook friends telling them I like this show. My friends then decide they should watch this show because if I like it, they’ll like it. They have been influenced by my suggestion.

Maybe not.

Kevin Lewis, a Harvard sociology graduate student, co-authored a study about peer influence on social media networks. Speaking to Wired, Lewis stated that the results showed that “the extent to which friends’ preferences actually rub off on each other is minimal.”

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Google Creates Rich Resource for Rich Snippets

posted on December 20, 2011

Everyone is looking for an edge in the search engines. We got that.

Seeking the advice of everyone and their brother who has tried to game Google’s system is one way to handle this “game”. It’s not the one we recommend by any means but that doesn’t stop a lot of people from trying.

Probably one of the most effective ways to build a sound website foundation is to follow some of the suggestions Google offers to everyone. You might say, if everyone is doing it then we all look alike so how does that help? Well, it’s simple. Not everyone does the basics well. And if Google is going to give you information in a quick 10 video series about rich snippets why not take the time and the advice and put it to good use?

Here’s the introductory video

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A Winning Framework for SEO Reporting

posted on December 20, 2011

This post was written by our SEO Channel sponsor, Link Assistant.

Inspired by an awesome talk by Vanessa Fox, Max Thomas and Marty Weintraub at SMX East (the one that took the Internet by storm), we’d like to continue the SEO reporting topic and investigate into what makes a solid modern-day SEO report.

Gone are the days when rankings were the only report filed by SEO’s. The industry has matured and clients have gotten much more SEO-savvy, which calls for some new standards in SEO reporting.

In this respect, what’s important to understand is that whether running an online or an offline business, marketing executives and business owners always keep track of at least one financial indicator – profit. In a very simplistic decision-making model, a manager would make decisions based on what impact they have on the profit. Thus, there should be proper reporting mechanisms in place that help one determine if certain steps are going to generate loss or yield extra revenue.

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Paid Search Dollars Decline, While Display is On the Rise

posted on December 19, 2011

Earlier this year, Kantar Media said they were cautiously optimistic about the future of the ad dollar. Now, they say that optimism has been replaced “by the statistical evidence of progressively slowing growth rates.”

Jon Swallen, SVP Research at Kantar Media North America lays it out for you,

“From +4.1 percent in the first quarter, to +2.8 percent in the second quarter and now a barely palpable +0.4 percent for the July to September period. During Q3, an expanding number of the largest marketers became even more conservative with their ad budgets and these reductions have neutralized the healthy spending growth occurring among mid-sized advertisers.”

Aw, that’s not good, is it?

Looking strictly at internet ad spending, it was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul

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Facebook Page, Can I Talk to You in Private?

posted on December 19, 2011

Facebook is one of the easiest ways to contact a brand, company, even a celebrity. Now they’re making it even easier to share your thoughts with Private Messages for Pages.

The feature is currently being tested in a small area, somewhere in Asia I hear, but it’s got the social media crowd — dare I say — all a twitter.

It’s big news for marketers, because it opens up a new line of communication between consumers and the brand. The downside is the extra time it’s going to take to respond and clear the inbox.

And knowing how caustic people can be in their public comments, it’s a little frightening to imagine what they’ll say in a private message. Double that, because the new system does not require the sender to “like” the page before shooting off their thoughts.