Marketing Pilgrim

Can you believe it’s been more than a year since we last gave away an awesome marketing book?

Yeah, time to fix that!

We’ve got 3 copies of Brian Carter’s The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook to give away to Marketing Pilgrim readers. Barely two months old, Brian’s book is already garnishing high praise–and 5 stars–on Amazon. If you know Brian, you know that he’s a pro when it comes to Facebook marketing and in The Like Economy, he promises to provide:

• Clear, up-to-date answers about how Facebook can help their companies make money
• Specific guidance on using Facebook to support and supercharge existing marketing programs
• Detailed insights for crafting Facebook programs that reflect their unique products, services, and customers

High off their success in bringing SOPA to its knees, assorted superficial social extremists–ASSEs for short–have decided their next target should be Google. Not because of privacy issues, click fraud, or something that actually matters. No, the focus is on how Google+ is being intricately tied to search results.

Did you know that Google is…gasp…manipulating its search results for its own benefit? No, really. Apparently, Google+ is being forced down our throats and poor, helpless companies such as Facebook and Twitter are worried YOU are not getting the best results. They’re rallying a movement not seen since Google started adding paid ads to its search results!

I’m telling you! Facebook avatars and Twitter profiles are going to be changed over this! This is an outrage, one that even Hitler’s coming out of retirement to comment on (NSFW, btw).

Pubcon has been one of my favorite marketing conferences over the past decade. It has been an honor to speak at the various events held around the country.

Now the joy-o-meter just cranked up to 11, with Pubcon Paradise! Yes, my favorite conference is now heading to my favorite destination in the world….Hawaii! And Marketing Pilgrim readers can save 20% off registration until Feb 7!

February 14-15, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki is the location for the must-attend event. And, how can you not go? Especially when you can tell your spouse you are taking them to Hawaii for Valentines!

The conference will have a strong travel and toursim focus, but broad enough that any marketer will walk away with their head spinning with awesome SEO, PPC, Social & Affiliate marketing tactics.

After writing about the FedEx delivery driver that was caught on video, throwing a customer’s expensive computer monitor over a fence, many asked if the video was faked, a FedEx publicity stunt (huh?) or the antics of a competitor.

Well, it turns out that the FedEx video–which now has over 2.6 million views–is legit.

In fact, FedEx has apologized and apparently resolved the issue. Though, unless you went digging around, you wouldn’t know that.

You see aside from these few tweets…

…FedEx doesn’t appear to have taken the issue seriously enough to warrant much of an official apology.

No Facebook update.

No YouTube video response.

No press release.

Not even a blog post. Update: There’s now a blog post.

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.

Over the past year, companies have:

• caused homes to be trashed
• trashed their competition
• allowed customer information to be hacked
• threatened non-profits
• run distasteful Super Bowl ads

All of these warranted an apology of EPIC proportions, yet Johnson & Johnson may end up with the best public apology of the year for simply deciding to no longer produce its popular o.b. tampons line.

As the LA Times explains…

Shelves were emptied and the tampons were reportedly selling on eBay for more than $100 (a recent search found a 40-count box of Ultras on a Buy It Now for $79. Ouch). As for the reason for the disappearance, that still remains unclear; the company said it had a supply interruption but some wondered whether there might be quality control or manufacturing issues.

Just how popular is that video of your aunt’s faceplant in the snow? Who’s watching your rendition of White Christmas?

Those questions and much more will be answered when Google rolls out YouTube Analytics later today–replacing the more limited Insights.

Here’s what you’ll get, so long as you are using a “modern” browser:

• A Quick Overview: A new overview provides all of the information that you care about quickly, while also enabling you to easily access more detailed information.
• More Detailed Reports: Analytics now includes more detailed statistics so that you can have a more precise understanding of your content and audiences.
• Audience Builders: Discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions.
• Audience Retention: See how far viewers are watching through your video in the new audience retention report.

I have just one question. Why in the world is Google using an infographic to explain YouTube Analytics and not a video tutorial? That’s like Bill Gates giving a presentation about the new Windows 8 using a Mac!