links for 2006-10-31
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(tags: enterprise2.0)
Optimizing Engagement Efforts
It’s a well known fact that by blogging and commenting on other people’s blogs, forums, and community sites, that the search engines will more easily find your own site for relevant search terms. As you begin your engagement efforts on the Web, it is important to keep in mind how the major search engines will interpret your content and linking efforts. Below are some pointers from seomoz.org, as well as a link to a good resource outlining Search Engine Ranking Factors.
Most Important Factors
The following are the top 10 ranked factors across the 5 categories:
1. Title Tag - 4.57
2. Anchor Text of Links - 4.46
3. Keyword Use in Document Text - 4.38
4. Accessibility of Document - 4.3
5. Links to Document from Site-Internal Pages - 4.15
6. Primary Subject Matter of Site - 4.00
7. External Links to Linking Pages - 3.92
8. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - 3.77
9. Global Link Popularity of Site - 3.69
10. Keyword Spamming - 3.69
Web engagement to ensure your message is heard by key constituencies involves some or all of the following activities:
- Blogging your own message
- Commenting on external sites
- Establishing a Hub community, where others can start their own blog conversations on your site
The last point above is one that is often overlooked in these engagement debates that can center around blogs only far too often. By encouraging other constituents to converse on your site, search engine results can be enhanced through many of the items above. This includes the fact that more terms will be relevant on your site, more internal links and links to external sources will exist. And most of all, with outside constituents such as your customers blogging on your site, the chance for quality inbound links from external sites will go up tremendously and not involve the action of internal company team members.
It’s well worth the effort to scan Search Engine Ranking Factors to be aware of how your activities will be interpreted by the search engines.
– brian
For the Record with the Department of Defense
Jeff Nolan wrote this post highlighting the Department of Defense’s initiative to correct media misrepresentations of its comments, policies, and actions. The DoD put up this site, called “For the Record“, where they counter incorrect information in the media world (fyi - before comments come on politics, this is an apolitical post). Jeff wrote about his experiences at SAP and how they could have utilized a similar approach to counter Oracle’s aggressive advertising campaigns. He also provides some constructive criticism of the DoD site.
Jeff’s post is a worthwhile read. The DoD “For the Record” initiative is further evidence of the need for and value of having a communications vehicle in the form of a lightweight website to ensure that you can influence your message. I agree with Jeff that the site needs to add RSS feeds (BTW - they seem to have RSS for everything else). Most organizations would want comments as well, however, I can understand why the DoD did not do this.
These sites do not just need to be to counter negative information or overly aggressive campaigns of competitors. All companies, as part of an effective communications program in this day and age, are missing an entire part of their marketing communications arsenal by not having a lightweight website communications vehicle. They should accept comments too … as that is a critical feedback mechanism.
– brian
links for 2006-10-30
Passion and commitment
Here is an example of entrepreneurial commitment that speaks for itself. Forbes recently wrote this article about Alex’s startup Pluggd. Even with this frugality, Pluggd gets some of the best PR out there in the Web 2.0 world, in addition to some true technology innovation and real user adoption.
In the spirit of full disclosure again, I am an investor in Pluggd. I cannot wait for HearHere to hit the market from Pluggd … I for one am betting it is finally THE solution for searching audio/video content on the Web and the commitment of the Pluggd team gives me strong reason to believe.
– brian
The Parallel Entrepreneur - Now I get it
Fred Wilson coined the term "parallel entrepreneur" in this post. Never had a term or codification for it, but it pretty much explains what I’ve been up to now. I also like how the "incubator" thing was debunked - this is very much not an incubator.
I’ve been working to frame an codify my activities in the form of an entity, and I think that will emerge soon. Of course I’ll announce it here, and of course Kalivo will be heavily involved.
Nice post Fred!
– brian
links for 2006-10-29
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/wp-trackback.php?p=70(tags: enterprise2.0)
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(tags: enterprise2.0)
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(tags: enter)
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(tags: rubyonrails)
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(tags: ruby rubyonrails)
links for 2006-10-27
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(tags: rubyonrails)
links for 2006-10-26
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(tags: advertising)
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(tags: buffalo)
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(tags: cornell)
Plaxo and the Art of Successful Service Recovery
My previous post was critical of Plaxo for being unreachable via their VIP service on a normal business day during normal business hours as defined by Plaxo. I took a few steps to voice my concern and frustration:
- Submitted a support email to Plaxo through my VIP account
- Wrote this blog entry and trackbacked to Plaxo’s corporate blog
- Even shot a message through their Nabaztag service through the suggestion of a friend
Well, I did get their attention! And the purpose of this post is to illustrate Plaxo’s response as a textbook example of stellar service recovery. As a student of The Service Profit Chain (SPC), I know that it is OK to screw up your service delivery, but if you do, you must execute service recovery in a manner that is fast and perceived as over the top from the viewpoint of the customer affected. Let me be sure to emphasize that screwing up service delivery cannot be a common practice for a successful business no matter how good your recovery efforts may be; however, it does happen to the best of companies.
How did Plaxo respond?
First thing Tuesday morning I received an email from the Director of Services & Support - someone with authority over the customer service experience contacted me directly. Good first step.
The first words in the email were an apology for not being available when they said they would be. They also explained why this happened and that they dropped the ball on notifying customers about their planned outage.
This person then went on to ensure that my problem was addressed, by doing research into my account and the issues that I described, and offered a few solutions to ensure that my problem was addressed properly and efficiently. Furthermore, they suggested an approach for avoiding the initial problem that I experience in wiping out my contacts in the first place.
Finally, I was offered full refund for my first year of Premium service for my troubles.
How did Plaxo do and why did they do it?
The Service Profit Chain recommends that the most effective service recovery is:
- fast
- customized
- personalized
My opinion is that they did an excellent job of service recovery. All of my problems were adequately & quickly addressed by someone in a position to do so and I understand why what happened did happen. They addressed my issues directly by looking at my account details, and constructed a response that met my specific needs. I was also offered remuneration beyond my expectations and have the comfort to know that (1) Plaxo intends to provide great service and (2) if they ever slip in their performance in this regard, they will fix it immediately.
Why they went so far as to refund a full year of membership fees is probably less obvious. Again, the Service Profit Chain illustrated research that shows repurchase rates for customers based on how their complaints were handled:
- Didn’t complain at all - 9% repurchase rate
- Complaint not resolved - 19% repurchase rate
- Complaints resolved - 54% repurchase rate
- Complaints resolved quickly - 82% repurchase rate
In fact, the more a company holds to the "fast, customized, personalized" service recovery dictum, two things happen: (1) the higher the repurchase rate, and (2) the less they have to "pay" to make the customer happy. Speed is critical. So is addressing the core problem - the customer is looking for their problem to be solved, and not necessarily a "buyoff".
What’s not explicitly in the SPC research but should be intuitive from this blog post is the other positive effects of the service recovery effort. Namely, Plaxo reimbursed me for a year subscription. What kind of payoff can they expect, even though they are not explicitly refunding my membership for a payoff per se? Here are some potential sources of payoff:
- I will renew my subscription, whereas I may have asked for a refund and canceled or potentially just not renewed next year
- I will tell this story to others to vouch for Plaxo’s service, and thus refer business to them
- Others may pick up my story and pass it on, generating further referrals
My renewal is enough of a payoff for Plaxo, however, one new subscriber from this blog post will put them in positive ROI territory for sure.
I’ll leave this post with one more piece of data out of SPC:
British Airways research had shown that 98% to 99% of customers were sincerely convinced of the validity of their complaints, and we had nothing to gain by squabbling with them. Our aim was to win back the almost 400 million pounds sterling in potentially lost revenue these customers represented.
If only more companies truly took this viewpoint to heart. Good job on the recovery effort Plaxo, and I look forward to continuing my use of your service.
– brian
links for 2006-10-25
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(tags: rubyonrails php)
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(tags: rubyonrails)
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(tags: apache)
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(tags: seo)
Who is linked to my site (or to my competitors)?
Social commerce and ‘marketing as conversation’
Compete, Inc. just released a “Spark! brief” research report on the topic of how social commerce is becoming the new way of customer engagement. The report highlights some interesting findings, and can be read here.
Most interesting were some of the following comments and recommendations, that are also reflective of our experience with Kalivo:
- Committing to a social commerce strategy means welcoming consumer participation into the marketing process
- Treating consumers as equal participants is a new skill for marketers; blending your own marketing objectives with consumer trust and transparency will likely require repeated experimentation
- Social networkers are increasingly turning away from traditional media and toward their peers for information and product recommendations
Compete goes on to recommend a few approaches for capitalizing on the trend toward social commerce, or s-commerce as they call it:
- Research consumers, while they research you and your rivals - Develop an online research program …. conduct surveys … use dashboards to track changes
- Create a channel to connect customers and your brand - Launch a community site … experiment with new ways to increase community value … invite influential customers to shape the product roadmap
- Engage consumers in a conversation: listen, learn and leverage - Join the dialog … frequent valued participation … apply experiences in the community throughout your business
Does Plaxo know today is Monday?
What is going on at Plaxo today? It is 1:30pm Eastern Time on Monday October 23, 2006. Their support lines are not answering. Actually, it answers with a recorded message that their offices are closed and I should call Monday-Friday between 8am-6pm Eastern time. Huh?
Their Chat Support is offline. I am a VIP member and submitted a support request on Saturday afternoon b/c I managed to wipe out all of my contacts from their service by accident and needed them restored. I have yet to get a response.
This morning, after laboring on my own over the weekend to restore my contacts to Plaxo and properly syncronize them to my Address Book on my laptop and my Exchange account, my contacts have magically disappeared again - this time through no fault or action of my own. I assume someone behind the inaccessible wall of Plaxo is trying to "help" me from Saturday’s problem.
Needless to say, I am extremely frustrated having just magically lost all of my contacts - makes it tough to make a call or send an email from my PDA while on the road today. Not being able to reach a support person on the phone during their normal business hours makes this more infuriating, especially being a paid member. All I want to do is tell them to leave my account alone so I can restore my contacts again and not have them wipeout auto-magically again.
I’m linking to their most recent corporate blog posting and submitting a trackback in an effort to draw attention to this poor customer support both online and to someone at Plaxo I hope. The other channels do not seem to be working.
– brian
[UPDATE: the Plaxo follow-up to this post was excellent and I detail it here]
links for 2006-10-20
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(tags: bkmcomments)
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(tags: bkmcomments)
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(tags: newmedia)
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(tags: newmedia)
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(tags: newmedia)
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(tags: newmedia)
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(tags: newmedia)
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(tags: newmedia)
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