<b> Bold Interactive Inc.

1. Imagine that you purchase a ticket for the latest blockbuster film. You get your popcorn and soda, find a seat in the theater, and settle in for a couple hours of fun. But instead of firing up the projector and showing the movie, the theater owner simply hands you the typewritten script, telling you that the words are all that matter anyway. “Copy is king.” - Roberta Rosenberg on 12 Things Every Copywriter Should Know About Design
   

2. There is a time and a place for anonymity online. - Ike Pigott on Truth vs Honesty

3. I can assure you that if you don’t fish, (and he does), yet you enthusiastically tell him how much you love fishing and he asks you what the biggest walleye you ever caught was and you tell him it was an extra large, not only do you look like an idiot, you also look like the biggest condescending loser the guy has met today. - Bob Massa on The SEO Guru Exposes the Worst SEO Sales Advice of All Time

4. Say something even remotely smart, (or at least something that sounds smart), and it could float to the top of the blog clog like a fart in a bathtub. - Bob Massa on The SEO Guru Exposes the Worst SEO Sales Advice of All Time

5. I applaud Buckley’s for accentuating the hate with their cough syrup. - John Moore on Buckley’s: The Good Taste of Bad Taste
6. The Armies of “No” are all the extraneous people who are called on to weigh in on the latest marketing campaign, regardless of their having any actual expertise in marketing. - Tangerine Toad on Defeating the Armies of No
7. I am constantly amazed by the naivet’e of marketers who seek to breathlessly convince others that people are falling over each other to read their company’s marketing fluff. - Cam Beck on Enough About You. Let’s Talk About Me.
8. In our haste to get the message out, we often forget to spell out what it means. - Valeria Maltoni on Tell Me What It Means
9. The main purpose that I have in mind when I’m writing comments is to create a connection with another person - whether that’s a reader here, or an author whose site I’m visiting. - Joanna Young on Writing blog comments: 20 ways to make a powerful connection
10. If your speech needs to be prefaced by an apology… don’t give it. - Seth Godin on Sorry to Talk So Long

11. Every action you take, every word you speak, every impression you leave, affects how others view your brand. - Steven Bradley on 4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Brand

12. First of all, who are the A-list bloggers and where do I sign up to become one? - Bob Loblaw on What’s It Take To Become an A-List Blogger Around Here? - most hilarious post of the week. Any AD fan should know that the best TV shows blogs don’t always make the “A-list.” You’re a cult classic, my Reno friends!

I don’t have a lot of experience in email marketing. But, many of Bold’s clients are growing closer to the email marketing stage of our online marketing services.

So, today I attended a free webinar on email marketing offered by Elastic Path, an ecommerce software company based out of Canada.

After the hour long event ended, I was blown away at how much information they gave away for free. I learned:

• Emails with one offer convert better than emails with multiple offers
• Test and track trends. Plan future strategies according to the results
• Don’t use the term “e-newsletter” if you’re sending out promos or quick tips. “E-newsletter” indicates long emails with editorial content, something most people don’t have time for
• Put the call to action in multiple places
• Images are turned off by default on most mail clients, so be sure you have text and not just images
• Use HTML not CSS
• User-generated reviews convert well (as long as they’re authentic and have authority)
• Build, don’t buy lists
• Don’t assume the competition is doing it right
• Do’s and Don’ts for opt-in lists
• Know your audience and target accordingly for message and timing

as well as many many more things.

They provided examples of solid practices from:

• Air Miles
• Dell
• Staples
• The Body Shop
• Legendary Whitetails
• Home Depot
• Roots
• Chapters.Indigo.ca

The good news is that my already existing online marketing skills are easily transferable to email marketing. I feel much more confident in engaging in this channel and not like I’ll be winging it or faking it for my clients.

Elastic Path truly knows how to conduct a webinar. I’m glad it wasn’t a disguise for a sales presentation! I’m amazed at all the take-away knowledge I gained.

Tell me about your webinar experiences by leaving a comment!

A year ago today, I began my career in online marketing. I started as a copywriter for an SEO agency, and of course now I’m Senior Editor here at Bold.

My background was a B.A. in Communications, followed by a start in traditional media and communications in politics and nonprofits. So, I had a good foundation. But this past year, I’ve been schooled!

Recently, I heard about a local analytics company hiring a paid search consultant. They required a 3.2 GPA. That’s outrageous. You don’t need that to do well in this industry. “Getting it” and getting good grades are two different things.

I had a 2.9 GPA in college. But it’s not because I’m not smart. It’s because I was bored. I didn’t study. I learn better by doing, and my career is flourishing (mostly due to Adam’s modern approach to the workplace).

Here are 84 things I’ve learned in one year’s time, despite my “lousy” GPA.

(note: this was supposed to be hierarchical, but this version of WP isn’t allowing it. i know, i know, upgrade, blah, blah, blah)

SEO/SEM
Keyword research
SEO copywriting
-Long tail
-Keyword density
-Keyword proximity
-Headers should have the keywords
-Title tags
-Meta tags
-Thematically relevant words
Link building
- Link bait
- Paid Links
–Google hates them
-Directories
-Nofollow/Dofollow
-Just plain asking for links
-Link exchanges
301 redirects
Landing Pages

Blogging
Finding your blogging voice
Posting frequency
Comments and trackbacks
Wordpress
-Widgets
-Plugins
-Themes
-CSS basics
RSS
-Newsreaders
-Feedburner
-Full Feeds
-Partial Feeds (don’t convert as well as full!)
-Headline only feeds (please don’t do this!)
Blogrolls
Technorati
Google Blog Search
Networking within niches
There’s nothing wrong with being a B-list blogger

Social Media
StumbleUpon
Digg
Facebook
Sk*rt
Sphinn
Gooruze
Reddit
Propeller
Del.icio.us
Squidoo
Revver
MyBlogLog
BlogCatalog
Social Media Releases (SMRs)
Pitching bloggers
User-generated content
Copyright issues
Some people mind being asked for votes. I don’t.

Analytics
Unique Visitors
Visits
Pageviews
Referrals
New visitors/old visitors
Bounce rate

Conversation Marketing
The conversation is occurring whether you’re participating or not
You can’t control the conversation
Provide brand evangelists with the tools they need to promote your brand
The conversation must be genuine

Clients
The bigger the client, the more hassle it is to get a site update (legal, IT, etc.)
Fortune 500 clients and B2B clients are more likely to rewrite my copy
Some will blame you for not seeing results when they haven’t implemented any of the
deliverables

Writing
Is freaking hard!
There are more neurosurgeons than copywriters
Is not just typing. It’s research, story creation, grammar, spelling, SEO, call to action, engaging.
Copywriters should not be at the “bottom” of the SEO totem pole

Miscellaneous
How to make a Screen Shot
Basic Domaining
Parked Domains
Domain auctions
What a mashup is

What I knew before:
Basic Usability
Basic Information Architecture
Basic HTML
Seniors are the fastest growing demographic for internet usage
MySpace
Blogger
YouTube
FTP

Oh yeah, and I got married, became an insta-mom and am studying improv. Take that, GPA snobs!

I want to personally thank each and every one of our readers.

Last month, our stats went up like crazy!

Unique visitors up by 126%
Visits up by 121%
Pageviews up by 109%

New visits are up to 88.19% (a 2.43% increase) - this is where i like this number to be.

Our search engine traffic increased by 246% percent, making 40% of our visits comprised of search engine referrals. Which is nice, because even though I love StumbleUpon, I wanted to reduce its percentage and increase other referrals.

Last but not least, I want to thank these bloggers for linking to us and sending us traffic:

Our local buddy Phil, who knows everyone and helped me find a great mechanic

Donna Fontenot, a must-read blogger who interviewed me

Marty Weintraub at aimClear blog, who let me guest blog for him

Andrea Morris at Write Ideas Marketing

Pat B. Doyle on her making money online blog

Michelle Capots at the Livingston Buzz blog

David Kam at Marketing Deviant

Kittens on My Homepage

Prying1, who mostly writes about politics, wrote about the Adbaaz craziness

Matthew Sherborne at his Marketing Strategy blog

GrokDotCom

Warrior Blog

TuneQuest.org

These organic links sent 136 direct referrals - and since linking helps in the search engines, they also helped optimize our site!

68 referrals came from commenting on other blogs, which ProBlogger Darren Rowse wrote about today. I’d like to increase my comments, but only when I really have something to offer. I’ve been whizzing through my feeds lately, and I want to take time to participate in the conversation. But it will be interesting to see if it increases traffic to the blog as well.

I checked the stats of a client’s blog the other day and, not to my surprise, the blog received most of its referrals from StumbleUpon.

But, unlike many sites that get large referrals from StumbleUpon, their traffic is sticking around. The average visitor spends over 3 minutes on the site, visiting more than 2 pages. Bounce rates are low and new visitor percentage is high as the blog slowly but steadily grows.

It’s no doubt that this is due to my client’s tremendous writing and her wonderful ability to interact with her readers. She’s better than textbook when it comes to blogging. And that ability is jumping off the page to SU users.

One important aspect of attracting SU traffic is the headline. The headline should be the first thing people see when they Stumble a page. It should be engaging and draw people in. My client has a strong affinity for this.

Sometimes I wonder who should be the client and who should be the consultant!

The irony of it all is that this blog is attempting to attract a high level audience. This isn’t Digg material. It’s not full of pictures of overweight cats or guitar hero. Yet it’s doing extremely well after just over a month in the blogosphere.

This is what happens when you play to the intelligence of your audience. This is what happens when you address a need among a hungry audience.

Blog to the best of your abilities and the traffic will follow.

Hmm, was everyone else as busy creating client work this week? I guess so. But don’t let that stop you from enjoying these 7 gems.

1. It’s time to truly recognize the power of SMALL (being the NEW BIG as Seth Godin might say), which more often than not begins with one human; one individual; one life; one smile; one spark; one seed and grows and takes off from there… - Joseph Jaffe on An Small Idea (Death of THE Big Idea)
2. This whole conversation on social media is not about new shiny tools, it’s actually about how we find meaning within new dynamics for relationships, connections, friendships, and markets, even the news cycles — globally. - Valeria Maltoni on Man’s Search for Meaning
3. It’s time interruption vacated its spot as the marketer’s weapon of choice, and made way for a smarter, more sophisticated replacement. - Matt Ambrose on Content Marketing: Interruption’s Smarter Replacement
4. Social media and blog marketing are not throwaway tactics, attracting an audience this way is setting up a promise that you are going to make yourself an authentic part of the conversation. - Chris Garrett on What You Do Versus What You Say
5. We know that if we can put something in the hands of a evangelist, they can spread the word far faster and far more effectively than we can — but how do you find those evangelists? You have to turn the experience into a personal one — and you have to commit to personal levels of metrics. - Bud Caddell on I’ve Been Everywhere, Man
6. This week, as you revise your drafts, look for places where you may have chosen fancier words in a conscious or unconscious attempt to impress your reader. - Kenneth W. Davis on This week: Write to express, not to impress
7. Unlike news or time-sensitive posts, value-blogging helps readers to improve in ways that are continually relevant. - Skellie on Value Blogging: A New Model For Success?

When Copywriting is Not the Answer - Matthew Stibbe @ Bad Language - oh how i feel your pain at times!

Planning a New Website - Part 1 and Planning a New Website - Part 2 - Steven Snell @ Vandelay Website Design (i couldn’t deduce you to a single quote, Steven!)

What Sites Do Social Media Users Frequent? - David Wilson @ Social Media Optimization

Snack Culture in the New World of Sliding Doors - Valeria Maltoni @ Conversation Agent

Thinking About Domains - Seth Godin @ Seth’s Blog

Apple adding users to its marketing mix - Steve Chazin @ Marketing Apple

Matt J MacDonald has got me thinking about what Social Media truly is.

Is it a form of marketing?

Or is it really a measurement of other marketing methods?

One of the biggest problems companies face when making decisions about social media campaigns is the ability to measure it. Yet, for decades companies have engaged in branding campaigns where measurement can get a bit fuzzy.

But let’s say a company develops two TV advertising spots. One spot is very popular and gets talked about on blogs and makes the home page of Digg. The other ad gets noticed, but doesn’t garner quite as much attention. In this scenario, social media becomes a tool for measurement.

Of course, it’s not a hard metric. It’s not like analytics for a paid search campaign or ROI from a direct marketing campaign. Those are definitive numbers. But there is enough measurement in social media to know what worked and what didn’t.

In light of this, can social media still be considered a form of marketing? If so, then how should it be measured?

I’m not ready to answer that question. In fact, I’d really like a solid debate before forming an opinion, so get your comments and trackbacks ready.

But my initial reaction is that, if anything, social media is more akin to public relations than marketing. It’s about who you know and getting “earned” coverage instead of paid coverage. In PR, you have to network with journalists and know how to get them to cover your story. In Social Media, you have to network with bloggers, Diggers, Stumblers, and brand evangelists and know how to get them to spread the word.

Some PR companies measure success by equating coverage with what would have been ad spend on the same space. Is it possible, then to measure Social Media in the same way? Let’s say your piece makes it to the front page of Digg. Well, what does it cost to advertise on the home page of Digg? (Click here to do the math). You’ve essentially earned yourself that much free advertising. Which, of course, you’ll want to measure.

That’s where web analytics comes in. Check out where your referrals are coming from. If you’re getting a bunch of referrals from Propeller, and those people are clicking around on your site, staying around and hanging out, then you know it’s a good place to submit your stuff. In fact, many Digg submissions of mine generate far more referrals than they do actual Digg votes.

Of course, now I’m questioning whether or not Conversation Marketing should really be called marketing (something that’s been bothering me a bit anyway). But I’ll save that for a future post.

What do you think? Is Social Media better as marketing or measurement?