Disqus - Latest Comments for maayanroman

Re: Activity-Based Segmentation Is the Future of E-mail

maayanroman — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:29:36 -0000

While I agree with most of what you're saying I think there's still room for the use of more standard demographics. If you're a retailer you simply can't get too far away from the basics of gender and age. From what I've seen, and believe makes the most sense, is a hybrid approach where both sides, activity and demos, are strongly considered.

The questions I'm sure many marketers would like to know the answers to are:
1) Do you have case studies or numbers to show that this method is more effective? what are the effects on open, click, bounce, and most importantly transaction rates?
2) How do you initially define and then test the most effective "honeymoon" period?
3) What's the value in dropping openers who don't click? It's entirely possible that you're missing their engagement in other areas. It's also possible that your emails aren't meant to do any of the actions you mentioned - perhaps the user simply likes reading the email (if it has newsletter content) or the email drives the user to purchase in store.

Again, in terms of best practices I agree with you, but most brands won't be able to employ even half of your recommendations. The human resources necessary to build and analyze such a program are beyond most email departments, not to mention building fresh content around product specific pages would require either a lot of creative resources or very knowledgeable (and probably expensive) tech resources who can automate such features.

Please post numbers if you've got them - thanks for the insights!

Re: Can Smart Filtering Save Both Us And Google Buzz?

maayanroman — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:41:08 -0000

"If Buzz can keep driving deep integration with other Google services, and thereby out-innovate the competition, it will go far." and "Filtering will be the key."

Absolutely, absolutely, 100% agree. On your latter point about "Machines just aren't that smart yet", definitely agree there too - items should be order chronologically. Unlike SERPs where we're specifically searching for most relevant, when we look at any other stream we want the most recent stuff on top. While the inbound filters are non-existent, I rather like the control of outbound filters via making a buzz private and selecting groups from google contacts. That being said, I'd much appreciate the addition of a space for adhoc query strings so that messages could be targeted more granularly - but that's just the email marketer in me talking.

Re: Life Without Twitter

maayanroman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:23:49 -0000

Without Twitter I'd never be able to find all the people in the email industry with whom I've connected. While there's still more to do in developing strong connections, Twitter really helped grease the wheels of discovery and introductions. If nothing else it completely tears down the difficulty of being introduced to someone - even LinkedIn makes this somewhat awkward.

Without Twitter I'd never have found this blog and countless other gems - but who knows what else I may have found through other means?

Re: There’s No Such Thing As Perfection

maayanroman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:54:48 -0000

Sorry to bring this personal note back to business, but as someone in my tenth month of professional life I find your post oh-so applicable to that aspect of my life.

This report could be "perfect" but is it worth spending another hour on when there are mailings to setup? This program could be "perfect" if we just keep testing and testing and optimizing and optimizing - but who else is going to want to stay in the office past 10 every day? Heck, I stopped wanting to do that right after I realized my commute is almost 3 hrs round trip.

Best take away is that perfection should be the path/practice, not the real end goal. The end goal should be satisfaction.

And if I haven't said it before, kudos on using Disqus, I really appreciate that.

Re: Matrix: Companies Should Factor ‘Social Influence’ Into Total Customer Value

maayanroman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:33:33 -0000

The most intriguing turn here is that for an influence value calculation to matter at all it must be catered to the industry at hand or even more specifically to the type of situation at hand. Knowledge of who industry influencers are and how to calculate relative influence in any given situation would require real-time updating and likely complex algorithms. Given their expertise in real time, algorithm based value estimations, masses of data, and the recent development of the "social graph" I'd say Google's in a good position to provide such measures to companies.

Even if Google (or others) can determine relative value scores, assigning dollar values to the opportunity cost of not helping an influential customer (or value gained through amplification of positive experiences) is beyond my imagination. Jeremiah, do you have any thoughts on how businesses can determine the ROI of implementing systems of various valuation complexities?

Re: 3 Core Principles of Social Media Productivity

maayanroman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:37:58 -0000

mashable used to feel useful, but it just made me feel overwhelmed and is now a very poor filter - had to cut it from my feeds.

Re: Social Media Is Not Necessary

maayanroman — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:49:22 -0000

The only thing I'd disagree with Malcolm on is that he has zero marketing budget. Word of mouth and great customer service all go back to brand perception so I would definitely say he's got some strong marketing. It just seems that he's figured that by not spending on ads he lowers his cost structure, allowing his business to charge customers less and invest in better service. That's some old school innovative marketing.

This is my first time on the site and what a great piece be introduced to. So glad that Chris Wheeler referred your stuff to me, I'm sure I'll be back!

Re: 11 Ways to Get More RSS Subscribers

maayanroman — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:17:54 -0000

glad to see some fresh content - you're absolutely right that people look for when they get used to regular posts, but if you've got really loyal readers they'll come back after a hiatus (case in point). Point #7 is one of my fav features on your blog, just because it's so useful.

what plugin(s) do you use to facilitate your recommendations on this blog? I'm especially interested in the "if you enjoyed this article..." reminder.

Re: Quicktake: The Impacts Of Google’s Social Search

maayanroman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:53:55 -0000

I've had the opposite experience from Daniel. Since most of my real-world social network (mostly current and recent college grads) is not tech savvy/interested enough to create google profiles, when I test social search I get very few results. In comparison, all of those same people without google profiles are on facebook and of course use google for search.

This new development gives google some leverage over such users by giving them an incentive to fill out google profiles to make their searches more relevant. That in turn adds more social power to google, especially as facebook remains sandboxed from searchable results.

Given that facebook is partnered with bing I'm interested to see developments in bing's search platform. If they can successfully integrate their own social search with facebook and not require users to fill out new profiles, they may gain the lead in search. Convincing your market to change their habits is always a risky proposition.

Re: A Deluge is Underway; is Email Waterproof? :: Return Path Blog

maayanroman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:15:21 -0000

Perhaps I don't properly understand how raindrop will function, but isn't notification of messages from multiple services already a function of email? When I get a facebook message/update, linkedin message/update, twitter message, and messages and updates from a host of other services, I am notified via email. That fact is one of the points most often put forward as a reason that social media sites will not kill email.

What I'd really love to see, and perhaps this is what raindrop offers, is an email service that not only gives you notifications of messages from other sites and services, but allows you to reply from the inbox. For example, although I can be notified of facebook messages, I have to go to the site to respond. Such a system would allow for universal search and management of messages, at which facebook is universally horrible.

Re: Video: Access Internet Content in Physical Context Using Augmented Reality

maayanroman — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:09:56 -0000

I agree with Jeremiah's point on waiting for greater growth in the mobile web. Due to the greater proliferation of mobile browsing in other parts of the globe I would also expect this technology to gain a foothold overseas before american consumers really take to it. We've already got fairly good access to information so some elements of AR solve a problem we don't have, but in more crowded urban areas AR could be of greater use.

I'm sure we're all excited to see what marketing tactics will be built around this technology, but I'm especially interested in seeing how artists will treat this medium.

Re: Interview with Gary Vaynerchuck

maayanroman — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 21:06:31 -0000

Love the well-placed images, especially the one of kanye.

Gary if you're reading, how did you initially find and identify which community was right? Was there a lot of trial and error or did you filter quickly based on certain desired characteristics?

Re: Companies Must Plan Holistically For Social –Beyond Marketing

maayanroman — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:24:45 -0000

Working in client services at a B2B I have to question how much value the use of twitter can bring to our clients whose questions/problems are often very technical and specific to their accounts. On the one hand our department as a whole could perhaps use twitter to notify clients of product enhancements or temporary issues/downtime. But for the former, blogs or email probably do it better, and for the latter making problems public could unnecessarily hurt our reputation (as an aside we really do have 99% up time, so maybe the infrequency of "problem" tweets would be to our benefit publicly).

Having only worked at one company I certainly can't speak for other B2B's, but despite not using most social media to help our clients we're obeying the all important rule of being where your clients are. In our case, they're on email/phone. (More support for your hypothesis that email is a social network)

Re: Google’s SideWiki Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites

maayanroman — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:43:12 -0000

It seems like the commenting features of sidewiki duplicate features of platforms like Disqus (http://disqus.com) which is great for aggregating comments across the web. I'd prefer to see google do something more along the lines of disqus, but link it more closely with search results, email, google reader, etc.

I think the physical format of having comments below an article rather than along side it just makes more sense, so if google adds the ability for blogs to incorporate side wiki within a page, even if they can't control the content, just to use it as a comment system, it will be a greater win for publishers.

Even if adoption for this picks up, which I don't think it will, there will be a major problem of filtering. Useless comments, shameless plugs for other sites, or worse hateful messages would drastically bring down the usefulness of this product. The idea is great, but google can't assume that everyone on the internet is as "googly" as they are.

Perhaps the end answer is that side wiki should only be used with corporate sites? But wouldn't that kill adoption? How can this product spread virally when users who don't have it enabled can't view messages on it?

Re: Update Twitter & Facebook Fan Pages Automatically via RSS

maayanroman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:31:15 -0000

That is some timely and useful information Brett. Just the other day I was in contact with the person running the twitter account for the college newspaper where I used to work (business section) and I mentioned that every post added an annoying page title tag that just stated the name of the paper - huge waste of space and spammy looking. I was at a loss for a better tool than what they were using, but this should provide me/them with a very viable option. I especially like your 'hack' of having two accounts.

Is there integration with bit.ly or other shorteners to create custom urls and have link tracking? With two twitter accounts and perhaps two bit.ly accounts you could track click through between facebook and twitter separately, that'd be pretty nice. Also, does the #fb thing still work if your tweets are protected? Thanks for the great find, posts like this help a lot with execution.

Re: Interlaced: Email and Social Networks

maayanroman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:18:39 -0000

Jeremiah, you make the point that email service providers must move to make the email experience more like social networking services, which I agree with and believe they're doing (especially gmail, which is what I use). But what about social networks that are becoming more like email? The facebook direct messaging system (the original, not chat) functions just like a dummed down email client, only you can't send messages into our out of the system. Myspace recently added actual email. I think that's why it makes sense to refer to Facebook as a platform because they use many different communication media: email-like direct messaging system, chat, and soon voice. In the case of email services that are added profiles, I really see that as an added layer alongside email capabilities, because (at least with gmail, I've little experience with others) it is not necessary to have a profile to use email and it's not necessary to use email to have a profile.

Defining what particular sites are or are not "social networking" sites or platforms is more a discussion of semantics than anything else. Thus on this point I've come to agree with Vic that "If we call e-mail a social network we abandon a quite useful distinction." But what is in a name? As web strategists we (I include myself only out of convenience) should examine the characteristics of various platforms and seek to understand how the presence of various platform pieces (e.g. email, chat, voice comm, profiles, photo galleries, journals, etc.) impacts the way users interact with each other through the platform. Is it not that understanding which should guide our actions as marketers/business people?

Re: Interlaced: Email and Social Networks

maayanroman — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:36:05 -0000

I really appreciate your connection between email marketing and social media in this post. Email to often gets overlooked amid the hype, but it's really a versatile and valuable medium.

While your points ring true I think it's important to make a distinction between social networks and social networking sites or platforms. Strictly speaking social networks transcend the realm of the internet, while social networking sites/platforms exist only on the web. Your point that profiles do in fact exist on services like gmail and yahoo is well taken, but these developments are relatively recent and while the use of signatures is fairly ubiquitous I see it far more in use for inter/intra-organizational communications and almost never in personal communications. So what does that mean? I would assert that google, yahoo, etc have social networking platforms which use email as a backbone, meaning that email itself is a medium and not a network.

Furthermore, if we're to look at email objectively as a means of communication compared with say facebook or twitter, it's far more powerful. Easily attach or imbed media? Email yes, twitter/facebook no. Interoperability between disparate networking sites (e.g. gmail and yahoo mail)? Email - hell yes, facebook/twitter - not really. Facebook connect and oauth are beginning to change that, but in doing so are such services just becoming more like email?

Great post, and once again I really appreciate that you brought up email.

Re: Search is Social

maayanroman — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:53:52 -0000

Your point that "Just knowing who to ask and how to do effective outreach" is half the battle is especially true for smaller businesses (if not more than half the battle). While it's easy enough to say that small biz should outsource SEO/SEM and SMM functions, it's hard for them to even know who to outsource it too. A friend of mine runs an online and catalog gourmet food company with his father and the two of them are the only employees who actually focus on marketing - among a million other things. My friend knows that SEO is important but doesn't know who to go to. It seems that in order to even know who's good you need to know something about SEO and be involved in the community. To make matters worse there are hundreds of people claiming to be experts, when all they really have is 40k twitter followers from mass following (the problem is exponentially worse when it comes to "social media experts")

How can small business owners like my friend know who to trust?

Re: 12 Things That Suck About Social Media Consulting

maayanroman — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:06:13 -0000

You're absolutely right about it being more measurable - that's one of my favorite parts about it since I always look to break things down into numbers. I've seen a lot of parallels between email marketing and some social media channels as direct marketing, but the issue in social media is that it's difficult to know when someone has received or looked at your message the way you can with email (ex: a tracking pixel allows us to know whether emails were opened).

Also, we're seeing a lot of clients using email to boost engagement with their facebook pages and twitter accounts. Increasingly marketers seem to be using email marketing and social marketing in tandem. Mailchimp, an email marketing service provided (not the one I work for) posted this article http://bit.ly/k3kQK about using twitter to rate the effectiveness of an email campaign and overall product push. If you're looking for a better niche maybe a combo of social media and email (or some other aspect of direct or interactive marketing) consulting would do you well.

Re: 12 Things That Suck About Social Media Consulting

maayanroman — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:43:23 -0000

Love the honesty. Although I'm not in the social media consulting biz this point really resounded with me:
"Many of them aren’t willing to actually follow the only strategy (involvement and active participation) that will likely provide them with the results they want. Catch-22."

I'm just out of college and working at an email marketing company, and although I'm lucky to have some wonderful, responsive clients I've seen other clients who want the results but don't hold up their end of the bargain. On the one hand it feels natural to simply expect results when you're paying someone, but on the other hand the managers who hire consultants like yourself or companies like the one I work for need to understand that they're paying just as much for sound advice as they are for implementation.

Because email is increasingly recognized as such a profitable channel most clients are willing to listen and agree with strategies or project we suggest. The bigger issue is often that they don't have the resources: either the company as a whole doesn't have money to spend on the projects or email "just isn't their focus" and the manager in charge of that channel has other responsibilities that are deemed more important. Perhaps part of your job (or a new business model) would be helping companies adjust their organizational structures, reporting, and budgeting in key areas to better leverage advice from consults.

Maybe your rep with business has gone down as a result of less speaking engagements, but the sheer length and engagement exhibited by all the comments on this article are a testament to the solid network of readers that you've built (no doubt due in no small part to the fact that you respond directly and thoughtfully to almost every comment - nobody else does that.)

Re: Justice Department to Investigate AT&T-iPhone Exclusivity?

maayanroman — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:04:40 -0000

I know people gripe a lot about AT&T, and I'm not saying they're saints but I'm in the NYC area and have had zero problems with AT&T. Not sure why people seem to point the finger at AT&T as though exclusivity was all their doing - obviously it made sense for Apple as well. If nothing else they're more to blame than AT&T. On the other hand, blaming probably isn't the right thing to do, as others have pointed out that Apple did shop around. Clearly it was not in the best interests of Apple to develop the phone for more than one carrier (can anyone name one popular device that's the same across carriers?). Keep in mind that Apple and AT&T put the work and $ into creating/supporting the device - it's not you're right to have an iphone just because it's so cool, it's still just a consumer product to which the company selling it has full rights.

Re: Is Social Media Marketing a Rat Race?

maayanroman — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:40:10 -0000

between the time I get home and finish dinner and the time I go to sleep I've only got a precious couple hours to catch up on emails, reading, and engage in social media. Even trying to keep pace on it as an area of interest can feel exhausting, and building a network without actually producing content is an even slower process. any recommendations on how to build a responsive and conversive network of thought leaders? my main goal is less recognition and more meaningful connections/conversations.

Re: How to Be Generous: A Guide for Social Media Brands

maayanroman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:30:32 -0000

Great post, some of my thoughts exactly - turned me into an instant follower. "People talk a lot about how social media humanizes brands for their customers" - very much agreed and I'd like to hear/read more of your thoughts on that.

I've seen a lot of leading-edge-marketing-type people say that companies have to realize they no longer control the message, that the consumers do. What you put forth here is an important qualification to that statement - companies cannot and should not control everything, but they should have a strong voice in influencing their public perception. Brands aren't powerless, people have just gotten louder.

Re: Why Online Enemies Are More Powerful Than Friends

maayanroman — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:17:24 -0000

Right on as usual Brett. Not only are "haters" more likely to be active but I would put forward that a single negative comment or reaction is much more noticeable than a positive one. Furthermore, negative comments may even seem to have more credibility just by the fact that the person is disagreeing. For example, if I read product reviews and 1/5 are negative I'm going to pay closer attention and likely assume that the negative comments are more accurate (perhaps the positive people are not as thorough in their evaluations or are product stakeholders and are thus shills).

In regards to the spammer types with 10k+ "followers" I think it becomes immediately obvious when there's no substance. For example, people following over 100 and have matching following and follower numbers clearly are more interested in mass than relevance and I tend to avoid them. Although my follow count is under 100 and a good many are likely spammer types themselves, I'm proud that I got them through sharing information, not through spam-following.

Re: A Brief History Of Social Media

maayanroman — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:48:27 -0000

Agreed and agreed. BrianChappell makes a good point - just reading what little you wrote on AOL brought me back to how ubiquitous it was and how much it did to change the game. Interestingly enough, when AOL first came out I was so young that my mom typed for me when I wanted to discuss scooby doo or ace ventura in AOL's chatrooms (embarassing much?) Those CDs they doled out were a great marketing technique, it just got so diluted after a while when the number of hours reached into the hundreds.

My personal history went something like this: AOL -> yahoo messenger (I was heavy into yahoo groups and games) -> AIM (because all the kids at school used it and still do) -> Napster -> Limewire -> Bittorrent and somewhat concurrently IRC for online gaming (2 years of high school spent on counter-strike) mixed with forum whoring on my favorite clan site. Thanks for the nostalgia Brett.