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Warning: Your Right To a Free and Open Internet is at Risk

Posted on December 19, 2010. Filed under: Web Rules and Regulations | Tags: BitTorrent, Comcast, electronic human rights, FCC, free web, freedom of speech, future shock, Internet, net neutrality, open internet, policy, telecommunications act, universality, web |

Do you enjoy surfing the web and being able to hop onto any site you please?

How would you feel if your internet service provider limited the websites you could get to, or charged you extra to do things like watch a video and send an instant message?

Well, there’s been talk about how companies that provide internet connectivity are now looking to limit what you can access online.

This topic will soon be dealt with at a meeting by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. This week, the FCC is scheduled to vote on net neutrality, a thorny topic that’s getting pricklier by the day.

I spoke with Rachel Colyer of the Media and Democracy Coalition about net neutrality. She explained why her organization is advocating for an open internet.

A conversation about net neutrality

Many people don’t know about net neutrality. What does this term mean?

Net neutrality principles are sort of these rules of the road to protect an open internet. The open internet is the way the internet currently operates. When a user goes online they are free to access the web the way that they choose to. There aren’t gatekeepers. Once you pay for your access you can go wherever you want. You have the right to explore things within the law.

If you want to watch video, or you want to upload a video to YouTube, or you want to surf the web, or you want to shop — you control the experience. And that’s what we want to protect… Net neutrality rules would say internet service providers can’t discriminate against websites or applications. So they would carry Hulu as equally as they would carry Netflix. Or they would carry Amazon as equally as they would carry eBay. Or they would carry Yankee Candle equal to a small business company. That’s the idea — that there is this equal access.

What would be different if we didn’t have net neutrality?

It could create this very unlevel playing field. Internet service providers could potentially speed up access to companies that they have a deal with. Or companies that they own.

For instance Comcast, the largest internet service provider, is currently trying to merge with NBC Universal, which also owns Hulu. We can anticipate that they would want to prioritize their Hulu service over Netflix or YouTube. So this is one real danger we can anticipate.

We have seen some pushing the boundaries on this role. Comcast decided it wasn’t going to carry files from BitTorrent and it was dropping transfers between BitTorrent… The FCC stepped in and said “Hey, you can’t do that,” and fined Comcast.

Comcast took the FCC to court and said “You actually don’t have the authority to fine us on that.” And the court ruled that the FCC, as the rule is written, does not have the authority to regulate broadband.

The FCC under a previous chairman classified the internet as Title I, which is an ancillary service. The way they classified the internet essentially deregulated it. This has created a situation where we need some rules. Someone needs to have authority. The FCC is the best agency to do that. If they were to classify the internet under Title II, as a telecommunications service, which we think there is a fair case to be made, the FCC would have very clear authority to be a watchdog on the internet.

We want to make sure there are strong non-discrimination rules in place. So this unlevel playing field can’t be created.

What is happening now with the FCC?

The FCC has been taking comments for over a year now and it has put the open internet principles on the December agenda. On Dec 22 there is going to be an order that would enshrine open internet principles. Between now and December 21 we have an opportunity to push to strengthen these rules. To advocate on behalf of the public interest to shape those rules before they come up for a vote.

What about Comcast’s claim that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate the internet?

We think Title II is cut and dry. We’re concerned that anything not based on Title II is going to be a court battle. My understanding of it is the FCC thinks the way it has written the rules, certain sections of the Telecommunications Act give it standing on specific rules. The FCC feels they can make a strong case and they have the authority. We anticipate there will be some challenges.

Some of the opponents of Title II have called it the nuclear option, and their efforts have been successful in lobbying support against net neutrality.

To play devil’s advocate, cable companies have packages that give you access to different channels for different amounts of money. It’s a tiered system and it’s legal. How is this different?

I think the internet is a different medium. Cable and television are a passive medium, where they push content to you. The internet is an interactive medium where we can seek information and we can post information. It’s utilized in a much different way than cable television.

Cable television is a way for specific industries to make money. The internet is a way for so many businesses to make money across wide spectrums. It’s used for social discourse. It’s used for education.

It’s a different medium. And while its infrastructure is similar to that of cable, or the telephone, which is why we advocate that it be regulated as a telecommunications service, the utilization of the medium is dramatically different.

The example you gave is a business case, where Comcast might favor its business properties. Are there other types of reasons for favoritism?

Sure, political speech…. Right now with the internet if you have an idea you can put it up there. We need to have someone in authority so that we can make sure our free speech is protected… If we just allow our internet service providers to police themselves, we’ll have no way of knowing if they are blocking sites and stifling free speech and no recourse to correct it.

What do mean you would not know if something was blocked? An organization can post its web address, so you would know it exists, right?

Well you might not be able to get there. It could just say “server error.” It’s tough to know if something is not being offered to you.

You raise a good point, and honestly, we don’t know that sites are being blocked. It took a very tech-savvy person to figure out that Comcast was blocking the use of BitTorrent… you, as a user, would not know they were blocking BitTorrent. You would just see a file transfer error every time you would use it. Someone tracked [the problem] and found out that their ISP was blocking BitTorrent.

The internet service providers are pushing for managed service loopholes and we want to make sure there is strong language that says they can’t create this pay-to-play fast lane and everyone else is moving slowly.

The companies that paid to lay the pipes enabling us to use the internet believe they should be allowed to regulate what goes through those pipes. What’s wrong with that?

The infrastructure of the internet is similar to cable and telephone in that the infrastructure is pipes that are laid. But the medium itself is different from cable, because it is interactive. The telephone is more similar. Would it be OK for your telephone company to listen in and block calls to certain regions?

We would not stand for it if calls to certain places were blocked by our telephone providers. It’s the same thing on the internet. Why would we allow our internet service provider to block content or certain applications?

Are there other aspects of net neutrality that we should know about?

We want to make sure there is net neutrality for both wireless and wireline and the industry wants to treat them differently. There would be two sets of rules. Internet service providers are making the argument that wireless should be treated differently and they say certain phones are bandwidth hogs so they want to be able to block them from wireless networks.

We think wireless and wireline should be treated similarly. One reason is, if they’re treated differently it will have more of an impact on rural areas that don’t have access to wireline. It will change the user experience of low income folks and people of color who are more likely to access the internet through wireless, such as their cell phones. So there are real socio-economic concerns. With some rural areas wireless is their only option to connect to the internet.

There are many arguments to be made about why net neutrality is important. There’s a very good free speech argument. There’s a good economic argument that closing off the web is going to harm businesses that use the web. The internet is a very open and free market where a small business with a very good idea can go on there and prosper. Blocking off sections of the internet, or discriminating against websites or applications can do real him to these business and entreprenuers…. we could really be stifling the next eBay or Amazon.

What to do if you want to maintain net neutrality

There is still a wee bit of time for you to file comments, write letters, or call the FCC and tell them what they want to see in their upcoming order about net neutrality.

You can:

Visit http://bit.ly/SBAction to send an email to the chairman. You can edit your message to the FCC and tell them why an open internet is important to you.
Visit www.FCC.Gov and on the left sidebar use the “Filing Public Comments” link to express your views.

The FCC decision is not (likely) the end of it

Although the FCC will soon render its decision on net neutrality, odds are good it will be challenged in court. There are many interested parties and much money at stake. If you care about your right to a free and open internet — to maintain net neutrality — stay informed on the issue and visit sites like the Media and Democracy Coalition to learn about how you can have your voice heard by policy makers.

Clara Shih On Ambient Intimacy and Appvertising

Posted on October 5, 2010. Filed under: Best practices, Social Media | Tags: advertising, ambient intimacy, appvertising, best practices, book, branding, Business Strategy, Clara Shih, customer engagement, cyberbranding, Internet, marketing, online community, online marketing, reference, small business, social business, Social Media, social networking, Social Networks, sociology of social media, The Facebook Era, web, web marketing |

If you want to know how tapping into social networks can help your business, then touch base with Clara Shih. After all, she wrote The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate (2nd Edition), which is chock full of case studies and practical information for creating strategies and tactics to help you succeed in the new world of social business.

I recently enjoyed a conversation with Clara. My prior post, How Social Networks Are Changing How We Do Business, features Part 1 of our conversation, and here’s Part 2, where we get into things like ambient intimacy, appvertising and how Clara wisely decided not to go with the book title originally suggested by her publisher.

Interview with Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era, Part 2:

Much your book talks about how businesses can use social networks to gain more information about customers or prospects, and their connections. But it can also work in the other direction. Customers may use social networks to decide whether they want to do business with you. They may want you or your business to have a referral or a seal of approval from someone they know.

Clara: Yeah, I see it going in that direction. It happens to me all the time, with people that haven’t bought my book, they’ll go to my page and they’ll see two of their friends are already a fan of the page and it helps them make up their mind… It’s really interesting.

That’s the most important thing to keep in mind for understanding social media. Because once you get this then everything else is easy. All the tactics you can pick up, and they’re changing all the time because Facebook and Twitter are always changing. But this is a fundamental paradigm shift that’s changing and creating these new business practices.

If you were to encapsulate the paradigm shift how you describe it?

Clara: It’s the idea of ambient intimacy. People sharing more about themselves than they ever have before. There are implications for business development, marketing and targeted advertising.

One of big challenges many businesses have with social media is that it’s 24/7, but most businesses don’t operate 24/7. So they run up against issues with time resource allocation and providing an adequate response. Do you have suggestions to help a business manage its social media presence?

Clara: Well the first thing to consider is that people are talking about your company 24/7 whether or not you’re on social media or not. So better to be there and to be monitoring than be in blissful ignorance.

Beyond that I think in terms of setting the expectation of timeliness. And I’ve seen this — companies will have something on their Twitter or Facebook page that says, if we don’t get back to you in 72 hours or whatever the timeframe is — put out what to expect, so everyone is on the same page.

You hear a lot about how in social media you can’t do the hard sell, you have to do the soft sell. But people know why you’re on there — your purpose is ultimately to sell, if you’re a business.

Clara: It is ultimately to sell. And that’s OK if you acknowledge it. But it’s also to show that you care about people.

Right you can vicariously create tighter connections. Still, a customer can always write an email if they want to get in touch with a company Yet there’s something different about expressing yourself through social media.

Clara: It’s very subtle psychological things — like seeing your profile picture next to a comment you made on a businesses page… it makes you feel important. Like you have a voice. And I think people really resonate with that and people are drawn to that. Because you feel heard. Your comment is public. People can link back to your profile and possibly interact with you and like or comment on your comment.

In your book you talk about appvertising. I don’t know how many companies are aware of it, or the benefits. Would you mind giving a brief overview how companies can be smart with it?

Clara: Sure. Appvertising came about when Facebook started opening their platform to other developers to create applications on Facebook. And the idea is that with traditional advertising you get only that split second to interact with the audience. People basically see your ad and they decide to click or they don’t.

With Facebook apps, instead of giving people a onetime offer, you’re engaging them with a game or some sort of other application that they would want to come back to again and again. You can brand those games. You can sponsor applications, or you can build your own applications that really touch upon your core business and be able to deepen your relationship with a customer and engage with a customer over a longer period of time than you would with traditional advertising.

How do you do it so you’re not just creating a commercial that just happens to be a game? Even though that is essentially what appvertising is.

Clara: The key part is the branding is more subtle. One of my favorite examples is, there’s a General Mills brand called Cacadian Farms, where they promote organic foods. If you play Farmville you can buy blueberry seeds from Cascadian Farms that are all organic, non-genetically modified blueberries. That’s a fun way to engage; people are getting exposed to the Cascadian brand, and it’s good for the players because it’s good for their farm.

Still, companies must be careful about what apps they’re in and how they choose to be in that space, right?

Clara: It’s very important to find out with the apps, are they really reaching the core audience that they want to reach? There was a big controversy about a year back where Offerpal partnered with Netflix. The idea was if you were playing Texas HoldEm inside of Facebook you could throw out an offer for a 30-day trial to Netflix in exchange for chips. They got a ton of response because that’s a really popular application and people wanted the virtual chips. The problem was the end-value to Netflix was ultimately very low, because these people all cancelled within a few days. They weren’t interested in Netflix; they just wanted the chips.

As an advertiser and as a business you really have to think about are you achieving the goal that you want to achieve? How much will this interest last? Is it a short-term win or is it really a long-term gain where you can acquire these users?

OK, last question: Why call your book The Facebook Era; even the first edition is about a lot more than just Facebook.

Clara: I’ll tell you something funny; my publisher wanted me to call it the MySpace Era, because at the time MySpace was significantly bigger. I just thought there was something about Facebook that was different. It was really the first social network that encouraged us and supported us in reflecting and extending our real world networks, versus trying to replace those real-world relationships. There’s something that’s just much more lasting and more inherently valuable about basing it on true identity and true relationships.

And we continue to call it The Facebook Era because Facebook is still the largest and fastest growing social network, not only here in the U.S., but worldwide… I believe that no matter where you are in the world you want to be connected, and often times that includes people in your county and beyond, and that’s the deal with Facebook.

Thanks, Clara

Many thanks to Clara for being so generous with her time and thoughts. She gives us plenty to ponder.

Now, if you want to get social with Clara, visit the Facebook Era’s Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter at @clarashih

- Deni Kasrel

How Social Networks Are Changing How We Do Business

Posted on September 28, 2010. Filed under: Business Strategy, Social Media | Tags: best practice, best practices, book, business culture, business marketing, Business Strategy, Clara Shih, collaboration, community, ecommerce, engagement, Facebook, innnovation, Internet, internet marketing, LinkedIn, marketing, online marketing, Social Media, social networking, Social Networks, sociology of social media, The Facebook Era, Twitter, web |

Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era

When Clara Shih set out to write a second edition of her bestselling book, The Facebook Era, she had her hands full trying to keep up with all the changes happening in the social media sphere, especially among the big three: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So much so, Clara had to change the publish date of the new book just to keep current.

The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate (2nd Edition) is finally here, and it’s well worth the wait.

Clara did more than just touch-up the first edition: She added case studies, new chapters and a bunch of guest-written expert opinion sidebars.

All About Using Social Networks for Business

It’s all geared to helping businesses and entrepreneurs learn how to tap into social networks to market, sell and innovate.

Clara has plenty of first-hand knowledge in this regard — she created the first business application on Facebook (Faceconnector), which integrates Facebook with Salesforce.com. More recently, Clara started Hearsay Labs, a provider of social customer relationship management software.

I enjoyed both Facebook Era editions (yes, I read the second one cover to cover, too). And so it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to chat with Clara, to talk about her new book as well as the social media landscape in general.

Interview with Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era: Part 1

We had a nice long conversation, enough that it makes for a nice two-parter on this blog.

Here in Part 1 we discuss how Facebook and other networks are altering fundamental social norms.

You used social media to help determine some of the content of the book. Can you elaborate on how that process worked out?

Clara: The innovation in social media is happening from the bottom up. It’s happening in the groundswell from these grassroots initiatives that people are taking for their organization and their companies and in their personal lives. I really wanted to source these ideas and these best practices directly from the innovators in the space. And so I used my Twitter handle and my Facebook page as well as my personal Facebook profile to ask people what their ideas were. What were the things they were living and experiencing themselves? And I had a phenomenal response. A lot of the best material in the book came from people that I interacted with on Facebook and Twitter.

Are these people you knew?

Clara: What does it mean to know someone these days? I mean, many of them I’ve never met — they’ve connected with me and they’re following me on Twitter and vice versa and now I feel like I do have a relationship.

The idea of what is a “friend” changes a lot in these contemporary times.

Clara: That’s really at the heart of everything that I write about. I mean, yes, there are a lot of business implications, but at the heart of it is human relationships and how we interact with each other and connect with each other. How we connect with our customers. And that drives all the business use cases and opportunities.

One of the reasons I was so enthusiastic about your first edition is that you really delved into a human part, the sociology, the social ethos — whatever you want to call it — and then applying that to social networks and the new social norms, as you refer to them in your second edition. You explain it so clearly. So how important is it understand these social norms when, as a business, you’re engaging in this context?

Clara: I think it’s the most important thing you can do. Understanding human behavior and how your customers and clients think. What makes them happy? That’s really the key to success for any business. Regardless of what product or service you may have.

In the last 13 years the internet gave us tremendous efficiency between buyers and sellers and giving everyone access to information. But as Jim McCann [founder of 1-800-Flowers.com] writes about in the forward to this book, the efficiency came at a great price. Oftentimes what we sacrificed was human connection. The feeling that customers had that they were actually special and valued by your company.

The great thing about social networks is the idea that we can regain some of that connection, without losing any of the efficiency. We can still connect to large groups of people. We can still market to and prospect to large group of people. But because there’s more information about people and relationships and connections we can still have that bond and invest in that customer loyalty.

Right, and on the flip side, it humanizes a business, too. Companies can seem like monoliths, even if they’re small, if you don’t have any communication with what appears to be a real person.

Clara: Exactly. And there’s nothing like putting a human face around a big company. Especially if it’s one that people don’t traditionally find very sexy. That just changes the whole set of interactions. We’ve seen great examples like Frank [Eliason] at Comcast, to show someone who really cares and be the face of a large institutional brand.

So whether you’re working externally with your customers, or internally with your employees, it’s human nature to want to connect with people and facilitating that process makes way for better business.

In your book you talk about how seemingly non-important details – for instance someone says they play soccer — can end up making a difference between how people interact with one another and possibly be a factor in how a business deal happens.

Clara: People are always looking for common ground. Especially when you meet someone new. You’re trying to figure out if this person is trustworthy and whether you want to do business with them. Whatever business you’re in, people always prefer to do business with people they know and like. And they refuse to do business with people they don’t trust. And so to the extent that Facebook can help you see similar interests, hobbies, and friends. That carries a lot of weight in being able to establish trust.

Right, but five years ago people didn’t have that ability and yet business still occurred. Do you think that it will change, such that it will be incumbent on someone to be participating in this way, even with business people, on this level? How do you see it evolving?

Clara: I think we’re seeing it already. Because before five years ago, it was 15 years ago where we didn’t have the internet. And certainly before there was online a lot of business got done for a long time… and we see these technology cycles: first the mainframe, then the personal computer, then the internet and now the social web, where it doesn’t happen all at once, but certainly for many industries, it can give you a huge leg up to understand this new communication and technology paradigm and use it as an additional way to get customer connection and loyalty.

Stay tuned for Part 2

There’s more, folks: My next post will be Part 2 of our conversation about The Facebook Era.

Meanwhile, if you want to social network with Clara, why not visit the Facebook Era’s Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter at @clarashih

Is Your Content Really Truly King?

Posted on April 6, 2010. Filed under: Communications Strategy | Tags: brand, branding, communication, competitive analysis, content, content analysis, content audit, content strategy, editorial strategy, engage your audience, marketing communications, message map, messaging, podcast, point of differentiation, text, user-friendly, Video, web, web site, web strategy, website |

Tell me if you’ve heard this before: Content is king.

It’s a popular catch-phrase of many a marketer.

But how many actually practice what they preach?

Talking the talk and walking the walk are two different things. From what I can tell, there’s a heck of a lot more talking than walking.

Generic content abounds

Case in point: I’m working on a consulting job where I recently completed a competitive analysis of approximately two-dozen websites belonging to organizations all operating in the same field of business. The analysis considered a variety of factors including website design, information architecture, branding, content and use of social media.

I observed discernable differences in design, user friendliness and overall site organization. Certain sites had more videos and podcasts. This seemed mainly a sign of financial standing — the well-off places can afford more of these assets.

The character and tone of web text ranged from technical to institutional to consumer-friendly. Meanwhile, the messages and information contained in text and videos for nearly all sites was so similar as to be interchangeable. “We have innovative cutting-edge technology, teams of experts, personalized service.” Blah, blah. Yadda, Yadda.

Content is often created in a vacuum

When everyone’s saying pretty much the same thing you’re not making a case for why to choose your product or service over someone else’s.

All too often organizations create content in a vacuum. Their goal is to meet business objectives and state their offering.

But really, that’s the least you can do. For content to be king you must present compelling distinctions that make someone think, “Ah, now there’s a difference that matters to me. I’ll go with this one.”

It isn’t just about you, or even your customers. It’s also about your competitors.

It’s the difference between being a commodity and being a preferred choice.

Put your website to the test

Surely this is not news. Still odds are if you conduct a competitive analysis of websites for businesses operating in your industry you’ll notice a lot of repetition.

In fact why not do it? Visit the websites of your competitors. Read the text, view the videos and listen to the podcasts. See if you can pick out even a handful of differences in content and messaging. I mean real points of singularity, not simply using other words to say essentially the same thing. Be sure to include your own site in the analysis.

If your content stands out, more power to you. If not, start planning for how to make it so.

- Deni Kasrel

What do YOU think? Comments welcome.

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Maximize Your SEO: Grab It By The Long Tail

Posted on February 22, 2010. Filed under: Best practices, Search Engine Optimization | Tags: average length of search query, keyword, keyword strategy, long tail, online search, optimum length of search term query, Search Engine Optimization, search term, SEO, SEO strategy, SEO tactic, targeted web search, web, web statistic |

If you’re hip to search engine optimization (SEO) then you know the importance keywords play in the process.

You think about things like keyword density – a ratio representing total number of words on a page divided by the number of times a given keyword (a word or phrase someone types into a search box) appears on that same page.

You want to strike a balance between strategically including keywords enough times that search engines see your page as relevant to the term you want to rank for, while keeping in mind the content needs to be useful and enjoyable to the reader.

Along with website text, it’s important to include keywords in page titles, navigational links, meta tags, meta description tags and ALT image tags.

This is basic SEO.

Length of the average search query is getting longer

One thing even those who know SEO can fail to take into account is the need to incorporate terms of three, four or even eight words. Then you’re really capitalizing on how people search online.

A survey by Hitwise shows there’s a nice amount action to be had with longer keyword phrases.

Longer queries bring more targeted results

Based on my own experience this is surely so. I use longer search queries because they tend to bring up more relevant results. This makes sense, of course – I’m giving the search engine more specific details about what I’m looking for.

Also, if I look at the statistics for this blog, The Communications Strategist, I see a fair amount of traffic comes from queries of between four and six words.

Bottom line: If you want to maximize SEO take advantage of the multiple keyword factor.

This is what’s known as catching the long tail — meaning you’re going for precise phrases, sometimes referred to as problem/solution specific keywords, that individually make up a small volume of search activity, yet when added together generate a sizable chunk of web traffic.

For example, if someone is interested in business financing, a short tail search term could be “business loan” while on the long tail there’s something like, “how to get a small business loan with bad credit.” It’s a more targeted type of search.

One size does not fit all

Then too, you need to take into account where your audience is located. Apparently, Americans are wordier with search terms than people in Canada or the U.K. Take a look at this chart, also from Hitwise:

So fine-tune your keyword strategy to suit your target audience. Keep in mind global differences. With certain locales on this good earth the more particular the better, while for other places less is more.

- Deni Kasrel

What do YOU think? Do your online search habits reinforce the research cited in this post? Have you used longer keywords as part of an SEO program? Please share your stories. Comments welcome.

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Inbound Marketing: How To Get Found On The Web

Posted on February 16, 2010. Filed under: Books, Business Strategy, Marketing and Public Relations | Tags: blogging, book review, Brian Halligan, communications, Dharmesh Shah, how-to, hubspot, Inbound Marketing, lead conversion, lead generation, marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing, sales funnel, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO strategy, Social Media, tactics, web |

Here’s a tip to ensure you rank high on search engine results for a particular concept: make it up yourself.

Start a company, write a bunch of blog posts and offer webinars — all based on the concept. Once the idea gets some traction, write a book about it.

Do this and you own the keywords for that concept.

That’s the deal with inbound marketing, a term popularized by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah — the founders of Hubspot, an internet marketing company, and co- authors of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media).

Present your message when people want to receive it

What is inbound marketing? Well, it’s the opposite of outbound marketing, a.k.a. traditional marketing, a.k.a. interruption marketing. Which is to say, the opposite of print, TV and radio ads, direct mail, telemarketing and any other way companies push a message in front of consumers.

All this is becoming less effective because we tune it out, either psychologically, or for real — via DVR, satellite radio, spam filters and do-not-call lists.

Meanwhile, we’re ever more inclined to shop, and do research on what we want to buy, through search engines, and by reading information and recommendations posted on social media sites.

Enter inbound marketing, where you create ways for people find your message when they’re amenable to receiving it.

How do I find thee? Let me count the ways.

It’s things like RSS feeds, opt-in email newsletters, blogs that are not simply about your product or service but are more broadly informative about the industry in which you operate, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising and having a presence on social media outlets.

All of which is addressed in Inbound Marketing, a guide for success with this 21^st century marketing method.

Smart strategic advice

The book presents step-by-step plans plus strategies and tactics. It explains the fundamentals; RSS, blogs, SEO, Twitter, etc. — to include how to track your progress. Halligan and Shah are data guys — hey, they’re MIT grads — sticklers for measuring results.

Smart advice supplements copious how-to material. For instance, a “Getting Found on Google” chapter notes the importance keywords play in search engine optimization while cautioning that choosing only the most popular relevant terms is not necessarily the way to go — because the most popular keywords are also the most competitive, making it harder to achieve high rank.

For sites just starting out the authors advise choosing keywords with low competition: “Then, as you build authority for your web pages, and start ranking for these keywords, you can move up to higher volume keywords that have more competition.”

If you’re hedging between several keywords, the suggestion is to “consider launching a small PPC (pay-per-click) advertising campaign to determine what your best keywords might be.”

A practical primer

Advice on how to drive traffic to a website is all well and good, however, Halligan and Shah realize the ultimate goal of all that effort is to drum up business. Once you figure how to get found, Inbound Marketing provides tips for turning interest into sales, with landing pages and calls to action.

Each chapter concludes with a case study plus handy to-do list for implementing an action plan.

Concise and straightforward, there’s no fancy theories or eloquent prose. This is a practical primer. Read it and learn how to be found on the inbound.

- Deni Kasrel

What are your thoughts on Inbound Marketing? Do you think Halligan and Shah are onto something?

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