Build a strong following and community and you have an army of brand advocates, especially when those advocates have a voice and a following of their own. As companies and agencies become more savvy about monitoring the social web, it’s important to understand what stage each voice is coming from and where they might go.

Here are my suggestions for 6 stages or types of blogger brand involvement:

1. Blogger mentions a brand – Sentiment could be anything: agnostic, positive, critical feedback, negative/dissenter. But it is hopeful and not cynical.  Of course this is not an evangelistic activity, but it is often the starting point.

2. Blogger reviews product/service associated with topic, interviews topic author, reaches out and create dialogue.

3. Blogger defends topic and what it stands for, unsolicited – comments on blogs, forums, social media sharing sites, status updates or Twitter.

4. Blogger contributes content either as a blog post, video, image or other representation of a their appreciation and passion for a brand and topic.

5. Blogger moderates discussion as a result of being selected for such duties as recognition. This can happen within a forum, a social community or as part of an online event.

6. Blogger fully adopts the brand of the topic, publishes a blog or web site dedicated to the topic and may even support the effort with a business model such as advertising or sponsorship.

I’m looking for feedback from other bloggers and marketers on this. What do you think? As a blogger do you feel yourself moving through these stages or is it more complex and situationally dependent than that?

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6 Types of Bloggers as Evangelists originally appeared on the Online Marketing Blog. © 2009. http://www.toprankblog.com

Copyright Online Marketing Blog – 6 Types of Bloggers as Evangelists

Whether you’re a marketer at a large Fortune 500 company or a small business, search engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the most cost-effective tools for reaching a broader audience and increasing online sales. A solid and persistent search engine optimization program can increase search visibility for many types of content affecting the bottom line:  sales, customer service, recruiting, public and investor relations.

These are challenging economic times calling for prudent marketing decisions.  Search industry, business and analyst publications agree: search marketing is recission proof, or at least recession resistant.  To make sure your SEO program investment yields effective and efficient marketing results, keep the following tips in mind:

• Planning:  A solid plan of action is a necessary component to any successful SEO program. Before beginning an effort to optimize content for better search visibility, be sure you have clarified specific goals and expectations. This will help you to decide which SEO tactics will be most effective, what internal resources will be necessary and what metrics will be used to measure success.  
• Resources: Assess your resources to ensure you can actually implement your SEO program. The most common reason for an unsuccessful SEO effort is failure of implementation. Take stock of available budget (yours or another department that will be affected) talent pool and any existing media assets that can be leveraged. You will need to determine if you have the resources to complete your ideal SEO plan on your own, or if you will need to enlist the services of a SEO agency (like TopRank.   
• Measurement: Organize a process to measure the results of your program. You will want to be able to tie your measurements of success directly back to your SEO tactics. If increasing leads was the initial goal for your program, this may mean using an analytics package to determine the origin of your online leads. If you choose to work with an agency, be sure to select one with a strong record of measurable SEO success.
• Promotion: A well-optimized website will increase your search engine rankings and help your target audience find your services over that of competitors. However, a solid SEO program does not end there. Make the most of search engine optimization by promoting useful content. Place your URL on your business card, in your email signature, and promote it online beyond the search engines in social networks, blogs, forums and anywhere that it can be useful.  It will be passed along and linked to, sending traffic and further increasing search visibility.
• Innovation: Don’t rely on what has always worked, or assume that your initial optimization will last forever. The online world is constantly changing, and this extends to optimization best practices. A solid SEO program is an ongoing investment that requires you to adapt and innovate to ensure your website stays at the top of the rankings and top of mind with your consumers.

With a solid search engine optimization plan, the right resources, measurements of success, promotion, and innovation, companies large and small can not only weather the current economic challenges, but achieve new growth and revenue goals.

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5 Tips to Make the Most of Your SEO Investment originally appeared on the Online Marketing Blog. © 2009. http://www.toprankblog.com

Copyright Online Marketing Blog – 5 Tips to Make the Most of Your SEO Investment

Update! We have a winner. Cli.gs received 26% (88) votes with budurl.com coming in a close second. Congratulations!

URL shortening services were initially popular because web addresses started to get long and links would break when sent in an email.   However, as microblogging services like Twitter have become popular, an increasing number of services and applications, including tracking & metrics, have been added to the basic URL shortening features.

Recently I polled followers of @leeodden on Twitter about favorite URL shortening services and received a great response. Thank you to all who responded! So many people replied that the following mini-review was created of 11 different URL shortening services showing which offer customization options, statistics, 301 redirect and some of the other unique services like export to CSV, bulk shortening and displaying ads to monetize the traffic to links that are shortened. Enjoy!

Service	Customizable URL	Tracking	301 Redirect	Unique Features
tinyurl.com	Yes	No	Yes	Toolbar button
cli.gs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Stats are private, real time and very detailed, geotarget URLs based on country of visitor, bookmarklet.
zi.ma	Yes	Yes	Yes	Bulk URL shortening, registration not required for stats, download stats to CSV, bookmarklet, “popular” links page
bit.ly	Yes	Yes	Yes	Saves copy of page linked to, tracks “conversations”, Twitter search fo uses of shortened URL, bookmarklet, import to Google spreadsheets
twurl.nl (aka tweetburner)	No	Yes	No	Most popular items linked in last hour, bookmarklet, built in to Twhirl
is.gd	No	No	Yes	Really bleeping short URLs, bookmarklet, Firefox plugin, built in to Twhirl
snipurl.com (aka Snurl Snipr Sn.im)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Popular snips, snip search, RSS feed for snips, export to Excel, claim snips before you registered, edit snips
poprl.com	No	Yes	No	Most POPular links, top domains, public stats, search, must register with Twitter account – boo
ad.vu (aka adjix)	No*	Yes	No	Optional ads that share revenue, scheduled Tweeting, *use your own domain name as the link URLs, bookmarklet, option to use ad.vu
tr.im	Yes	Yes	Yes	Uses Twitter or identi.ca info for login, bookmarklet
budurl.com	Yes	Yes*	No**	Detailed, real time stats (*if you upgrade) this is the only service with fees but there is a free version, **uses 307 redirect

I give an honorable mention to Minnesota based culld.us from Garrick Van Buren as well. Culld appears to work well with basic shortening features and is in cahoots with the Cullect feed aggregator.

There are others that were suggested like bloat.me and URL.ie but I wanted to keep this review to 11.  If you really need a URL shortening, truncating or redirecting service fix, then check out this bigger list at Mashable: 90+ URL Shortening Services. 

There’s also a great study of URL shortening services in terms of use and popularity on the cli.gs blog.

I do have a feature request for these services though. A URL shortening service that also posts to Delicious and/or StumbleUpon would be nice. A URL worth shortening is also often worth bookmarking and it would be a nice time saver to do both. Just a thought.

Now that you have an idea of the different types of URL shortening or redirecting services, perhaps you’ve tried a few and have a favorite?   This leads us to our Reader Poll:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

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11 Best URL Shortening Services – Vote Your Favorite originally appeared on the Online Marketing Blog. © 2009. http://www.toprankblog.com

Copyright Online Marketing Blog – 11 Best URL Shortening Services – Vote Your Favorite

It’s a new year and a new update to TopRank’s BIGLIST of search marketing blogs. The BIGLIST, like many of our readers undoubtedly, suffered a bit of bloat over the holidays, so we’ve resolved to trim things up a bit and recently removed over 50 blogs for inactivity or changing focus from search and social media marketing. That mini purge made the BIGLIST hungry so here’s an update of new additions focusing on all manner of internet marketing topics. Fire up your RSS reader and enjoy.

• Always be Testing -  Andy Edmonds, the Chief Scientist at StomperNet blogs about ecommerce analytics with useful how tos and several interesting tools like the Transaction Funnel Explorer or the Analytics UI Section Link Tagger. What would be even better is if Andy posted more frequently.

• Monica Wright – A long time internet marketer in Portland, Maine Monica blogs about Internet Marketing, SEO, Social Media and other topics that come to mind like Karate, kids and Zima.

• Dan Zarrella – Dan is a self described, “Social Media and Viral Marketing Scientst”, and a web developer who blogs about the social media, viral marketing and SEO focused research he does and tools he’s created like the Link Attraction Factors tools and the recent Tweetbacks blog plugin.

• We Build Pages Blog – As the search marketing industry has evolved, so has We Build Pages with a new blog  that includes posts from WBP staff, CEO Jim Boykin and the excellent writing style of Lisa Barone.

• Search Light Digital - Pete Wailes and Teifion Jordan blog a mix of SEO topics about twice weekly ranging from coding tips to content creation to multivariate testing.  

• SEO Writer - David Leonhardt of the Happy Guy Marketing blogs tips for better SEO , social media, marketing and of course, a bit about Google.

C’mon, admit it. It’s a real honor to be included on the BIGLIST, so why not share the good news? Get the BADGE here.

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BIGLIST Search Marketing Blogs Update 010709 originally appeared on the Online Marketing Blog. © 2009. http://www.toprankblog.com

Copyright Online Marketing Blog – BIGLIST Search Marketing Blogs Update 010709

You don’t have to look much further than recent headlines and research studies below to see that many companies are losing confidence in traditional marketing and advertising.  

The changing trends in information production, distribution and consumption coupled with the uncertain times we live in create an unprecedented challenge for companies to better reach and engage with customers.

Whether changes in marketing direction are motivated in response to market and industry conditions, changing consumer behaviors or the need to stay competitive and cost effective, one thing is certain: companies that don’t nail down marketing efficiencies and customer retention are in for a long, cold winter.

Here are a few recent headlines and studies of interest:

Integrated Marketing Media Mix’ Study: More Digital with Mainstay Traditional: “As marketers integrate their media campaigns, they are adding email and other digital media in ever-increasing numbers – though offline media remain vital to integrated campaigns, according to “the Integrated Marketing Media Mix”” 
DMA Study via Marketing Charts

NCDM Database marketers need to innovate, explore multichannel options: “Tim Suther, senior VP at marketing services company Acxiom, agreed, stressing the need for database marketers to extend their skills into digital marketing.” 
BtoB

Direct Marketing to Account for 53% of U.S. Ad Spend in 2009 Growth for Interactive Marketing:  ”Expenditures in the newer online media will maintain significant growth in the coming year. Commercial email will continue to claim the top growth ranking for 2009, while internet advertising will claim more than 15% of all direct marketing advertising dollars in 2009.” 
DMA Power of Direct Marketing’ Report

Survey Finds Pharma Marketers Poised to Embrace Digital: “The pharmaceutical industry is behind the curve in many areas of digital marketing, but it is likely to make a significant leap ahead in the coming year. That is the conclusion of “Digital Marketing in Pharma”, a new survey from MarketBridge, in conjunction with Pharmaceutical Executive magazine.”
ClickZ

Economy Shrinking 65% of CMO Ad Budgets, Money Shifts toward Digital: “Nearly two-thirds (65%) of CMOs and marketing execs say their ad budgets will decrease because of the troubled economy, but more of their money will go toward digital/interactive marketing than before”
epsilon CMO Study via Marketing Charts

Digital and Direct Orange boss urges total budget switch to online:  ”Speaking at the annual IAB Engage conference, held last week, Billingsley made the case for advertisers to transfer all their budgets to digital. He also accused ‘archaic executives’ of wanting to see their creative work on TV, thus holding back the inevitable shift toward online marketing.”
Brand Republic Marketing

Research and opinions in favor of digital marketing are pretty clear: Invest marketing and advertising budgets in internet and mobile or face the consequences of failure. That’s a bold statement, but is it really true?

While presenting at last month’s Social Media Smarts Workshop in New York, I offered the question, “Should marketers shift budgets from offline to digital?” and then posted the question to LinkedIn as both a demonstration of how the “Answers” feature worked and to get the pulse of the LinkedIn community on the topic. Replies were compelling and here are a few I’d like to highlight:

Lynne Mysliwiec - VP, Analytics at Epsilon Data Management:

My opinion is that media budget allocation should be commensurate with ROI in the short term (immediate sales driven) and long term (quality/value of customers transacting in a channel after some time frame). Budget allocation should also be consider immediate marketing needs. For example, if you’re planning a new product introduction, cutting mass back to nothing will probably jeopardize or delay the ultimate success of this new product. It would make sense to drive brand-based and/or product-introduction investments toward mass media to give your new product a fighting chance or you will have to adjust your expectations for penetrating the new markets the product was designed for. 

Since the impact of mass media on sales tends to be less measurable than direct-response media, in a downturn one expects that many mass-media budgets are slashed in favor of measurable media, although often those budgets are cut as well. 

ARE people pulling out of advertising and print-based DM and allocating dollars toward digital for 2009? Yes they are, although many are using cost cutting as the primary thought process behind that migration rather than data-driven thought-processes and will re-think those decisions as their businesses exit the recession.

 Jim Gilbert - Direct Marketing Professional, Author and Professor:

The answer is in understanding your metrics. If you have traditional programs that are working, keep them. Test, if you can, integrating off/online with personalization techniques like PURLS. 

Furthermore, the more the online shift, the better for direct marketers using traditional vehicles like mail and catalogs. Less mailbox clutter, more visibility for messages that are relevant to the consumer.

Dan Gershenson – Creative Director at The Creative Underground: 

To me the question has to start first with how your target audience is behaving based on the latest research you have about them. Which makes the answer a case-by-case situation rather than a blanket statement of “go more digital”. Now, if it appears for example that your target is comprised of heavy web users that only marginally read magazines or newspapers, then the shift to more digital is warranted. But just because the world has more Blackberrys and iPhones in it these days doesn’t mean that there aren’t audiences that have special relationships with print or direct mail.

What you have to discover is if your target is one of them based on how the demographic and psychographic information is trending for that specific group. In all likelihood, I wouldn’t doubt it if in most cases you’re talking about a suitable mix of the two because it’s not often realistic to say certain groups use all of one form of media anyway. Sure, the media attention is going to continue to show its love for digital. But show some love for your audience first before you get swayed too much by the press.

Lynne, Jim and Dan make a pretty good argument for making sure companies rely more on data than the headlines to make decisions about moving marketing budgets.  Company marketers will never get the data from digital marketing without testing, so I would encourage those who have not historically leveraged search, social media, mobile and other interactive advertising channels to do their homework (or have an agency help them) to establish a digital marketing roadmap and start testing and capturing data.

You can read a good post about direct marketing compared to social media marketing here as a tactical primer.

What do you think? Is your company moving more budget to digital marketing efforts ? (Internet, mobile, display). If you work within an agency, are you seeing more clients move towards or away from digital marketing programs? What tactics are you emphasizing for 2009?

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Should Marketers Shift Offline Budgets to Digital Marketing? originally appeared on the Online Marketing Blog. © 2009. http://www.toprankblog.com

Copyright Online Marketing Blog – Should Marketers Shift Offline Budgets to Digital Marketing?