Here’s a rundown of articles which caught my attention during the week of January 30 though February 3, 2012 covering topics such as SEO, Online Reputation Management, blogging, security, social media, mobile web, marketing technology and more …

Monday

• Geoff Kenyon has some some advice on anchor text in links on SEOmoz’s Daily SEO Blog: Anchor Text Distribution: Avoiding Over Optimization
• On Avinash Kaushik’s Occam’s Razor blog is a very handy article with 8 ways to better use Google Analytics: Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data!
• Joe Hall got a great discussion going on his Google+ page about Google’s speed in indexing versus when those updates affect the SERPs by asking a Question to the SEO Community
• Marketing Pilgrim had three great articles today:
• Frank Reed discusses some new information about blogging numbers declining among larger companies: Blogging Declines in Inc. 500 Survey - seems like this opens up more opportunities for others
• In another piece by Frank, there is news about some of the internet biggies getting together to fight phishing: Nothing Like a Phishing Trip to Bring Enemies Closer
• Cynthia Boris share a couple of great stories about local communities coming together to help small businesses keep going: And Now for the Good News: Communities Ban Together to Save Local Shops

Tuesday

• Aleh Barysevich asks the question Will 2012 Become the Year of Mobile SEO? on Marketing Pilgrim. Here’s a hint: if you don’t have a mobile web strategy, you better get one – and quick!
• To follow up on that thought, Alan K’necht passed along this piece by CBC News showing that 52% of shoppers use mobile devices to assist in their purchase decisions: 52% use cellphone to help in purchasing decisions
• A couple weeks ago I wrote about how a job seeker’s online reputation can hurt their employment search. Jennie Loev shared this Steve Rothberg piece on CollegeRecruiter.com showing it goes both ways: 66% of Job Seekers Lose Interest Due to Poor On-line Reputations of Employers
• Eric D. Brown would rather work with clients who are proactive and tells why on his blog: Do things when you should…not when you have to

Wednesday

• Dave Murr shared this Jay Baer piece on iMedia Connection with some great tools to help your social media efforts: 9 social media hacks you need to embrace now
• On Monday I noted the article showing a decline in blogs, which I opined would open up more opportunities for others. Lisa Barone shares her thoughts along those lines on Outspoken Media: Why You Want To Be the Last Blog Standing
• On the Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba shares some data showing people trust real people in social media: People trust people
• Marty Weintraub offers up some SEO-related blogging strategy wisdom on the aimClear Blog: Puppy Mill Upchuck To Superstar Articles: Setting Realistic Content Marketing KPIs!
• Cynthia Boris has some interesting news on the QR Code front on Marketing Pilgrim. This one involves the time-honored tradition of reading the back of cereal boxes: The Future of Cereal Packaging Includes a Digital Surprise

Thursday

• As marketing technology (and the Marketing Technologist) becomes more developed, it’s natural to start hearing about more IT-like concepts coming forward. Scott Brinker shares one such example on his Chief Marketing Technologist Blog: Marketing as an object-oriented program?
• On the Unmarketing Blog, Scott Stratten shares a Bud commercial made for Superbowl viewers in Canada: How Budweiser Just Won The Superbowl and the Internet. It struck a chord with me as a fan of hockey. There is some great debate in the comments, too.

Friday

• Another item shared on the Chief Marketing Technologist Blog, Scott Brinker links to a quick interview he did with Bertil Snel about the rise of the Marketing Technologist: 3-minute interview: why marketing technologists now
• From the “Reputation Management Nightmare” Department I offer this piece shared by Giovanni Gallucci, Our Horror Story with Continental PetSafe by Richard. This is already being compared to the “United Breaks Guitars” story, except that it involved a dog. I suspect we’ll be seeing more on this story as time goes on.

As I talk with people about online marketing, one question I often hear is, “What is the deal with Twitter?” Many people are completely stumped as to what the service is good for, especially in a business setting. Usually, if I walk them through some examples of why it’s useful, the light goes on and they get it. Just explaining it, though, out of context is difficult at best.

Claire Diaz-Ortiz took on the task of explaining how to use Twitter to promote nonprofit causes in her book Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet At A Time. She does a great job taking tweeting down to its basics and helps people build a strategy around activity on the service. To make it easy to remember, she uses the word “TWEET” as the guide for her main points:

• Target
• Write
• Engage
• Explore
• Track

The book takes each of these five pieces and breaks them down into smaller parts which are easy to digest and act on. It starts with working out why you want to be on the service and what you want to accomplish, all the way through measuring results to see if you were successful. While comprehensive, the book itself is easy to read with many great real-life examples of how these concepts are used.

While Claire wrote the book with charity work in mind, here’s the best part: The concepts she teaches apply to businesses, too. The five points she outlines and the methods she describes can work very well to help anyone who wants to incorporate a Twitter strategy into their marketing and customer service efforts.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about or sharpen their Twitter efforts to make them more effective and on target. I especially believe anyone who is involved in nonprofit or charity work will benefit tremendously from the lessons in it.

Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet At A Time by Claire Diaz-Ortiz (Amazon Affiliate link, as is the cover shot above) – great guide to Twitter strategy.

You can get more information by visiting the author’s web site: clairediazortiz.com or the book’s companion web site www.Twitter4Good.com.

Disclaimer: I received the ebook version of this work free during a promotion. This is my honest opinion of the work.

A few years ago I undertook the task to certify as an EMT-Basic. This involved taking a semester long class at our local college, many hours of clinicals working in the Emergency Department at a local hospital and riding on ambulances, demonstration of skills and the final National Registry certification test. It was a most fascinating and fun six months.

As I got ready for the class, all my EMS friends clued me in on the instructor, Captain V. “Watch out,” one would warn, “he’s a tough one.” “He’s a great guy, but don’t cross him,” another said. “He knows his stuff and teaches well,” said another. I had a feeling, after hearing all the comments, that he was going to be one of those “tough but fair” leaders I had met in my various careers. I was right.

The class required several weekend class sessions, including the very first weekend. This was right when my wife and I were supposed to go out of town for our anniversary, a trip we’d been planning long before I got the class schedule. Capt. V told us we could email him any time we had questions, so I sent him a quick message after the class schedule was posted asking what we were going to cover that weekend and if it would be OK if I missed it. I was a bit nervous about it, given I wasn’t quite sure how he’d react. Thankfully, that first weekend was devoted to getting CPR certification; something I had. He was very nice about my request, but let me know under no circumstances would he let go any class requirements when it came to test time.

Tough but fair – very good.

Over the next several months I got to know this man a little, talking during class breaks and corresponding via email. Over that time I got to know a little bit about a man who was a dedicated public servant (a Firefighter and Paramedic) and one who taught countless people the skills needed to certify as an EMT. It was his dedication to education which had the biggest impact on the communities in our area.

One person can only do so much alone. Sharing skills and teaching others multiplies the effort many times over. If Capt. V saved the life of one person every day of his career, he could never touch the number of lives he may have indirectly saved through his teaching to tough standards and making sure each of his students clearly understood what was at stake each time they cared for a patient.

I remember one person asked why the class was so tough. His answer was quite simple: “You are going to be caring for patients one day. I will not be responsible for having an unqualified person taking care of people in their time of need.”

He was tough and exacting, but he also exemplified servant leadership in the way he made sure everyone got the help they needed to succeed. He brought in other skilled EMTs and Paramedics to help teach classes and offer insights from their experience. Some of those he brought in were interested in teaching themselves. This was another great opportunity to multiply his lifesaving efforts.

Yes, Capt. V is a great example of a leader – out front and blazing the trail for others to follow.

Last week I saw he posted on Facebook he will be retiring from teaching after 25 years. We owe a great debt of gratitude to this man. If you live in Central Texas, chances are someone in whose life he invested may come to your assistance one day. You’ll be glad he was such a fantastic leader if that happens.

Here are some articles which caught my eye during the week of January 16-20, 2012 covering such topics as online security, SEO, SOPA, PIPA, QR Codes, social media, traditional media and blogging …

Monday

• With some big security problems reported recently, Frank Reed gives us an apt reminder to keep security in mind as conduct online business on Marketing Pilgrim: Is 2012 the Year of Social or Security?
• Miranda Miller did some interesting experiments with Google Search Plus Your World and personalized search results, which she reports on Search Engine Watch: Rank for Anything You Want on Google Search Plus Your World
• If you were so inclined to temporarily shut down your web site to protest SOPA or PIPA or even for server maintenance, you might want to check out these reminders from Pierre Far on Google+: Website outages and blackouts the right way
• I’ve written about passwords before. A colleague shared a great infographic on creating more secure passwords on Lifehacker: Use This Infographic to Pick a Good, Strong Password

Tuesday

• Over on the SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog, Rand Fishkin has 21 ideas to help increase traffic to your blog: 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012)
• Frank Reed shares a post from Dan Zarrella about timing posts in social media on Marketing Pilgrim: In Social Media Timing Can Be Everything
• If you’re going to use QR Codes, you need to make sure you’re prepared to give those who scan it a good experience. Lisa Barone shares her thoughts on this on the Outspoken Media Blog: Even Bill Cosby Can’t Make Bad QR Codes Funny

Wednesday

• If you’re looking for a quick checklist of things to cover when doing SEO, Gareth Owen has a handy one on Search Engine Watch: 10 Elements of a Perfectly Optimized Page
• There was a lot of talk regarding the boycotting/blackout/protests of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act of 2011:
• One well thought-out post pointing out, not the problems with the proposed SOPA, but in regarding legislating to keep the status quo comes from David Meerman Scott on the Web Ink Now Blog: Stop SOPA Silliness
• Seth Godin has some very interesting thoughts about how our “leaders” in Congress aren’t really leading: Learning leadership from Congress. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any real leaders in government any more.
• If you’re interested, you can read the whole text of H.R. 3261, SOPA and S. 968, PIPA

Thursday

• Over on the aimClear Blog, Marty Weintraub shares some tips on creating headlines: Harnessing Headline Theories! Flashpoints To Final Polish
• On the SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog, Wil Reynolds shares a general history of search engine algorithm changes and the importance of hard work to make your web site stand the test of change:  Never Worry About an Algorithm Update Again, a History
• Thomas Ballentyne found an interesting ad placement on Google Maps which he shares on his Pest Control Marketing & Such Blog: New Ad Space in Google Maps?

Friday

• Dave Nuttycombe has an interesting perspective on media subjects – and he’s a very funny guy. We had a conversation in the comments on my post about unplugging cable a while back. Today, he tells the story of how he tried to influence a print newspaper to embrace digital on his blog: That Time I Predicted the Future For Newspapers…
• If you’re not a member of WebmasterWorld, you might want to consider it. There is always some great information there. I caught a discussion revolving around the latest Google update by Matt Cutts: Page layout algorithm improvement. Although Matt specifically writes about ads, I wonder if “Hero” shots are also going to be taken into consideration?

I have, sitting on my desk, four pieces of unsolicited bulk mail. All of these are from the same company. All of them offer to reduce my mortgage payments by going through their quick refinance service. I’m quite dubious to their claims and will shred them as soon as I finish writing this.

What caught my eye was that even though all the offers are identical, almost down to the exact wording, they all took different forms and had different appearances when still in their envelopes:

• One looked like a bank statement
• One looked like a check
• One looked like an appointment notice from the VA Medical Center
• One looked like “junk mail.”

Of course, it’s very easy to tell without opening that these are all junk. I open them so I can shred the parts on which my personal information is printed. What prompted me to comment was that they all had the same web site address and toll-free number printed on them.

You’d think a company who went through the trouble of creating four different forms for the same offer would have split-tested them. They could have a unique toll-free number and URL for each of the four formats. Then they could quickly learn which one generated the most calls or web traffic and then use it more than the others.

You might hear this practice called “A/B Testing.” Many e-commerce companies employ such methods to find out which versions of banner ads and landing pages produce the desired result. It works quite well in helping get a message to the right audience.

What is old is new again. Well, off to the shredder.

photo credit: StarsApart

Your Online Reputation, That Is
I’ve had had an ongoing conversation on Twitter with someone opening a fast food franchise outlet in the area. He’s had a rough time finding qualified and willing workers for his establishment. This doesn’t surprise me. I’ve had conversations with many food service managers in the area who tell me it’s hard to find good team members.

I feel for him, because it’s tough enough getting the construction completed, certifications, permits, supply contracts, etc. set up. You’d think with lingering unemployment lurking about he’d have no problem finding people willing to join his team. Even with many applicants, he said a challenge to find people with good attitudes he can train to do what he needs them to do.

First, only half of the people with whom he scheduled interviews even bothered to show up. That in itself is telling. Second, he pre-screened applicants, checking their online spaces, and disqualified a few applicants because of things found in their Facebook profiles.

Your Online Reputation Matters!
He mentioned one applicant entered “Smoking Big Joints” as one of his interests. Another entered “Legalize Marijuana” as his interest.

I don’t want to get into the politics of things and do believe in one’s private life being private. But, how private your life is depends a great deal on how much you post online. Smoking marijuana and taking other illegal substances is considered such a liability in employment that many companies routinely screen new applicants for drug use. Coming up positive on a pre-employment screening means automatic disqualification. Many companies even go so far as to randomly screen all employees for drug use. This being the case, it really doesn’t make sense to advertise your use of such substances in a very public forum.

My friend is certainly not alone in his use of social media to screen potential hires. Consider this Mashable article by Erica Swallow from October 2011: How Recruiters Use Social Networks to Screen Candidates. This type of search is routine now and job seekers should expect that they will be “googled” when they apply for a job.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written on this topic. After I posted that article, I had a very interesting conversation with a colleague whose daughter was getting ready to apply for teaching jobs. She went through Facebook and “untagged” herself anywhere she could find herself “tagged” – regardless whether the picture could be considered “bad” or not. She didn’t want to take any chances.

Job Seekers: Market Yourself
Whether you realize it or not, you are a brand. When seeking employment, you have to market yourself in a similar way a company markets its brand. You have to show potential employers you have skills and the right attitude to be part of the team. If your career goal is to work in a head shop, then advertising the fact that you smoke marijuana might be a positive thing. However, if you want to work somewhere else, you might want to think twice about putting that fact in a public forum.

Some may be thinking to themselves, “That’s not fair.” Whether it’s fair or not is beside the point. This is where the job market is and you need to take your overall online reputation into consideration.

Current Employees Also Need To Consider This
If you are already employed, you might also consider what you post online and how your management might feel it reflects on them. This past weekend I told some business-owner friends about this article which prompted them to tell me about a problem they had with a former employee. He “friended” them and “liked” their Facebook page, which is nice. But, he routinely posted profanity-laced tirades against people he felt slighted him. They were concerned about how these posts might reflect upon their business.

I’m not for businesses having the ability to muzzle their staff online. However, it is worth thinking about how your actions reflect on the people who pay you salary. Whether you realize it or not, everyone is brand ambassador. Would you want your online actions to hinder your company’s ability to do business?

Employers also need to consider this. How much is too much when it comes to your team members potential damage to your reputation? It’s a good idea to consider this and create some sensible policies for this eventuality.

What say you? Have you run into any problems hiring or getting hired because of something posted online? Have you taken steps to clean up your online reputation? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Update: 1/22/2012: Marty Weintraub shared this post on The Bookshelf  Blog: How To Totally Destroy Your Facebook Reputation (& Life…) in 10 Easy Steps! [PRINTABLE FLOWCHART]. It illustrates very nicely how you can ruin your online reputation very quickly.

photo credit: -Tripp-

Here are some articles which caught my attention during the week of January 9-13, 2012 cover such topics as web marketing, online reputation management, marketing, search, leadership and more …

Monday

• Avinash Kaushik often has some brilliant challenges to our thinking about data on his Occam’s Razor site. Here’s some more valuable insight from him: The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish
• Russ Somers penned a great work which he calls The Human Marketing Manifesto. I think it’s great for us to remember these things when doing our work. Thanks for Chris Bailey for the tip.
• From the Wifi Security Department comes this interesting trick described by Adam Pash on lifehacker: How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network’s WPA Password with Reaver
• Lee Odden passed on this link to some great social media stats compiled by Bazaarvoice: Power of Word of Mouth
• A Papa John’s outlet in New York City started a social media firestorm because an employee there entered a racial slur describing a customer – which printed on her receipt. Andy Beal had the story last week, and Frank Reed has some good analysis on Papa John’s handling of the situation this morning on Marketing Pilgrim: Papa John’s Gets Backlash from Idiot Employee but Is It REALLY Their Fault? There’s some great discussion in the comments, too.

Are the prices too high or is the customer service just too bad?

Best Buy (and many other brick and mortars) often blame online stores like Amazon for their problems. The chief complaint centers on how online stores compete unfairly because they don’t have to collect sales tax.

But is that the real reason? I don’t think so, and neither do many of those I’ve spoken with on the topic this past week. Those conversations were prompted by an article on Forbes.com by Larry Downes, “Why Best Buy is Going out of Business…Gradually.” He puts some numbers with his poor experiences at Best Buy and comes to the conclusion that it’s customer service which really makes the difference – not price.

At the risk of “piling on,” I present two experiences I had with Best Buy this past year which I think prove Mr. Downes’ point quite well:

Experience The First – Buying Mom a New Computer
Whenever I head up to Michigan to visit Mom, I usually get hooked into doing pro forma tech support. I don’t mind, though, because her being online and tech savvy helps us to communicate better. When we were there this Summer, she said it was time replace her outdated desktop. So, we headed over to the local Best Buy to see what we could find.

Mom had a specific budget and certain things she needed her new machine to do. I wanted to get her a powerful enough computer to last a few years from a brand with decent tech support – in case I wasn’t available to help her over the phone.

We walked into the store and straight back to the computer section. Of course, we were immediately approached by a sales person. I explained that I would let him know when we’d made a selection, but that we really didn’t need any help. He hovered around (way too close, I might add) for several minutes.

In the meantime, I pulled out my iPhone and started looking at the models they had on display, checking details, specs and user ratings from various sites. Much the opposite of Best Buy’s complaint that people use them as a showroom then later go purchase from Amazon, I often go to Amazon for ratings because they usually have good ones. I also check NewEgg and search Google and Bing on the model numbers to catch any ratings I might miss. That was when the sales person disappeared.

Once we narrowed down our choices to two, I had a specific question about one of them. Once we hunted down the sales person, he had no idea what I was even asking. More googling came up with the answer and we had our choice. Then we had to hunt the guy down again to get the item so we could pay for it. Of course, we were asked a half-dozen times if we wanted to purchase the extended warranty. After declining the first time, I wished they’d quit asking.

This experience wasn’t too terrible, of course. Pretty typical for Best Buy and many other stores.

Experience The Second – The Missed Pickup
My wife and I recently decided to replace our malfunctioning home theatre unit.  She did most of the research, narrowing the myriad of selections down to two. We decided on one and checked prices online. We found that Best Buy had the best price, beating Amazon – even including the sales tax and $10 in-store pickup delivery charge. (Why is there a delivery charge to pick up an item already at the store? That really puzzled me.)

I ordered the item from Best Buy’s web site and opted for the in-store pickup.

The next day, we went to our local Best Buy to pick up the item and purchase a new HDMI cable. The pick up line is situated next to the returns line, with a shared POC terminal between them. The people working didn’t have my item immediately ready even though I got an email indicating it would be so. No big deal, though, since someone very quickly went to the shelf and grabbed one for us. But, I had to get into the returns line to pay for the HDMI cable. Again, no big deal since they put me ahead of others already in line (which probably didn’t make them happy).

We went home and set up our new sound system. It is very nice. My wife is playing Skyrim right now and the sound is excellent. We are quite happy with the purchase.

The day after I picked up our item, I got an email from Best Buy reminding me to pick up my purchase. I was a little puzzled, but just deleted the email. My initial thought was, “The in-store system hasn’t synced with the main system, yet.”

I got another email the next day, and the next. For ten days, each morning, I received an email reminding me that my purchase was ready for pickup. I remember even tweeting once something like, “@BestBuy, why are you spamming me to pick up an item I already picked up?” I though it rather humorous. The last email warned that if I didn’t pick my item up, they would cancel my order. Cancel? On an order for an item I already picked up? Nonsense!

Oh, but they were serious. The next day I received an email letting me know that my order had been cancelled and my card credited the amount of the purchase. A quick check of my bank account verified that they had, indeed, refunded my money. Now I laughed out loud.

I wanted to let Best Buy know about this so they could get their money; that was only fair. I called the number on my email receipt and hit zero until I got a real person. I explained to the lady I spoke with what happened in detail. She was surprised and said she’d transfer me to the correct department immediately.

I sat on hold for half an hour. After wasting enough of my monthly allotted cell minutes on this, I decided to try to email. After all, this was their error – why should I waste my minutes.

I pulled up my email receipt again and hit reply. I wrote a very detailed message describing what happened and asked them to respond so we could work out how to make this right. After all, I wanted to get them the money they were legitimately due for my purchase.

My message received an auto response:

This is an automated response. Please do not reply to this email.

If you need assistance, please contact our Customer Care, http://www.bestbuy.com/ or call 1-800-BESTBUY.

I hate auto responses like that.

Companies Note: Never bounce an email from a customer telling them you don’t monitor a specific email address. MONITOR ALL EMAIL ADDRESSES you send email from. Don’t waste your customers’ time.

I clicked on the link in the response, which lead to Best Buy’s customer service contact form. I copied the text from my bounced email and pasted into the message box on the form and made sure to enter my order number in the appropriate place. At this point, I was starting to get a little perturbed, having wasted almost an hour trying to give them their money. In the message box I wrote that this was the third and final time I was going to try to contact them regarding this matter. If they wanted their money, they should email or call.

Another auto response was the last message I heard from them:

Best Buy Customer,
This message was automatically generated in an attempt to answer your question as quickly as possible. If you are contacting us to cancel, or modify your BestBuy.com order, please call us at 1-888-BEST BUY. (1-888-237-8289)
Thank You.
Best Buy Customer Care

I didn’t want to cancel or modify my order, and I certainly didn’t want to spend another 30-plus minutes on hold.

It’s been nearly a month since this transpired and I still haven’t heard anything. Those I have related this story to feel I did more than most people would have to get them their money and that I should consider the home theatre unit a Christmas gift. Perhaps they are right.

The Bottom Line
There have been many surveys done in the past several years where consumers have indicated they’d be willing to pay extra for better customer service (examples here, here and here), and many people willingly pay a little extra for more service than standard offerings. I’ve experienced exceptional customer service for which I probably payed a little more on several occasions. I didn’t mind a bit.

I’m really very surprised Best Buy didn’t beat a path to my door to collect their money. If they had at least acknowledged my efforts to contact them I would be telling quite a different story here. Instead, I’m commenting on an article which offers up what I think is an apt analysis of Best Buy’s self-inflicted woes based on my own experience with them.

I wonder if their leadership will take notice and try to change course. If they don’t I suspect it won’t be too long before they meet a similar fate as so many of their former competitors.

What say you? What do you think about Mr. Downes’ take on Best Buy’s situation? What do you think about my experiences with them? Do you think I did enough due diligence in trying to right their error? Please feel free to tell us what you think in the comments.

Oh, and Best Buy: If you do decide you want your money please give me a call or email me. You have my contact information.

Lastly: Just as I was finishing this up, I caught a response to the Forbes.com story by Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn on their blog. Check out the comments, too.

First Picture: photo credit: pat00139

Second Picture: photo credit: tsaarni

The first week of 2012 is complete. I hope you hit the ground running. Here are some articles I caught during the week of January 2-6 which got my brain going, covering such topics as SEO, customer service, social media, location-based marketing and leadership …

Monday

• On the SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog, Phil Nottingham shares some interesting happenings from 2011: Search Industry Surprises of 2011
• This week still has posts coming out on the Ocean Marketing debacle. Here is a great list of lessons we can all learn from the incident by Sonia Simone on the copyblogger Blog: 5 Lessons You Can Learn from a Breathtaking Customer Service Fail
• I had an interesting experience with Best Buy a couple weeks ago; and I’m still debating whether to post about it here. Chris Bailey shared this Forbes piece by Larry Downes which purports to tell why the retail giant will die off within the next several years. It’s a pretty scathing article, but full of great lessons to learn: Why Best Buy is Going out of Business…Gradually

Tuesday

• Reading is very important for all of us. Eric D. Brown has a list of books he recommends you check out in 2012 on his site: Recommended Books for the CIO / IT leader for 2012
• Rand Fishkin reviews his 2011 web marketing predictions, and offers 8 new ones for 2012 on the SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog: 8 Predictions for SEO in 2012
• Aaron Strout has a nice quote in this Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine piece by Stuart Wade: Social Studies

Wednesday

• Lisa Myers has some great advice on doing international SEO on the Search Engine People Blog. I did a lot of translation work in my past and I agree 100% with the tips she gives in the “Language” section. Don’t go cheap on that part: International SEO? Forget About The Big Brands And Do This Instead
• Josh Bernoff shares some interesting data over in the Empowered Blog: The Global Social Takeover
• Alan Bleiweiss shared this gem on empathy in social media by Timothy Carter on Click2Rank.com: Better than Social Media Engagement … Empathy

Thursday

• Still wondering what’s up with Google+? Over on the seoMOZ Daily SEO Blog, Cyrus Shepard has some insights as to how it affects search: How Google+ Uses SEO to Steal Search from Facebook and Twitter. I also saw a tweet from Joe Hall on a related Google+ topic – I hope he writes about it in more detail.
• Over on Marketing Pilgrim, Frank Reed shares some Forrester data on how social media influence on purchases breaks down by country: Social Media Marketing’s Purchasing Influence Greater in Emerging Markets
• Dr. Pete shared this very interesting video on YouTube showing how Coke could move it’s story telling to be more interactive. It’s a great lesson in online marketing: Coca Cola Content 2020 Part One. The video is very well done and is just about worth watching just for its entertainment value.
• Aaron Strout shares some location-based marketing predictions by some thought leaders in the space on the WCG Common Sense Blog: 2012 Location-Based Marketing Predictions
• Search Engine Journal’s Melissa Fach has a great interview with Zagg’s Scott Cowley. I was very privileged to get to meet Scott in person at November’s PubCon – he’s a stand-up guy and very, very smart: Interview with Scott Cowley on SEO, Company Support and More

Friday

• Ian Lurie shares some good management advice on his Conversation Marketing Blog: The Brain-Money Balance
• Are you spending a lot of time in social media spaces with very little effort? If you’re one of the company’s with a large number of accounts on each service, Cynthia Boris may know why you’re having some trouble and she discusses this in a Marketing Pilgrim piece: Time to Take Out the Social Media Trash

Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy

I learned of this book, Generally Speaking published in 2001, from a veterans group on Facebook. The banter going back and forth centered more on General Kennedy’s comments about her commander and others in a unit in Augsburg, Germany during the 80s. I was there at the same time and knew of (then) Lieutenant Colonel Kennedy, so I decided to get the Kindle edition and read it for myself.

What I found was the story of a woman who started a military career in the Women’s Army Corps during the Vietnam Conflict and went on to retire 32 years later as a Lieutenant General – the first woman to achieve that rank in the Army. It is a very interesting book about how her life in many ways matched the societal changes going on both in military and civilian life. If you’re interested in history centered on women in the military and in business, you will certainly want to read this one.

Interspersed throughout the book, too, are some great leadership nuggets which I want to highlight here. They apply just as much to business leadership as to military leadership. For instance:

Regarding Mentoring

The most fortunate path for any aspiring leader to follow is to be consistently mentored by the junior and senior leaders in her or his organization … . For the process to work, of course, the person being mentored has to set aside arrogance, be willing to learn, and be receptive, especially when it involves people who are junior in rank. It is essential for leaders to realize that they are always works in progress … even as they reach senior positions. Once a person decides she is complete, she is announcing her growth is ended and her potential is fulfilled. This signals to everyone the end of her progress in that field.

The need to learn is constant and continuous. The need to mentor and be mentored really never ends because so long as one is active in the world (or in business or whatever) the need to learn never ceases.

Mentoring, however, should never be used as a crutch or to get by through the “Old Boy Network,” rather it is a teaching and training tool. Each person needs to be responsible for his or her own career:

No one should depend on [anyone else] to reach down and pull them up the career ladder. Army officers or civilian executives must achieve power on their own merit, seeking the requisite professional training that entails, and undertaking the assignments that provide the best experience to accumulate leadership skills.

You need to take responsibility for yourself

Regarding Learning From Those “Lower” in Position

When faced with tough problems, young executives in the civilian workplace with degrees from prestigious business schools might do well to forget about their MBAs and seek advice among their organization’s equivalents of Betty Benson, whom they can find on the shop floor or among the anonymous line engineers’ cubicles.

You can always learn something from people with more experience. It does well for leaders to remember they don’t learn everything in school – some knowledge just comes with experience. In other words: don’t be like Lieutenant Jones and take too long to learn this lesson, there are some very experienced people you can learn from and you might be surprised who they are.

When faced with coming into a new situation, one thing I was taught which served me well was never to change anything for the first several weeks of taking on a new leadership position. A wiser move was to observe and learn how things are done, and them make changes as necessary. The old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies. Many times, though, people feel a need to make their mark early and make sweeping changes right away. This often turns out to be a disservice to themselves and the people they are leading.

Meeting with my company commanders and their first sergeants, and the battalion staff, [note: and later with the people doing the actual work] I posed three basic questions: What were we doing well? What were we doing badly? What did they want me, the new commander, to not screw up by changing?

There’s a great lesson here.

Regarding Servant Leadership

From this and other effective units the panel visited, four characteristics necessary for the exercise of good leadership emerged:

• Good leaders set standards for the members of their organizations.
• Good leaders exemplified through their personal conduct adherence to those standards.
• Good leaders enforced and maintained those standards for the other members of the organization.
• Good leaders demonstrated genuine care for the concerns of their solders, no matter their rank, race or gender.

These four elements pretty much comprise the idea of the Servant Leader, something which I’ve written about numerous times in this space.

You might find it surprising that military leaders learn from many different places, not just from other military sources. For example, under Army Chief of Staff General Dennis Reimer:

… he told us to study the leadership ideas of … Coach Lou Holtz, who believed there are three critical questions any two people ask in a relationship … :

Can I trust you?
Do you care about me?
Are you committed to excellence?

With an effective leader or coach, the answer was demonstrably “yes.”

I recently wrote about leaders who felt they were “entitled” to special privileges (also linked above). The servant leader does not go this route:

Maintaining the trust and respect of those who serve with you is a dynamic and often difficult process. Some people actually believe becoming a leader entitles you to work less and instead draw upon the energy and production of the people assigned to your organization. In fact, the reverse is true.

Leaders need to understand this quote or their efforts will be mediocre leaders at best.

Again, students of military history, especially that which relates to women in the service or Military Intelligence will find this book very interesting. Those looking for good leadership lessons should also read it.

Finally, I think Lieutenant General Kennedy would agree with me that military intelligence vets would make excellent web marketers – or excellent team members in general.

Generally Speaking: A Memoir by the First Woman Promoted to Three-Star General in the United States Army by Claudia J. Kennedy

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