ChasNote

Randy Schwartz, Carat Interactive’s search director, pointed me to a Forbes story today I missed back on October 17, Digg This Headline, For Google’s Sake. Social media sites and blogs that are read by other blog publishers, it argues, can help push brands toward the top of natural search engine results.

“‘Social media’ sites like Digg, Reddit.com and Newsvine.com let users submit and rank news headlines and other links to sites around the Web. Sites voted to the top of these news aggregators receive tens of thousands of visitors. But the online marketing professionals gathered at New York’s Search Marketing Expo this week were interested in tapping into a different feature of these sites: their growing power to affect Google and Yahoo!’s search results….

“More important than that traffic, however, was the list’s role as ‘linkbait.’ ….Because Google ranks a Web site’s relevance based on the number of other sites linking to it, LifeInsure [a site with content picked up by Digg] now ranks fourth in Google’s results when the search giant’s millions of users search for ‘life insurance.’ Suddenly, the company had free advertising that put its name right next to huge brands like Metlife and Prudential….

“In fact, every headline that reaches Digg’s home page receives an average of 129 links, according to search marketer Neil Patel, and each of those links can push an online business’ traffic closer to the coveted top spots in Google or Yahoo!’s results. Digg is by far the greatest source of links and traffic among social media sites: A popular story on the site gets as many as 100,000 unique visitors. Sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit, Newsvine and Propeller can each add between 5,000 and 10,000 more.”

Wacom’s second sponsored Graffiti contest, Objects Brought To Life, closes to submissions later this evening, but with 8300 entries it’s already bigger than the first (Graffiti Monster Contest) by nearly 50%.

(Artist credit: Jean-Sebastien Lajeunesse)

The paid promotional effort is the same as the previous contest. One explanation for the increased activity may be that 2000 participants in the first contest became “fans” of Bamboo By Wacom, allowing Wacom to send them notifications when the new contest opened for submissions.

Last month Wacom partnered with Graffiti Wall to sponsor a Draw A Monster contest. In addition to the 515,000 votes cast on the 5660 monster drawings submitted, the contest encouraged more than 2000 Facebook members to become “fans” of Bamboo By Wacom, the Facebook Profile page for Wacom’s tablet computing kit.

Each time someone joins the Bamboo By Wacom fan club, a headline like this shows up in his or her friends’ newsfeed.

If you apply ChasNote math (I have about 300 friends in Facebook), that’s 2000 times 300 — 600,000 news headlines from one friend to another plugging Bamboo By Wacom. Say two-thirds of those headlines get pushed down the newsfeed before someone sees them, that’s still 200,000 friend-to-friend endorsements of your brand.

When AARP sent an IO renewing their advertising on several FM sites, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that those ads — on a handful of bleeding-edge Web 2.0 social media sites and blogs — were among the best performers on AARP’s Q4 digital plan. My colleague Kim Kochaver alerted me to a vibrant field of social media sites for seniors: Eons, EldersVoice, BoomerTown and SeniorFriendFinder among others.

From Ad Age:

“It’s been a meteoric rise of late for word-of-mouth marketing, defined by PQ Media as ’supported by research and technology that encourages consumers to dialogue about products and services.’ Still, the discipline accounted for just 0.4% of the share in the $254 billion marketing-services category, a grouping that includes direct marketing, branded entertainment and public relations, among others. If PQ Media’s analysis is correct, however, word-of-mouth marketing won’t stay small for long: The field grew 35.9% in 2006, far more than both the overall marketing-services category (7.7%) and the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (5.7%).”

Brand advertising is coming to Facebook apps. Sprint’s “Addicted to Heroes” app tie-in campaign to their sponsorship of NBC’s Heroes (the TV show) is one example.

FM’s John Schneider, Bernie Albers, Stephanie Loleng and Liam Boylan — as well as Kevin and Wayne at Watercooler, the makers of the “Addicted to” apps — helped put this together.

Archetype Media President Joe Marchese’s latest MediaPost column summarizes his experience at our Conversational Marketing Summit last week. He hones in on two Conversational Marketing best practices:

“the one area where there is actually consensus among conversational marketing practitioners is the rule that marketers must first evaluate how they can add value to individual or communities before beginning a campaign….”

“One of the other best practices echoed at the CMsummit is that you, as a marketer, should be prepared to finish the conversations you start. Meaning, if you launch a conversational marketing initiative, you are accepting that the other parties in the conversation have a say in where the conversation goes and when it ends. Ending conversations abruptly in the real world will get you disinvited to dinner parties; ending conversations abruptly in conversational marketing can be significantly more damaging….”

Thanks for coming, Joe!

On Wednesday at the Conversational Marketing Summit, Isobar / CaratFusion CEO Sarah Fay likened marketing today to planting a tree — the beginning of a process that will grow and requires nurturing over time — rather than the old approach to marketing that, like a house, is finished (and has begun its decay) on its first day as a completed structure with dry paint. Wonderful metaphor.

According to Forrester’s Charlene Li (see VNUnet):

“Social networking sites cannot be treated as channels because their members are not passive web pages.”

Kevin Rose announced big news for Digg: They’ve signed up Microsoft to sell their banners and text-link sponsorships. (FM will keep doing what we’ve been doing — the integrated sponsorships, custom programs and conversational marketing.) From Kevin’s post:

“We’ve signed on Microsoft as our new partner to sell and serve the ads on Digg. It’s a deal similar to the one Facebook signed with Microsoft last year. This move gives us an advertising partner with a larger organization and a more scalable technology platform to keep pace with Digg’s growth. Best of all, it lets the Digg team completely focus on new feature development. Federated Media, which has been an awesome partner for the last year and a half, will continue working with Digg focusing on integrated sponsorships and custom programs like the Arc project in labs.”

Here’s Battelle’s comment at FM’s blog:

“Today our partner Digg and our new partner Microsoft announced a deal to work together on advertising across Digg’s burgeoning site. At FM, we’re proud of our partners, and particularly proud when we’ve helped prove their businesses’ value. It’s no secret that Digg is the kind of property - like Facebook - that was bound to get the attention of the Big Guys as they continue to play an ever more fascinating game of Internet chess. That’s why I’m even more pleased that FM is continuing to work with Digg and with Microsoft to further Digg’s goals.”

And here’s the official press release from Microsoft, including news that FM and Microsoft will be collaborating around conversational marketing stuff:

“Microsoft and Federated Media Publishing, Digg’s current advertising partner, plan to collaborate to bring integrated programs to Digg’s users and advertisers. ‘Federated Media has unique advertising sales assets that dovetail with our efforts, and we look forward to working with them,’ Berkowitz said. [Steve Berkowitz is Microsoft’s SVP for the Online Services Group, ed.]”

Congrats, all around!