Social Media and Super Tuesday
Friday, February 08, 2008
The writers have been on strike for so long, that I think we have given up on the idea of scripted programming altogether. Perhaps, during a more uneventful time period, the strike would have more dire consequences. It's a good thing we have this election to keep us on the edge of our seats and thoroughly entertained.
Just as I was scanning for news on how social media impacted Super Tuesday results, I stumbled upon the news that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race. Out of curiosity, I wondered who had the exclusive. After scrolling back to the 30th page (yes, thirtieth, as in three - zero) of Google News results, I gather that ABC was one of the first to post the news to the site of its local San Francisco affiliate just 4 hours earlier.
So, where was I? Oh yes. Did social media have an impact on the biggest primary day?
A nice place to begin answering that question is on a blog called the Marketing Pilgrim. On Super Tuesday morning, the Pilgrim made a bold claim that the winners were already decided based on online fanfare. Its prediction: John McCain and Barak Obama would win on Super Tuesday.
The prediction was largely based on positive and negative search results on the candidates. Apparently, Obama and McCain had the most positive results.
What really happened? Yes, McCain did win, but what about the democrats?
Despite their reported dead heat, there are stark implication made by the states that were won by Clinton and Obama. A nice summary by blogger Krutic can be read here on Blog Critics Magazine.
I suppose if you count the states, Obama won. When looking closely at the states he won, however, a different picture comes into focus. Out of the 13 he won, only 3 - Connecticut, Illinois, and Delaware - tend to vote democratic and would truly count for him in a general election.
Clinton, on the other hand, won the democratic strongholds of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and California. These are all monster states in terms of population, which equal to delegates, which equal to winning the nomination.
But back to the question at hand: Did social media make a difference?
I think it is safe to say that social media has made a huge impact for Barak Obama's campaign. I would even make the claim that without his enthusiastic youth following, he would have been driven to anonymity months ago.
The more appropriate question might be: Can the youth truly decide this primary? In essence, will the difference social media is making count?
Jeffrey Feldman wrote an interesting article for The Huffington Post on this very topic. In it, he explains that while there is an exorbitant amount of attention being paid to Obama and his movement, the fact is that on Super Tuesday "the 18-24 age group typically made up only 7%-8% of the overall vote, while the 65 and over age group typically made up 20%-22% of the vote." And guess what, "Obama did not carry the 65 and older vote in a single state." Not even in his home turf of Illinois, where the senior vote was split 50/50 between him and Clinton.
With the current facts in mind, it's important to note that the race is far from over. Clinton is about 100 delegates ahead of Obama and all fingers point to this primary going to the democratic convention in May.
The basic fact that young people don't vote, yet are very opinionated online remains. So, for now at least, we might have to take Facebook polls and the like with a grain of salt. Perhaps a true testament to social media will only be seen decades from now, when the young are not so young anymore.Labels: 2008 elections, Internet, social media, social networking, super tuesday, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Diggers digging their own hole?
Monday, January 28, 2008
With social news networks like Digg around for some time now, the interesting realities of human behavior on these types of sites are being revealed.
Last week, Founder Kevin Rose announced that a new algorithm would take control over Digg, changing the way stories make their way to becoming popular on the network.
Leaving complexities aside, the basic idea is that from now on, the diversity of people digging stories will be taken into consideration in deeming which articles are catapulted to the top of Digg and which are buried in its depths.
For prominent Diggers, this change might mean a sudden fall from grace. Apparently, there is a group of them that has invested such an avid participation in the site, that they, in principal, control it.
This means that the “popular” stories we read are really not popular by true definition. Rather, the Diggers in this specific and relatively small group are the ones who deem articles to be “popular.”
Obviously, news of the changed algorithm caused an uproar among these Diggers. After all, no one likes to be stripped of their power, no matter how mediocre it might be.
Fortunately, Digg founders did not ignore their devoted fans despite their dictatorship-style tactics. Rather than admonishing them for turning Digg into their own personal platform, Kevin Rose and his fellow Digg leaders talked things out with some of these high profile Diggers, who were charging them with abandonment.
This scenario is an interesting two-sided coin. On the one side, these dedicated Diggers are the pulse of Digg. On the flipside, though, those who visit on a less frequent basis might feel - and some apparently do (see comments) - that Digg is a pointless endeavor. This sentiment discourages recurrent use of the program, stripping it of hits, which equal value.
It seems that morale has won this round. However, in time, I predict that we will see more of these types of situations. The basic elements of human behavior are inherent no matter if we are interacting in the real or in a virtual world. In a social group, there will always be those who take charge, while the majority remains largely apathetic.Labels: digg, Internet, social media, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Welcome 2008
Friday, January 04, 2008
The New Year is upon us. In the past couple of weeks, we have been bombarded with predictions for what 2008 will bring. The common theme among them, of course, is the notion of change.
Perhaps this feeling is propelled by our political climate. After all, we will be ending the year with a new President. But along with that, we are also seeing that the technologies and industries to which we have become accustomed are morphing instep with the future.
The music industry, for example, is being transformed. In 2007, we saw popular artists such as Radiohead and Madonna reject the old conglomerate music machine by taking more of an active role in how their music is sold. With news yesterday on album sales at record lows - down 15% from 2006 - they are probably doing the right thing.
And just today, Catherine Holahan from BusinessWeek reported that Sony plans to sell its music DRM-free, meaning their songs will be sold without the copyright protection software that makes it impossible for songs to be bought online. Sony is the last of the top 4 big music companies to do so, solidifying what we already knew. Buying and sharing music online is not a fad and if you don’t get on that boat, your ship will sink.
It is thus probably safe to say that we will see more artists taking control in new creative ways in 2008. What’s not certain, though, is if the quality of music will improve. With Britney in the hospital, there is some hope.
Another interesting development to watch this year is the impact the g-phone or Android will have on mobile telecom. The iphone made mobile web browsing truly possible, but the expense and having to be an AT&T subscriber kept many from being able to take advantage of the technology. 2008 might mark the year we all go online on the go.
From these few examples, it is clear (and not surprising) that the Internet is going to play an even bigger role in our lives this year. It’s a good thing we’re in this business!Labels: 2008, Internet, music industry, telecom
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Connors in the New Year
Friday, December 21, 2007
It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just days away and that 2008 is looming around the corner. The decade, which we have yet to name, is almost over!
It’s early still to reflect on the first ten years of the 21st century, but I think it is safe to say that we have come a very long way since the days of Y2K. In fact, in that short time, we have overcome the first web revolution and found ourselves basking in the glory of the second.
Some people laugh at the phrase Web 2.0, but it’s not just a gimmick. For example, yesterday there was news from the San Francisco Chronicle about a study recently conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project on the propensity of teens to engage in online content creation and sharing.
The study found that “almost two-thirds of online teens have created something online.” The article then goes into the specifics of the data, the most impressive of which is the rise in the percentage of blogging teens. In 2004, the number was just 19%, where as now, almost 30% of teenagers blog in some shape or form.
And it’s not just a phenomenon reserved for the younger generation. We are all coming to rely on the Internet at an exceedingly growing rate. If you’re skeptical, just look at what’s happening to print publications. We’re clearly no longer getting information in the ways that we grew accustomed.
It is for all these reasons that in the new year, Connors will no longer be doing PR in the same old way. We have been split between traditional PR and SEO for years, but taking society’s changing ways into consideration, it is becoming more and more clear that the traditional PR road is no longer paved in gold. The road online, however, is looking very bright.
Our president, Connie Connors, recently spoke to Enid Burns of ClickZ about our changing direction. In the resulting article, Connie points out that the communication channels no longer equate to “one-to-many.” Rather, “many-to-many” is the formula that dominates, creating a “sphere of influence.” Meaning that, with the help of the Internet, we are all now playing a more active role in each other’s lives.Labels: Connie Connors, Connors Communications, Internet, new media, Public Relations, seo, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Our Brain and Google
Friday, December 14, 2007
Have you ever wished that you were as smart as Google, or that you at least thought with the same diligence? Well, it turns out, you do.
Scientists have discovered that the formula behind Google PageRank and how the search engine finds relevant information is very similar to the way we think, associate and remember.
It’s a truly remarkable discovery that makes a lot of sense once you think about it. Take the Google PageRank, for instance. Google determines a page’s rank or importance by the number of sites that link to it, as well as the importance of those sites and who links to them.
This means that if you have a website and 100 of your friends linked to your site from their sites, you might still have a somewhat low PageRank. This is because your friends are not really all that important in the larger scheme of the Internet. But, if you had a website and the New York Times and Newsweek linked to it, your PageRank would be pretty high, because those two sites are very important.
In this same way, our brains categorize information. Just think about all the nonsense you come across every day. Can’t? That’s because your brain has chosen to bury it in its depths; perhaps, on the 20th page of search results, for example.
Now try to recall what you were told on your last performance review. It’s all coming in crystal clear, isn’t it?
What’s most interesting to me about all of this is that we are learning about our brain function from formulas we (well not me, and probably not you… most likely someone much smarter) created for a search engine.
As an article in World Science pointed out through quoting this month’s issue of the research journal Psychological Science, the approach of the scientists who discovered this similarity “indicates how one can obtain novel models of human memory by studying the properties of successful information retrieval systems, such as Internet search engines.”
The article goes onto to say that, likewise, programmers developing new applications for search engines are “likely to find good solutions by studying the mind.”Labels: Google, Internet, seo
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Google's Advertising Paradox
Friday, October 19, 2007
So here's an interesting notion: Google has built its empire on its Google ads yet Google itself, probably the most famous brand of our time, does not and has not ever invested significantly into its own advertising.
So in the olden days, before we "googled" everything, how did we find out about Google? Why did we use it instead of Yahoo or Alta Vista (remember them?!)? From what I can recall, it mostly started by word of mouth. I heard about Google from the mother of the children I used to baby sit. She told me that a silly little thing called "google.com" is the best search engine! "Google?" I asked. "Really? What a stupid name."
But the name stuck in my mind and when I came home that night, I gave Google a go. To my surprise, Google was fantastic. I told all my friends about it and we, along with the rest of the world, have been googling ever since.
I imagine that this was the experience most had and what lead to Google's sprint to the top of the search engine food chain. The AP's Michael Liedtke pointed out in an article on this topic that rather than throwing money into frivolous advertising, Google put its dollars directly to its actual business, which involved perfecting the art of search.
"This advertising aversion has freed up money for engineers, computing hardware and other resources that fuel Google's search engine while leaving plenty of profit to keep shareholders happy and lift the company's stock ever higher."
Google serves as an example for many aspects of business. Its unique approach to marketing, however, is worthy of exploration for any professional in this industry. The key lesson from this particular advertising model, or lack there of, is that quality will always overcome being bombarded with a company's message.
Back when I was baby sitting, literal word of mouth had much more longevity. Before I heard about Google, I would have to actually ask my friends' opinions of things in order to gain perspective on them. Now, all you have to do is go online and you can get the opinions of millions.
The bottom line is a company's main concern, in its beginning stages especially, needs to be the quality of its product or service. Once that is perfected, they can think about giving us a call. Labels: advertising, Adwords, Google, Internet, Marketing, Public Relations, search
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
1 comments
The Growing Internet
Friday, October 12, 2007
Yesterday, a bylined article on the topic of our soon-to-be antiquated Internet infrastructure was published on CNET by Michael Keenan from UC San Diego. In it, Keenan stressed the significance of the fact that in the near future, the Web will no longer hold the demand that we are putting on it.
Michael explained that when the Internet was created, its size and use was undermined, but the limitations of the structure were not truly felt until recently. After all, it was not that long ago that we used the World Wide Web for just email. Now-a-days, we use it for pretty much everything. In Keenan's words, "[t]he Internet has gone from a complement to everyday living to a principal platform for business and personal activities."
While his article went down the path of discussing the sad state of broadband in the U.S., which, by the way, is in 15th place worldwide, behind countries like South Korea, I would like to go back to this notion of the Internet's importance in our role as influencers. I think this idea is hard for some to grasp because those Internet-free days or days of it being "a complement" are not too far gone. Yet, it is undeniable, we don't just use it to stay in touch with family and friends, but for essentially any information that we need. At which restaurant to eat; how to get there; and what to do afterwards. We decide all these things and more from the information we get online.
This is why it is crucial to have an optimized website. Meaning, your site needs to come up in search results that are initiated by words that are associated with your business. What am I talking about? For kicks, try typing "pr firm" into Google. In the first 2 pages of Google results, you will find 3 or 4 actual PR firms, one of them is Connors Communications. Is it such a leap to say that many businesses begin their search for a PR firm just this way?
In another article in MediaPost, Anand Subramanian writes about the concept of "The Long Tail" and its importance to advertising. He references eMarketer's 2006 report that found that "Internet users spent 61% of their time online outside of the top 20 domains, which includes most major social networking sites and web portals."
For advertising, it means that media buyers need to spend money outside of the top 20, and for public relations professionals, it means that we have to channel these niche markets with as much vigor, if not more, than those top 20.
But don't panic! This should come as a relief. Of those top 20, perhaps half are actual news sites like The New York Times and Google News. We all know the challenge in getting placements in this type of media. What these results indicate is that by compiling a list of relevant and attainable blogs and niche news sites, our PR campaigns can be even more effective than hitting the New York Times once or twice. Labels: Internet, new media, optimization, Public Relations, search, The Long Tail, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Blogs Surpass Newspapers
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
"It is a press, certainly, but a press from which shall flow in inexhaustible streams" - Johannes Gutenberg Whether you believe mass printing developed in Europe or Asia, there is no debating that movable type transformed society. The written word then went digital, and the information revolution was born. The sheer volume of data accessible today online has long since surpassed anyone's imagination. Yet for the better half of a decade, publishing on the World Wide Web remained exclusive to those technically savvy enough to deal with obscure acronyms like HTML and FTP. To some, it was no easier than dealing with picas and pigments. Today, that time has come and gone. Blogs, which are really no more than chronological journal posts, have transformed the Internet. Indeed, they have altered the media and therefore our very view of the world. Even if someone still has never read a blog, the fact that influential reporters both read and write their own blogs have shaped the mainstream media... which means they ultimately affect the economy, politics, and somehow our everyday lives. Today, user demand has caught up with the marketing hype. More people searched today for blogs than for newspapers according to Google Trends. 
Many in old media may still hope that blogs are just a passing fad. Sure, the term "blog" may one day become passé, but the inexhaustible streams of everyone's own virtual press cannot be silenced. There is no going back, as Gutenberg would surely have attested. Labels: blog, Internet, media
posted by Adam Edwards
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Blogging in China
Friday, August 24, 2007
The evolution of Web 2.0 is interesting to track in the West, but it is sometimes even more fascinating to learn about how countries like China, which does not support free speech, fine-tune advancements to align with their censorship. During the past couple of days, stories have surfaced on blogging in China. Obviously, the anonymity available to bloggers is a threat to communist societies and so the Chinese government has "recommended" that bloggers not only refrain from posting "bad" material, but also register under their legal names with providers of blogging technology. Among these providers are companies like Yahoo and Microsoft, who have agreed to the stipulations. Of course, these "recommendations" are nothing short of laws, and are probably enough to deter most bloggers from posting ill thoughts on their government. But this censorship is nothing new. The information exchange on the Internet in China is not only limited through blog content, but also through blocking specific sites. For example, if you type "Tiananmen Square" into Google in China, you will not see any links associated with the 1989 protests. Instead, you will find tourist information and neutral historical references. Though this is outrageous from our American perspective, this technological feat is impressive. After all, in terms of population, China is the largest country in the world and the second largest, after the U.S., for Internet users. Some condemn Google and the like for cooperating with Chinese officials to accomplish this task. However, one has to consider what it would mean if Google would refuse. Would it lead the Chinese government to reconsider its policies? Perhaps. But most likely, it would lead them to find other companies willing to perform the task, making for poorer access to all the unrestricted information online. Labels: blog, Google, Internet, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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The Popularity of a Website
Friday, July 13, 2007
This week, Neilson/NetRatings announced that website hits will no longer count towards the popularity of a website. Instead, the amount of time spent on a site, termed “Total Minutes” and “Total Sessions”, will be analyzed to determine rank. Why the switch? Many sites now use technologies like online video and programming languages like Ajax, which require a visitor to spend more time on a site in order for their visit to count. Neilson is of course not the first to recognize time as a factor. Hitwise and comScore have long been measuring it along with page views and others. comScore spokesperson, Andrew Lipsman, explained, We have a host of metrics, and you can theoretically rank on any one of them. It’s just important to examine the space that you’re looking at and maybe determine what the most appropriate metric to use would be. That makes sense, and I am not the only one who seems to agree. Online advertising experts quoted in Louis Hau’s Forbes article voiced their concern about Neilson’s bold move citing that while more than just page views are relevant for Web 2.0, it is not to say that the measurement is all together irrelevant. Hau goes on to address the growth of the online advertising space (up 28% from last year), but reminds us that it is still just 6% of the entire industry. Not surprisingly, our eyes on the Internet are more easily monitored than for any other medium and it might take years to sort through all the available data and figure out what metrics are truly valid. In the midst of all this talk about advertising, PR is inadvertently part of the dialogue. We also need to know the popularity of a site, just as we need to know the circulation of a print publication. A distinct science for this is still clearly in the making. In the meantime, we are advancing in our knowledge of reaching an audience online. In our world, we would argue that page views, for example, still hold a lot of merit as reading a blog or a 500 word article can take no time at all. Labels: advertising, Internet, Marketing, pr, Public Relations, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Google’s Public Voice
Friday, June 22, 2007
This week, Google launched a public policy blog on which Andrew McLaughlin, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, shares his thoughts. And for this blog, Google is facilitating a conversation by permitting comments. McLaughlin blogged: Yes, we're a multinational corporation that argues for our positions before officials, legislators, and opinion leaders. At the same time, we want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we're saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies. Looking at this from the PR point of view, one has to wonder how much of this dialogue is driven by the negative press Google has received lately on issues of privacy. Whether or not I feel Google is truly a culprit, comments on blogs are an excellent PR tool and I commend Google’s efforts. The blog itself also creates a great buffer zone for allegations by providing Google with a distinct voice that can comment almost instantly. Only time will tell if Google is truly proactive in its crisis communications; yet, something tells me that we will not be disappointed. I predict a chapter on Google in PR 101 text books of the future, if there is not one already. From the other PR perspective - that being the emergence of new media - it doesn’t take a fortuneteller to foresee that if Andrew keeps up with relevant news and posts with a consistent frequency, this blog has the potential to become a true authority on public policy matters. So this could very well be the birth of actual media being generated by Google. For example, news could be broken right on this blog. So the outcome of this blog clearly holds vast possibilities for us PR folks. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping tabs, taking notes and offering insight as this experiment unfolds. Labels: blog, crisis communications, Google, Internet, Marketing, media, new media
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
0 comments
Google Ogling
Friday, June 15, 2007
The issue of privacy is once again at the tips of our tongues and the culprit is, of course, the all mighty Google. One complaint revolves around the new Google Street View the other about why the company must store our information for 18 months, which was reduced from up to 24 months just this week. First, let’s examine Street View. Google went around some major US cities and snapped photographs of just about every inch of them on street level with a camera that was strapped onto a car. The images captured are now available for public viewing. What’s the purpose? You can check out a neighborhood virtually if you are, let’s say, moving there from far away or simply want to get a feel for the area where you will be having dinner tonight. In Tuesday’s Time article on this topic, Stephen Chau, product manager for Google Maps, describes one of his favorite and most practical uses of the service as checking out the street signs where he parked his car that evening to make sure that he won’t wake up to a parking ticket. So what is all the hoopla about? Well… obviously, some photos that were taken are a bit embarrassing (guy peeing on the side of the road) and some might even jeopardize reputations (guy climbing a fence, seemingly breaking into a building). In the Time article, Kevin Bankston, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said “We don't think what Google's done here is necessarily illegal, though a few images may cross the line and may create liability. It's more that they've done something that's really irresponsible and rude to people.” So is it really all Google’s fault that people behave this way? Should the people themselves not be held accountable for their own actions? Google has an explanation as well. Chau contends, “Street View only features imagery taken on public property and is not real time. This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.” Google also plans to blur out the faces of people captured in Street View, securing their anonymity. And what about Google saving our IP addresses in relation to our search queries for 18 months? This past week, Google received a complaint from the Working Party, which is a group of privacy policy advisors for the European Union. In response, Google made the change from storing the information for 18 – 24 months to just 18 months. Yet some are still concerned about this length of time. The other day, we were discussing this very issue in our office. Our SEO guru and Connors Vice President, Mike Levin, was explaining that privacy simply cannot be regarded with the same standards of even 10 years ago. This is our sacrifice to technology. But it’s not as dramatic as it sounds… 1984 is in the past after all and Google is hardly big brother. But I will say that it is always beneficial to have people on both extremes, fighting the “what ifs” and keeping Google and the like in line. Labels: Connors Communications, Internet
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
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Building Brands Online: The Power of the Internet
Friday, March 16, 2007
The Viacom lawsuit against Google's YouTube will perhaps bring us closer to identifying the influencing role the Internet plays in our lives today. With Viacom's main concern being that its clips are generating an obscene amount of advertising revenue for Google, it seems that Viacom is naively wondering: What is this "internet"? Surely, when the case begins to get under way, an examination into the benefits of these MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon clips (reported in the New York Times to be seen an estimated 1.5 billion times) will reveal that this exposure is actually increasing these channels' viewership. Furthermore, in a recent Online Media Daily article, Gavin O'Malley quotes Eileen Naughton, Google's New York regional sales director, commenting on YouTube's revenue. Naughton explains that "the ad effect has not even begun to be felt. There is no well-built-out [business] model for YouTube right now." Perhaps the real issue being put to the test here is the power of persuasion over the Internet. The media is only recently getting the message. USA Today revamping its website to allow users to comment on articles is a clear indication that this thing called the "internet" is forcing all forms of business to do an about face. So is Viacom just scared of change and is this lawsuit a last attempt to shoo this big bad Internet away? Maybe. But maybe this is Viacom's attempt to get a good deal out of Google. Their way of haggling, if you will. Because, even the Viacom executives, who might not scout YouTube on a regular basis, have to understand that having their material absent from YouTube will only reduce their viewership as our generation has entertainment options that extend far beyond MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon. Labels: Google, Internet, media, Viacom, Youtube
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
1 comments
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