Ultimate Connection final-list

Though they may never be mentioned by name on the financial news networks, small businesses have a huge impact. In fact, according to the Small Business Administration, a U.S. government agency, small businesses were responsible for more than half of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) of $11,712,500,000,000 in 2004.

That’s not chump change.

We like the kind of gutsy people who take a chance in small biz, because that’s how Yahoo! was born. Jerry Yang and David Filo originally started this little enterprise called Yahoo! Inc., now 13,000-odd (very odd) Yahoos strong, out of a trailer on the campus of Stanford University in Northern California.

The Big Five
Our passion for small businesses is one of the reasons that we got into the Small Business business to begin with—yes, we sell shovels to gold miners—and it’s one of the reasons we’re sponsoring the Ultimate Connection.

The five finalists for the Ultimate Connection have been chosen, and we want you to have a part in deciding the winners. Here are the five small businesspeople who stood out from the thousands of entries we received:

Glen Halliday, who builds custom “crooked houses” that make children smile.

Chris Pratt, a start-small entrepreneur with a big sweet tooth.

Melissa Belland, who has brought the fantasy world of the fairies to real life.

Elena Neitlich, who offers help for hard working moms, by hard working moms.

Mike Willner, an inventor who has taken typing to a whole new level.

Each one of these entrepreneurs shows a passion not just for the business of business, but for what their businesses share with their customers. Now it’s up to you to decide which three of these five will get the proverbial Golden Ticket to New York to meet with Ivanka Trump, enjoy a power lunch high above the city, and receive a $25,000 Yahoo! Search Marketing budget.

Go to the Ultimate Connection website and vote for your favorite.

—Michael Mattis

SMX Advanced wasn’t just for Search Marketers 

We attended the inaugural SMX Advanced conference in Seattle last week and came away impressed with Danny Sullivan’s ability to mount a quality confab. While most of the sessions were geared toward pro-SEOs and SEMs, the main thrust—how to get more users to visit your site—was definitely useful for publishers as well. Especially noteworthy for publishers on a budget was the session on SMM, or social media marketing, which offered many low-cost and no cost tips on how to promote your site through social media services like Flickr, Yahoo! Answers, del.icio.us and many others.

Skip over to our sister site, the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog, and get the skinny.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Cap’n

Ultimate Connection Entry Deadline next Wednesday, May 30 

If you’re like me you’re always waiting until the last minute. In fact, if I hadn’t spent so much time straightening my paper clips and refilling my Swingline stapler, I’d have posted this blog entry two hours ago and could’ve gone home early.

Sadly, the deadline for entries for the Ultimate Connection Contest is not as flexible as my deadline for getting this post live. You remember the Ultimate Connection, right? That’s where you could be one of three lucky small business owners who will win:

• An executive meeting with Ivanka Trump
• A $25,000 Yahoo! Search Marketing budget
• A power lunch with your marketing mentor in New York City
• Access to your marketing mentor and a Yahoo! Search marketing mentor throughout the year
• A web site makeover from Yahoo! Small Business and FastPivot

The deadline for your 500-word essay on what your business needs to succeed and how the Ultimate Connection can help you achieve it is May 30, 2007 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. So, unless you want your life to feel like a scene in “Little Miss Sunshine,” you might want to think about getting started on your essay now.

For more details, check out the Ultimate Connection website.

—The Team

Danny Sullivan’s SMX Advanced conference looks to raise the bar

Long-time search engine guru and former Search Engine Watch editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan has been working the panels at SES for as long as anyone can remember. (Which, in Internet time, translates to about five years.) With his new ventures, Search Engine Land and Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Danny’s working to bring himself, and—by proxy—your search knowledge, to the next level. It’s good for publishers as well as advertisers.

Next month, Danny kicks off his first SMX confab, SMX Advanced, in Seattle, June 4 and 5. Don’t let the “expo” in SMX fool you… SMX Advanced promises to be one tight little summit, where attendees will have direct access to some of the best minds in the search world.

Session highlights include:

Monday, June 4
Paid Search Roundtable
Get the latest direct from the major paid search providers, and then grill them mercilessly in an extended discussion period. Stewart Easterby VP, Sales Operations, Yahoo! Search Marketing, will be on hand.

SEO, Meet SMM
Danny Sullivan moderates this panel on the new phenom, SMM, or “social media marketing.” Getting your content into social media can help generate links or provide rankings that you might not be able to tap into with your own site. Among the panelists is linkbaiting champ and sometime YPN Blog contributor, Rand Fishkin.

Yahoo! Search Marketing Networking Reception
The drinks and nosh are on us, but it’s strictly BYOI—”bring your own ideas.”

Tuesday, June 5
Pump Up Your Paid Search!
Learn tips and techniques designed to help pros like you get more out of their paid search campaigns.

Paid Search: The Giant Focus Group
Now’s your chance to tell representatives from the major search ad providers what they should fix, what new features they should provide, and so forth. Come share your ideas with John C. Kim, Senior Director, Advertiser Product Marketing, Yahoo! Search Marketing, among others.

Give It Up!
In this session, a panel of noted SEOs, including occasional YPN blog contributor Jen Slegg, share some of their favorite and largely overlooked SEO tips. Shhh! No blogging allowed from this session!

Finally, be sure to visit us at the Yahoo! Search Marketing team at booth number 23. Hope to see you there!

—Michael Mattis. Blogonator

EconSM offers the excloo on monetization in Beverly Hills

There are confabs and there are confabs. “Expos” are usually the biggest, “summits” the most intimate. In between there are conferences, conventions, shows, rallies, meet-ups, colloquies, gabfests, coffee klatches and… name your synonym. “Boutique conference” has a nice, upper crust ring to it.

That might be the best way to describe the Economics of Social Media (EconSM) conference at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills last week. A stone’s throw from the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club to the west and chic Rodeo Drive to the east, EconSM was as about as boutique as you can get. You almost expected Thurston Howell III to waltz through at any moment and exclaim, “Good heavens, a Yale man!”

As the name implies, EconSM centered on monetizing social media, a thing Mr. Howell would have loved. During the sessions, speakers noted the three basic ways to generate cash from social media (i.e., applications like flickr or del.icio.us that allow users to interact with one another and with your content, products or services). These are:

• Advertising
• Subscriptions
• Merchandise (t-shirts, hats, mugs, pocket squares, monogrammed poodle accessories, custom golf tees and so forth)

Of course, we’re naturally a little biased toward the first, but we’re open to diversification. Regardless of whether you’re planning on building and monetizing your own full-bore social media app, or are planning on piggy-backing off of existing social media services in order to drive traffic, it’s vital that you explore the potential of this new medium.

Here are the best session quotes that filled our ears:

“If people are hungry enough… they’ll eat dog food.”—Kara Swisher in a variation on the charming business phrase, “Eating your own dog food.”

 

“There is no algorithm for conversations.”—John Batelle, in reference to his company’s need to educate media buyers on how to measure the value of social media networks.

For more on EconSM, here are two good reports from our friends over at paidContent.org:

Making Marketing Desirable for Social Nets

 

Social Networks Need to Tap Users’ Passions through Niche Brands

—Marc Levin, Marketing Maven

Photo Credit: Rafat Ali
 

Don’t Give Community the High Hat 

Big conferences don’t necessarily bring big surprises, especially in these days of geek overload and marketing hyperbole. But if you look hard enough you can find a few real gems of insight here and there.

Case in point: the Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco last week. A solid show, to be sure, with lots of heavy-hitting keynoters and sharp-eyed exhibition-hall pitch-masters (as a well as a few characters, like The Human Creativity Project’s Julian Cash, at right). But the most practical tips for publishers were to be found in the sessions and workshops, and in the special and semi-spontaneous un-conference called Web2.0pen that went on in the wings.

While there were a number of good panels and presentations, a few stood out as exceptional.

The first was Media 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Transforming Traditional Media. This panel discussion was moderated by one of our favorite bloggers, Charlene Li from Forrester Research, joined by Gabe Rivera from TechMeme, Ted Shelton, who went from Personal Bee to Technorati just before the Expo, and Rich Skrenta of Topix.

Li opened the proceedings asking the now seemingly age-old question, “Whither traditional media?” Shelton offered that we are entering an era in which anyone can be a web publisher, and that as publishers we’re more often curating rather them developing or even aggregating content that appeals to users, whether it is user-generated or generated by other publishers. “Mobile Internet,” Shelton added, “will put the final nail in the coffin of print newspapers. Once you have a good reading experience, print will be done.”

All the panelists agreed that “audience aggregation” has surpassed content aggregation in importance. “Build your audience by focusing on their content needs, and everything else follows” was the mantra. The key? Curate your content from enthusiastic providers such as bloggers and users who are keen on your subject, and write about it for the love of it and for the glory of being heard.

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Or, how I learned stop worrying and love the future at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, April 15 to 18

I’m pretty much a sucker for anything with “two-point-oh” (”2.0″) in the title. At this point it’s almost embarrassing. It comes from the fact that I was once on staff at the trendy business news magazine, “Business 2.0,” where we embraced (and pimped) the so-called New Economy and made up all sort of new rules to go with it. It was 2.0 tons of fun.

The New Economy didn’t quite pan out the way our little cabal of idealists had envisioned, but there’s still a lot to it. Take this whole Web 2.0 thing. Some say that Web 2.0 is to the Internet what string theory is to physics—a pretty theory that can’t be proven in practice. I ought to be jaded about it, but actually I’m pretty jazzed.

Web 2.0, to borrow lingo from the fellow who first coined the term, “is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”

Yep, that’s a nice sounding theory all right. But in practice it means enabling users to do their thing—create new content and communities of interest through wikis, blogging, social bookmarking, v-casting and the whole plethora of social media—while learning to make a buck or two off of it where you can. It’s not unlike selling picks and shovels to gold miners. Got a problem with that? Then move back to the Soviet Union, pal.

Anyway, this is a round-about way to get you excited about next week’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, where you’ll be able to learn some of the tricks of the Web 2.0 trade from some of the best 2.0 minds. This is not your ordinary theory conference, but a get-your-hands dirty, networking-heavy, learning confab-gabfest designed to show you where the Web is going and, possibly, where the money is going, too. Highlights and Yahoo! appearances include: 

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Battle of the Sexes Networking Stars

Yahoo! Publisher Network attended the BlogHer Business ‘07 conference, March 22 and 23, in NYC and lent our support to a growing business blogging segment that’s finding a lot of value in having dynamic, two-way discussions with its customers and potential customers, the media and influencers. 

One of the alluring things about an “un-conference conference” like this is the opportunity for attendees to network with one another in an environment that encourages the sharing of ideas. BlogHer manages to fulfill on that promise, and does it with a passion that is virtually unrivaled in the industry. Perhaps because almost everyone had something in common—most of the attendees were, of course, women. Not all though; and one of your Yahoo! Publisher Network correspondents, despite his gender, was welcomed warmly.

Two of the sessions really stood out from the publisher standpoint:

The Social Media Press Release
This was an excellent presentation that plotted the shift from the old method of issuing a press release to a new one that takes advantage of social media tools to provide press and other outlets with more dynamic source material. These methods include RSS feeds, video, Skype, photos on flickr, digg, del.icio.us, and so forth.

The take-away: Anyone wanting to promote an online offering really should be diligent about employing these services and keep up on emerging trends in social media. Check out the Social Media Newsroom Template (.pdf) provided by Shift Communications’ Julie Crabill.

How to Measure Social Media ROI
Measuring the ROI (return on investment) of blogging should not be limited to sales alone. You’ll want to look at other positive benefits, including: reputation management, daisy-chain effects (one thing leads to another, and to another, and ultimately provides a business with more opportunities), being involved in your market conversation, leading the discussion among your audiences, gleaning speaking engagements and so on.

In addition, our Yahootini party went over with a bang and we have the pictures to prove it.

Special thanks to the BlogHer team. It was a home-run event and we look forward to seeing you all again in Chicago in July for the next BlogHer conference, not limited to business blogging. Whether you’re a BlogHer or a BlogHim, you could not pick a better conference to attend in the business blogging space

—Robin Zucker, Marketing Director and Marc Levin, Marketing Maven

Avenue A | Razorfish wins award for “Choose Chase”

Last month we had the pleasure of presenting the good folks at Avenue A | Razorfish as the winner of the 2007 Yahoo! Searchlight Award for their work on the “Choose Chase” campaign.

It was our second year putting on the Yahoo! Searchlight Award showcase, which is highlighted by our top agency partners duking it out for the best advertising campaign that utilize search marketing. The awards are our way of celebrating the creativity and innovation of our search agency partners. Whoever says search isn’t creative, thought-provoking and innovative hasn’t had the pleasure of seeing our clients’ incredible work. We really couldn’t have been prouder of this year’s finalists.

This year Avenue A | Razorfish demonstrated that search campaigns can be used to build brand awareness, and that the message in search creative matters. This campaign made the case for developing “branding” search ads for high-volume keywords. Avenue A | Razorfish proved that a campaign building awareness around their client’s credit card program through search could be just as useful as one that drives users to sign up for the program.
 

Furthermore, the search creative reflected the branding messaging that was used in other media, both digital and analog. This is an incredibly powerful lesson, as the credit card acquisition space has historically been laser-focused on direct response metrics. The winning Avenue A | Razorfish campaign “shines a light” on a new strategy for measuring the power of search marketing as an awareness-building medium.

The other worthy finalists this year were:

• “Sprint-Talladega Nights,” presented by NeoSearch ‘
• “Special K,” presented by Leo Burnett
• “Lexus. All-new LS Launch, Unprecedented,” presented by Team One

All of the finalists presented  interesting, powerful campaigns, which were augmented by their search marketing components. For example, Leo Burnett’s offline advertising included TV spots, prints ads (in magazines like Shape and People), and re-branded cereal boxes, which all highlighted a very specific call to action: Search Special K at Yahoo!

Yahoo! implemented a custom-branded placement at the top of the search results page for searches on “Special K,” and the links drove users to SpecialK.com and the “Better in ’07” Yahoo! Health pages sponsored by Special K for an engaging brand experience. 

Team One’s Lexus campaign maximized the effectiveness of its online advertising with a holistic search and display campaign that echoed offline brand advertising.

All told, these integrated campaign strategies reveal how well search can work with a wide array of marketing needs. With all the progress we’ve made as an industry, we’re convinced there are still many new ways to make search useful for brands. I am sure that next year we’ll celebrate a new round of ground-breaking ideas that will push the industry further ahead. 

We plan to announce the call for entries in the Fall for next year’s awards, so stay tuned.

— Ron Belanger, VP, Agency Development

 
 

Audience Building Lessons form SXSW

South by South West: What a week! Music, internet and film all rolled into one overwhelming “un-conference conference,” punctuated by official and unofficial parties every night throughout downtown Austin. Standouts from the week included sessions on ad networks for web publishers, a case study on the lonelygirl15 phenomenon and mobilizing the masses with SMS, winner of “Best use of an alliteration in a SXSW session” two years running

I also managed to catch a SXSW Jury Award winning documentary called, An Audience of One, directed by Michael Jacobs, two musical performances from Chris Pierce and a kick-butt set from The Little Ones at “Yahoo! Bar Tab.”

But perhaps the most interesting from a publisher’s perspective was the lonelygirl15 case-study (I never caught onto the craze). Namely, just how did they create the following, initially? If you looked at the lonelygirl15 vlogs they weren’t necessarily stand-outs among all other other vlogs that launched daily on YouTube. According to the case study, lonelygirl115 gained popularity through means that seem pretty clever but which almost anyone with enough time and diligence can employ:

1. lonelygirl15 began ‘friending’ other YouTube users, creating a social network.
2. lonelygirl15, or its producers, next sought out popular videos and began commenting on them with regularity (creating name-recognition among an even broader audience of those who are viewing these popular videos.
3. lonelygirl15 began posting “her” own videos and her “friends” began posting responses and the masses who view popular videos linked through to her after reading her previous comments…the rest is history….huge traffic and a loyal fan-base.

The power of social networks helped lonelygirl15 reach the critical mass. Once lonelygirl15 was “outed” and everyone discovered that she was an actress, the episodic adventure changed and it has now become an “ARG” or Alternate Reality Game in which the vlog has its viewers attempt to solve mysteries along with the cast of the lonelygirl15 world. Like all ARG’s, lonelygirl15 blurs the lines between the real-world and fake world, but her fans are along for the ride.

Check out all the SXSW pictures on Flickr.

—Marc Levin, Marketing Maven