Erin Colbert

Facebook for Social SEO

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 07:18:30 -0700

BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO company, has written a great white paper on how to optimize Facebook for social SEO. Key takeaways:

Top 200 brands in the Fortune 500 rank 1st organically for their brand name, but 70% don’t rank in the first 20 results for Facebook fan pages
Optimize Facebook for social SEO:
- Link to your fan page from your website using your company name as the anchor text
- Frequently use your brand name in your posts
- Getting more “likes” increases authority because you get links to your fan page from other user profiles
- Add a fan box widget to your website or blog to drive social engagement
- “Shares” is the number 1 social factor for search rankings so add Facebook functionality to share and like other pages on your website that could drive social engagement (i.e. blog, videos, etc.)
- Create sub-pages on your Facebook profile that are optimized for search and inter-link them back to relevant pages on your website
- Give your website a healthy dose of Facebook kool-aid to increase user interaction by adding more social plugins to your site - comments, activity feed, recommendations, and login

Using Facebook Lists and Setting Privacy Rules

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:56:44 -0700

I’m always surprised when I talk to people about Facebook privacy rules and they tell me they don’t use friend lists to manage their connections. I often get requests from professional connections that I may not know that well in the real world. Some people choose not to accept those friend requests, but I’ve opted to accept some and set privacy rules for how they can interact with me and what they can see on my profile.

For example, my professional contacts can only see my business email and phone number, while close friends and family have my personal number and address. So here’s a quick rundown on how to set up Facebook lists and set your privacy rules.

1. Create a List of Friends

Click on the “Friends” link under your profile photo, then choose “Edit Friends” in the top right corner. Click the “Create a List” button - pick a name for your list and the friends you want in the list. I’m super organized so I have a list for friends, friends of friends, friends from school, work, etc. Start by thinking about what information you’d want to share with groups of people and create groups based on those segments.

2. Set Privacy Settings for Friend Lists

On your Account drop-down in the top right corner, select “Privacy Settings” and then “Customize Settings.” Facebook gives you the option to customize who can see and comment on things you share, things on your wall and things you’re tagged in. From my earlier example, this is where I can choose my “Address” and then make it visible only to my Family and Friends list.

3. Keep it Updated

Yes, Facebook privacy rules are known to change over time so be sure to keep your lists up to date and review your settings every 3-6 months. I’ve made it a good practice to add friends to a list when I add them as a connection or accept a friend request. This way I don’t have to go back into my list settings every time I’ve got a new friend.

Photo credit: massimobarbieri

SF Startup Marketing Meetup Group

Wed, 18 May 2011 23:07:57 -0700

I attended a Mozilla Labs meetup event a few months back and loved the format. About 6 startups each presented for 10 minutes on how they scaled their applications. Each one presented a great story on the tools and technology they used and how the team worked together to build great products.

I started thinking about connecting with other marketers in a similar fashion so went looking for other meetup groups with startup marketers, but I couldn’t find any. Sure, there were marketing groups about all sorts of interesting topics, but none specifically focused on the challenges we face as startups. Thus, the SF Startup Marketing meetup group was born.

Traditional marketing sucks! No budget, no resources, just pure creativity and innovation is what startup marketing is all about. You love it. You thrive on it.

Join the SF startup marketing meetup group and share your successes (and failures), how you executed them and what you learned with the group.

Each meetup we’ll pick a new topic and have marketers present their stories. Topics might include acquiring customers, demand creation, blogging, analytics and measuring marketing effectiveness, social media marketing, optimization, search engine marketing, building an affiliate program, viral marketing, community building, and generally how to do more with less.

Both B2B and B2C marketers are welcome. It’s definitely an “in-the-trenches” kind of meetup group where it’s not just about trends and strategy, but how marketers are actually executing and the technology we’re using.

If you want to meet other marketers like yourself then join the meetup group and help us plan our first event!

4 New(ish) Travel Sites I Can't Live Without

Fri, 06 May 2011 07:37:12 -0700

I’m a travel nut and I’ve got 4 new(ish) travel sites (most have only been around for a year or two) that I just can’t live without right now. I’m trying to plan all of my summer activities and vacations and these sites are huge time savers and super handy.

JetSetter

The sexiest travel site on the planet! This site was made for me and my style - luxury travel deals at great discounts all curated by trusted Jetsetters like me. The flash sales are the best part with deals on great boutique, unique, and resort locations. They typically last around 7 days so you have to think and act fast to snag it up. Because the deals are for luxury properties don’t expect to pay dirt cheap prices, however you can get amazing hotel deals for $100-$400 per night.

JetSetter puts their stamp of approval on every flash sale and writes a lengthy review about their experience at the property. It adds a level of confidence that they really stand behind the deals they offer and it’s not just about filling excess inventory. JetSetter is owned by the fashion deal site Gilt Groupe in New York.

SniqueAway

Just like JetSetter they also offer member only travel deals on a-list accommodations. Because they’re owned by the TripAdvisor media group, they integrate with TripAdvisor comments, though no curated content from employees. JetSetter has the leg up on 2 fronts - user experience and trusted advisor. However, SniqueAway has potential and I believe they just recently launched so they have some time to work things out.

Hipmunk

I first heard about them from Dharmesh’s article, 9 ways to disrupt and hipmunk and industry, and kept meaning to check it out. I finally did, switched from Kayak and won’t be heading back anytime soon. Who would have thought yet another travel booking site could change the user experience so drastically, but we’re going to see this a lot in the travel space over the next few years. Good designers are in high demand, but those that are exceptional are creating seamless ui and when applied to the travel space create disruptive results.

With Hipmunk they’ve simplified the search and display of airline travel to a visual grid system with a few filiters by price, duration, number of stops and, my favorite, agony - a mix of all 3. They’ve tackled the hotel booking space too, but this part still needs some work. All this with just 7 guys, some angel funding and super cute chipmunk as a mascot.

Gogobot

I just recently learned of Gogobot and have to say at first I was like, ‘oh no, not another travel review site.’ But, Gogobot is different and addictive. It connects with Facebook and Foursquare to pull in your checkins and add them to your passport where you can showcase all of the places you’ve been - cities, hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants, and activities. You add reviews - just like Yelp, but for travel - and then share them with friends. I’ve added 14 countries, 63 cities, 64 spots and 3 reviews in the past few days and I’m just getting started. I have an obsession now with getting all of my travel history into Gogobot because it’s now become my digital passport. I want to look up places I’ve been to revisit or share those reviews with friends.

Unfortunately, one of the most powerful features of Gogobot, getting a different user experience based on your friends reviews, isn’t as useful to me yet because I only has 4 friends on the service - it’s in beta. But they make that pretty easy too - I’ve recruited all my friends who love to travel through Facebook.

Now, what I would love is if Gogobot starts showing deals from JetSetter and SniqueAway for the locations I’ve visited and want to visit. It would also be cool to curate my own itineraries, alone or with friends, like the Santa Cruz Mountain Winery passport event coming up. We could share our reviews for the best wineries and get other friends to come with us.

Any travel sites you can’t live without?

My Summer Bucket List

Mon, 02 May 2011 07:52:10 -0700

This weekend we had the most amazing weather and based on what everyone has told me about San Francisco in the summer, I made the most of it because I’m not sure how long it will last. When I was little, my sister would come and visit every summer and right before she would come we’d make a list of all the things we wanted to do over the few months she was here. While enjoying brunch at the ferry building yesterday I started thinking about my summer bucket list.

Kayaking in Sausalito

Warren has still never been kayaking and every year we keep saying we’re going to go. I love kayaking in Elkhorn Slough, but I’d like to try something new with him so we’re going to finally make it happen in Sausalito.

Russian River wine tasting

We’ve been to Sonoma, Napa, and the Santa Cruz mountain wineries so now we’re going to try the Russian River. It’s just slightly northwest of Sonoma and I hear has some amazing white wines - perfect for the summer tastings.

Alcatraz tour

Yup, lived here my whole life and never been to the rock. Hopefully we’ll learn a little history along the way and be able to finally check this one off the list.

Tropical beach vacation (so far looking like Mexico)

I’ve been dying for a tropical beach vacation for the last year. I don’t need a whole week, just a few days of nothingness. It’s hard finding quick getaways from SF - Hawaii is 5 hours, Mexico is 5-6 hours, and then the Caribbean is 9+. I think we’ve settled on Mexico where we’ll lounge on the beach, by the pool, eat, drink, sleep and relax - that’s it.

Weekend trip to San Diego

We’ve been a few times now, but we’ve got a few friends living there now and it’s time to make a trip back for the weekend. What’s not to like about San Diego, plus I love a good road trip!

Visit the Central Park Zoo

Finally, I want to make it back to New York again this summer. Last year we had the most amazing trip visiting the Natural History museum and the Met. I love New York in the summer - hot and humid just like a nice warm blanket. I can’t wait to see the tropical rainforest exhibit and the big cats.

Photo credits: 350.org, La Amada, Alexandra Tinder

FANG Restaurant Review

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 08:03:43 -0700

Last night we wanted to try something new and decided to check out FANG on Howard Street. The owner, Peter Fang, personally came out to wait on our table when we arrived. No special occasion, but it was our first time to the restaurant for all five of us. We were getting ready to order when he asked if we had any food allergies. We said no and he asked - “if you trust me, I’ll serve you.” He was so welcoming of course we said yes.

The waitresses then proceeded to serve us 6 amazing courses that completed the best Chinese dinner I think I’ve ever had. It started with a shrimp, tomato, mushroom and cilantro salad drenched in sesame oil. Next, they brought out Chinese steamed beef buns with braised shortrib, pickled veggies and scalion ginger. As the entree, a mix of BBQ pork spareribs with pineapple honey garlic glaze, five spice whitefish with jade spinach, and the Nanking sesame chicken with sweet potatoes. We rounded it off sharing the sesame apple crisp stuffed and black sesame rice ball soup.

It was a great evening spent with friends and we’ll definitely be back for more - next time the steamed Shanghai soup dumplings! 5 stars for sure and we’ll also be visiting his second restaurant, the House of Nanking, in Chinatown soon.

ZocDoc - My New Must-Have App

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:08:00 -0700

We moved into a new place in San Francisco just a few months ago and it’s been non-stop ever since. I keep my to do list on Springpad and one of the items just lingering was finding a new doctor. I always like to be prepared in case of emergencies, but with work and moving there wasn’t much time to get things done. Of course it’s times like these when it rains….it pours. One allergy attack, ruptured cyst, and 2 cases of bronchitis later we’re back on track thanks to ZocDoc.

I’ve been telling everyone about it because you can find doctor reviews and book last minute appointments online and through the iPhone app. Every appointment I made was booked within 24 hours and in the middle of the night.

Best part yet was we found amazing doctors that totally fit our style. It’s probably because more modern doctors willing to embrace the technology are the early adopters, but you know that’s perfect for us!

To be honest, all the ‘Groupon for this’ and ‘photo sharing for that’ startups have been starting to get blurry in my sea of RSS. It’s refreshing to see a startup tackle a major real-world problem with a clean and crisp design. They’re clearly doing something right because I’m sharing it with you like I just found a new local hangout spot or scored a daily deal.

Hosting Webinars: A Start-to-Finish Checklist

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:38:46 -0700

I’ve hosted quite a few webinars now and thought I would share my checklist for planning and executing great webinars. Before you get started, you’ll need to decide on a topic.

Meet with your sales, product and support teams to find a topic for your webinar. A good place to start - questions that the sales team gets asked over and over again or questions asked multiple times in your support forum. These are great places to start because they represent a need for information in high demand direct from your customers. If your customers have these questions - pretty safe bet that others will be interested too.

☑ Schedule the webinar (at least 2-3 weeks out to give you time to prep)

☑ Create a landing page and registration form (don’t forget the social media sharing buttons)

☑ Send an email to your current customer base with link to registration

☑ Post the webinar announcement on your home page and blog

☑ Tell your Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn group members about the webinar

☑ If you’re running Google AdWords, create an ad group to promote the webinar

☑ Feature the webinar in your monthly newsletter

☑ Send out an email to your company announcing the webinar and asking employees to share it with their networks (give ‘lazy tweet’ examples to make it easy)

☑ Ask relevant partners to share the webinar with their audience

☑ Post a thread to your support forum announcing the webinar

☑ Coordinate a follow up plan with your sales team (who will respond, how, when to leads)

☑ Prepare your follow up emails in advance (segment not only by attended/not attended, but other segments like current customers/prospects, etc.)

☑ Create a promo code if you’ll be offering a webinar-only discount on your product

☑ Host a practice session 2-3 days prior to the webinar (there should be 3 people at minimum: (1) speaker, (2) someone monitoring questions, and (3) someone recording the presentation)

☑ Send a reminder email 2 days before the webinar

☑ Send a reminder email 4 hours before the webinar (I set these early because some email providers send in batches that don’t go out exactly when scheduled)

☑ Execute a flawless webinar!

☑ Pause your Google AdWords campaign now that it’s complete

☑ Post the recording and a copy of the slides on your website

☑ Write a blog article that recaps the presentation and answers key questions from the webinar (of course include a link to the recording and slides as a call to action)

☑ Close the loop on your company forum thread with link to recording and blog article

☑ Email all registrants using the emails you prepared in advance with the promo code

☑ Analyze webinar performance and include key metrics (total registered, total attended, questions asked, recording video views, etc.)

Anything I missed? Share your tips for executing great webinars.

Manager Schedule, Meet My Maker Schedule

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:12:46 -0700

I love Seth Godin. He has a pretty amazing job. He gets paid to be thought provoking, but he’s damn good at it. Sometimes when I read his blog I feel like I’m reading my horoscope or a fortune cookie. You know - that feeling you get when you read something that perfectly addresses a thought you’ve had, but never really put it into words until that moment? That’s what happened to me when I read his post (and Paul Graham’s post) today.

Online marketing as a discipline is both strategic and tactical. I, like I’m sure many other marketers experience, have to split my time between strategy and tactics - meetings and execution. Lately I’ve found the switching costs getting higher and higher, primarily because I’ve been getting pulled into more and more meetings at work. While it’s always fun to brainstorm new ideas and work on new projects, it leaves me with broken chunks of the day to follow through on those projects.

I realize that I’m caught between the manager and maker’s schedule.

While this gives me plenty of ideas on how to rework my own schedule, I’m curious about how this affects an organization in general. I know I’m not the only one getting caught in the middle. In Paul’s article he says,

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

What happens when multiple people at an organization are caught between the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule? What happens to creativity? To productivity? How many manager’s are calculating the true cost of meetings?

Newsletter Subject Line Testing

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:02:45 -0700

It’s that time of the month (no, not that time)…time to send my monthly newsletter. Iwas reviewing the results of my subject line test from February and found some interesting results. I tested whether including the word “Newsletter” in the subject of the email would have any effect on readership.

I was surprised to find that the email subject with the word “Newsletter” actually got a higher open rate, higher click through rate, and lower unsubscribe rate than the email that didn’t. I used Marketo to send the email using the 50/50 random sample function to over 30k emails which makes the test statistically significant.

Here are the results:

Email A - Subject does not include “Newsletter”

Open Rate: 12.28%

Click Through Rate (CTR): 1.83%

Unsubscribe Rate: 0.57%

Email B - Subject includes “Newsletter”

Open Rate: 13.86% (winner with 99.9% confidence)

Click Through Rate (CTR): 2.53% (winner with 99.9% confidence)

Unsubscribe Rate: 0.43% (winner with 95% confidence)

Conclusion

With all of the emails we get these days it’s nice to know exactly what you’re getting before you open it. Everyone on my list has opted in to receive our communications so clearly spelling out “hey, this is what you asked for” seems to work well. It’s a nice affirmation that keeping things honest with your customers pays off - even if in small ways.

Metrics Driven Design

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:49:52 -0700

I just got back from SXSW and am still trying to digest the vast amounts of information I took in at the event. This was by far the best tech conference I have been to yet. My favorite presentation was Metrics Driven Design by Joshua Porter, the VP of Customer Experience at Performable.

He asked us to think about our existing design as a mountain. Currently, our design is on the corner of the mountain. With optimization, we can get to the top of the mountain, but there is another mountain in the distance. This mountain is much taller than the mountain we are on and is where we strive to be. We can only switch mountains by rethinking our existing design.

Optimization asks: what works best in the current model? Design innovation asks: what is the best possible model?

There are five types of metrics Porter points out that designers (and marketers for that matter) should be measuring and they relate to the usage lifecycle. These are mission critical for most SaaS companies and start with an interested user, moves to a trial/beta user, then a customer and finally a passionate customer. These metrics just measure how well you move people along the usage lifecycle.

Acquisition metrics - CPA (cost per acquisition), revenue by channel, revenue by keyword
Conversion metrics - trials / conversion rate, conversion funnel analysis
Engagement metrics - pageviews, unique visitors, returning visitors, registered users, time on site, daily active users, cohort analysis
Satisfaction metrics - net promoter score
Emergent metrics - a critical metric that, when achieved, drives a desired action (i.e. when a user adds 5 friends in FriendFeed they become an ‘active user’ or Blogger identifying their critical metric as the number of posts per user)

I’ve identified a few metrics that I’ll be working to implement at Codesion, primarily the net promoter score and trial to purchase cohort analysis by month. I’ll follow up with a detailed post on how I set these up in the coming months. Once I get a baseline, the goal is re-think design (both web and product) so we can move to the next mountain (hit escape velocity), instead of just inching our way up on the current mountain (through optimization).

Already implemented these metrics? Share your tips in the comments.

Insights On SaaS From The $32 million HubSpot Mega-VC Round

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:43:27 -0800

Insights On SaaS From The $32 million HubSpot Mega-VC Round:

HubSpot, my former employer, just announced a 4th round of funding from Sequoia, Google, and Salesforce. It’s great to see that the company I believed in from the start is getting this kind of market validation. Congratulations!

Just went to see the Limitless premier at the Sundance Kabuki...

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:43:57 -0800

Just went to see the Limitless premier at the Sundance Kabuki theater in Japantown. This is my new favorite theater! Had dinner and a glass of wine while watching the movie - can’t get any better than this unless you’re watching the movie in your underwear ;)

I saw this deal on Gilt City SF and immediately sent it to Warren to RSVP. It sold out in just a few hours. Actually, it turned out to be free, which was an even better deal than we had thought - though it was a bit confusing once we got to the theater as to what was going on. Either way, we had a great time and hopefully the first of many premiers to come.

The verdict: A- on the movie, A+ on the theater

Not bad for wireless...

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 06:58:23 -0800

One great thing about living in the city - fiber direct to our apartment. I love you WebPass (the only ISP to actually get a good rating on Yelp).

SXSW Tips for a Newbie?

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:39:25 -0800

I’m getting ready to head to SXSW this year. I’ve heard great things about the event, but I feel like I’m not prepared to get the most out of the event. Any tips for a newbie? What are the best sessions and events to attend?

"It’s a lot easier for an organization to adopt new words than it is to actually change..."

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:38:08 -0800

“It’s a lot easier for an organization to adopt new words than it is to actually change anything. Real change is uncomfortable. If it’s not feeling that way, you’ve probably just adopted new words.”

- The pleasant reassurance of new words, Seth Godin

Skiing in Tahoe? Get a Free Lift Ticket

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:59:19 -0800

Skiing in Tahoe? Get a Free Lift Ticket:

Buy a tank of gas at a participating Shell station and get a buy 1, get 1 free lift ticket to Northstar or Sierra at Tahoe.

Block Yourself from Analytics

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 17:45:28 -0800

Block Yourself from Analytics:

Small businesses and marketers who work from home rejoice! This easy Chrome plugin lets you filter yourself from Google Analytics without having a static IP address.

Create Buttons for Your Website without Images

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:17:01 -0800

I’ve been trying to learn CSS because I truly believe that every modern marketer should be proficient in HTML and CSS to do their job well. It’s a *pita* to have to ask a developer (in this case my husband) every time I want to make a change to my website. While I’ve gotten along pretty well with my HTML skills, I’ve yet to fully master CSS (I can hack it a little, but I don’t know the core as well as I should).

I needed to make a button for my website and I didn’t want to call our graphics guy. My husband showed me how to do it in CSS and…voila - just 15 lines of code and it works without any images needed.

Here’s the code:

<style>
a.erinbutton {
background-color: #F52C94;
border:1px solid #FD82A84;
border-radius: 4px;
-moz-border-radius:4px;
padding: 5px;
color: #FFFFFF;
font-size: 16px;
text-decoration: none;
} </style><div style="text-align:left;">
<a class="erinbutton" href="http://www.google.com/search?q=Erin+Colbert" target="_blank"><span>Google Erin Colbert</span></a> 
</div>

And here’s what it looks like:

Google Erin Colbert

It only works with a plain color as the background, so if you want a gradient you’ll have to use an image. It’s easy to customize, but I’ve also left some elements out so it will pick up the style of my website. For advanced customization you might want to define the font-family, hover effects, etc.

a.erinbutton - name the css class anything you like
background-color - set the hexadecimal code, in this case pink
border - remove the line altogether or set a solid border
border-radius - this is for creating the rounded corner effect
padding - give the button a little room to breather around the text
color - color of the font, in this case white
font-size - how big do you want the text
text-decoration - turns off the automatic underlining of the text since it’s a hyperlink
div style - used to change the alignment of the button (i.e. if you wanted it centered on the page use text-align:center
class - reference the css class outlined above, in this case I’m creating the CSS within the page instead of a separate style sheet in case you don’t have access to the CSS
href - where should the button send you when clicked
Google Erin Colbert - text for the button to display, “sign up” or “click this” work too

Goodbye Delicious, Hello Springpad

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:29:17 -0800

Goodbye Delicious, Hello Springpad:

It’s out with the old and in with the new today. I just imported all of my Delicious bookmarks to Springpad. It’s great for getting organized and keeping all of my notes, recipes, and lists in one place.