Summer is flying by and Back to School advertising campaigns are already out in full force.  My favorite is from JC Penny.

The campaign concept is “Updated Breakfast Club” and includes TV spots and a nifty microsite.  Utilizing a set that looks remarkably like the original library, updated characters (all ethnicities and cliques well represented) run through a variety of scenes.  It is all set to the tune of an updated version of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” which along with the original and four other variations like Rap and Alternative (again inclusive of varying interests/social groups) are available via a convenient link to iTunes on the microsite.

Even as an adult, I found the microsite engaging.  Users can pick which character they want to see more of, watch videos featuring that character, and choose new outfits for them.  It is like virtual paper dolls! 

JC Penny successfully hits their two target audiences – 1) Mom’s who loved the original movie and do most of the actual buying and 2) teens who want to be cool and will nag Mom to do the buying at very specific “in” stores. 

I fall firmly into group #1 and loved the ads, to the point where I will probably visit JC Penny for some of my kids’ BTS clothing needs this year.  However, as Nan (and many other experts and research) will tell you, teens are an incredibly brand loyal bunch, so there is no guarantee that the concept will work on group #2.

Is there a trend that is slowly developing of users moving away from using AOL’s AIM? I don’t have hard data – so, this is a unscientific post. But, based on my friends’ usage and other young professionals I’ve heard from – the answer is a definite yes.

Being a 20 something, do you really want to have a massive list of contacts from college or all the way back to high school or even earlier (many of whom you really don’t care to hear from) IMing you? The likely answer is no. That is one reason why I believe a growing number of young professionals have stopped using AIM altogether.

Where are many of these young professionals turning to? Google, of course. Just as we became accustomed to using Google for search, many are turning to Google for other needs as well. Virtually everyone I know has a Gmail account, and for most it has become their primary email…that is when email is actually used instead of Facebook, but that’s a whole other topic.

Along with Gmail comes the ability to use gchat which is what many young professionals are now using for IMing…or more appropriately called gchatting. It’s very simple and can be used directly in Gmail or by downloading Google Talk.

And best of all – it doesn’t have your long list of “friends” from college, high school, or for some middle school. I suspect this will be a growing trend as more and more young adults enter the work force and start a new chapter in their lives.

So, will the term IMing be replaced by Gchatting? Who knows, but based on my unscientific data it would seem like it’s moving that way.

So, you’ve made the subjective decision that a particular user is a troll. This user is not just an aggravated customer, an ignorant new user, or an over-passionate process evangelist; but rather a viscous and determined upsetter of the social order on your site. (For more info on identifying trolls see Part 1: UnMasking the Trolls Among Us. So, what do you do?

Well, there’s no easy answer and any true troll who really wants to mess with your site will always find a new and inventive way of doing it. So, how do we stop these hairy beasts from harassing your users and causing civil unrest? There are a few things you can do.

The general wisdom on the Internet is that you should not “feed” the trolls, and this is usually the best course of action. A true troll is only there because he’s getting a rise out of you or your users. If his (or her) antics/attacks don’t register any emotional reaction – then, he will probably move on to a site that will let him cause mayhem. This can best be demonstrated by using the old saying: “Never mud wrestle a pig, you get dirty and the pig likes it.”

What does feeding a troll mean? It usually deals with responding to the troll in kind. Getting angry or aggravated at the troll will only make him happy (like the pig in the mud). If you’ve labeled a user as a troll, you should have already contacted them several times to explain the proper norms for your site in a polite and friendly manner. If they continue to deviate from those norms, then it is best to ignore them or at the very most, send them canned responses that you have vetted for tone through a colleague.

There are, however, (at least) two instances when ignoring the troll might not be in your/the site’s best interest.

1. …If the troll posts wildly inappropriate content like porn on a kid’s site (to state the most obvious example of wildly inappropriate) or content that could mislead new users. Then, you should not ignore the troll and leave the content up, but rather remove it, isolate it, or correct it so that it cannot continue to harm other users. If the content is merely aberrant and unharmful, then it’s probably best to just leave bait where it lay and stay out of the troll’s trap.

2. …If your site is large enough or has enough turn-over that the troll could easily bait other users, particularly new users, into feeding him – you may need to take steps to prevent him from harming those users. These steps could include banning his user account or isolating his comments/posts in such a way that only he or a limited number of people could see them.

The danger here is that you may aggravate him into stepping up his efforts to disturb you. It’s also quite easy on most sites to set up new accounts under a different name/email making the account ban less effective than one might hope. Used judiciously, this can be an effective way of deterring trolls.

The long and the short of it is…you cannot always stop people from being evil. All you can do is try to protect yourself and your users and give them the best online experience you can.

For further reading, check out the Wikipedia Essay: What is a troll? which thoroughly discusses trolls from a Wikipedia editing point of view.

This summer, Hard Rock opened their first amusement theme park. There were so many things that were done right – from a ‘soft’ opening to make sure everything ran smoothly to a phased approach to building and launching new rides and attractions.

So, many people were surprised that the crowds never really did materialize and that recently they had announced lay-offs and cut-backs in the operating hours.

Very few companies have the luxury of getting things 100% right in the launching of a new product or service. There are bound to be tough times and mistakes. But, the key to success is to stay in the game.

By ‘cutting losses’ by reducing the operating hours, Hard Rock Park is taking a big risk. Sure, it is expensive to keep the park open. But, by taking the ‘easy’ way out and not trying new things, it sends a very negative message.

In Howard Mann’s ‘Your Business Brickyard’, he introduces the concept of sprinting through the finish line.  Sprinters and runners are taught to envision the finish line five steps beyond where it really is so that they accelerate through the finish line. He advises that businesses should operate this way too.

More often than not, new product launches and other initiatives really don’t have the success that was hoped for or even expected. Because of this, you can’t simply execute and hope for the best. You must have a back-up plan or as Howard describes the ‘five more steps after the original finish line.’

For Hard Rock these steps could include:
Contests
An Ambassador-Loyalty Program
An Ambassador – Referral Program
Word-of-Mouth Program
Alternative Advertising Programs (Social Media)

All of which, when done correctly are highly measurable which creates the ability to test and shift spending from one non-performing initiative to a better performing one.

I really like the concept of ‘sprinting through the finish line’ when applied to business because it forces you to come up with a contingency plan before you actually get into crisis/reaction mode.

So, next time you think about a product launch, a new promotion or campaign, think past the ‘just do it’ and come up with your next five steps.

So, you’ve done some buzz monitoring, and you’ve found out that on a fairly well known forum in your field – which is visited by your customers and potential customers – someone has trashed your company / product / service offering / customer services / CEO / etc.

What do you do next?

There are a several approaches you can take:

1. The Ostrich approach. If you stick your head in the sand, it’ll obviously go away… right?  Wrong. Not responding shows that you’re either not listening, or that you consider the conversation beneath you.
2. The Bull in a China Shop approach. You blunder into the conversation without really listening, disparaging everything the user said as wrong.  You don’t become part of the conversation – trying to just shut down anything negative.
3. The Cuckoo approach. You sneak into the forum under false pretenses - i.e. pretending to be a satisfied customer – rather than disclosing that you’re representing the company itself.
4. The Worker Bee. For whatever reason (corporate policy, etc), the company doesn’t respond, but employees in their spare time do. It shows a willingness from some in the company, but as it’s not ‘official’ – there’s an element of the Ostrich in there.
5. The Labrador approach. Open, honest, and trustworthy. Your response states that it’s from the company. You reply in an honest manner, stating when you’re wrong and when the poster is wrong, and suggest ways to correct the issue if further steps need to be taken. Then, you actually follow through.
6. The Weasel approach. As per the Labrador approach, except there’s no follow through, any promises made of improvements, or changes to products or processes are empty and / or false.  This will eventually be seen as such, which will then undermine the validity of your future statements.

So, which animal do you want your company to be? Obviously, in an ideal world, we’d all say Labrador.  That’s the intent that most people have when they start out responding to issues. But, when emotions or corporate policy get involved, that Labrador starts to morph into one of the other creatures.  Most notably the Bull emerges when dealing with people either just trying to get a rise out of you (Trolls, or maybe even competitors disguised as Trolls) or people who have decided that they really don’t like your company – and nothing will change their mind.

If your company forbids any social network interaction, then they’re going to be the Ostrich.  There is also the potential for employees to be Worker Bees or, if the policy would make them fear for their jobs, Cuckoos.

So, in order to be that faithful Labrador, you need to make sure that you are honest, open and transparent (hmm, maybe I should have used a Paris Hilton analogy, since we can get HOT out of those 3).

Sure, you can still have a corporate policy that prevents you from saying certain things or responding to certain issues, but be honest and open about that too, and people will understand.

If you’d like to hear more on the topic of Reputation Management, there are still a few spots left for our 2nd Wednesday Webinar, which this week is on this very topic, so sign up for our Reputation Management Webinar here.

When I saw the coverage of the forced apology by US Olympic cyclists for wearing smog masks at the airport (because of warranted air quality concerns), I thought Streisand Effect. I had just read about the Barbra Streisand effect in Groundswell and it basically states that there is no removing anything from the internet…and the harder you try, the more widely it will be distributed.

US Olympic Cyclist in Beijing

Take the cyclist example. Once the photos were out on the wire, they were gone, distributed to millions and no apology is going to take the image of the harsh black mask (couldn’t designers have made it in a lighter, softer, less obvious color? But I digress…) out of the minds of the public, nor out of image searches.

What the apology did do is give more press to the Beijing smog issue. A better approach would have been to just let the issue die down quietly. As Nan (also quoting Groundswell) told a client last week, “trying to take something off of the internet is like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.” And trying to cover up a monumental smog issue with an apology is laughable.

Yesterday, Google launched a new services called Insights for Search.   It builds off of Google Trends, but allows you to dig deeper into the search query data to compare search patterns by location, categories, and time frames.   

The tool works by first having you select how you want to compare the data.  The options you have are by Search Terms, Locations, or Time Ranges.  You can then filter the results by the two selections that you did not choose as well as by specific categories.  This allows marketers to get very granular data - specific to who their target audience is and where they are located. 

The tool also shows you search phrases that are currently seeing a spike in search phrases -  that ultimately, relate to the search phrases your currently researching.  This will help PPC managers find new keywords that they can potentially capitalize on before other marketers begin to bid up the costs.    

Overall, it seems like an interesting tool that will provide excellent data that can be used by marketers to bolster their search campaigns and better understand searcher behavior.

Break out your level thirty-seven elven rogue and dole out justice by showing these trolls the wrong end of your dwarven hunter blade.

Well not exactly…

First some definitions: Internet trolls are the type of person who consistently – with determination – disrupts the norms of a site in a way that is unhealthy to the site’s community and discourages growth.

Wikipedia defines them this way: “An Internet troll… is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.”

One specific thing to note is that an Internet troll is not someone who is simply vocal in disliking your product/message, but rather someone who is intentionally disrupting and antagonizing users or the system.  If you are to have any viable social media program, you need to have a policy or at least an understanding of these unwieldy Internet beasts.

How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?  Or, in this case, separate the mildly annoying user who is ignorant of the proper process, overly passionate about the subject, or who simply disagrees with you from the nasty troll who lives only to cause pain and torment?  Well, sometimes it’s difficult.

The label troll is a black-and-white title, but in reality the process of identifying a troll leaves a lot of gray areas. Therefore, it is important to label someone a troll and deal with them as such solely as a last resort and then, only with a list of documented instances.

The Mark of the Troll
Sometimes, a new user might not understand a process or content restrictions and post something  (a comment, a video, what have you) that goes against the norms of your site. Generally, it is best to assume that they were simply misinformed.

Point out the fault in a nurturing way that helps lead to discussion rather than biting their head off. If the user continues to post content that is inappropriate or inappropriately placed even after their error has been clearly explained, then it is possible this person is a troll.  If the user harasses other users and continually participates in personal attacks without adding anything to the discussion, then the person might also be a troll.

You should initially err on the side of kindness since we have all said and done things in the heat of passion that we would like to take back. Repeat offenses after clear communication as to why that behavior is inappropriate should raise red flags of possible troll-hood.

Any troll worth his salt will find new (and sometimes interesting) ways to game the system. So, there’s no way to specifically define what a troll does or does not do. Plus, sometimes a user may unintentionally do the things a troll does either by ignorance or by impudence as a result of passion.

Generally, a troll will rear his ugly head by consistently and determinedly attempting to disrupt and frustrate users. Because of the ambiguity and amorphous nature of trolls, it is best to tread carefully in your troll labeling.

N.B. It is important here to also say that someone vehemently disagreeing with you or hating your product/message does not make them an Internet troll. These are generally the people you should listen to and find out more information from.  These are the people that are taking the time to be honest with you. If you take the time to listen to them, you may learn a lot about your product and its perception in the marketplace.

This is vital information in the process of making your product better. If you have an open policy towards criticism, you can make changes that benefit both you and the user.  You may turn a vocal dissenter into a vocal yet loyal customer. That said, if you are attentive to the person’s criticism and they continue to find problems and issues that are nit-picky and that others are not finding, then that person may be a troll.

Next Week: Things That Go Bump in the Internet: Identifying and Dealing with Trolls Part 2: Disarming the Vagabonds and Turning Trolls to Stone

As more marketers are being held accountable for their budgets, proving ROI on campaigns becomes essential.  In order to track ROI, you must be able to track revenue on your Web site.  This is not nearly as complicated or technically difficult (in most cases) than you may think (or have been told).  

There are three ways to track revenue on your Web site:

1.  Using Analytics
2.  Using Search Engine tools
3.  Using Both – Comparing analytics to search engine reporting

Using Analytics
Regardless of whether you are using a java script based analytics programs or analyzing your Web server logs, tracking revenue is completely possible if you have two things:

1.  A unique ‘thank you’ page that displays only when a purchase is successful 
2.  Access to make modifications to your Web site

Without a unique page that only displays when a purchase is successful, you will always ‘over-count’ revenue.  Often times, shopping carts are built using one form that posts back to itself.  You can tell if this is the case because the URL does not change from one step of the checkout process to the next. 

The problem with this is that you never get an accurate count of successful purchases or cart abandonment since the URL is the same.  If your shopping cart is built this way, it is worth it to ask your developer to either add parameters for each step or implement a unique ‘thank you’ page.

If you don’t have access to make modifications to your Web site, you can still track revenue but it will not be as accurate as you will simply be assigning a dollar value to a goal page.  Here is how it is done in Google Analytics and in ClickTracks

Log File Analytics
To track revenue using log files, you will simply have to pass the order total parameter and the dollar value of the sale into the query string of the URL.  As long as your developer knows .ASP (or .ASPX) or .PHP, this should be a relatively straight-forward, quick change.

Or, you can use what is called a beacon which is an invisible image that is used to capture data that is normally not found in log files.  Here is an explanation for doing this with Google Checkout.

Java Script Analytics
The beauty of java script-based analytics is that you can track anything that you want on your Web site.  You just need to plan for it ahead of time, and have the ability to place custom java script on the ‘thank you’ page.  Each analytics package will have a slightly different method (code) for tracking revenue.  But, it should be well documented in the instruction manual.  (A quick search on ‘tracking revenue in webtrends java script’ resulted in this pdf with instructions on page 15).

Using Search Engine Tools
Both Google and Yahoo generate ‘conversion tracking’ code that you can simply copy and paste onto your ‘thank you’ page.  This article also has good instructions for generating the Google Conversion code.  You just have to scroll down to the section ‘Using AdWords Conversion Tracking.’

Also, Nate had written a good article about the improvements that were made to the conversion tracking earlier this year. 

For Yahoo conversion code, click here.

Using Both – Comparing analytics to search engine reporting
I am always an advocate of this method, using both.  Without a ‘gut-check’ in place, it is way too easy to make decisions with bad data  (which we mention over and over).

Understand first that the data from your analytics will likely never match the search engine data 100%.  In fact, depending on the time frame that you are analyzing and several other factors, the discrepancy may be as much as 15%. 

But, by tying your analytic data in with what the search engines report, you will be able to get a very comprehensive picture of what is working and what is not.  And it will be clear what changes need to be made to make your PPC (and other campaign) efforts as effective as possible.

If you are new to PPC or Analytics, feel free to join us on Wednesdays this month for ‘Webinar Wednesdays.

Unless you belong to Manassas Community Toastmasters, your next best chance to hear me, Simon Heseltine, talk is going to be online at our Webinar Wednesday sessions.

On Wednesday, August 6th (in 2 short days) – I’ll be presenting a webinar on Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC), on Wednesday August 13th I’ll be talking about Reputation Management and your business, and on August 20th the topic will be Blogging and Social Media for your business.

The price doesn’t reflect the quality of these presentations, as they’ll all be free.  So, jump on over to register for them now, as space is limited.

If you miss the webinars, or you quite simply prefer the in-person thing, we offer personalized training sessions for your company.  Or, I will be presenting at 3 sessions at Search Camp Philly in September (6th – 7th), and at the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA) mid-year marketing conference in Las Vegas in December (8th – 10th). There will probably be a few other opportunities to hear me speak in between, but none that are confirmed as of yet.

Photo by Tamar Weinberg