Social Media Strategy

Do you live under a rock? If you do, you might not have heard of the Pickens Plan yet, which is former “oil tycoon” T. Boone Pickens’ roadmap to oil independence: alternative energy resources.

What’s interesting is that Pickens is being progressive not only in his message but in how he is delivering it. I think the term “powerful lobbyist” is going to start changing as people realize how easy the internet makes it to gather thousands or even millions of people behind a particular policy initiative. That’s where the real leverage comes from, after all.

If you check out their web site, they have a whole “community” section that offers the standard range of community functions: profile creation, groups, events, images, and forum interaction.

So is it working?

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We’re hosting a presentation for small business owners and operators here in Redmond at our office on sept 26, 2008. The focus is on business blogging. Our great new digs are at Thinkspace, hope to see you here.

For years, we’ve been saying that search should largely drive the content (particularly headlines) that business bloggers choose to create.

Robert Scoble comments today on the useful Google AdWords Keyword tool that can assist in this effort. We leverage this and other free (and paid) services (WordTracker etc.) to help determine what subject lines will drive the most relevant readers to the blogs we create for clients.

One service we provide is a virtual “peek” into competitor’s server logs to see what searches are driving traffic to their site. This can tell us how successful they are, and give clients ideas for terms and phrases that may be profitable for them to post about.

As an example let’s take a peek at Robert’s blog. First, let’s use the service at tagcrowd.com to see what terms are frequently used by Robert in his content:

Now, let’s see what popular keywords are actually driving search traffic to his site:

Notice how many people come to his blog because they are searching for product/service information (Vista, iPhone, Facebook.) Also notice that Robert writes quite a bit about Techmeme and Twitter, but the resulting traffic is not proportional.

Here is an analysis that marketers might find informative. It shows what terms related to products, services, and companies are driving the most traffic to Robert:

One of the biggest issues facing the blogosphere today is how the “bad apples” in the PR industry chase after bloggers who are not relevant to their market or the products they’re pushing. We get tons of “story idea” emails that don’t remotely fit our editorial beat. If more companies leveraged services like these to better target the bloggers they pitch, there might be less vitriol sent in their direction.

Hey PR people — ping us if you want some help targeting your outreach. Leveraging this kind of analysis can help you get more traction in the blogosphere.

For marketing a political candidate this may be the case. This from the Economist (emphasis mine:)

Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton’s internet director, says that YouTube, even more than Facebook or MySpace, has had a huge impact on the campaign. Will.i.am’s ode to Mr Obama, “Yes we can”, has had nearly 9m views since it was uploaded six months ago; some 1.9m have watched the McCain Girls’“Raining McCain” over the past four months. Thousands of clips created by ordinary people have been uploaded, to be shared in blogs and often covered by traditional media too.

Both nominees have their own YouTube channels. Mr Obama’s videos have had 52m views, Mr McCain’s 9.5m. Mr Obama’s entire 37-minute speech on race in America has been viewed 4.7m times on YouTube. But the inflamatory sermons of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have also been seen by millions.