Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

With Internet trends, it can be hard to tell when hype is merited and when it isn’t. Below is my attempt to answer this question for some sites of interest to local businesses. The metric traffic-to-hype ratio measures the proportion of actual traffic to how often a site gets talked about. A high ratio means there’s more steak than sizzle, a low ratio means there’s more sizzle than steak.

Site	Traffic (Visits)	Hype (Search Results)	Traffic-to-Hype Ratio
Superpages.com	16,337,246	1,060,000	15.4
Yellowpages.com	26,251,009	2,420,000	10.8
YouTube.com	979,452,576	97,000,000	10.1
Yelp.com	17,780,118	1,850,000	9.6
Facebook.com	3,416,501,818	580,000,000	5.9
MerchantCircle.com	9,476,096	2,170,000	4.4
CitySearch.com	8,979,637	2,400,000	3.7
LinkedIn.com	54,352,892	38,000,000	1.4
Foursquare.com	2,381,538	2,380,000	1.0
Twitter.com	212,714,166	541,000,000	0.4

So what?

I ran these numbers mostly to satisfy my own curiosity. At Two Octobers, we help businesses get found, and we like to focus on what will drive real results. Sheer volume of traffic is certainly a part of that, but there is also merit to looking for under-recognized opportunities. Anecdotally, I find that the ratio of marketers to non-marketers on Twitter is very high. Given the traffic-to-hype ratio of Twitter, that should come as no surprise. It may still be worth marketing on Twitter, but you will have to work pretty hard to stand out. Yelp, on the other hand, isn’t getting a lot of hype but it is getting decent usage, so you should be able to stand out with less effort. And the very unsexy Internet yellow pages also get good traffic and very little hype.

I also think the YouTube number is interesting – YouTube gets a lot of hype, but it also gets A LOT of usage. I’m going to be thinking more about how to leverage YouTube for local businesses after writing this post.

Where does the data come from?

The visits numbers come from Compete.com September 2010 U.S. visit statistics. Search results are based on a Google query for the site name without the “.com”, excluding results on the site itself. The search results were also filtered to only show pages that were indexed in September, 2010.

example of Google search query

The traffic-to-hype ratio is simply the ratio of the two. I recognize that there are some flaws to this methodology, for example most of these sites also have mobile applications that aren’t represented in the Compete statistics. Twitter and Foursquare in particular are affected by this problem. But all have web interfaces that account for a significant percentage of usage and I don’t know of a good source to account for application visits. If you do, please let me know!

And I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below.

Social networking tools that combine location with a status update have been around for a few years. Among them, Gowalla and Foursquare have gained some traction among the uber-connected. Both of these tools broadcast “this is where I am right now” to other users in some way, shape or form. Collectively, such systems are called “location based services” (LBS). Twitter also recently announced support for location-based tweets, prompting some analysts to predict the demise of the aforementioned tools. But if Twitter was going to kill them, Facebook will for sure.

Ad Age reported today that Facebook is getting ready to release location-based status updates. But the reason I am writing about this is not to report another Goliath-kills-David story. It is because both Gowalla and Foursquare employed a marketing strategy which is effective, but risky. And now they face the business end of that risk, so to speak. They both focused their marketing efforts on digital hipsters, in particular choosing the super-cool SXSW conference as a launching pad and battleground for the attention of social mavens. The strategy worked, and both reported significant adoption in 2009 and growth in 2010.

The risk of this strategy? Hipsters are fickle. Being hip is about knowing what’s next, not doing what your neighbors do. Sometimes, hipsters can skyrocket a product or brand into the mainstream, as when Corona beer went from super-cool to mainstream import. But if a big, well-known brand copies a hip product before it goes mainstream, all you are left with is a bunch of hipsters who are eager to turn their backs on you and get on to the next new thing.

Will all of my friends who spend time on Facebook switch to Foursquare or Gowalla for location-based services? I don’t think so, and according to Ad Age, big brand marketers don’t think so either. Will Foursquare and Gowalla’s current users bring mainstream users into those services? Nope. That’s not what hipsters do.

Viral marketing news and other viral happenings in the Denver Metro and Boulder area.

Un-Affiliated in Colorado – People all over were talking about Amazon’s move to cut off their affiliates in the State of Colorado, in protest against state law HB10-1183. The law obliges online retailers to collect Colorado sales tax for goods sold in the state, or make consumers aware that they owe the tax. Within the state, opinions were divided and heated. I myself have gotten in to a few arguments on the subject. Carol Hedges, of the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, wrote a piece on Huffington Post describing the debate. What is odd about Amazon’s move is that it is directed against affiliates, who are unaffected by the law. Clearly the intent is to get people fired up, without any significant risk to Amazon revenue. Since many bloggers and internet cognoscenti are also Amazon affiliates, cutting them off has proven to be a very effective tactic.

It’s In Your Hands – There is one topic everyone can agree on: periOperative Registered Nurses should know how to wash their hands. This was the message behind a video contest put on by the Denver-based Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), with the winner to be announced at this week’s AORN Congress in Denver. Sadly, I could not find any Colorado entrants in the contest, but in any case it would have been embarrassing to see them lose to this remarkable entry from Billings, Montana:

The contest is quirky and goofy, but a great way to spread a message on a budget. The rest of the entrants can be found here.

Friended a Ghost Lately? – I’m not sure how I ended up there, but I came across this on the Nachos of Doom blog. Apparently, the Stanley Hotel is pulling out the social-media stops with regards to promoting their paranormal history. Their Facebook Page is abuzz with would-be ghost hunters, and hotel staff actively engage in the discussions. Here’s a little sample from their Facebook Wall:

This is a clever way to capitalize on a colorful past, and create awareness about a beautiful hotel in a beautiful setting.

Snow at First Sight – Unfortunately, I think this one falls short. With the best of intentions, the Colorado Board of Tourism staged a contest called Snow at First Sight. The winners are finishing up their prize this month, which was an all-expenses-paid trip to Colorado for three full months of skiing, snowmobiling and carousing around the state. To participate, contest entrants had to submit a video explaining how they had never even seen snow, and why they deserved to win the trip. There is a web site dedicated to the promotion, a Facebook Fan Page. And the winners have been tweeting away. But considering all of the rigmarole, not very many people are paying attention. One reason may be that it’s hard (impossible?) to find said Facebook Page and Twitter feed from the Snow at First Sight web site. Rule one for getting followed is to make yourself easy to follow. But I think the bigger reason is that it just isn’t all that interesting to watch people play in the snow for three months. I will never forget being with a friend from Costa Rica when he saw snow for the first time. It was great to vicariously experience the wonder of snow. But that was entertaining for an hour or so. Most of the media value of this contest expired shortly after it began.

Why I Am Not a Zamboni Driver – Coloradan Kenneth Waesche got his 15 minutes of viral fame this week when he snapped this photo of a Zamboni fallen through the ice, with a “Caution Thin Ice!” sign in the foreground. The photo got Dugg, Farked, Tweeted and everything else. Kudos to Waesche for lining up the perfect shot.

The Librarian’s Revenge – And last but not least, it’s time to scour your shelves and make sure you haven’t forgotten to return any books or movies to the library. A Colorado teenager was arrested because of an overdue DVD he had failed to return to the Littleton Public Library. The Consumerist asks “Is there a difference between not returning a library DVD and stealing one from a video store?” Well, yes there is, because one isn’t stealing. And if my video store puts out a warrant for my arrest for not returning a movie, I’m switching to Netflix.

This is a weekly update, please comment if there are topics or items I have missed.

This is the second in my series of posts describing the steps involved in adding a business to the Top 10 Free Places to List a Business. In this post, I will describe the process of adding a Facebook Fan Page for my friend Kelton’s business, QUICK-BEND design. Note that I say Fan Page, but Facebook mostly says “Page” without the “Fan” – they used to say “Fan Page”, but I guess they found it too limiting. There’s no difference between the two, but I find it confusing to just say Facebook Page, so stick with the old naming.

To add a page, you have to be logged in to a Facebook account to add a page. Then go to the Create a Page page. You can create a page from any account, and unlike the Google Local Business Center, more than one account can have administrative access to a Fan Page.

From the Create a Page page, I selected “Local” and the category “Other Business”. I also selected “Do not make Page publicly visible at this time.” – I figured I’d let Kelton decide when he wants to make it public.

Believe it or not, that’s it. I could have stopped there and make the page live, but of course it’s nice to put up something for people to look at if they visit, so I added photos from the QUICK-BEND design web site. To keep things simple, I created photo folders to match the categories on QUICK-BEND. It may seem unnecessary to duplicate all of the photos, but I don’t think so. People are very familiar with Facebook photo navigation, and frankly I find the WordPress navigation on the QUICK-BEND site a little tedious. Case in point: I’d been to the QUICK-BEND site a number of times, but had no idea how talented and prolific an artist Kelton is:

Tip: if you are uploading a bunch of photos at once, you can select the option “Edit Album” after the photos have been uploaded. This will allow you to add captions to all of the photos at once, which saves a lot of time.

The other important things to do are:

• Upload a profile photo – you can do this by clicking on the place where the profile photo goes.
• Add a web site URL and location information – you can do this by clicking on the “Info” tab, then “Edit”
• Add a description – this is just below the profile photo, click on the pencil icon

The whole process would have taken 15-20 minutes tops, save for the fact that I had to go to Kelton’s web site and save all of the photos to my computer before I could upload them. That and adding captions to the photos took a little longer. The thing I like most about Facebook Fan Pages for businesses is that they are a very unobtrusive way to let people know of recent news and upcoming events. Much better than email in my opinion. And the Facebook environment encourages users to share content and see what their friends are sharing.

Here is the finished page, if you’d like to check it out and become a fan.

And a couple of other posts highlighting cool things businesses are doing on their Fan Pages:
Einstein Bros + Facebook: Good Bagels Make Good Friends
Titus Cycles Tattoo Contest

In putting together this list, we looked at a variety of factors, including overall traffic, domain authority, share of local search and depth of listing content in compiling the list. All of these sites also have paid advertising options, but first you should take advantage of what they have to offer for free. Note that in most cases, you will need to be able to verify a phone number and/or a physical address to add your listing. We have included traffic figures for each site, using Compete.com December, 2010 data.

1. Google Places

By adding your business to Google Places, you show up on Google Maps and Google local results. This is one of the most important things a local business can do to get found on the web. Here are a few reasons why:

• Google Maps is a hugely popular mapping application.
• Google Place Page results show up on Google.com for most local searches.
• Google Maps is one of the most popular applications on smartphones.

Compete puts monthly visits for maps.google.com at 58M, but Google.com and mobile are probably the bigger traffic drivers. If we conservatively estimate that 10% of search on www.Google.com is local, that amounts to over 300M locally-oriented visits per month. I don’t know of a good source for usage data for the mobile Google Maps application – please let me know if you do.

To add your listing: Google Places. And while claiming your Place Page is a good start, you should also invest the time in optimizing your page so that you rank well for your categories.  Here’s an article with some pointers on Place Page optimization: To-Do List: Creating a Fabulous Google Place Page

2. Facebook Fan Page

Apart from being the most visited site on the internet, over 1.5 million businesses have created fan pages on the network, and 20 million people become fans of pages every day (source). Facebook is a long way from being the first place where consumers search for businesses, but it has quickly become the most likely place for consumers to connect with local businesses online. According to Compete, Facebook received almost 3.5 billion visits in December, 2010, though little of this constitutes local business search traffic.
To create a page you must be logged in to your personal account. People who follow your page won’t be able to see your private information, FB just doesn’t allow people to anonymously create pages. Also, once you’ve created it, you can add other administrators to the page.  Create a Facebook Page. And here are some suggestions for how to engage with prospects and get people interested in your business: Great Content for Facebook Business Pages

Facebook users can also check in to locations, and Facebook has their own version of place pages as part of this functionality. You need to claim or create a place page in addition to creating a business page, and then link it to your business page. Here are instructions for doing this.

3. Yellowpages.com/YP.com

AT&T owned Yellowpages.com rebranded as YP.com, and it’s not your parent’s yellow pages any more. Under pressure from the likes of Google and Yelp, YP.com has a fresh look and more social content and features. They also distribute listings to a number of syndication partners. Currently at 29 million visits per month.
Claim your listing

4. Superpages.com

Superpages also went through a significant redesign recently, but doesn’t seem to be keeping up with Yellowpages.com or the others. Their traffic figures indicate same, but they did have a nice uptick last Fall. They get 19 million local search visits a month.
Get your free listing now

5. Yelp

The review site Yelp is the most popular social site focused on local business search. Given its emphasis on social content and interaction, Yelp tends to do better than other directory sites when it comes to attracting younger, more social users. Currently at 18 million visits per month.
To add your listing: Yelp signup page

6. Citysearch

Citysearch.com has been holding steady for a number of years now in terms of on-site traffic, but they have been growing their network of distribution through syndication and the recently announced CityGrid blows their distribution opportunity wide-open. Currently at 9 million visits per month. Citysearch is also a powerhouse when it comes to review syndication.
To add your listing: add business – note that you must be logged in to a personal Citysearch account to see this page.

7. Yahoo! Local

As with many things Yahoo!, Yahoo! Local is holding steady, but not seeing the growth of Google or even Bing. But they still provide a very popular service, so worth making sure you are listed there. Local.Yahoo.com is currently at 17 million visits per month, and we estimate about 60 million more local search visits at search.Yahoo.com.
To add your listing: add a business page

8. Bing Local

Microsoft has long struggled behind Google and Yahoo! in the world of web search, but the tides have turned of late. Since Microsoft launched Bing.com last year, they have steadily been gaining search share. Bing local and maps operate under the www.Bing.com domain, which gets 654M visits per month. We estimate 65M of that to be local search.
To add your listing: Local Listing Center

9. LinkedIn

LinkedIn isn’t exactly a place where people go to look for local businesses, but it does offer rich business listing functionality, and the domain carries quite a bit of authority. LinkedIn has also been adding many useful features for businesses, such as the ability to announce promotions, share articles and blogs, and list open jobs. LinkedIn is very important for business-to-business exposure, since people will often browse from a personal profile to a business profile. Currently at 48 million visits per month, though very little of this is local search traffic. Add a company to LinkedIn

10. Localeze.com

Localeze is not a local search site itself, it is a back-end data provider to many other local search services. Create an account on Localeze

Honorable Mention – Universal Business Listing

Universal Business Listing’s basic submission service costs $75, but deserves mention here. UBL.org provides an automated submission service that gets your listing into Acxiom and InfoUSA, back-end data providers similar to Localeze. UBL also distributes business information to a number of other sites. All told, submitting to UBL will get your listing on to hundreds of sites and services, definitely worth the $75.

You’ll notice that both Localeze and UBL distribute listing data to some of the sites mentioned here – we still recommend that you claim them and enter all the information you can.

A Couple of Pointers When Creating/Updating Listings

• Be accurate and consistent. If you have a registered business name, use that as your business name in all cases. Some of these sites will verify your information with public business registration data, and consistency will help your search ranking.
• Fill out everything you can. More information helps you get found, and makes your listing more useful to searchers – remember, your goal is not just to have your listings show up, you want people to visit your business.

There are many benefits to getting your business listed on other web sites. Four important ones are:

• Links – links pointing to a web site are major factor in how that site ranks in search engines. I would say the most important factor, but linking is a complex and nuanced topic. Links are not all created equal. Where a link comes from is important. For example, a link from the home pages of nytimes.com is worth a lot more than a link on a page buried deep within a blog like this one. And some web sites put a “nofollow” attribute on links. This attribute is a way of telling search engines not to follow nor associate value with a link. However, there is still some SEO value in a nofollowed link, in particular because user behavior is also a factor in Google ranking. Matt Cutts of Google explains more about the value of nofollowed links here.
• Web site traffic – this one is kind of obvious, but your listing will include a link to your web site, which will result in more traffic. Many consumers like to visit a web site before visiting a business. If yours isn’t listed, you lose out.
• In-store traffic – consumers are using the internet more, and print yellow pages less.  According to one study, print accounts for less than a third of local business search. Listing your business on the web is now the best way to get people to walk in to or call your business.
• Citations – citations are references to your business that include your business name and some sort of geographic identifier, like a phone number or street address. Citations are one of the signals Google uses to determine ranking for local listings.

[note: this post was updated in January, 2011]