Online Marketing Tips for Rare Book Shops and Indie Bookstores
Earlier, I wrote a long obituary on how the internet is killing indie book shops, and I ended it by promising to post some tips on how to market books in the internet age. I intended to include both online and offline marketing tips, but my list of online tips has grown so long that I’m now intending to post yet another followup for just a few offline marketing tips.
So, here are my tips for online marketing for independent bookstores. This is particularly geared towards rare book shops, out-of-print bookstores, and speciality book stores — because I think that those types of shops tend to be more unique and are by nature differentiated from the mega-bookstore juggernauts like Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com. But, these tips could work for the independent general book stores, too. So, read on and see if these could be helpful to you.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/19/2007
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Filed under: Marketing book-shop-marketing, bookstore-marketing, online-bookstore-marketing, rare-books-marketing, small-business-marketing
Laser-Projected Graffiti Ads on Buildings
In yet another example of cyberpunk fiction turned to reality, the Graffiti Research Lab has assembled a mobile unit that can project messages (“graffiti”) onto the sides of any large structure using a computer, laser projector, and a bicycle-powered generator. They recently tooled around Barcelona doing this up until the police apparently ticketed them and confiscated the projection equipment. Looking past the mischievous fun of the idea, could this be a new trendy advertising medium, about to take Madison Avenue by storm? Guerilla marketing companies seem to think so – click through for more of my thoughts on the matter.
The Batsignal, by Graffiti Research Lab, Barcelona, 2007
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/11/2007
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Filed under: Advertising, Futurism, Marketing Ad-Campaigns, Ads, Advertising, cyberpunk, Futurism, Guerilla-Advertising, Guerilla-Marketing
AMA Hot Topic Series: Search Marketing NYC
The AMA Hot Topic Series on Search Marketing in New York this past Friday went well. Presentations were given by Stephan Spencer (Netconcepts), Alan Rimm-Kaufman (Rimm-Kaufman Group), Neil Patel (Advantage Consulting Services), Maile Ohye (Google), and myself, Chris Silver Smith (Netconcepts GravityStream).
If you missed out on this, there’s yet another opportunity to attend the seminar day in Chicago. For more info, visit the AMA Hot Top Series: Search Marketing page. I understand that this Hot Topic Series is to be expanded out with another few cities in the Fall, so stay tuned.
As promised, here’s my PowerPoint presentation on how Content is the Basis of SEO. (8.4 mb download)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 05/30/2007
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Filed under: Conferences, Marketing AMA-Hot-Top-Series, AMA-Search-Engine-Marketing
The Internet is Killing Independent Bookstores
In all the good done by the internet and technological innovation, it’s easy to sometimes overlook that some changes haven’t been for the better. On Monday, the news everywhere was mentioning the odd and sensational story of the bookstore owner in Kansas City, Missouri, who has started burning books on his doorstep to dramatize his perspective that people are not reading books nearly as much anymore. While I’m afraid his belief that people are reading less is faulty, his observation of the trend in people shopping less at stores like his is correct. I’ve personally witnessed the closing of hundreds of indie bookstores all across America, and there’s no question that the rare book shops and independent book dealers have been under siege and endangered as a species for about ten years. The internet has been killing them.
Burning book – photo used by express permission
of the photographer at Prospero’s Books.
There are worse crimes than burning books,
one is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodskey
A few weeks ago, I was in New York attending the Search Engine Strategies Conference, and I took a few minutes to walk a few blocks south to the grand old Gotham Book Mart to get a friend back home a birthday present. I knew that the Gotham had moved a couple of blocks over in 2004 from its original home on West 47th (in Manhattan’s famous “Diamond Way”), to East 46th. The Gotham was always a place that gave me the warm fuzzies — it’s been around since the 1920s and was the sort of commercial home to one of my favorite author/illustrators, Edward Gorey, and it was a long-running meeting place for the Finnegans Wake Society and the James Joyce Society. Every spring, I tried to make a point of visiting their annual exhibit of rare old Goreyanna books and illustrations, and I’d typically be enchanted into buying something.
 
“Wise Men Fish Here”, sign over Gotham Book Mart (Left)
Chained door with author’s reflection (Right)
The shop was famed in the book world for its appreciation of humor with its “Wise Men Fish Here” sign above the door, its love of books, and its support of book collectors. It was with extreme shock that I found the Gotham locked up tight and the lights out. There was a terribly tragic air about it, because there were a number of cute stuffed Gorey characters still sitting in the window in their little rocking chairs. With a sinking feeling in my heart, I knew that store was dead, and that this was the end of an era.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 05/29/2007
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Filed under: General, Marketing books, bookstores, cultural-extinction, independent-bookstores, internet-bookstores, internet-economics, search-marketing
Advanced Search Engine Optimization for College & University Websites
I earlier posted some basic tips for SEO of University & College websites here on Natural Search Blog. I’m now circling back around to post some advanced tips for optimization of .EDU sites. Some of these tips are more along the lines of helping out with overall marketing, though using the college’s or university’s web presence to accomplish it. Even those ancillary efforts can contribute to the overall online marketing and natural search optimization success.
I wrote those tips after getting a number of interested questions from educational professionals attending the AMA Hot Topics seminar that Stephan and I provided in San Fran a few weeks ago. Read on for the details of my .EDU secret sauce!
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 05/24/2007
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Filed under: Best Practices, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO College-SEO, EDU-SEO, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, University-SEO
AMA Hot Topic Series: Search Marketing in San Fran
The San Francicso leg of the American Marketing Association’s Hot Topic Series on Search Marketing this past Friday was really great! The crowd was intimate, which allowed all of us speakers to mingle and have some quality discussions with folx, and the seminar/conference/workshop was excellently organized.
Read on for more details about the AMA Hot Topic Series day’s sessions.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 04/25/2007
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Filed under: Conferences, Google, HTML Optimization, Keyword Research, Link Building, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Seminars, SEO, Social Media Optimization AMA-Hot-Top-Series, AMA-Search-Engine-Marketing, American-Marketing-Association-Hot-Topic-Series-on-Sear, Google-Sitemaps, google-webmaster-tools, Search Engine Optimization
In-House SEO vs. Out-House SEO
Not long ago I posted a list of some Top In-House SEOs I identified, and I touched on the subject of in-house development vs. outsourcing of natural search optimization work. As an “in-houser” myself (as one of my many roles, I perform SEO for Superpages.com’s sites), I thought I’d develop this out further and give my thoughts on the relative pros and cons of in-housing versus outsourcing, followed up by a list of the merits of doing either.
I should mention that my reference to “Out-House SEO” is firmly tongue-in-cheek. WebMama used that term in commenting on my previous post, and I couldn’t resist using it myself. (Coincidentally, I see that she’s just yesterday posted an article on the merits of outsourcing SEM work, “Does Hiring a Search Marketing Firm Cost or Save You Money?“)
Read on for my commentary and lists of the relative advantages of each approach.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 03/28/2007
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Filed under: General, Marketing in-house, in-house-SEO, inhousing, insourcing, insourcing-SEO, out-house-SEO, outsourcing, outsourcing-SEO
PR for your PR: Publicity for Improved PageRank
After a company has engineered their website to enable search engine spidering, they may then graduate on to understand the importance of link-building. But, businesses often look for quick technical tricks to achieve those vital inbound links without looking towards classic offline business strategies. Press releases and similar types of publicity can significantly help with linkbuilding, and should be a major component of a business’s search marketing arsenal.
One question that frequently comes up in search engine optimization is “How can we get a new domain name to rank well and rapidly?” You may have heard of “The Sandbox” in relation to SEO — this is the concept that newer domain names will not be trusted by search engines, and so pages hosted on those domains may not rank as well as would be expected for unique keyword combinations. Getting good numbers of inbound links can break a domain out of the sandbox effect, but linkbuilding takes time. Most shortcuts won’t work in this area, and you should run screaming the other direction if someone promises otherwise, since participation in link networks can get you penalized with major engines.
But, there is one shortcut that not only can work, but is allowed by the search engines: publicity. While the sudden appearance of hundreds and thousands of inbound links to a new domain name could raise redflags with search engines, the exception is if those inbound links are coming from recognized news sites and blogs. The search engines recognize “burstiness” — the sudden influx of links — in cases where a site has attracted popular attention, and lots of articles and blog postings have come out on a particular subject.
Whether you’re trying to found a new domain name, or increase your site’s overall ranking in the search engines, publicity is one of the most effective methods around. Read on and I’ll outline some tips for getting good PR — both kinds!
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/23/2007
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Filed under: Link Building, Marketing, PageRank pr, Press-Release-Optimization, Press-Releases, publicity, seo-sandbox
KFC Ad Targeting Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and MSN Earth
KFC just constructed a giant ad of their logo/mascot, Colonel Saunders, out in the Nevada desert, in order to “make it viewable from space”. The ad was intentionally constructed near Area 51, the secretive military site that many UFO conspiracy theorists claim to be a hotbed for military testing of alien technologies. Their press release states:
“The Colonel Sanders ‘astrovertisement’ was built in Rachel, Nevada, the ‘UFO Capital of the World’, just off the world’s only extraterrestrial Highway, in the infamous Area 51.”
Here’s a Google video of its construction.
Aside from all their jokes about advertising to space aliens, KFC has actually constructed something that will show up in the satellite pix that many are viewing through Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and MSN Live Maps.
For a fun bit of linkbait, the ad’s website allows one to search around for a hidden message by zooming in and panning around. Finding the message allows one to win a free sandwich.
Now, I’ve joked before about optimizing roof ads for Google Maps, but this gargantuan Colonel ad is no joke — this took some serious money to construct! One of my friends who works for Yum! Brands’ corporate offices remarked that she could now see why their executives were pushing so heavily for cost-cutting — they’re spending tons on marketing to space aliens!
Jokes aside, this type of advertisement may become increasingly serious business as more and more businesses target people who are browsing around viewing satellite pictures through Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and MSN Live Maps. This sort of thing is being called “mapvertising” or “roofvertising”.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 11/17/2006
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Filed under: Advertising, Maps, Marketing Map-Advertising, Mapvertising, Rooftop-Ads, Roofvertising, Space-Ad
MicroSoft’s Ms. Dewey Linkbait: Avatars for Blogs & Other Uses
MicroSoft has launched an avatar-fronted search interface called
Ms. Dewey, in order to promote their MS Live search service. An avatar is a term coopted from virtual reality which is used to describe the graphic representation of a person within the VR environment.
The Ms. Dewey avatar is a clever piece of Flash engineering coupled up with various video files and the MS Live search engine. Ms. Dewey is played by an actress named Janina Gavankar, who apparently prerecorded a bunch of video snippets which are queued up contextually for various responses to search terms that are typed into the submission form field. After you submit a search keyword, she says (and sometimes does) something witty, then the MS Live search results scroll down in an AJAX menu beside her.
Try out these particularly funny search terms on Ms. Dewey:
| Congress gmail President Bush Dick Cheney weather forecasts Yo Mama |
Painting Lord of the Rings UFOs MySpace FireFox Halo 2 |
A “share this with a friend” link is included, making this qualify even more as some nice linkbait, as some online marketing folx refer to it. While quite a few folx have turned their noses up at Ms. Dewey as not being a serious search service contender, they’re perhaps missing the point that she’s pretty fun to interact with, and as a promotional effort goes, it’s probably pretty effective linkbait. Within just a short timeframe, many people will have emailed links to Ms. Dewey to their friends, getting a whole lot of people to use MicroSoft’s search engine who otherwise wouldn’t have tried it out.
I’d only say that the design group has dropped the ball a bit by not highlighting their MS Live brandname on the search results. (They also dropped the ball by advertising Ms. Dewey’s email address through the interface, ms-dewey@hotmail.com, because it’s inoperative, at least when I tested it. “Status: 5.0.0 – Remote SMTP server has rejected address”. They should have had someone responding to those notes, or they should’ve created an intelligent agent to respond to submissions to it.)
It’s maybe mentionable that Ask dropped the Jeeves butler mascot from the frontend of their search earlier this year, and here MicroSoft is adding a human mascot onto their search. Ask was never this attractive, though, and this ploy doesn’t seem in the least retro. Slick!
Interfaces like Ms. Dewey actually aren’t all that hard to do, and there’s one company that has made it really easy to incorporate interactive avatars similar to this within your blogs and other websites. Read on and I’ll describe how you can use avatars.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 10/30/2006
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Filed under: Link Building, Marketing, MSN Search avatars, linkbait, MS-Live, virtual-reality, VR
