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sâmbătă, 25 ianuarie 2014
President Obama wanted you to know this
Seth's Blog : Measuring nothing (with great accuracy)
Measuring nothing (with great accuracy)
The weight of a television set has nothing at all to do with the clarity of its picture. Even if you measure to a tenth of a gram, this precise data is useless.
Some people measure stereo equipment using fancy charts and graphs, even though the charts and graphs say little or nothing about how it actually sounds.
A person's Klout score or the number of Twitter followers she has probably doesn't have a lot to do with how much influence she actually has, even if you measure it quite carefully.
You can't tell if a book is any good by the number of words it contains, even though it's quite easy and direct to measure this.
We keep coming up with new things to measure (like processor speed, heat output, column inches) but it's pretty rare that those measurements are actually a proxy for the impact or quality we care about. It takes a lot of guts to stop measuring things that are measurable, and even more guts to create things that don't measure well by conventional means.
More Recent Articles
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vineri, 24 ianuarie 2014
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- Retail Sales Cannibalization
- Emerging Market Contagion Spreads; Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey Roundup; 50% Tax on Internet Purchases
- Anecdotes From Home Depot Employee
| Posted: 24 Jan 2014 07:40 PM PST Retail firings continue. Today, Wal-Mart announced a 2% Reduction in Sam's Club Employees to thin middle-manager ranks. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is laying off about 2,300 employees at its Sam's Club warehouse unit to help thin the ranks of middle managers in its weakest stores, marking the club chain's biggest round of job cuts in four years.J.C. Penney Cutting 33 Stores and 2,000 Jobs The Sam's Club cuts are fresh on the heels of this announcement: J.C. Penney cutting 33 stores and 2,000 jobs J.C. Penney Co. is attempting to right-size itself by closing 33 under-performing stores around the country and eliminating 2,000 positions, the retailer said Wednesday.Macy's to Lay Off 2,500 Employees Also recall this announcement earlier this month: Macy's to Lay Off 2,500 Employees Amid Cost-Cutting In the same breath as it announced a "successful" holiday season, Macy's Inc. said it would lay off some 2,500 employees as it attempts to achieve $100 million in savings a year.Customer Cannibalization Let's now return to the lead story, Sam's Club. "CEO Brewer aims to better compete with brick-and-mortar rival Costco as well as to take on online membership clubs like Amazon Prime service. She seeks to double revenue and turn it into a $100 billion business, roughly the size of Costco." Is that remotely possible? If so how? The only way it is possible is via reducing prices and costs to the bare bone and taking customers away from Amazon, Macy's, J.C. Penny and its own parent company, Wal-Mart. The deflationary repercussions are enormous. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Posted: 24 Jan 2014 11:02 AM PST Argentina Institutes 50% Tax on Internet Purchases; Emerging Market Contagion Spreads; Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey Roundup Yesterday, Argentina devalued the Peso hoping to halt further declines in its currency reserves. Markets had seen this coming as charts of the Peso vs. the US dollar show. Peso vs. US Dollar One Week  Peso vs. US Dollar One Month  Peso vs. US Dollar Five Years  In the past 12 hours the peso fell as low as 8.164 to the dollar but currently sits at 7.164. Using the current close of 7.164 as our reference, here is a summary.
The 5-year decline is over 50%. Emerging Market Contagion Spreads Bloomberg reports Contagion Spreads in Emerging Markets as Crises Grow The worst selloff in emerging-market currencies in five years is beginning to reveal the extent of the fallout from the Federal Reserve's tapering of monetary stimulus, compounded by political and financial instability.Argentina Devaluation Yesterday, Bloomberg reported Argentina Devaluation Sends Currency Tumbling Most in 12 Years 50% Tax on Internet Purchases The BBC reports Argentina restricts online shopping as foreign reserves drop Argentina has introduced new restrictions on online shopping as part of efforts to stop foreign currency reserves from falling any further.Food Price Controls Earlier this month, Reuters reported Argentine peso at new lows as food price controls take effect Argentina's peso slid to an all-time low on Tuesday as supermarkets froze prices in a deal with the government aimed at shielding poor families from one of the world's highest inflation rates.Black Market Purchases Will Soar Price controls and currency pegs at ridiculous rates cause black markets. With the additional 50% tax on online purchases, expect black market trade to soar. Ag Connection Argentina gets what little foreign reserves it has, being the number 3 soybean and corn supplier, as well as its top provider of soymeal animal feed and soyoil, used in biofuels. Soybean Monthly Chart  Corn Monthly Chart  Soybean prices are still well above the 2009 lows, but are also far below the highs of a year ago. The price of corn is far below the highs of a year ago, and nearing the 2009 lows. These trends are heightening the already huge problems of emerging market exporters. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Anecdotes From Home Depot Employee Posted: 24 Jan 2014 09:19 AM PST In Target Drops Healthcare Coverage for Part-Time Workers I implied Target was disingenuous in its claim it would not reduce hours because of Obamacare. No Reduction in Hours?Although I do not have proof or even anecdotes from Target employees, I did receive an interesting email from "Pat", a Home Depot worker. Hi Mish,One email from one reader is not proof of anything. Heck, anecdotes in general do not constitute legitimate data. That said, I have received stacks of similar emails over the past year, all saying the same or similar thing. I even received an email from the owner of 50-store regional chain who said he was going to reduce hours (because he had to). Yet, Obama and mainstream media do not see (or admit) this happened. I maintain there is genuine supporting data for my thesis. For details, please see Employment vs. Jobs Discrepancy - December 2013 Data. Inquiring minds should also be interested in a related post Tsunami of Retail Store Closings and Downsizings Coming; Expect Layoffs and Shorter Hours. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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Damn Cool Pics
Damn Cool Pics |
| Posted: 24 Jan 2014 12:22 PM PST                         |
| What does the color of your car say about you? [infographic] Posted: 24 Jan 2014 12:03 PM PST Though car color seems like a random flight of fancy, there is research to show that one's preference for certain shades can predict aspects of one's personality. See what your car is saying about you (leaving out, of course, the gestures you are or are not doing out the window to the jerk who just cut you off in the snow). Click on Image to Enlarge.  |
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How to Earn the Amplification of Influencers - Whiteboard Friday
How to Earn the Amplification of Influencers - Whiteboard Friday |
| How to Earn the Amplification of Influencers - Whiteboard Friday Posted: 23 Jan 2014 03:17 PM PST Posted by randfish Marketing your products or services can be incredibly difficult when your target audience isn't already listening to what you have to say. In those cases, influencers have an amazing ability to amplify your message and boost your brand. The only problem? They're (rightfully) quite picky about what they share. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares his tips for winning them overâ€"an algorithm of sorts, to help you rank higher on the list of their priorities.
For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard! Video TranscriptionHowdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about influencer marketing in particular. I know I've heard skepticism from many marketers, especially sort of hardcore SEO folks who are going, "Well, influencer marketing through things like Twitter or Facebook or Google+ or outreach, these kinds of things, is this really necessary? Why am I doing it? My customers are not necessarily on these platforms. They are not necessarily influencers. What's the point?" I'll try and walk you through that. So first off, your target customers do exist somewhere, and they might be very hard to access. They could be not on any social networks, and even if they are on social networks, they might not follow you on those places. They're not subscribed to your blog or to the places where you guest post articles or the places that are mentioning you right now. But, and this is a big one, they do have ways of getting information. They have ways that they're learning about whatever professional or personal interests they have, and that usually leads into some form of influencer. Now, even before the Internet existed there were journalists and writers and thought leaders, and those have continued in the web era and certainly have evolved dramatically and become a much bigger field in the era of social media. But these influencers, these people who write for big publications, own their own properties, have a big following, they're almost certainly directly or indirectly influencing this group of customers that you're trying to reach. You need only figure out who they are and how to reach them. The interesting thing about influencers is they need new, unique content to share all the time. All the time, every day influencers wake up, and they're thinking to themselves, "Gosh, what is it that I'm going to share today? How am I going to continually grow my brand and add value to my audience and be on the leading edge? Because if I'm not, I'm losing out in relevance to someone who is building that audience." These folks definitely, to almost 100% definitely use social media. At the very least, they're using Twitter, which is sort of an interesting one because Twitter is used, according to the latest Pew Research, by only around 19% or 20% of online Americans. But for the influencers group, it's 99 out of 100, and the reason being because Twitter is really a platform for influencing, growing influence, gaining that thought leadership and authority. So even folks who are very old school, sort of old media folks, they have Twitter accounts, and they are using them. They do use other networks, things like Facebook. Certainly Pinterest has some following there, networks like Google+. But Twitter is sort of the primary one, which is interesting because Facebook, of course, is much bigger than Twitter in terms of your general population. These influencers have two special powers. Number one, they can amplify social reach to your audience. Meaning, if you share something on a Twitter, a Facebook, a LinkedIn, a Google+, a Pinterest, a Reddit, a StumbleUpon, whatever network you might be using, the influencers on those networks have the ability to help amplify that reach. You might reach your audience of a few dozen or a few hundred. They'll help it reach thousands, many thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands or millions. Secondarily, they can provide links, mentions, and other kinds of signals that search engines use to rank sites higher. Meaning that even in the rare case where your target audience is not following anyone, is not paying attention to any of these influencers and search is the only channel that they use to discover information, influencers can still help you by helping you achieve these signals that will help your site, your content, your pages rank better in search, which means your target customer will find them. The trick is this is a very, very picky audience. Nine times out of ten, when they are exposed to content, they're going to go, "No. Not good enough. I don't know who this person is. I don't care about this. I'm not helping it go anywhere." So you have to get good at earning that amplification, and that starts with answering the question: Why? Why will influencers share your content, your post, your brand? Why? If you can't answer this question, all of this influencer targeting and marketing is going to become useless, because these people are incredibly picky. There are a few big keys to this, and I've tried to enumerate them. Actually, I'm going to show it to you in an equation form. So essentially, the likelihood of earning an influencer's amplification is related to things like the personal connection that you have with them. That can be direct, which is often less likely. As a marketer working for especially a small and midsize brand, chances are that your direct connection to large groups of influencers might be small. But indirect connections work too, and this means if you know someone who knows them, if you can get a friendly introduction, much like you would to a potential investor or a business partner, that can open the door. If your work makes them look good. You see a lot of influencers who share content and material that makes either themselves or their brand or company, if they work for a brand or company, look good. So those types of ego baiting can be successful at times. It's tough if it's too overt or too flashy or not credible enough. But it can work. If the sharing that you're requesting that they do, the linking, the amplification of whatever kind can bring them large amounts of their own amplification. So if I say, "Hey, Seth Godin, I'd really love it if you shared this on your blog." I know that when Seth does share something on his blog, it will also go out to many, many people on Twitter and over other social networks. Well, if Seth believes that that's likely to earn his blog and his Twitter account a much larger audience, then he's more likely to say yes and to want to engage in that activity. Third, if your work is their work. If your work is their work. Meaning, rather than simply saying, "Hey, I made this. What do you think of it," if you say, "Hey, can I get some data, some feedback, some material from you, and I'd like to transform it, modify it, turn it into something even more useful, valuable, interesting," now you have a real hook because they've contributed to that work. Surveys are obviously a great way to do this. Data collection is a great way to do this. There are many other forms too. Then the last one, if your work provides credibility or additional support, either anecdotally or data-wise, for one of their goals or beliefs. These influencers are trying to accomplish things. They have beliefs that they share. They have goals that they're trying to accomplish professionally, usually, or personally, and if you have information that can help them, you can win. So this is represented in the algorithm I've got here. Very, very simplistic algorithm. The likelihood is related to the relevance of your work to their audience, the value to their own personal brand, the opportunity they have to earn that extra amplification, the benefit to their goals or beliefs, plus some measure of the quality of the outreach you're actually doing times the personal relationship connection. The better personal relationship connection you've got, the more mediocre it's okay for your outreach be. You can have a very simplistic message if it's coming directly to them and you're already friends in real life. It's easy, right? Somebody emails me and says, "Hey, Rand, can you share this," and it's my investor, Brad Feld, I'm going to be like, "Yes, I will do that for you." Of course I will. But if somebody cold emails me and I've never heard of them before, well it's very unlikely. So there's a relationship between these two that's special. If you take this and you find these people and you're able to earn this additional amplification, your content of all kinds can do much more to reach your target customers. All right, everyone, hope you've enjoyed this edition of Whiteboard Friday. We'll see you again next week. Take care. Video transcription by Speechpad.com Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Time for Guest Blogging With a Purpose Posted: 23 Jan 2014 02:46 AM PST Posted by jennita Dear Readers, before getting to the meat of the post about how to make guest blogging work for you and not end up looking like a spammer, I'd like to tell you a little story. A story about when Matt Cutts single-handedly changed the course of my day. The story goes a little something like this... It was a chilly, yet calm Monday afternoon in the Moz office, as I was having lunch at my desk and watching over all the Moz social channels (a task I rarely do these days, as we have a team of awesome ladies who usually does it). As I was checking my personal Twitter feed though, I saw a tweet from Matt Cutts pointing to his latest blog post, "The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO." Quickly I jumped over to read the blog and… BOOM, this was the first paragraph: Okay, I'm calling it: if you're using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it's become a more and more spammy practice, and if you're doing a lot of guest blogging then you're hanging out with really bad company. "Oh dear," I thought to myself. "My day just got a whole lot more interesting." It didn't take long before people starting asking questions about whether sites like Moz and our YouMoz blog would be in danger. People were unsure as to what exactly his post meant. Was he saying there was going to be an algo change, as Rand predicted in last week's Whiteboard Friday? Was he saying that all guest blogging was dead, or that all guest blogging had become spammy? Did he mean that all links in guest posts now should be nofollowed? Essentially, the SEO world got its crazy on.
Immediately I was fielding all sorts of questions, from how Moz discourages spam links in guest posts, to how it'd be crazy to ban us from Google. There were also lots of jokes going on… you know, things like letting Keri (our YouMoz manager), stay longer on her vacation. But I digress; let me get back to Matt's blog post. In it, he also has this to say: "Ultimately, this is why we can't have nice things in the SEO space: a trend starts out as authentic. Then more and more people pile on until only the barest trace of legitimate behavior remains. We've reached the point in the downward spiral where people are hawking "guest post outsourcing" and writing articles about "how to automate guest blogging. "So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it's just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn't recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn't recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy." I giggled at the "this is why we can't have nice things in SEO" line. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd heard it phrased exactly that way before. But what really caught my eye was this, "We've reached the point in the downward spiral…" Wait… hadn't Rand said the exact same thing three days ago in his Whiteboard Friday? Wait… wasn't it called "Why Guest Posting and Blogging is a Slippery Slope???" Of course, others caught on to this as well. But the point really isn't about how Rand can see the future; it's about how Matt wasn't actually saying anything we didn't already know. Right? No, seriously.
Ok, ok, so maybe it wasn't totally obvious to everyone, or else the post wouldn't have been written, eh? So how do you proceed if you were using guest posting as a link building strategy? (By the way, guest posting is a tactic, not a strategy.) Guest post with a purposeAs with anything, you don't want to be out there trying willy-nilly to get your posts on every blog for the sole purpose of building (probably bad) links. It's important to have this tied to your business and marketing goals, as you would with any other tactic. SEO is only one piece of the larger strategy, and if you focus solely on writing posts for link building purposes, you're missing out on a ton of other possibilities, such as:
Imagine if you were to focus on writing an amazing blog post, with actionable information, relevant to the community of the blog you're pitching. No, reallyâ€"you should do that. Believe me, that's how you're going to get a post on YouMoz. :) As Sir Dr. Pete (I added the Sir, because he's older than me ;) ) so eloquently stated today in an internal thread about this very topic, "You've got to make sure you're not a one trick link-building pony. I mean, any time you base 80% or more of your link profile on one tactic/gimmick, you're going to eventually be in trouble. The problem isn't guest-posting, it's abuse." People, the doctor has spoken. But how, you ask? How do you ensure that you don't come across as spammy or a "one trick link-building pony?" For this, I'd like to introduce you to Everett Sizemore. He's an Associate here at Moz, and mostly focuses on helping out in Q&A. But in his real job, he's the Director of R&D, Special Projects, and Moonshine over at seOverflow. (Hey Everett, how does one go about getting an amazing job title like that, anyway??) Over the past few days we've had some email discussions about guest posting. We discussed how Google might determine a post is spammy, how they'd determine one was legit, and ways in which SEOs and all the other online marketers out there should be guest blogging legitimately. Well, Everett had the answer that we all agreed was the best answer, so now I happily present to you... Everett's tips on how to be a better guest posterHe stated that seOverflow wasn't panicking in the least because they were changing their internal guest posting guidelines to now include language like this:
With that said, this 'tactic' is taking a back seat in our arsenal of options in any content marketing strategy. Our goal these days is to find the influencers in any niche and pay an expert to write expert-level content, no matter where it gets placed, to help further our clients business goals, primarily through online customer acquisition driven by good content. That's good stuff right there. Essentially, be a real person, write posts with purpose beyond just building links. How can guest blogging sites stay credible?Since we're on the subject, let's talk about sites like the Huffington Post, Tech Crunch, Smashing Magazine, and even the Google Analytics blog. All of those sites, along with our own YouMoz and Moz Blog, allow guest posts. One thing that's common across all of these sites is that they have rigorous editing. They simply don't allow for just anyone write a post about anything. They read through posts for accuracy, to ensure that links aren't simply "link drops," and to ensure focus on actual, good, helpful content. But let's say you allow guest posts, but you're not quite as strict about things right now? Here are a few tips to make sure your blog stays credible, even with guest posts:
Guest blogging isn't deadLet me wrap this up by stating again that guest blogging isn't dead by any means. But being a Spammy McSpammer only caring about links, and not caring about real content, community building, branding, and all those other great benefits... is dead. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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