Central Perk

luni, 19 septembrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Home Prices Rise in All 70 Monitored China Cities;Local Governments Rely on Ponzi Land Sales to Pay Mounting Debt;Tightening Concerns Hit China Stocks
Obama Proposes $4 Trillion in Spending Cuts "Over 120 Years"
European Leaders Remain Divided, Geithner Brushed Off; German Banks Need $175 Billion Capital

Home Prices Rise in All 70 Monitored China Cities;Local Governments Rely on Ponzi Land Sales to Pay Mounting Debt;Tightening Concerns Hit China Stocks

Posted: 18 Sep 2011 10:54 PM PDT

The housing bubble in China blasts ahead full steam even if the Chinese stock market is not.

Please consider China Home Prices Rise, Challenge Curbs

China's August new-home prices rose in all 70 cities monitored for the first time this year, undercutting government efforts to cool the market through higher down-payments and mortgage rates.

Prices in Beijing rose 1.9 percent from a year ago, while those in Shanghai, the nation's financial center, increased 2.8 percent, the statistics bureau said on its website yesterday. New home prices rose in 67 out of 70 cities in the first half this year and were up in all but two in July.

China's measures to control its property market are at a critical stage and the nation needs to focus efforts on curbing price increases in less affluent cities after limiting home purchases by each family in metropolitan areas including Beijing and Shanghai, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sept. 1. Only two cities responded to the government's July call for added restrictions on housing purchases, as local governments rely on land sales to pay mounting debt.

Local Governments Rely on Land Sales to Pay Mounting Debt

Read that last paragraph above carefully. Local governments have ignored central authority calls to restrict housing because fueling the housing bubble is the only way local governments can pay interest on debt.

Thus, the China property boom has gone beyond bubble to an outright Ponzi scheme.

China Stocks Hit 14-Month Low

Bloomberg reports China's Stocks Decline to 14-Month Low on Tightening Concern, Pending IPOs

China's stocks fell to a 14-month low after Premier Wen Jiabao said the government will take measures to control inflation and investors speculated pending initial public offerings will sap demand for existing equities.

"The upcoming big IPOs are a major reason for the market plunge, draining liquidity in the market," said Tu Jun, a strategist at Shanghai Securities Co. "It's not a good time for fund-raising but the government's tight monetary policy has left companies with no other choice."

Tight Money Policy?!

Good Grief. Credit in China is soaring. Home prices are booming. Local governments are lending money for housing in spite of requests by central authorities to not do so.

How can anyone get "tight money policy" out of those conditions?

Economic Challenges

China shouldn't ease its monetary policy and could face vicious inflation if it does, the Oriental Morning Post said today, citing Wu Xiaoling, vice director of the finance and economy committee of the National People's Congress. China's economic growth faces large challenges in the fourth quarter and next year as the global economic recovery slows, the newspaper said.

China Overheating

Those looking for inflation can easily find it, in China.

However, nearly everyone is looking at the US where inflation is nowhere to be found (at least from a credit aspect, housing aspect, and interest rate aspect) all of which are far more important than nominal price moves of food and gasoline.

Of course inflation is not about rising prices in the first place, but rather about credit and credit-marked-to-market.

"No New Stimulus" Warning

Former Deputy Central Banker pleads "No New Stimulus"

China should refrain from boosting credit and fiscal spending again as stimulus measures to avoid fueling inflation and pushing up government debt, Wu Xiaoling, a former deputy central bank governor said in remarks published on Monday.

"Currently, China's economy faces inflationary pressures as well as pressures on government debt, which means we cannot go down the road of expanding both credit and fiscal spending," the official Finance News quoted Wu as telling a forum.

Chinese policymakers should be "extremely wary" about the risk of government debt, said Wu, who is now a senior lawmaker.

China is trying to clean up the roughly 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.68 trillion) in local debt -- a hangover from a 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package unveiled by Beijing in late 2008 to counter the global financial crisis.

China faces more economic challenges in the fourth quarter of this year and 2012, Wu said, adding that slower economic growth next year would be highly likely.

Weak global demand, government tightening steps to target the property sector and a slowdown in investment for highways and high-speed railways as could weigh on China's growth, she added.

Warning Far Too Late

Put that stimulus warning in the category labeled "ridiculously late". China's property bubble is in an extreme state, right at a time the entire global economy is slowing dramatically.

China Will Slow Far Faster Than Most Think

China's property bubble is set to implode, and when it does, the Chinese economy will cool far more than anyone thinks, taking commodities along for the ride. Commodity producers like Australia and Canada are at extreme risk as well.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Obama Proposes $4 Trillion in Spending Cuts "Over 120 Years"

Posted: 18 Sep 2011 08:32 PM PDT

The theater of the absurd regarding spending cuts hit a new high today. We are now counting budget cuts not over a year, or even ten years, but rather 120 years.

Please consider Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue

The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes the new taxes, nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending, $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The $1.5 trillion in tax revenue would include about $800 billion realized over 10 years from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. It also would place limits on deductions for wealthy filers and end certain corporate loopholes and subsidies for oil and gas companies.

By adding the tax revenue, about $580 billion in proposed mandatory spending cuts, the savings from troop withdrawals and $1 trillion in spending cuts already in place, the combined deficit reduction would total about $4 trillion over 120 years.

Whose harebrained idea was it to carry the savings out to 120 years (the Administration or the AP writer?). I suppose it could be a typo for 12 years or 20 years but how about some savings over 1 year?

By the way, we need to ask: Is that $1 trillion troop reduction a budgeted item or it is taking credit for something that was never was appropriated in the first place.

Service Providers Hit

Administration officials said 90 percent of the $248 billion in 10-year Medicare cuts would be squeezed from service providers. The plan does shift some additional costs to beneficiaries, but those changes would not start until 2017, and administration officials made clear as well that Obama would veto any Medicare cuts that aren't paired with tax increases on upper-income people.

The president's plan also called for cuts of $72 billion over ten years from Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for low-income people and the severely disabled. States, hospitals and advocates for the poor are expected to resist those.

Dead on Arrival

I would like to see a detailed plan as to how $223 billion will be squeezed out of service providers.

However, the question is moot because the entire proposal is likely dead on arrival. Republicans will not agree to new taxes and Democrats will bitch about cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

European Leaders Remain Divided, Geithner Brushed Off; German Banks Need $175 Billion Capital

Posted: 18 Sep 2011 09:15 AM PDT

As talks wind down in Poland, European leaders still divided on debt crisis

European leaders made little headway Saturday on resolving a banking crisis that threatens to weaken their economies and spread damage overseas to countries such as the United States.

Finance ministers from European Union nations gathered in Poland for two days of talks and even invited Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to their meeting to explain how the U.S. handled a similar crisis in 2008-09.

Yet EU ministers did not coalesce around any rescue plan for Greece or troubled European banks. Some also brushed off advice from Geithner, who's urged them to stimulate their economies and act quickly to shore up their banking system.

Wealthier EU countries such as Germany have been balking at a larger bailout of Greece using public money. All EU leaders have agreed on so far is that their banks need to be strengthened by raising more capital.

"From our perspective, we see a clear need for bank recapitalization," Swedish Finance minister Anders Borg said. "The EU banking system needs better backstops and that's basically a matter of capital."

The big question is where the money will come from, especially since private investors appear unwilling to risk more cash. A shortage of dollars prompted the Federal Reserve this week to engage in large currency swaps with European central banks that effectively injected more liquidity into the EU's financial system.

Most analysts think European governments will have no choice but to use public money. Jay Bryson, global economist at Wells Fargo, said Germany "can pay now or they can pay later."

Yes this is a case of pay now or pay later, but that is not the critical issue. Who pays, is the issue.

Bondholder should take a hit. Banks that overleveraged into Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese bonds should taker the hit not taxpayers.

Geithner, the Fed, the ECB, and the banks all want to screw taxpayers one more time, bailing out the banks at taxpayer expense. The amounts are not trivial.

German Banks Need $175 Billion Capital

Reuters reports German banks need 127 billion euros of more capital

Germany's 10 biggest banks need 127 billion euros ($175 billion) of additional capital, German newspaper Frankfurt Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported, citing a study by economic research institute DIW.

Bear in mind that is just German banks. French banks are also severely undercapitalized. Also note the target is a mere 5% equity ratio, implying a leverage ratio of 20-1, still hugely over-leveraged from a common-sense standpoint.

It is fitting that European leaders remain divided, because the best solution is division, a breakup of the Eurozone. Please see Eurozone Breakup Logistics (Never Believe Anything Until It's Officially Denied) for a discussion.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

duminică, 18 septembrie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Linkscape's September Update + Feedback

Posted: 17 Sep 2011 03:12 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

Last week, we launched a new Linkscape update with data crawled and indexed in August. Several folks noticed some significant changes in this index, particularly in link counts and some PA/DA metrics. I wanted to take some time in this post to talk about Linkscape's data, our process, some of the challenges we're facing and what you can expect to see with the index over the next several months.

Before we do that, here's the stats on the latest update:

45,200,112,724 (45.2 billion) URLs
425,981,698 (425 million) Subdomains
98,785,848 (98.7 million) Root Domains
373,046,145,690 (373 billion) Links
Followed vs. Nofollowed
- 2.22% of all links found were nofollowed
- 58.7% of nofollowed links are internal, 41.3% are external
Rel Canonical - 10.12% of all pages now employ a rel=canonical tag
The average page has 80.08 links on it
- 66.71 internal links on average
- 13.37 external links on average

If you've been paying close attention to the stats on the Linkscape index updates, you might have observed that for the past year, domain diversity (the quantity of root domains in the index) and overall size (the number of unique URLs) appear to have an inverse relationship. When we have larger indices, we crawl fewer domains and when we crawl more domains, we tend to have fewer pages from them.

Here's a graphical comparison starting in August of last year:

Linkscape URLs + Root Domains August 2010 - September 2011

As you can see, when we've crawled a larger number of unique domains, we've crawled fewer individual URLs. This has long been a frustration and an artifact of some of the systems that we've used to build the service. In April of this year, we began testing a new system for crawling that we hope will enable us to reach both depth and breadth, but there's a lot of complex, hard-to-build steps we need to take first to scale processing, fix bugs and streamline Linkscape's architecture.

Our VP Engineering, Kate, recently addressed this in a Q+A on the topic:

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to add a quick response to shed a bit more light on the situation. Last year we started a on a project to drastically improve our index. The first part of that was to make our crawler discover more of the web - this included crawling deeper on domains, discovering more links faster (freshness), and contain more links overall.

Background

To understand the changes, it might help if I explain how our crawler used to work and how we changed.

Our crawler used to crawl the web (for 3-4 weeks), then we would compute the link graph and create all the lists of links, and metrics you see in Open Site Explorer - this is what we called processing (and it would take 2-3 weeks). As part of processing we would select the top 10 billion urls to crawl, and then start crawling those.

The problem with this system was that the data was could be 7-8 weeks old (crawling time + processing + deployment to the API and OSE). It also wasn't recursive - meaning that we would only discover new links when we did the processing of that crawl, so it could take us several months before we would see new links that were deeper in domains.

The Changes

We modified our crawler so we were crawling all the time - we crawl sites every day, or week, or month - based on authority. As we crawl those site, any new links that we find are added to one of the buckets, and will be crawled typically within that same index. This is exciting because we can go deeper, discover more links, and produce a higher quality index. The other benefit, is that since we are crawling all the time, we can just take a snapshot of that crawl and run processing - without waiting for the last round of processing to finish - and this means we can update the index more often.

However, in June, we had a problem with the old crawlers, and we had to roll out our new version of the crawl and index with the OSE launch on July 27th. So even though our testing looked good when we released the new index, and correlations were higher than the old crawl, we got complaints about things that were wrong.

The Issues

Binary files were in the index - There are normally only supposed to be links in the index, but because the new crawler went very deep on some domains we started discovering all sorts of binary files, which when parsed, produced lots of weird links. So domains had all these links from sites that didn't link to them. We fixed this issue, and this is the first index with the fix.

We went too deep on big domains - There are a lot of knobs to turn on the new crawlers - from the number of sites we crawl daily/weekly/month to how many links we keep for different domains. One of the first things we noticed with this new crawl, was that we had less domains in our index. So we dialed down how many urls could come from a domain - and this new index also contains that change.

What We Are Doing

We recognize that all of you depend on this data. And we take the index quality very seriously.

We have already made a lot of other changes, increasing the overall size and adjusting how we crawl. However, since it still takes 2-4 weeks to process an index, so some of those changes won't be seen for another 2-4 weeks yet.

We are also working on an updated, higher correlating Page Authority/Domain Authority that should be out in a month or two - but also may jump around a bit.

What You Can Do

Definitely keep sending us feedback. It really helps us understand where we may have missed in our testing, and what we can do to fix it. And thanks again for your patience - we really want to deliver the best possible Linkscape for you, and I assure the team is working nights and weekends to address these concerns. And if anyone has questions you can always email me or our help team (which tend to respond to emails much faster), as all of us care a lot and really want to hear your feedback.

Thanks again,
Kate

On Friday night, I stayed late at the office with a number of folks from the Linkscape team (pictured below during their morning standup):

The Linkscape Team at SEOmoz
(clockwise from Martin in the center; Alec, Phil, Brandon, Carin, Matt and Walt)

There are big, tough problems around building a web index, particularly on a budget like ours vs. those of Google or Bing. We brainstormed a lot of ideas, but the big challenge comes down to this: Any change we make today won't be observable for at least 5-6 weeks, making for a very slow iteration process. In software engineering, the faster your iterations and the faster you know the impact of your changes, the faster you can improve. Linkscape is not providing a fast feedback loop today, and we know we need to address that before we invest tons of efforts in improvements that "might" have a positive impact.

I can promise, however, that the team of engineers working on this are among the smartest, most capable, diligent and passionate people I've ever worked with or met. We know there's going to be 3-4 more months of hard slogging and indices of only moderately improved quality before we reach the levels we really want (our internal goal is 100 billion URLs in an index while maintaining domain diversity above 110 million root domains).

You can definitely help us by providing feedback when you think we've missed an important site or page, when metrics look out of whack or when something goes awry in OSE, the mozBar or your web app campaigns. We really appreciate your patience while we improve and your support for the Linkscape dataset. The team can tell you that I take our struggles personally and hard, but I'm incredibly bullish on what we'll be producing by the end of the year.

What to Expect in the Next 3 Months

We'll have a new index out in just 7-10 days that further addresses some bugs (and has some more freshly crawled pages, too)
Index sizes - look for between 44-55 billion URLs, probably not achieving much over that until December, possibly later
Domain diversity - look for 100mil+ starting in the next index, and likely maintaining near that or above for future indices
Index updates may slip past 4-5 weeks as we try to make more fixes ahead of a new crawl or processing cycle (we'll keep the Linkscape calendar updated to make this a transparent process)
We're releasing a new version of PA + DA that are likely to be much better correlated with Google rankings (giving a superior metric to judge the ranking potential of sites/pages). This might, however, result in some sites + pages rising or falling dramatically. My best advice here is to use your competitors and industry cohorts as a bar for comparison rather than just looking at the raw numbers over time (since the metric itself is changing, a "40" in October might not mean what a "40" means today).

Looking forward to hearing from you - the engineering team, along with myself and Kate, will be paying close attention to the comments on the thread and to any private feedback or emails to help@seomoz.org on this topic as well. Thanks again - it's an honor to have such a great community of folks paying careful attention and deriving value from our products. We promise to live up to the high expectations you've got for us.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Seth's Blog : "Yet"

"Yet"

Here's a way to figure out if it pays to adopt a new technology.

When you talk about your market or your peers, do you say, "no one is using it..." or "no one is using it yet"?

Yet implies inevitability. If they're going to use it, it might make sense to get there before they do.

[Worth considering: The difference between a technology where getting in early pays dividends, and those that don't. For example, having a website or a blog or a Twitter account early can help, because each day you add new users and fans.

QR codes, on the other hand, don't reward those that get in the ground floor. You can always start tomorrow.]

• Email to a friend •

sâmbătă, 17 septembrie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

More on the Coming Wave of Foreclosures

Posted: 17 Sep 2011 02:30 PM PDT

In response to Mortgage Default Notices Surge 33% Nationwide, 55% in California, 200% by Bank of America; Corresponding Jump in Foreclosures Will Follow Patrick Pulatie at LFI Analytics writes ....

Hello Mish,

This is what was expected, and the timing is just about right.

Apr 13, 2011, the OCC ordered the Consent Decree affecting 16 entities, banks, servicers, & MERS. The lenders were given 60 days to present plans how meet the demands of the Decree, and 60 days to actually implement the plans, which would have been Aug 13.

The Decree covered the foreclosure process, and specifically addressed MERS and Certifying Officers. The Decree detailed what need to be done to ensure that any MERS signing and foreclosure was lawful in the particular state where the property was located.

Combine this with the MERS "order" to foreclose in the lenders name, decisions like Gomes v Countrywide in the CA Appeals Court, and now the 9th Circuit ruling supporting MERS, the lenders can begin to foreclose again with relative ease, as long as they follow the Decree.

Likely, much of the rest of the country will experience similar actions, especially since the lid has been lifted in New Jersey.

Most of the homeowner lawsuits to come will be based upon issues with loan modifications. There will still be some based upon foreclosure processes, but these will likely be on pre Aug 13, initiations. Of course, for large numbers of attorneys, they will still file actions based upon the old allegations, but such attorneys only care about the income stream.

There are 1.9 million homes over 90 days late in the US. 6.9 million are delinquent. So, we can see what is coming.

Also, I am now noticing a new trend. Homeowners who received legitimate HAMP loans in 2010 and were able to afford repayment are now re-defaulting again. This time, like before, the defaults are caused by substantial loss of income due to the economy. I expect to see much more coming.

Patrick Pulatie

One of the key rulings that will increase the rate of foreclosures comes from the 9th Circuit Court. Please see 9th Circuit Court Ruling Legitimizes MERS for details.

Addendum:

Pulatie pinged me with this comment

Calvo v HSBC

This case in California just clarified that there is no need for any Assignment of the Deed of Trust to be recorded prior to foreclosure.
Statute CCC 2932.5 is put to rest.

It essentially nails the coffin lid closed on foreclosure defenses that attorneys have been using, when combined with the 9th Circuit ruling and Gomes v Countrywide.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Germany Rejects Geithner's Leveraged Rescue Fund Proposal; First Time Ever, Majority of Germans No Longer See Benefits to Eurozone Membership

Posted: 17 Sep 2011 08:47 AM PDT

It's good to see someone thinking clearly, and that someone is certainly not Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who wants to dump more Euro risk on the backs of European taxpayers, especially German taxpayers.

Bloomberg reports Germany Rejects Using ECB Leverage to Increase European Rescue Fund's Size

Germany's top two finance officials rejected using the European Central Bank to boost the euro-area rescue fund's firepower, rebuffing a suggestion by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

"The EFSF's sole purpose is the financing of states and that's in order as long as it's done via the capital market," Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told reporters today. "If it's done via the central bank it constitutes monetary state financing," which is forbidden under European Union rules.

"We don't think that real economic and social problems can be solved by means of monetary policy," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaking alongside Weidmann after the meeting of EU finance ministers and central bank governors. "That has never been the European model and it won't be."

60% of Germans See No Benefit to Being Part of Eurozone

Please consider Wolf Richter's excellent article on recent German polls and the rebuffing of Geithner: Bailout Rebellion in Germany Heats Up

For the first time ever, a clear majority (60%) of Germans no longer sees any benefits to being part of the Eurozone, given all the risks, according to a poll published September 16 (FAZ, article in German). In the age group 45 to 54, it jumps to 67%. And 66% reject aiding Greece and other heavily indebted countries. Ominously for Chancellor Angela Merkel, 82% believe that her government's crisis management is bad, and 83% complain that they're kept in the dark about the politics of the euro crisis.
"There cannot be any prohibition to think" just so that the euro can be stabilized, wrote Philipp Rösler, Minister of Economics and Technology, in a commentary published on September 9 (Welt, article in German). "And the orderly default of Greece is part of that," he added. Instantly, all hell broke loose, and Denkverbot (prohibition to think) became a rallying cry against the onslaught of criticism that his remarks engendered.

Even Timothy Geithner, who attended the meeting of European finance ministers in Poland, fired off a broadside in Rösler's direction. In the same breath, he proposed the expansion—through leverage, of all things—of the European bailout mechanism, the EFSF. According to Austrian Finance Minister, Maria Fekter, who witnessed the scene, he warned of "catastrophic" economic risks due to the disputes among the countries of the Eurozone and due to the conflicts between these countries and the ECB. Then he demanded in dramatic terms, she said, that "we grab money with our hands to stabilize the banks and expand the EFSF unconditionally."

The smack-down was immediate. German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, took Geithner to task and explained to him in no uncertain terms, according to Fekter, that it was not possible to burden the taxpayers to that extent, particularly not if only the taxpayers of Triple-A countries were to be burdened. A bailout "with tax money alone in the quantity that the USA imagines will not be feasible," Schäuble said. (Wiener Zeitung, article in German).
Vocal support for Rösler came today from a group of 16 prominent German economists. If the government in its efforts to stabilize the euro didn't consider the insolvency of a member country, they warned, Germany would become subject to endless extortion (FAZ, article in German). And to impose a Denkverbot concerning it would be a step back into "top-down state thinking." They further lamented that these policies would turn the Eurozone into a transfer union. If the government wanted to establish a transfer union, it should discuss that with the German voters, they demanded, because it would be a fundamental change in the E.U. constitution and should be legitimized by vote. Otherwise, Germany would be "threatened by a populist movement to exit the E.U."

Future Decided at the Polls

There's more in Richter's article including preposterous demands for Eurobonds by the Italian Finance Minister. Fortunately, the Eurobond idea is dead, thanks to a sensible ruling by the German courts.

Looking ahead, what Merkel wants will not matter after the next election. She will be toast, as will the leaders of Spain, Italy, and Greece.

French president Sarkozy may not survive either although some have written from France that his anti-Euro opponent, Marine Le Pen has no chance. I would certainly like to see some recent polls on that. Anyone have any?

Regardless, sentiment has clearly changed in Germany. Moreover, Finland and Austria have had enough of bailouts as well.

For more on breakup possibilities and ramifications, please see Eurozone Breakup Logistics (Never Believe Anything Until It's Officially Denied)

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Damn Cool Pics

Anti-Coning McDonalds Manager

Posted: 16 Sep 2011 09:29 PM PDT

With McDonald's managers like this taking a stand against people who want to get ice cream all over their own hands coning's days are numbered.

Angry Birds in Real Life

Posted: 16 Sep 2011 08:59 PM PDT

Here comes the Angry Birds! Unarguably the best and most successful and addictive game for mobiles, Angry Birds has managed to amaze people ever since it was released as an app for iPhone and iPad. It went on to be the most sold app on the Apple app store and one of the most popular games on Android too. Rovio, the developer of Angry Birds hasn't left any stone unturned to make it available on every platform, be it on mobiles or desktop.

I hope that these birds are not so violent in real life.

Weekly Address: Passing the American Jobs Act

Your Daily Snapshot for
Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011

Weekly Address: Passing the American Jobs Act

President Obama discusses the need for Congress to pass the American Jobs Act to put more people back to work, and more money back in the pockets of people who are working.

Watch the video.

Weekly Wrap Up

American Jobs Act: On Monday, the President sent the American Jobs Act to Congress. During the week he met with Americans who will benefit from the measures proposed in the Act, including gatherings at Fort Hayes High School, in Columbus, Ohio where the conversation focused on how the American Jobs Act will help teachers and student across the country. The White House also hosted Office Hours with some of the President’s senior economic advisers and hosted an Open for Questions session, answering your tweets, Facebook posts and questions sent to WhiteHouse.gov about the bill.

Remembering September 11: Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the worst attacks on American soil in our history. Across the country people answered the President’s call and participated in service projects, including the First Family. The President and First Lady visited the September 11 memorials in all three of the crash sites, ground zero in New York City, Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon. Vice President and Dr. Biden participated in the dedication ceremony for the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, and attended the Sunday service at the Pentagon. On Sunday evening, the President told the audience at the Kennedy Center’s Concert for Hope: “We kept the faith, took a painful blow, and we are stronger than before.”

America Invents Act: Thomas Jefferson would be proud. On Friday morning, President Obama signed the America Invents Act in law at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia – in a nod to Jefferson, the first official to issue a U.S. patent. This historic legislation will help American entrepreneurs and businesses get their inventions to the marketplace sooner so they can turn their ideas into new products and new jobs.

Medal of Honor: On Thursday the President awarded the Medal of Honor to Dakota Meyer, a former active duty Marine Corps Corporal from Kentucky. Sergeant Meyer was recognized for his courageous actions above and beyond the call of duty while serving in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on September 8, 2009. Meyer is the third living recipient -- and the first Marine --to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. And at 23, he is also one of the youngest recipients in decades.

Violence Against Women Act: This week marked the 17th anniversary of the landmark legislation, and Vice President Biden, who sponsored this bill as a senator, spoke about the great strides that have been made in addressing all types of violence against women. Since the enactment of the bill in 1994, major changes have been made in the ways that communities respond to domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence.

We the People: Turns out people want to know more about our upcoming petitions platform. Macon Phillips, the White House’s Director of Digital Strategy, addressed some of the questions and comments WhiteHouse.gov visitors have submitted about the new petition site. We the People will provide you with a new way to petition the federal government to take action on a range of issues that you care about.

West Wing Week: Don't miss out on some behind the scenes footage on West Wing Week.

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SEOptimise

How to Write a Social Media Audit

Posted: 16 Sep 2011 05:38 AM PDT

I'm always looking for ways to improve our social media audits at SEOptimise to make them more insightful and actionable. While there is no perfect way to approach writing a social media audit, here are some ideas on what I think are important things to consider when writing a social media audit.

What’s the point of a social media audit?

A good social media audit can take quite a while to write, so you need to make sure that the final audit provides you and the client with valuable insight, ideas, and solutions to the client’s problems.

I recommend starting off by deciding what the questions are that you want the audit to answer. This may change to some extent from client to client, but here is a rough list of what I think are some of the most important things to try and gain from your social media audit:

What is the client's aim or expectation from social media? E.g. do they want to decrease customer service costs by answering customer problems on Twitter, or do they simply want to build their profile amongst bloggers in this niche? What is their audience size & demographics and how do they use social media?
What is the client currently doing in social media? Where are their strengths and weaknesses? Are they currently tracking ROI and the effectiveness of their social media?
What are the competitors doing in social media? Is it similar to what the client is doing? Are they doing anything successfully that could be emulated?
What platforms, content, and campaigns work well in this niche or industry? Where are the correct audience participating and what strengths does the client have that they can exploit using social media?
What campaigns, content strategy, or promotions need to be implemented to achieved the client's goals and expectations?

When you know what it is you want to find out, you can begin to put together an appropriate structure and order that ensures all of your important questions are answered. My suggestion on creating a structure is as follows:

Structuring a Social Media Audit

Note: The screenshots used below are for example purposes only.

1. Introduction & Executive Summary

This section should include an overview of what can be achieved with social media, and how this ties in with the client's goals. This is also a good place to outline how you plan to track the results and measure the effectiveness of the campaigns.

2. Internal review & benchmarking

This section should include an analysis of what the client is currently doing in social media, what is working well, and how well adopted social media is in the company.

3. External review & competitor analysis

This section looks at what the client isn't currently doing that could potentially work well for them. This tends to include trend research, and an in-depth analysis of what competitors are doing successfully.

4. Campaign structure & approach

The final main section of the audit looks at what campaigns, content, and promotions could be produced to help the client achieve their goals. We often categorise this section into short-term and long-term campaigns, and also include suggestions on improving existing networks, content, and websites to improve shareability.

Writing the Audit

When writing the audit, it’s fundamental to remember the client’s goals. With SEO there is really only one goal (to increase relevant traffic from converting terms through greater visibility in search engines) so everything you write in an SEO audit, whether it’s about building links or optimising title tags, will naturally focus on the ultimate goal of increasing rankings. Social media is different; there are a wide variety of possible goals, making it far too easy to get distracted and try to audit multiple irrelevant goals. If it helps, write the client’s goal on a post-it note next to your laptop when writing the audit and ask yourself next to every point “is this in line with what we’re trying to achieve?”

Another thing that’s important to bear in mind is how social savvy the client you’re dealing with is. Social media is full of buzz words (whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com anyone?) so be mindful to explain what you mean when talking about ‘communities’, ‘engagement’, ‘social advocacy’, or ‘content seeding’.

Conclusion

For your social media audit to be effective it must improve the performance of the project with the client. It has to highlight where the client is, where they could be, and how you plan to do that. If there are any elements of ambiguity or irrelevant information, your audit will be compromised.

That said, this is no hard and fast guide. Just my thoughts on what makes a social media audit effective. I would love to hear the thoughts from other people who have written audits to find out what’s working and what’s not working for other people.

Feel free to drop a comment below or e-mail me at Marcus(at)Seoptimise(dot)com if you have any thoughts or want to share ideas.