Karen Rubin's Ramblings

If you have spent any time recently watching Hulu, you may have noticed Google's new ads for Chrome.

 My first reaction was, really? An ad for a browser? Then I realized they have a whole slew of video shorts and YouTube channeldedicated to the browser. So bravo to Google for creating some cool content to get the word out about their browser.

 But I can't stop there. I also made the transition to Chrome this week. It took me awhile to do it, although my co-workers have been raving about it since it came out. My concerns were a FireFox feature and a Firefox add-on that I didn't think I could live without. Chrome now supports the feature (which Dan Abdinoor explains in his Chrome tips, it's #5) and so I figured I would give it a try. 

 I am never going back. Chrome is faster, it's lighter, it's easier to use and it takes up less of my screen space, so I see more of the content I want to see. That may not seem like a big deal, but it's easy on the eyes and really a nice bonus. 

In short, bravo to Google for not only creating good, fun interesting content to promote a new product, but also for creating a fantastic product.  

Last week on HubSpot.tv we discussed Brian Solis's article Twitter Visits Surpass New York Times and Wall Street Journal and I have to say when I looked at it for the first time, my jaw dropped open. Look at this graph!

 All I could say was WOW! The big question is if this is just a bubble of popularity because of Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN and Oprah or if this is sustainable growth that actually means something. A couple weeks ago some numbers came out saying that 60% of people who sign up for Twitter don't come back the next month. That pretty much sucks. It will continue to be interesting to watch Twitter grow and see if will be something awesome, or just another fad.

Life around my home has been very interesting the last couple months. It started with a busted valve leaking water all over our brand new bamboo floors and ended with a meeting between the back of our car and pole in our garage this past weekend. Based on my experiences dealing with these two issues, I feel I can confidently say I have identified 3 industries that need to learn more about inbound marketing.

 #1 - Insurance Companies

 I have been dealing with both my homeowners insurance company and my auto insurance company. While customer service at both has been acceptable (and even on the good side) it has often required long waits on the phone before I can talk to a human. This is a BAD experience for me. The questions asked by both have are clearly form questions asked to everyone reporting a claim, why can't I report my claim online and have someone call me? 

The reason is that the sites of both insurance companies are relatively pitiful brochure websites. Sure I can find the number to report a claim and I can do a zip code look up to find and agent, but what if I want to find information about what the process is for fixing my crunched car or damp floor?

If I were an insurance company I would recognize that most people have lots of questions when filing a claim. How will this affect the cost of my insurance? How do I pay the auto body shop for the work? Can I bring in my own contractors to fix the floor? Is this accident going to add points to my license?

As an insurance company I would make sure getting the answer to those questions was not only easy for my customers, but didn't require 10 minutes of hold music or 3 phone transfers. It could be handled through a forum, an FAQ page or even a blog about how to get issues resolved quickly and easily.

#2 - Auto body Shops

I know how to drive a car, fill it with gas, add windshield washer fluid and oil and that is about it. I am pretty much a novice when it comes to all things car and don't feel that I can begin to judge an auto body shop in any way. So how am I going to go about picking which one to take my car to?

First stop for me is Yelp. There aren't an excessive number of reviews on auto body shops in the area, but there are enough. The one that catches my eye is A Plus Auto body. It's in Somerville, it has 5 stars and 8 reviews, my next stop is their website to see what information I can find. This is what I get, 

Yes, that is a photo of a burning car, and that's the whole website! While I understand the impact, it doesn't fill me with confidence. I finally ended up heading back to the website of the dealer were we bought the car and checking out their collision center. I liked the people when we bought the car and while their website doesn't give me all the information I need, at least it doesn't have photos of burning cars!

If I were an auto body shop, I would make sure I had a fantastic website that inspired confidence. It would include

• before and after photos of jobs I had done,
• customer testimonials,
  
• answers to questions about how to get my car fixed and how long to expect it to take,
  
• information I would need on hand when bringing my car in,
  
• questions I should ask before it gets fixed,
• and tips on dealing with the insurance company after an accident.

#3 - Contractors

The deal for contractors is much the same as the auto body industry. I don't know much about fixing my damaged floor, but I know I want someone I can trust who does good work. I got lucky in this regard because the developers of our building were able to suggest contractors who are fantastic. After they recommended them, I checked out their site and was amazed to see a decent, informative site pulled together with testimonials and referrals. 

The only things I would do differently is get more exposure on Yelp (since that is where I looked first) and add a blog to help answer questions about work done on your home and what to expect. As a first time homeowner having work done for the first time, I had no idea what to expect. It would have been nice to get some more information from them directly through a blog. 

Bottom line for all three industries is they need more of an online presence that is helpful to their customer base. I have spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get information and on the internet doing research. It's been hard to find the information I needed and if a company within these industries that took the lead in being open, transparent and informative online, they would have my business in a heartbeat.

In addition to keeping up with Karen-Rubin.com, I also have a cooking blog where I keep my friends and family updated on my exploits in the kitchen. I was checking out the traffic on Gormandizing.com today and I saw some interesting things.

These might both be super obvious observations to an experienced blogger, but I am relatively new to the game and seeing my expectations play out is fantastic.

First, when you write sensationalist titles you get more traffic! You can see from the annotated chart below that my two posts titled "Chocolate Peanut Butter Orgasms" and "This is Why You Are Fat" were posted in the same week which was also the highest traffic week in the last 5 months.

Second, if you don't write any blog posts, your traffic drops off very quickly. You can see that in the last 5 weeks, since I launched Karen-Rubin.com I have only written 3 blog posts. In that same timeframe my traffic has dropped from 90 unique visitors per week to just 6 visitors for the last 3 weeks!

 If you are writing a blog for work or fun, think about eye catching titles and make sure you are writing regularly. (By eye catching, I mean include sex terms as often as possible. By regular, I mean at least once per week if not more frequently.)   

I may have mentioned, once or twice, that every week I co-host a weekly marketing podcast with Mike Volpe. It's a really good time because the whole company comes together, drinks some beer and watches the show while we tape. Obviously I enjoy it, because I love being the center of attention, but seeing as the audience comes back week after week, I think they enjoy it as well.

We generally have 20-30 HubSpotters watching and 5-10 non-HubSpotters. The office is open to anyone who wants to come and watch, have some FREE BEER, and hang out for Ping Pong after.  We start taping at 4PM sharp, but some of the most entertaining commentary is the back and forth with the audience before the show. 

 Last week we had Scott Kirsner on the show talking about his new book Fans, Friends and Followers. Scott is super smart and interesting and we had a great conversation, which you can watch here. This week we have Chris Brogan joining us which is sure to be a good time. You should definitely watch to hear what he has to say, but better yet, come on down to 1Broadway in Cambridge and join us in person!

 P.S. Did I mention there is free beer?

*Photo courtesy of Steve Garfield

Girls in Tech Boston last night was a fantastic event. @just_kate did a great job of the preparation and execution, major kudos go out to her.

 I really liked how Kate included a couple of case studies during the panel. They were of two Boston companies, Generation Progress and Shoestring Magazine, who each had some great social media questions. They each explained their business and situation and got to ask the panel some very specific questions.

 The advice from @rhappe, @MikeLangford, @CappyPopp was fantastic and if you want a rundown of everything, check out @jmaver and his twitter stream from the event. Below are some of my suggestions.

Shoestring Magazine - Shoestring is an online magazine that has been up since the fall of last year. They offer the "good life for less" and are working on building their revenue model and readership through social media.

1. Join the conversation! - The two co-founders of Shoestring have been on Twitter since the early days, have a blog and utilize Facebook. My recommendation to them was to not just use social media to push out their content, but to engage in the conversation. They need to find the influencers in the budget and eco-friendly online communities and join the conversations. Comment on their blogs and interact with them on Twitter and Facebook. Doing so will get the influencers involved in Shoestring and their support will be invaluable.
   


2. Use the team - The full time team at Shoestring consists of just the co-founders, Melissa Massello and Meghan Udell, so having enough time is always an issue. I think they should leverage their freelance writing team to help them engage in the community more. All writers want their work to be read, so give incentives based on links to their articles, number of comments and visitors or other metrics that would encourage them to participate in the community and build a following of their writing.  

Generation Progress - GP is a political action committee that raises money through events to support political candidates. They are working to build their community and bring more engaged people to their events.

1. Twitter - GP is on Twitter, however I recommend that they expand the focus of their tweets. There is so much good content that would appeal to their target audience. They have the opportunity to tweet about all things political and appeal to the very people they are trying to reach. By building a content stream that is not so focused on what GP is doing, but focused more broadly on what GPs followers are interested in, they will gain more followers and hopefully more engaged attendees.
   


2. Community - GP has a great community that discusses political issues and encourages debate. Unfortunately this is all through a private email group and it's difficult to get new people to sign up. They recognize the need to open this up, but have struggled to move it to a different medium. I think they should come up with a number of different solutions such as a blog with open comments for discussion, a forum or a Twitter handle, and ask the community which they would prefer. It's important with communities that you don't force a decision on them, this would help them find where their users would be willing to move, to help have more people join the conversation.
   


3. Quality vs. Quantity - GP asked a great question about joining more online communities to expand their reach, or focusing on a couple and having higher quality conversations. I think the panel agreed that quality should definitely be their aim. The concern with spreading yourself to thin across a number of communities is that you won't actually engage because you don't have the time. If you don't engage in a community, you won't get the benefit of being on it at all! You should pick one or two to start with, where you know your audience is, and then expand if and when you have time to grow additional communities.
   

I am going to be speaking on the Girls in Tech panel about Using Social Media in your Organization on Wednesday evening. I am super excited about it because it's the first panel I have been on!

The other folks on the panel are all rockstars who, no doubt, will have great things to say. They include Rachel Happe of The Communiy Roundtable, Mike Langford of TweetWorks and Cappy Popp of Thought Labs.

If you are thinking about using social media in your organization you should sign up to come join the fun. If you aren't headed in that direction (first question, why?) you can still come along and check out the Microsoft offices at 1 Memorial Dr in Cambridge. I hear they are beautiful!

As you may or may not know, I am not a marketer at HubSpot. I am actually on the development/product team and spend most of my time working with our brilliant team of developers and talking with customers. With that said, since starting my job at HubSpot, I have learned oodles and oodles about marketing and now consider myself an amateur marketer.

Another thing you might not know about me, is that my father is an uber awesome artist! He makes crazy, kinetic sculptures that hang on the wall and move in ways that boggle the mind.  A while back he and I made a deal. In exchange for one of his pieces in our spanking new condo, I would consult on all things marketing for Wood That Works. This worked out beautifully for me when a couple of weeks ago he came and installed this amazing piece. 

As a result, it was finally time for me to put some of my marketing chops to use. First, I nagged him to finally figure out how to make screen savers of his animations. He explains the process in his blog, which is the result of another inbound marketing nag-a-thon. Once he had a couple ready to go, we decided to do the following comprehensive campaign.

1. Launch the screen savers on Sunday evening.
2. Coordinate this with new calls to action around the site,
   
3. a blog post,
   
4. some tweets,
5. an update to his Facebook Fan page and profile,
   
6. and a email marketing campaign.
   
7. We then topped that all off with easy Digg buttons placed strategically on the main screen saver page.
   

The goal is to have the screen savers spread far and wide and we are hoping that Digg becomes the vehicle. We selected Digg because the target audience that gets excited about my Dad's work uses Digg. They also use Stumble Upon, so we made sure that the pages that get the most traffic from Stumble Upon also had well placed calls to action.

 This is the first marketing campaign I have tried to launch, and I hope I am not missing anything! Please check out the screen savers and pass them along if you think they look great. I'll keep you updated on how the campaign goes!

In less than two weeks after launching Karen-Rubin.com I made the first page of Google for term Karen Rubin! Honestly I thought it was going to be a little more challenging, but I am not complaining.

Check out my rise to page #1. The green line is Karen-Rubin.com and the red is my other site, Gormandizing.com. The yellow is KarenRubin.com, the site I am trying to knock out of the first position. 

My strategy for getting to the first position, which I do expect to take longer, is to keep adding content regularly! I am planning for a couple of posts a week minimun and hoping to get at least one per day. Hopefully I can find interesting things to say every day!

Marketing Pilgrim shared with us last week that Forrester is predicting huge long term growth for social media spending in online advertising. They even shared this pretty graph (ok I added the commentary,) 

Social media is a really small portion of the pretty chart because social media is largely free. Sure there is the cost of execution, but you don't pay money to be on Linkedin or Facebook. What I found amazing are the predicted growths of display advertising (banner ads) and search marketing (PPC) of 17% and 15% respectively. 

As we have learned over at HubSpot, leads that you find through inbound marketing are cheaper than those you find through outbound marketing. While Mike tells me you can get really good deals on banner ads and such, I think the rest of the world will catch on to what a good deal inbound marketing is in the next couple years. 

 Once they do, I think they are going to stop spending so much money on search marketing and display advertising and start spending more on creating great content and pushing it out through social media.  I am no marketer and I don't know where content creation cost would fall under the online marketing budget segments, but I do think inbound techniques are going to prove to be significantly more effective than the old school outbound approaches and will change the spending landscape.

 Forrester and I will be sure to keep an eye on this for you!