Patrick McCarthy

Patrick McCarthy is slightly hard of hearing but has no problems reading the Internet. He uses as many Google products as possible, all while loudly (see above hearing issues) cursing Google’s name and questioning their motives. Though no Beau Brummell, Patrick enjoys a nice pair of slacks and wears a tie to work every day to “keep himself warm.” At Blue Magnet Interactive, he proudly carries the title of “Account Manager Jr.”, and one day hopes to be able to lift “Account Manager the Third.” He is a (anti-social) social media expert and a journeyman copywriter with an interest in inscrutable claptrap. Around the office, he provides solutions to problems that his more important teammates can’t be bothered with. His greatest joys are dangling prepositions, inserting the Oxford comma, and championing the singular “their.” He gave up sense for Lent in the early mid-90s and hasn’t touched the stuff since. This is his greatest achievement.

SEO By Patrick McCarthy October 24, 2012 Tags: Bing, hotel online marketing, SEO

SEO For Hotels: What Hoteliers Really Need To Know

Most people who work with hotels for any substantial period time inexorably come to understand two major things – First, the hospitality industry is not like other industries. It presents a set of challenges (such as running a 24/7/365 business, dealing with OTAs, managing a dynamic pricing system, and more) that, when combined, demand unique strategies and solutions. Second, when it comes to technology and e-commerce, hotels are definitely on the later end of the diffusion curve. Certainly, there are some exemplary hotels that have been pioneers in the realm of online marketing and technological innovation, but taken as a whole, hotels and major hotel brands have largely been cautious in their embrace of the internet and still lag behind other businesses in the extent and effectiveness of their e-commerce efforts. As a result, hotels that are willing to put some time and resources towards e-commerce are, for the most part, going to be able to dominate their competition; however, the question remains: How?

In my humble estimation, the answer is search engine optimization (SEO); however, it has been my experience that many hoteliers are somewhat daunted and confused by SEO. This is understandable because while there is an overabundance of information and articles about SEO in general, there is a paucity of content specifically dealing with SEO for hotels and the hospitality industry. As a result, hoteliers who try to learn about SEO have difficulty separating the big, important strategies and general themes from the very specialized, nitty-gritty strategies that are only necessary for businesses in industries with more advanced and competitive e-commerce fields. Therefore, they either become so bogged down by info that they give up or become fixated on unnecessary advanced strategies while neglecting the essentials.

To rectify this situation, I want to clearly lay out the SEO strategies that hotels really need to know. As I mentioned above, the hospitality industry is unique; it has many opportunities and challenges that other industries do not have, and if hoteliers do not use the same offline business models as tech companies, why should they use the same SEO strategies? In many ways, SEO is just a new form of the sales and marketing techniques that hoteliers have been using for years to sell their hotels, and the simple fact is that hotels in general do not have highly developed SEO campaigns; therefore, by implementing the following basic but essential SEO strategies, many hotels will see drastic improvements in search rankings and site visits. Forget about what non-hospitality focused SEO experts have told you, these are the SEO strategies that hotels really need to know.

SEO is not a trick

The first and most important thing that hotels need to realize is that despite what they may have heard, SEO is not about “tricking” search engines. Rather, it is a series of practices by which websites tell the search engines who they are, what they do, and why they are relevant to searchers. If hotels implement these practices, the search engines will rank them well in search results. That’s it. The hard part of SEO is knowing what those practices are and resisting the urge to lie to the search engines in order to try to get them to rank you for keywords that are not very relevant to your hotel. If you want to appear for non-relevant keywords, you can pay the search engines for ads, but don’t lie to them. Even though you can pay your way to the top of the PPC game, irrelevant keywords can negatively affect your PPC campaigns too. As for knowing what practices to implement, just read on!

What language does Mrs. Bing speak?

The first step in telling search engines what your hotel is all about is to make sure you are speaking their language. If the search engines can’t understand your website, they can’t judge its relevance and quality. To make sure the search engines can easily crawl and parse your website, you need to ensure that your site has a search engine friendly structure and is properly marked up. Unfortunately, this is such a basic element that many designers and developers overlook it in their pursuit to design and build fancy websites.

Now, I don’t expect hoteliers to go out and start learning how to build websites, but if you are looking to update your hotel’s website or build a new one, make sure that whoever is developing your website understands SEO and search engine friendly site structure. No matter how great the rest of your SEO efforts are, if your site structure is not search engine friendly, it will never rank as high as it should. This is very important for independent hotels and branded hotels with standalone sites. If you are a branded hotel, your brand site is probably decently structured, and there is nothing that you can do to improve it, so that is one thing, at least, that don’t have to worry about.

Dear R. Google, My name is Hotel Blue Magnet

Now that you are speaking the search engines’ language, you have to introduce your hotel. How do you do that? It’s simple - Take a second and think of the three best ways to describe your hotel Good, those are your main keywords. Keywords are simply the phrases that best describe your hotel. Some keyword variations are better than others and some keywords are more competitive than others, but there is no real deep secret to choosing keywords. Once you have your phrases, go to Google’s Keyword Tool, type them in, and then Google will tell you what variations of those phrases have the most search volume. There is all manner of research you can do for keywords, but for many hotels, it will do wonders just to choose keywords that are relevant and that people are actually searching for. Once you have your keywords, you need to write your Meta Title Tags. To do so, use this simple formula:

Main Keyword | Hotel Name | Secondary Keyword (Optional)

Meta Title Tags should be under 70 characters, so if adding in the secondary keyword makes it too long, save that keyword for another page. You’ll want to write one Meta Title for each one of your pages and include your main keywords on your most important pages and relevant pages (Home, Accommodations, etc.). For your less important or more specialized pages, you can do more keyword research to find relevant keywords that have search volume, but simply including a descriptive phrase that reflects the content on the page will be better than a generic page name. Once you have these written, give them to your website developer or brand contact, and they will be able to add them to your website code.

What’s your line, Master Yahoo?

Now that your Meta Title Tags are in place and you have introduced your hotel to the search engines, the next step is to tell them what your hotel does. This is probably the least technical part of SEO, but it is massively important and will become even more important in the future. To tell the search engines what your hotel does, you need to write great descriptive content for your web pages. This is really as simple as it sounds. As search engines get more sophisticated, it will become harder and harder to trick them, and the quality of your content will become more and more integral to your SEO. If you simply write great content now and keep it updated, you will not have to worry about the changes to search engine algorithms that are always causing SEO professionals to freak out; instead, you will have consistent and predictable search rankings.

So what is good content? Good content is not awkwardly stuffed with exact iterations of your keywords and lots of spammy looking links. Good content is well-written, natural sounding copy that clearly and concisely details the topic of the page. Your content should reflect the keywords in your Meta Title Tags, but it does not need to slavishly adhere to the exact phrasing of those keywords at the expense of readability This stress on the importance of content over keywords may sound a little strange coming from an SEO professional, but I strongly believe that at this point, especially for hotels, keyword heavy content will never get you better rankings than more natural content, and in fact, it could hurt your rankings, which is just what happened to a number of over-optimized websites after Google's recent Panda algorithm update. If the person who does your SEO says otherwise, you may want to rethink your partnership with that company. They are likely out of touch with SEO trends and could end up getting your site penalized with their unsavory tactics. When writing content or reviewing content that has been written for you, always remember, search engines will never penalize great content.

Why?

So the search engines know who your hotel is and what it does. All that remains is to tell them why your hotel is more relevant than competing hotels. Among websites in different industries, the why of SEO can vary hugely. The basic tactics are the same, but the relative of importance of those tactics changes depending on the nature of the business and the goals of the SEO campaign. Through my experience performing SEO for hotels, I have been able to discover what I think are the most important tactics for convincing search engines that a hotel‘s website should be ranked at the top of searches – Optimized local listings and unique, relevant links. That is not to say that other tactics do not work or are not important, but it is my opinion that these two are the most important and effective.

Optimized Local Listings

Hotels are local businesses by nature. Even if a hotel is part of a national or international brand, it has a location that is unique to that hotel. Being located in a specific spot is one of the best reasons for relevance a hotel can give search engines. You can and will include location-based information on your website, but that is not quite enough to convince the search engines. You need to establish your location on their terms by claiming, optimizing, and managing your Google +Local Page, Bing Local Listing, and Yahoo Local listing. If you have not done so already, stop reading this article and go to the links above to claim your pages. By claiming and optimizing these pages with the exact name, address, phone number, and website that is listed on your website, you are telling the search engines that the business located at the address of your hotel is the same as the business represented by your website. As a result, when a search engine detects a location-based search, they will include your hotel as a business located in that area, which might not happen if you just had your website. These listings are already massively important for hotels and are only going to become more important with the rise of mobile search. One more thing to note about these listings is that even if you have them claimed, the information displayed on the listing can change at any minute. As such, it is imperative to consistently monitor your Local Listings.
Unique, Relevant Links

Local Listings will ensure that search engines know where your hotel is located, but they will not convince them that your site is authoritative and trustworthy and that your content is of the highest quality. To do this, you need to show the search engines that other people find your content useful and trustworthy. How do you show them this? Get your site listed on sites that Google already knows and respects. In SEO parlance, this is called Link Building, and there are as many ways to link build as there are stars in the sky; however, I believe that for hotels, there is one form of link building that is most important – Building links from established local businesses and organizations. Any hotel can hire a SEO contractor to submit their link to every directory and local listing site, and the search engines know this and as a result they do not give much credence to such links, and, in fact, Google, with their Penguin update, has started penalizing websites with a lot of low quality, spammy links. It is much more difficult to convince other businesses and organizations to link to your site. Unlike directories, linking to other sites is not the point of these businesses and organizations’ sites. In order for someone to link to your hotel, you have to provide them with a good reason for it. Search engines also know this, and they give much more weight to these kinds of links. If owners of respectable businesses believe that their customers will want to go to your website, the search engines will conclude their searchers will also want to go to your website.

The great thing about this kind of link building is that it can be done by owners, GMs, and DOSs with little to no technical skill. This is all about relationships between businesses and how well your hotel works with other businesses. For specific tips, I suggest that you check out these two blog posts from my colleagues Diana Friess and Kim Leveque, but what I really want to convey about this kind of link building is that it’s more of an attitude than a tactic. Too often, hoteliers think of the online and offline portions of their business as separate entities, and I’m suggesting that you start thinking of your website in the same way you think about your hotel.

On the internet, your website is your hotel. Just as you would want local businesses, colleges, convention centers, museums to recommend your hotel if someone asked in person where they should stay while visiting; you also want those same businesses to recommend your hotel online; and in the online world, that kind of recommending is done through linking to your site. Keep this in mind as you go about your daily on-site and offline tasks and you will start finding more and more opportunities to ask for and receive links to your site. Just remember to always offer a link back in return if possible and make sure to always give out the same exact URL when someone agrees to link to your site.

SEO is just good business

One of the biggest points that I wanted to get across with this post is that at its core SEO is nearly identical to offline business and sales strategies. Too often people not in the SEO industry (and even many in the industry) think of SEO as collection of arcane, technical tricks and tactics that are only tech gurus can understand and implement. SEO can be different depending on your industry, but within each industry, it’s just a new way to do the same things that have always made businesses in those industries successful. If you know how to market your hotel offline, you already know how to perform SEO for your hotel – You just didn’t know that you knew. Hopefully, you do now.

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Social Media By Patrick McCarthy July 22, 2012 Tags: Reputation Management, twitter, Blue Magnet Interactive, hotel online marketing, social media

Tune Into Twitter: Listen to What Tweeters Say About Your Hotel

One of the truisms regarding Twitter is: even if you aren't talking about your brand on Twitter, your customers are. Here at Blue Magnet, we come across a lot of nonsense and dubious claims regarding social media and how people use it; however, in this case, we have direct experience with the truth of the above truism. Due to the ephemeral and informal nature of Twitter, many users will tweet about anything and everything that they are doing, and when I say everything, I mean absolutely everything. If I wasn't a skeptic, I would give you my guarantee that your hotel has been mentioned on Twitter at least once at one time or another. As such, I will offer you my nearly unqualified assurance that that is indeed the case: People have/will/are talking about your hotel on Twitter.

Tweeting Behind Your Back

Another oft-repeated truism is that people say things behind your back that they would never say to your face. If this is true, just imagine what people are saying behind your back on the internet, where the discourse can quickly turn to extreme virulence and spitefulness. If this thought worries you, don't panic, just follow these easy steps to tune in to the Twitter conversation. It will take you an hour at most to get everything set up, and then, you will be able to sleep easy knowing that you know exactly what people are saying about your hotel.

Step 1: Create a Twitter account for your hotel (5-10 Min)

Twitter is one of the easiest social media networks to sign up for because unlike Facebook and Youtube, you can get away with a bare minimum of content. Here's how to quickly set-up your account:

Go to www.twitter.com.
In the "New to Twitter?" Section, simply enter in your hotel name, an e-mail address, and a new password.

On the next page, you will be able to choose your Twitter handle (username). Try to make your handle as descriptive and concise as possible.
- e.g. Brand Name + Location = MarriottChicago
- If EmbassySuitesNewYork is taken or too long, try ESNewYork
Once you have chosen your handle, Twitter will try to guide you through some introductory steps. Ignore them and press the "Skip this step" link until you are prompted to upload a picture. Upload a picture and that first step is done!

Step 2: Install and Sign-Up for TweetDeck (10 - 15 Min)

TweetDeck is a Twitter monitoring software that went through some growing pains when it transitioned from a third party offering to a Twitter-owned proprietary management solution; however, all of the issues have been fixed and TweetDeck is now one of the best Twitter managers on the market, and most importantly it is completely free! To get TweetDeck:

Go to www.TweetDeck.com and click the Download button.

Once the program file finishes downloading, open the file.
Follow the steps to install the program and then open the program.
Click on the Create Account button on the main screen of the program.

Enter in your email address and create a password

Click the Add Twitter Account button

A window will open prompting you to authorize TweetDeck to use your Twitter account. To do this, just enter in your Twitter username and password to complete the signup process.

Step 3: Set-Up TweetDeck Columns (10 – 30 Minutes)

TweetDeck allows you to set up a number of different of different “Columns,” which are lists of Tweets that are grouped based on various parameters that you can set. There are two important columns that you definitely want to set up:

Required Column 1: Interactions
- This Column will display any interaction that users have with your Twitter profile. It includes Mentions (when users include your handle in a tweet using the “@” sign), Retweets, and New Followers. Even if you never intend to Tweet from your account, some people will search it out and interact anyways, so you should monitor this activity.
- This Column will automatically populate in Tweet Deck.
Required Column 2: Hotel Name Search
- This Column will search Twitter for mentions of your hotel name and display all of those mentions. If you just want to monitor what people are saying on Twitter, this will be your most important Column.
- To set this up, click the “Add Columns” button in the upper left corner.
- Click the search button.
- Enter your hotel name.
- If your hotel has name variations, create a search column for each variation.

With these two Columns, you will be able to see exactly what people are saying about your hotel on Twitter.

Say Goodbye to Static

At this point, you can sit back and let the tweets roll in; however, I bet that once you see all of the Tweets mentioning your hotel, you are going to want to jump in and start responding and tweeting yourself. So start playing around with Twitter and TweetDeck. There are a number of other Columns you can create in TweetDeck and things you can do to optimize your profile in Twitter. If you’re not sure where to go from here, never fear. I will tell you exactly how to start interacting on Twitter, but you have to be patient, for that, as they say, is a blog post for another day.

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Blue Magnet News By Patrick McCarthy November 23, 2011 Tags: wedding, Blue Magnet Interactive

A BMI Engagement

Many people believe that marriage is a sacred bond that unites two souls in eternal bliss and harmony. On the other hand, other people think marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries. Here at BMI, we take no sides in the marriage debate; instead, we encourage each and every employee to pursue their own individual happiness, and we respect and cherish each form of happiness no matter its size, shape, or color. For instance, one of our employees’ happiness looks like a bright red cactus, and we love that happiness with every ounce of our bodies and minds; however, we are not here to talk about the bright red cactus-shaped happiness. We are here to talk about the happiness of our beloved team member Ms. Kim Leveque.

Her happiness is not shaped like a bright red cactus, and it is not shaped like an oil portrait of my Aunt Esther. To our eyes, Kim’s happiness is shaped like a lustrous engagement ring and a loving fiancée.

The Proposal

On Wednesday October 5^th, Mr. Richard Armour asked Ms. Kimberly Leveque if she would like to join him for a stroll through Millennium Park, one of Chicago’s most beautiful locales. Merely assuming that he was being his normal, thoughtful self; Kim suspected nothing and set out to simply enjoy a promenade with her paramour. The walk started innocent enough. The young love birds chatted about work and the beautiful weather as the unseasonably warm yet still refreshing breeze blew past their bright, hopeful eyes. All of a sudden, Richard kneeled down in front of Kim, as her fiery red hair shone in the dying sunlight, and asked her the question that dwarfs all questions – Would she marry him? Although she was initially taken aback by the shock of his unexpected proposal, she quickly recovered her trademark composure and simply and firmly responded, “Yes.”

Congratulations From Your Friends at Blue Magnet

We, at BMI, are so incredibly happy for Kim and Richard that mere, common words cannot describe the welling of joy in our collective souls. The fusion of two individuals into one beautiful and sublime soul is truly one most the most noble and meaningful of all human occurrences. We wish Kim and Richard the best of luck, but we know they won’t need it. We give them all of our love, but we know they already possess an overabundance of love amongst themselves. So in the end, we simply offer them our sincerest congratulations and our deep hope that their happiness stays as strong and resplendent as it appears to us right now.

Congratulations Kim and Richard from everyone at BMI!

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Online Travel Agencies By Patrick McCarthy November 02, 2011 Tags: reservations, Google Maps, third party websites, OTAs, online marketing, hotel online marketing, Google

Google Flights: Watch Yourself Boeing!

La did a, bum didy bum… Huh? What’s that? Google has released a new flight search platform? This is not like them at all; I thought all they did was web searches. WHAT?!!! They have mail, video, a social network, office applications, a hotel search platform, and more?!!! Wow! Google is really spreading their wings these days. It’s almost like they’re trying to take over the internet. Good thing they have that “don’t be evil” motto, otherwise I might start getting worried. It really seems like they’re following the lead of the ethically unimpeachable anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon. Thank God!

Taking Google Flights for a Test Drive

Whew, sorry for the digression. I was just a bit shocked. Anyways, let’s get down to brass tacks. Google Flights is beautiful. You type in www.google.com/flights, and Boom! You are taken to a Google map with your current location entered as a starting point and rates for a variety of different cities already populated.

Maybe you weren’t considering going to Minneapolis, but look at that rate, and it has been a while since you’ve seen Cousin Hubert. Well, you might as well check out the flights. Click on Minneapolis. Go ahead, do it.

Whoa! Look at all those flights! Stay vigilant or you’ll… Argh, too late!

Everything is ready to go and it’s so cheap; you might as well just book it.

Alright, great, you booked your flight to Minneapolis for a great rate in just a few minutes. Google Flights is great!! Wait, what’s that? The reason you went on Google Flights in the first place was to look at flights for your upcoming business trip to Keokuk? Now, you have plane tickets to Minneapolis and haven’t even looked at flights to Keokuk? (Fists raised in anguish) GOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Google, You’ve Done It Again

Overall, Google Flights is a delight to use. The UI is clean and simple, and the content is great. They even have Southwest listed, even though they cannot show their rates. Along with Google’s hotel search, OTAs should be scared…..and they are. They’re pulling out every lawsuit in the book, and they might get some results that will give them a few more years of life, but it’s not looking good for them.

If it’s any consolation to the OTAs, Google is on track to put the entire internet out of business, and thereby, become synonymous with the web. “Hey Barry, did you get Google in your new apartment yet? My Google is out, and I really need it.”

Oh, and a little birdie (I made this up) told me that Google is looking into buying airplane and auto manufacturing plants. Poor Detroit.

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SEO By Patrick McCarthy October 28, 2011 Tags: Google Analytics, Google, PPC, SEO

The New Google Analytics: A Lot Like the Old Google Analytics, Just Way Worse

Is it just a coincidence that every time I am about to write a blog post Google decides to release a new product or make a big announcement? The answer is “Yes, of course it is.” Why would Google be timing their announcements to my blog schedule? And if they are, how did they get BMI’s blog schedule? …Oh wait! They do own the Internet and all its data, so I guess we’ve answered the second question, but we will probably always remain in the dark in regards to the first. Oh well, such is Google.

Google “Secures” Your Privacy

Google’s newest shocker is about Google Analytics and the data that it will provide in the future. Now, if you do not do the Internet professionally, you probably have never used Google Analytics, and you might have never even heard of it; however, it is probably the most important tool that Google offers Internet marketing professionals in their war against Google. For those that are unfamiliar, the product gives (for Free! Classic Google!) extensive and extremely detailed data about who is visiting your website, where they are coming from, how they got there, what they did there, where they went after, and a lot of other equally creepy sounding information.

Now, Google has announced that they will no longer tell you what keywords users searched to get to your site if they were signed into their Google account when they made the search. Google’s cited reasons for this change are a bit technical, but they boil down to one big claim – This change is to improve the security and privacy of their users. Wow, Google looks out for everybody’s best interest once again...classic Google. BUT WAIT! Before we make any judgments, we need to first use….. (Drumroll) THE GOOGLE TEST!

The Google Test

If you read my last blog post, then, you probably know about “Patrick McCarthy’s 100% Foolproof Google Test” (it also cures warts). Basically, the test runs Google’s actions through three (top secret) algorithms and breaks them down into three categories:

What is Google ostensibly up to?
What shady stuff are they possibly up to?
What are they really most likely up to?

I’ve already covered number one, so let’s move on to number two.

Less Google Analytics = More Google Adwords

In this case, the Google Test spat out the same results for number two and number three, which essentially means that, according to the test, Google really is up to the shady stuff that it seems like they are up to. This is an extremely rare and distressing result. The test spat out this report - “Google values your privacy. In fact, they value it so highly that, golly gee, if they ain’t gonna keep it for themselves and mine it for all it is worth.”

Noted “Internet Doer” Ian Lurie (Rumor has it he’s actually been to The Internet and that it is somewhere in Morocco) seems to agree with the PM100%FGT in a blog post in which he declares war on the Internet... *ahem* ...sorry, I meant “on Google.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.

In his letter to Google, Luries states,

“You've [Google] done this for one reason, and one reason only: To shut out competing ad networks. By removing this data from the referring query string (oh, you didn't think we'd notice?!) you've made it far harder for third-party ad networks to measure and quantify traffic quality.

Plus, you no longer have to justify ranking results, OR Adwords data. Personalization already scrambles the crap out of them. Without accurate search query data, we have no way to check your math on Google Adwords search counts. I guess we have to trust you. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Cough. Sniff. Sob."

Google wants to be the only one that knows what people are really searching for on Google, and if you want to get some of that info, you’re going to have to pay for it by using Google AdWords to run PPC campaigns. That’s right, Google will still give advertisers keyword data on signed-in users if they click on a paid listing.

In essence, Google is telling all of us – “We value your privacy and want to make your information as secure as possible… unless of course, someone pays us for it. In which case, we’d love nothing more than to give away as much of your data as possible.” Or maybe that’s not what they’re saying at all. “Patrick McCarthy’s 100% Foolproof Google Test” isn’t perfect.

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SEO By Patrick McCarthy August 22, 2011 Tags: Blue Magnet Interactive, online marketing, Google, SEO

ZMOT Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Google

Google is a lot like a guy who dates your mom. Sure, he’s very nice and pretty interesting, but you’re not quite sure what his true intentions are. Even as you’re thanking him for the thoughtful gift that “he just happened to see at the store” and bought for you, you are still keeping an eye on him, trying to figure out what exactly he’s up to. Maybe he just genuinely loves your mom, but maybe, just maybe, he has sinister designs on her burgeoning tea cozy business. You can never be quite sure, so you remain ever vigilant.

Google claims that they are out to make the world a better place by bringing great content to users and generally making their lives easier and more fulfilling, and I’d guess that, to some extent, that is their goal; however, I’m not convinced that they do not have a number of ulterior motives (money, power, sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, etc.), and as such, I always keep an eye on what they’re up to.

I discussed Google+ in my last post, and although there have been some updates to the product since then, none of them have been big enough to change my predications or opinions. I’m still keeping a wary eye on Google+, but the new Google product/feature/update that I’m currently most interested in is their new e-book Zero Moment of Truth – ZMOT written by Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director of US Sales & Service, which I will refer to in the future as ZMOT.

The e-book is targeted at marketers and companies, everybody whose business has any contact with Google (so everybody) should make sure that they read the book. Regardless of what you think Google’s intentions with the book are, you will find ZMOT an intensely fascinating read. I sure did.

As I read the book, numerous ideas and theories popped into my head. First of all, the very fact that this book is from Google altered the perspective from which I read the book. Had this information been presented by a blogger or marketing firm, I probably would have breezed through the material and gleaned a few helpful tips. Instead, I kept in mind the three questions I ask myself about everything Google does:

What is Google ostensibly up to?
What shady stuff are they possibly up to?
What are they really most likely up to?

As I go through the answers I came up with for these questions, please keep in mind that I do not necessary believe all of these answers, but am merely proposing them as possibilities worth thinking about.

What Is Google Ostensibly Up To?

Ostensibly, ZMOT introduces a new marketing term and strategy and shares some extremely interesting data that Google had collected. The book is extremely well written, well designed, and packed with useful information. It introduces the term “Zero Moment of Truth” or ZMOT, which is a marketing buzzword that encapsulates all the research and online activity that consumers engage in before buying the product. Lecinski frames ZMOT as the future of marketing and a complete shift in the way companies should be communicating. While this is a bit of an overstatement, for non SEO/SEM people, the information will be pretty eye-opening.

For SEO/SEM practitioners, it’s basically a well-organized and simplified overview of what we do with some new data with a fancy new name. It’s definitely worth reading, but it is definitely targeted to online marketing novices. So on the surface, it looks like Google is giving out some important (but hardly revelatory) information for free with just a few shout outs to their programs (Adwords, Analytics). What generous people Google are!

What Shady Stuff Is Google Possibly Up?

It is only when you read the book from a slightly paranoid, ulterior motive-type viewpoint that the book becomes intensely fascinating and somewhat worrying. When read from this viewpoint, ZMOT appears to be an announcement of Google’s conscious or subconscious (yes, corporations can have a subconscious) intention to take over the roles of online marketers. Not content with merely controlling the platforms through which marketers have to work, Google wants to control everything. Taken to an extreme, the book reads as a battle plan for how Google will take over all the functions of advertising and marketing agencies. Based on this reading, Google does not want to control the industry; they want to be the industry.

This is of course a reactionary exaggeration of reality, but I think it’s worthwhile to think about ZMOT from this perspective. The book seems to foretell a future where marketing and advertising is crushed by user-generated information. A very telling paragraph reads:

There are certain objections to ZMOT that we hear all the time. Let me share a few with you. "Nobody looks online for toothpaste or paper clips." Really? Tell that to 3M. In the first year after they started taking website comments about Scotch Tape, they got almost 3,000 comments from users. Comments like this: “I use this tape all the time because it holds the things I want to hold together without being seen. I have used this product for years and will continue using it for many more years” (Lecinski, 2011).

Who needs marketing when you have your consumers doing it for you? Companies that produce inferior products, of course (and they sadly might be where the future of marketing lies), but for quality products, all companies will need is an information controller/provider. Guess who’s really good at that? Google. Boom!

What is Google Most Likely Really Up To?

If you discount the above theory that Google is planning to destroy the marketing industry, then you have to ask what they are really up to. In my opinion, ZMOT is, like many of their releases, a mixture of goodwill and cunning strategy. I do not think that Google is actually trying to replace the marketing industry, but I do believe that they want to control it to as large extent as they can. As such, ZMOT is a bid to start controlling the online marketing conversation. If the ZMOT concept is picked up and becomes the guiding principle of online marketing, then Google will have a huge influence over the online marketing field. Personally, I feel that ZMOT is a really compelling and probably extremely useful concept that will greatly benefit companies that adopt it. But—and this is the kicker—if companies adopt ZMOT, Google stands to benefit greatly too, so watch out SEOs, Google’s getting in the game. Think of how easy it would be to optimize for search if you control the search. I know Google is thinking about it.

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Social Media By Patrick McCarthy July 29, 2011 Tags: Google Plus, Facebook, Blue Magnet Interactive, Google, social media

Google+: Google Goes Primal

Through my ultra cutting-edge industry contacts, I received an invite for Google+ before many of my friends and acquaintances, so I have been able to track the way people are reacting to and using this new platform. The overwhelming first response seems to be “What is this?” or “I don’t get it.” However, this confusion has not seemed to deter people from continuing to use Google+. Google has failed in the past by using the “Build it, and they will come model” with Buzz and Wave, but for some reason people seem to have decided to start using Google+ mostly just because it exists.

Confusion to the French

I think that the confusion is actually part of the reason that people will actually adopt Google+. Based on my experiences with Twitter and Facebook, I believe that people like social media that does not tell them how to use it. For instance, Google Wave flopped because people knew what they were supposed to use it for, but could not actually figure out how to use the program; however, with Twitter, users were just given a basic platform and users decided how they wanted to use it. In other words, people knew how to use Twitter but not why, while Google Wave was the exact opposite. Google has learned from their mistakes. Google+ is not quite as simple as Twitter or Facebook, but it’s so wide open that users can do whatever they want with it, even if they don’t fully understand all the features. Users still don’t fully understand why their using it, but they’re definitely figuring out as they go.

It's Mine!

In my opinion, the social media revolution capitalized on the human need to possess. People love Facebook and Twitter because they feel that it is theirs--that they helped define it and therefore “own” it in some capacity. Whenever Facebook makes a big change, some people get outraged--How dare they change my site? There’s a reason MySpace is named “MY” Space. Humanity has been fighting for their own space since the dawn of man, and then, the Zuckerbergs of the world came along and finally gave it to them. Google did not want to cede control of space with Buzz and Wave, but as they say, “Fool Google once shame on you; Fool Google twice shame on Google; Fool Google three times...no one has fooled Google three times."

Freud Would Be Proud

Many industry types were surprised at the lack of innovation in Google+, and their surprise is quite understandable. There is almost nothing innovative technically about the platform. What is innovative is the psychology behind the program. Google knows you, knows your secrets and your desires, knows what you want before you want it, and above all they now understand your primal need for possession; so they threw a bunch of old ideas at a wall, took the ones the stuck, and said, “Here you go people, do whatever you want it; it’s yours now.” All that remains to be seen is if people actually accept the offering that Google has presented. Will Google+ satisfy that deep, basic urge to “have” that other social media have so successfully tapped? That, my friends, is the question.

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