"Passion. Patience. Persistence"

Go Netherlands!

2014-07-07T18:00:00.000-04:00

World Cup 2014 has been full of surprises so far but something that is of no surprise is definitely the skills of the Dutch. For such a small country, their soccer record is quite impressive.

Here's some fun facts about the Dutch that I collected as I've always been fascinated by their history, culture, people's personalities and ways of living. There're a lot of things about the Netherlands but I only picked some of my favorites:

1. NYC is founded by the Dutch people.
2. They are to be thanked for some of the most popular beverages. Heineiken is from Netherlands. Gin was invented in the Netherlands and tea was introduced commercially in Europe first by the Netherlands.
3. Tulips were originally from Turkey and black and white cows were originally from Poland. The Dutch have improved them so well that they both became major parts of their identity.
4. Best world famous DJs are from the Netherlands (Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, etc). One of the world best artists,Vincent Van Gogh, is also Dutch.
5. They are leading Mars One project which aims to establish human settlement in Mars.

Go Netherlands!

Integrated Marketing Analogy

2014-06-20T06:00:00.000-04:00

Your integrated marketing team is like a rowing team in competition, boat and oars are the tools and technology that move the rowboat forward.

Everyone needs to align on strategies and consistency trumps individual strength or weakness. And you'd better make sure you have the best damn oars and boat.

Not Everyone Will Ask for Your Credentials

2014-06-19T00:01:00.005-04:00

"When you can show that you know your craft inside out, people won't ask for your work history and portfolio.When you lead and impact others in a profound way, people don't question whether you are certified to lead or not."

It all comes down to hard work, persistence, a little bit of learning and observation, and a little bit of luck. That is one beautiful imperfection of life.

A Human Mind is Like a Fire

2014-05-26T20:48:00.003-04:00

I heard this analogy recently and it has touched me in a profound way: "A human mind is often like a fire that flickers and is easily influenced by external things. A flickering fire on a candle is a small fire that moves in whichever direction the wind blows. Only when staying still, the fire has the ability to burn stronger and to reach for greater length."

I find the practice of calming the mind so powerful and useful. Even though I can't put it on my portfolio, it is a new skill that is very valuable for me in both my work and personal life. Especially as a marketer who seizes every opportunity to see the world differently, I feel like I have an extra pair of lenses at hand when I need it.

Live and Let Live

2013-09-12T23:11:00.000-04:00

The saying "Live and Let Live" (original version in Dutch: "Leef en Laat Leven") has summed up what I have believed in for a long time. It is to accept others as they are, even though they might have a different way of life.

Invest in Analytics

2012-08-21T18:36:00.002-04:00

Analytics is not one of the favorite topics when someone speaks about digital marketing. It is one of the crucial components of digital marketing but Social Media, Mobile Marketing, Paid Search, SEO or UX just sound way hotter. That’s probably the reason why it is rare to find someone who truly understands what they are doing when it comes to implementing a tracking system let alone having enough experience adapting to the constant changes in digital measurements.

My friend who has been in the analytics field for over 5 years said she can almost always find errors in tracking when looking at a company’s website. To my surprise, she added, a lot of the large fortune 500 companies with media budget over hundreds of thousands of dollars do not know that their vendors and agencies are tracking the sales wrong and being rewarded for conversions that were not created through their marketing effort. If you are a marketing director working with an agency, try asking your account managers if they often run into tracking problems. Almost all of the experienced account managers can tell you how messy it can get when it comes to tracking.

Beside the standard Google Analytics, some of the paid tracking systems with high reputations out there are Ominture and Comscore. Many companies actually have huge problem implementing them. On one hand, these software offer a wide ranges of metrics that allow marketers to learn about their customers, but on the other hand, digital marketing get stuck with solving the problem such as why the URLs aren’t being tagged right. For smaller business, Omniture and Comscore are already out of the picture since allocating enough human resources to assure these systems work properly is already over their budget.

What is the key takeaway for this post? I would say the solution is to find the consultant or employee with years of experience in analytics and tracking. If there is marketing budget for doing it right, it is investing in the human resource. Sure there will be more options for simple and low maintenance tracking systems over time, but it takes an experience analyst to assure there is no glitch.

Facebook Advertising and Suggestions for Sheryl Sandberg

2012-07-09T01:36:00.000-04:00

Recent news on Sheryl Sandberg joining the Facebook Board of Directors probably motivates the largest number of female entrepreneurs and leaders within the tech community in 2012. Business owners or online marketers like myself and others, however, have different kind of interest. It is whether Sheryl Sandberg, formerly VP of Online Sale and Operation at Google, will use her past experience to help shape and innovate the Facebook advertising system so that it becomes relevant for both advertisers and the end users. There are definitely places that need improvement and following are some suggestions:

1. Reach advertisers by verticals or by advertisers’ needs: Advertisers who want to sell bags will have different goals than those trying to get exposure for their songs and music shows. It is great that there were a lot of facebook marketing campaigns successfully drove traffic to their page last year, but if all of them were in the entertainment industry, how can business owners and advertisers relate? Building segmented help forums, case studies and researches or emailing lists can be done in order to provide relevant information.

2. Provide better learning experience: Google definitely succeeded at training many search marketers and advocating for the Adwords certification. Facebook needs a similar system and more organized material in order to communicate with advertisers on topics such as ad delivery options. A step by step guide or tutorial videos will be helpful as well.

3. Build ad support team: Similar to Google, Bing, Apple and other companies with excellent customer service, Facebook will need a strong and helpful ad support team as well. As of right now, smaller advertisers and business owners don’t even have an option to email, let alone call Facebook if there is an advertising-related question.

Facebook offers growth opportunities for advertisers through demographic and social targeting options. However, it will take us sometimes to know whether having more targeting options allows better reach or trigger mediocre online marketing and the team at Facebook will help form the answer to that.

Building The Relationship with Your 20%

2012-06-05T00:24:00.002-04:00

The majority of you are probably familiar with the Pareto principle. It suggests that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The principle makes perfect sense especially in branding as 80% of marketing profit probably comes from 20% of the total customers. Focusing your marketing effort on building the relationship with this 20% segment might just be adequate and efficient.

Here’s how:

1. Utilize email marketing: Google’s most recent new product is the email extension (see image) which allows brand to collect searchers’ email addresses under their consents. If your company has yet done email marketing in the past, this would be a good chance to start. Cultivating the contact list and maintaining the relationship will help bringing in additional return consumers for your products or services.

2. Give exclusive discounts and perks: Under the allowed profit margin, give out discounts and rebate offers frequently for loyal customers with an emphasis on exclusivity. People enjoy exclusive deals. Rewarding your loyal customers will not only assure their return for additional purchases, but also open up more referral opportunities. Loyal fans are the best brand advocates.

3. Reach your customers through social media: Understand your audience through as many channels as time and resource allows. Start the conversation and track your effort.

4. Encourage membership sign-up: Online membership has become so common that online customers seem to no longer mind signing up and filling out forms as long as the form is within one web page, no scrolling. Take advantages of this mentality and build a membership list after sales already being made.

5. Remind your visitors: If a member has yet had an activity for sometimes, a reminder is a great practice in order to warm up the old leads. In the digital world, it is surprisingly easy to lose touch and we definitely do not want to lose touch with our 20% loyal customers.

If you have any other tips in building the relationship with your loyal customers, please share with us!

p/s: You might find my posts at Mixed Digital blog. I have worked with them in the past and know they are a team of excellent digital marketers, especially in the lifestyle and entertainment vertical. I highly suggest following them for future updates!

The Work Week Graph

2011-11-03T22:09:00.003-04:00

Failure of Ratings

2011-09-25T06:11:00.000-04:00

Many people have developed a habit of reading reviews before going to a movie theater, a restaurant or a play. It is understandable since information is available and we are equipped to get the latest news within the palm of our hands, as long as we care enough.

Generally, reviews are helpful. Why wouldn't someone want to go see a movie that 10,000 people said it was great? After seeing the reviews for the movie Drive starring Ryan Gosling, my brother, his friends and I decided we were going to watch it. It is rated as 8.7 out of 10 and we were very interested. Especially me, I mean aside from the reviews, Ryan Gosling has basically been my idol since The Notebook. You can easily find the ratings for the movie here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/reviews

To my surprise, I was disappointed. I am sure my brother and his friends were, too, as we walked out of the movie theater feeling like we just wasted two hours. There was nothing special to the script, and the highlights of the movie involved violent scenes and unreasonable killing acts. I wasn't sure what the idea that the movie was trying to convey but there was nothing "heroic" or "hypnotic" about it as some people have written in the reviews.

Ratings may very well be irrelevant to one's personal opinion. During the time when social media put an emphasis on the reputation metrics, it is important to understand that there can be a failure in ratings and the value of a product or service does not base solely on how many good reviews it gets.

The More-Customer Stories

2011-08-13T14:46:00.001-04:00

Gym was the last place I expected to have drama happened, but it did. Last week, the trainer from my aerobic class told us it was her last day. Not sure what the reason was. Some said it was because the gym couldn't pay her, others said because her parents were sick. No matter the reason, people were disappointed that there would be a new trainer. One of the girls, who has worked out there for almost 5 years, wrote a petition and managed to get 2 pages of signatures. They all went to the gym management expressing their wish to have her back....

The petition did nothing. We still ended up having a new teacher. Half of the class didn't show up, of course. If I were the gym's owner, I would be happy how much the customers were attached to the class. This class only took place 2 times a week, but it has managed to attract many people. Interestingly, the people who have been there for longer than 3 years were not necessarily people living nearby. That I think, was some business success.

Also during that same week, my coworkers and I were ordering lunch from this restaurant in midtown. The line was long and the restaurant was extremely busy. During the chaos, someone messed up our orders and we had to bring them back. While waiting for the order to be fixed, we were casually chatting about how our orders could be messed up so much. After handing the fixed order back to us, the restaurant manager said "We are sorry that this happened to you. I am going to keep this receipt, and for the next order, please give me a call. Your order will be on the house."

Two complaints were being handled very differently. I don't think local businesses pay enough attention to customer loyalty when they are out trying to get sales. It struck me how effective a Groupon campaign can drive traffic to local businesses and yet many business owners fell short in building and maintaining the loyalty. One thing I know from my own experience, that I would be more likely to come back in the second story and spend more.

Random Cloud Talk

2011-05-15T20:03:00.001-04:00

This is not really marketing-related, but I once entered a discussion about cloudsource solutions. One person asked "why would you allow your business information be in the cloud or managed by a cloud service? I mean all that information...." And I told him "why would you put money in a bank? You know them just as well as you would know your cloud service providers."
Cloudsourcing some parts of your business is one great way to cut cost. Companies who offer cloud-based service are responsible for finding the best people to protect their clients' data. These people work full time in order to make sure their cloud servers are trustworthy and more business owners will use such service. A lot of time, companies will argue having an in house team and server is adequate. However, the in-house team may not be specialized enough in data protection or your company probably will not have the best technology.

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The Conventional Way

2011-01-17T03:00:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday, I had an excellent conversation with my friend about success and how he defines it. Asking someone to define success is one of my all time favorites. One thing he said that I found to be valuable "If a business wants to stand out and be successful, either it has to be unconventional or it is conventional but with 10th times the effort." Unconventional is unconventional so there's no point trying to figure out the recipe. It is the conventional who makes the story.

First, it is the consistency. I got in touch with a few business contacts to see how far they have come with their startup projects from last year. Some of them became successful. Some others did not. Most of them were conventional. Not all of them were consistently good. Often time, the amount of effort being invested to maintain something consistent is underestimated. This is true, not only in the business sense but anytime one aims to accomplish a goal. You go to the gym in January. It is packed with people, majority of whom you have never seen before. Everyone is fired up and ready for a new start. But how many of those do you think will end up going to the gym after February, March or April? It takes effort to be consistent and consistently good.

Exposure is a must. My friend was telling me about a school charity project. They basically made a tour around the school and tried to shake as many hands as possible. Every time they got a handshake, they took a picture of it. At the end, they made a large handshake picture constructed by all the small one that was taken. The big picture was sold and the money went into charity. Great idea, great execution. Now some may say that that is not original. There is a software that will help constructing that type of pictures. That's not the point of the story. Aside from having a creative handshake picture, what made it successful was the handshake itself. What is a better way to get exposure for the project than shaking hands with everyone? Most likely people will have a conversation about it.
New Year is fun thanks to resolutions. It's a beginning of all sources of personal growth. With consistency and exposure comes great things.

You Can't Analyze IT

2010-10-20T01:44:00.006-04:00

I went with my friend Ana to see the Social Network movie for the second time this past weekend and it didn't cease to impress me. I could care less about whether that was what happened to Mark Zuckerberg. The movie was very well-written.

After that, I ended up having a good discussion with her about it and the success of Facebook. She brought up a very good point. It goes something like this "You can keep analyzing it but the truth is, there is no explanation for something big to happen. It just reaches its "tipping point". Same way with Friendster or Myspace back in the day when we didn't know what Facebook was." Working with Google Analytics on a daily basis, Ana knows too well how often online marketers are asked to explain why something is good and something isn't. However, what she said made perfect sense. Most of the time, you can't assign one reason for why something is such a success or a failure. It is usually a combination of things, events and people. It's the point where imagination and execution meet. Plus the IT factor.

So, what will be the next big thing?

I am gonna end this random blog with another favorite quote of Ana "I can't imagine life after Facebook, but I said the same thing with Friendster and Myspace before. Nothing is impossible."

Picture: my city in Vietnam. I had a nice visit in back in September.

Assumptions for A Return

2010-07-21T01:11:00.002-04:00

Marketers are easily accused of making too many assumptions. Partially because we don't always have resource to test everything, and a lot of time we need to assume certain things correct for others to be proven. Mainly, however, it is the fact that as humans, we all tend to search for the answer to our own opinion anyway.

That is why you can never track online behavior enough to come up with a set of rules that correctly apply to every case. What we are really tracking is only a very small aspect of behavior in a very particular setting, maybe at a particular moment. The right question then would be "how can we make the most our of our own bias?" or "how do we minimize our bias and maximize the return?"

Following is some of the advices I've collected that have helped me. I figure it might be useful to others. Especially during the time that Yahoo and MSN are going through a major search partnership, Google is implementing new keyword matching options, and FourSquare and Skype are fighting to make headlines.

1. Get a different set of eyes on your data. You make this neat and detailed report but do other people see the same thing?

2. Get a different set of data (from someone else) on the same subject. Assume all the data are correct, reference other people work could help see a fresher aspect.

3. Don't be stubborn. If there's a negative return, it is important to find out why first before trying to stick to the losing strategy.

4. Look outside of your project. Environmental factors, it's marketing 101, but how many of us actually look. Have we paid enough attention to our competitors?

5. Okay your assumption is wrong. Move on fast. Many times in paid search, we have the luxury to turn around more quickly. But for other channels, it is still important to be quick. People's behaviors change without warning anyone.

6. "New" does not always mean "Better". This includes new tools, new reporting system or even new people managing certain accounts. Large businesses don't change their agencies every year for a reason.

7. "New" could mean "Better". Is your current strategies, tools, methodologies, etc suitable to the changing environment? Do you need to start thinking about tapping into a new segment of consumers yet?

If you have other suggestions to share, feel free to write a comment or drop me an email. I'm always open to improving my assumptions.

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p/s: The picture is the wonderful nature that I got to see during July 4th weekend. It's not really related to the topic but I figure since it's my blog, I get to do whatever I want without worrying about visits, bounce rates or conversions. What a luxury! ;)

5 tips for managing a PPC search campaign

2010-04-06T02:11:00.000-04:00

1. Never assume anything without supporting data. It is not unusual for search marketers to have assumptions or intuitive feeling. I was once told "You have to assume something is true for others to be explained" but without data, it is advised to not take any major action.
2. Identify your top performing keywords: Depending on the account's performance history, conversion type, quality score, landing page and other factors, there are sets of keywords that work better than others. It is important to know these keywords and how much they could be paid to still maintain the profit margin.
3. Constantly monitor changes in search volume: Change in click volume could be due to internal or external factors, but regardless of the reasons, click volume can provide prediction of future changes of the market.
4. Do not ignore other channels: It's hard for search marketers, especially paid search, to look past the click/cost/conversions data but a lot of times, changes in campaign performance are due to influences from other channels.
5. Do frequent deep-dives: We don't always find valuable insights from digging into data but each time a deep-dive is done, search marketers will understand the campaign performance a little bit more. It is definitely worth it.

Four Point Parking and Google Map

2010-03-03T01:29:00.003-05:00

This took place a while ago, but I recently got virus on my computer that delayed me on blasting this out to the world (yes, times like this make me want to switch to Mac and avoid all virus problems). A friend of mine recently got her money back thanks to Google Map. What happened was that she and a few others traveled to California. They parked at a spot without knowing that it was intended for handicapped drivers. Other handicapped spots were marked very clearly, hers was not. Maybe because she never failed to follow the laws and probably disagreed with the accident fine of not knowing enough, she took a picture of her parking spots using Google map and sent. The picture pointed out other clearly marked handicapped spots (in yellow) vs. her not-clearly-marked spot (in red).

Result? She got the ticket reduced from $300 to $50. Not too bad for speaking up. At least she didn't have to pay for someone who forgot to re-paint the parking lot. Now I really wonder if similar things happened to others. Who knows, maybe Google map have served many others beyond its intended purpose.

SEM Campaigns - Do You Always Want To Be On Top?

2010-01-31T19:49:00.008-05:00

Search marketing allows business owners to have control over their messaging via paid ads on the search engine. Ideally, the best positions are the top positions, but as search marketers, you probably know that is not entirely true. Have you ever dealt with clients who literally sit all day stalking for the ad positions and make a point to complain when the ad is not on top? Not any of my clients in particular, but I know there are many business owners out there who expect number 1 position because they think since they are paying for the ads, such thing needs to happen. Managing campaigns for these clients can be tough sometimes because good results don’t seem to be enough. It is the search marketer’s job to educate his or her clients about how it works, but for business owners, here are reasons why top positions don’t mean everything:

First positions do not guarantee conversions, regardless of whether it is lead or sale campaign. For many campaigns, you might even notice that conversions happen more likely at position 3 or 4. It is more important to find out what positions are the optimal positions rather than trying to reach the first.

Top positions cost more. In addition, by focusing your attention on whether or not the ad is on top, the time inventory is reduced for the effort to increase success in sales and leads. Especially if your campaign is managed by an agency, focusing on top positions and not goal conversions is not a way to go.

Search behaviors are different depending on the product or service, seasonality, targeted internet users and other market factors. I once talked to a guy who said he never clicks on an ad at the top positions because he knows they are ads. Of course, he is an extreme case since not every internet user chooses to not click on the paid search ads, but such search behaviors need to be taken in consideration. Search behaviors for a campaign need to be watched carefully so if there is a shift, marketers are responsive enough to the changes.

There are obvious benefits for having top positions. It might be similar to having your product displayed on the middle shelf in the super market or on the front page of a magazine. The point is not to ignore the benefits that top positions bring but to value them as much as they are worth.

You Are Probably A Search Marketer If.....

2010-01-14T03:43:00.008-05:00

1. You consider it's normal to caps lock the first letter of every word.

2. In your head, you unconsciously follow your friend's sentences with synonyms.

3. The Twitter limit is 140 but you only need 95 (25+35+35).

4. Sometimes, you feel as if you are an accountant, an English teacher, a statistician, etc.but well, you are a marketer.

5. Without factoring in the client and internal communication, you spend 10% of the time creating, 50% of the time tracking and the rest of the time fixing things.

6. It is normal to check your campaign's progress in the middle of the night. People don't stop clicking.

7. You have dreams of spreadsheets.

8. When people asked you to really explain what you do, you start with: "you know when you type in Google..."

9. Professional certified test days might involve free drinks and cool perks.

10. You read this and create a sheet to track how many % of this is true.

Search 101

2010-01-12T03:28:00.013-05:00

Search marketing is a form of online marketing that thrives on the ability to reach highly targeted customers when they are researching for information of a specific product or service.

In layman’s terms, search marketers bid on a set of keywords that best describes the product or service to be advertised in order to keep the ads (associated with these keywords) at the most profitable positions.

However, we all know that no human-defined concept remains in layman’s terms, especially search marketing. As the internet and technology continuously evolves, new concepts are constantly added. Since it is search 101, I’ll answer the top common questions asked by non-SEMers, but keeps in mind that this is like a drop of water to a sea. Please email me with your specific questions and I will be glad to help.

What’s the difference between SEM and SEO?

SEM (Search Engine Marketing), aka PPC (Pay-Per-Click) or Paid Search, referred to the marketing effort to improve rankings of ads via paid placements on a search engine. In most major search engines, the paid placements are at the top or on the right hand side of the search result pages.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) referred to the effort to increase a website’s visibility via non-paid search results, aka organic results. The organic results are below the paid placements and they take up the majority of the results on a search engine results page.

Who should run a search marketing campaign?

It is ideal for any business owner who wants to control the marketing budget and effectively measure the success of the investment. Anyone with enough understanding of how search marketing works can run a search campaign. This type of information is easily accessed online as many search marketing experts have shared their knowledge online.

How do search marketers decide what keywords to bid on?

Search marketers depend strongly on third-party tools, data and analysis to predict trends in the behaviors of internet users. In turns, they come up with a few sets (or a few hundred sets) of keywords that work best in achieving their goals. Advertisers will then put these keywords through different tests driven by multiple market and internal factors. They will refine the list and make strategic decisions to bid on a list of keywords with highest return on investment possible for the business.

Have more question about Search? Email me at admin@linhlanh.com. I'd be glad to help!

I Am Going To Do Some Free Writing Before I Get Distracted Again

2009-10-25T21:17:00.008-04:00

Last blog, I mentioned doing some research on real-time bidding and share it here. Well, it didn't happen and I will explain here shortly why. But before I go into discussing anything at all, I would like to thank my dear friend Ha from Missouri for having asked why there wasn't any new post on my blog. I admit I have been slacking a little bit lately, and thank you for reminding me that keeping a blog updated is just as important as having good content. Definitely easier to say than do ;-)

Back to my unfinished real-time bidding project. I put it on hold because of late, work has been giving me great learning opportunities.What I know from reading about PPC is nothing compared to actually doing and experiencing what works and what doesn't.

A great example, I used to think very simply that if a campaign was not performing well, I would make some bid changes. If things got better the week after, it meant I did my job. That is not always the case. When factoring things such as lead time (the time between when people begin their online search and actually convert - make purchases, sign up, register, etc), seasonality (fluctuation of performance between periods) or specific promotion offers, the performance of a SEM campaign becomes a different type of problem. More specifically, if the common behavior of internet shoppers for product A is to research it three weeks before actually buying it, optimize the campaign weekly might result in the under spending on keywords with high conversions just because these keywords don't seem to get any conversion at first.

Another reason is that life is full of distraction. When I was researching and contemplating on how real-time search might turn out in the next year or so, Yahoo introduced their new campaign management tool, unemployment rate was announced to be at 9.8% (this is not the latest number), the client monthly reports were due at the end of the week, or a friend kept texting about having lunch soon because she had something very important to tell, etc etc. It's like the whole world is moving at this super speed and if I spend sometimes on doing random things like blogging about real-time search, I will definitely fall behind.

I am not complaining though, be busy is always a good thing. But of everyone who is or will be reading, half of the people do not know what real time search is. Majority of the other half don't care or care about something else (like post-click, pre-click attribution or semantic search) and maybe 10% of the people will really be interested in real-time search. Actually, 15% now that Bing introduced their new Twitter index portion at www.bing.com/twitter ;-)

For the 15% who cares:
- Real-time search will definitely make contextual targeting more interesting
- News websites should watch out for a new type of competition if they aren't able to deliver in such real-time manner.
- What about segmented real-time search? Organized real-time info.

Have a joyful week!

Advertising Events in NYC

2009-09-20T15:11:00.005-04:00

The next few weeks: You should search for these talked-about events. They all take place in NY:
- The Influencers organized by Girls in Tech NY
- PPC: Not Just About The Numbers sponsored by Clickable (Webcast,Tueday, Sep 22)
- Advertising Week Sep 21 - 25
- Adeaters, Sep 25 - Digital Wednesday
- SMX East Oct 5-7

Last week: Panel of Discussion
The best thing about attending a panel of discussion full of experts is the chance to analyze and gain industry's perspectives that are different than my own. I encountered such an opportunity at the Sempo Meetup event last week. The event featured Stephen Baker, Kevin Lee, Mike Moran, Mike Grehan and Bill Hunt. It started out with Stephen presenting some thoughts, especially over his last written book - The Numerati. When Stephen use Gordon Bell's MyLifeBits project as an example, the audience got really enthusiastic.... Follow are some of the ideas being brought up that got stuck in my head after the evening:

- Memories/History vs. Truth:
History is written by the victors. I don't think the ability to record history in details will change how people interpret the past. The way history has been written depends less on the amount of events being recorded but more on how people reacted emotionally to the events themselves when they experienced the events or saw in a video later on. What can't be recorded is human emotion and that's usually what makes everything complicated. Therefore, truth might not be what being seen or interpreted at all.

- People vs Machine:
E-memories and how people will forget to do many things because machines are available were brought up. I was thinking because everything is automated, will human memories become poorer or they just choose to store different, more complicated things. The concept of what being valued is changing everyday, which requires marketers to find out what is relevant. Automatic tools do not capture the complexity of human minds and that is why a good marketing job is done with a person behind it.

- Social trends and the influence on internet marketing:
Many people are against online data collection done by internet marketers yet they willingly fill out a Facebook profile about their lives, things they love and hate. No one ever thanks data collection for enabling them to find a nearby store instead of somewhere halfway around the world online. Relevancy is not achieved overnight. It is not easy to explain by collecting data about a person, the person benefits from knowing about products/services he truly need. Would he like someone knocking at his door and handing out an irrelevant piece of paper? Capturing online data is not much of a difference than talking to a stranger on the street and learn about her life. Stop marketers from collecting data should not be a concern, having ethics for keeping data private is.

What's up: Right now I am researching on some real-time SEM, maybe that's my next blog post so stop by when you get a chance ;-)

"Optimize" Your College Life

2009-09-14T02:43:00.005-04:00

Brother,

Only a few more days and you will become a freshman in college! This will be one of many remarkable chapters in your life, and I am excited for you. You probably want me to tell you everything I know, but college is one of those things that you have to be there and experience yourself. Not everyone has the same story and I wish that your story would be good. Here's some of my suggestions which, hopefully, are useful for you:

1. Have goals...no wait, have measurable goals: Make sure you are heading forward to something. Evaluate your goals weekly,monthly,quarterly and yearly to see if you are still following through with your set of goals. Moving slowly sometimes is ok, as long as you are moving forward.

2. Stay relevant: Pick your courses and selective courses carefully. Make sure the skills that you want to learn are still valuable. Read the news.

3. Choose the right team: Hang yourself around good people. Much of things that I've learned in college are through people with whom I encountered.

4. Expand vertically and horizontally: College is a great place to test and fall. Test now, fall now and find out what direction you'd like to expand.

5. Watch the resource: Stay focus, party hard, have fun and make the most out of it like everyone has probably suggested, but never forget to check your resource. Health and time are the two most important in this category.

Enjoy the ride!

Sincerely, from your nerdy sister who might have overdosed herself on PPC How-to forums.

My Little Collection of Excel Useful Tips for SEM

2009-08-14T15:53:00.011-04:00

In my entire college life, I have never thought I would get excited over Excel. I guess I didn't fully comprehend how useful it is while sitting in school worrying about when the next English paper is due...Here are a few things that I appreciate a lot more about Excel recently:
1. Shortcuts:
Alt and "+" = AutoSum
Ctrl and ";" = Insert today's date
Shift+Space bar = Ctrl +Shift+"->"= Select the whole row
Ctrl and Space bar = Ctrl+Shift+"Arrow Down"= Select the whole column
Ctrl+F11=Insert a new (Macro) sheet
Ctrl+Pageup or Pagedown: moving from sheet to sheet
Ctrl+H: find and replace
My friend in college Ben used to brag to me about the fact that he never has to use the mouse for anything anymore, I did not know why it was such a big deal for him.Some of the stuff he did include Ctrl+shift+tab: navigate through different tab on Firefox, or Ctrl+Alt+tab: navigate through different applications used (like when you want to move from Firefox to Excel for example). Now that see how much faster to navigate by using shortcuts, I thought of Ben with much respect.

2. Microsoft Ad Intelligence plugin: Here's to Josh who I met on the SEMPO Boat Cruise. He's the one who shares with me this useful information: http://bit.ly/196SNE. I downloaded it but never used it myself. He told me that the search data is from several years worth of searches on Live. That's pretty cool, though I need to do some more research on how it is applied in a specific case. But you are much appreciated Josh!!!
There are many more but that's it for now, I am going to spend the rest of my Friday night with my friends before they boycott me for being on the computer too much.

Sorry and Thank you

2009-08-07T01:08:00.005-04:00

- Sorry Mom and Dad for my weird and long hour working schedule. It is only temporary I promise.
- Sorry brother, I might not have time to go out with you as much as you want on your first month in school.
- Sorry friends for I haven't been calling or talking to anyone...it gets a little crazy over here.
- Sorry Vicky for visiting the city during my most busy week. I will tour the city with you this weekend before you leave me for who knows how long.....

and
- Thank you Mom for not knowing exactly what I do and still support me in my career decisions.
- Thank you uncle for telling me to keep on going
- Thank you roommie for putting up with me
- Thank you "jerk" for never getting tired of asking "when is your next interview?"
- Thank you CoZ for taking time out of your busy schedule and check up on my lifelong plan...
I truly hope you don't give up on me. This will change one day, however long that'll take.