Here is a good quote from a recent Telligent whitepaper, reinforcing the importance of social media in reaching a younger demographic:

Millennial marketers today need to remember two things:

1. Consumers are far more likely to listen to their evangelist peers versus a corporate institution, and
2. If you’re not participating in the topic-driven discussions your prospects and customers are already having, you’re in danger of losing valuable consumer mindshare

No duh stuff, right?  It should be.

A quote from Google via a post in Website Magazine.

"While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of click through rates because users can easily read the URLs, the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking."

For those of you (me) dead set on doing URL rewrites in order to adopt a more SEO friendly format, it appears that may not have as much impact as previously thought.  Hmmm...need to dig into this one a bit more.

I was a little hard on the McCain camp a few weeks back when I posted about their lack of a targeted online marketing strategy.  Well, they apparently heard that gripe from a few different places and just this week, I received a very targeted and relevant email from their campaign (below).  I have been getting emails from Obama's South Dakota campaign director for months, but this is the first one I recall from McCain's South Dakota campaign director, which definitely helps to provide a bit of regional flavor.  It even has the cliche Mt. Rushmore shot in the header!  All joking aside, the visuals certainly help to localize the message and the real kudos is that the event being promoted is actually in my geographic market. Baby steps, man, baby steps. 

I blogged a few weeks back about Exxon taking the plunge into the Twitterverse.  It was a bold move by Exxon, to say the least, and left the oil giant open for sticks and stones to be thrown their way from people ticked about high gas prices, environmental concerns, and all the other things that people hate about big oil.

Turns out, @ExxonMobilCorp was fake.  "Janet", who was tweeting as an Exxon employee, was not an employee at all.  Purely a poser.  And a whole bunch of us fell for it.  Jeremiah Owyang brilliantly summarized the ruse in a post last month so I won't try and put another spin on it.  The major takeaway, however, is that PR and reputation management is no longer solely about press releases and media interviews.  The web has changed all that.  Online PR has fast become an extremely critical element in ensuring that your brand is being driven by your company - not "Janet from Exxon", LoneyGirl15, or anyone else pretending they're someone they aren't.

A good lesson for all of us, I suppose. 

Here's an example of a great banner ad from PermissionTV that appeared in a recent iMedia email newsletter.  Don't you just wanna click it?  I did, and I'm  guessing many others did too. Simple, creative, and effective.

Seriously? C'mon.

Ever wonder what GUI stands for, who invented LinkedIn, or how many searches are performed on Google daily? We've started dropping some periodic online marketing nuggets via text message, so if you want in on the action be sure to sign up here. Yes, the incoming text message fee is yours, but we promise to only hit you up once or twice a month at the most.

Google Analytics is now showing Google Chrome visitors in the browser stats.  Not sure why that is a big deal other than being able to see if your site visitors are early technology adopters.  If they are, it maybe says a thing or two about how to market to them.

This week we rolled out a mobile site for Click Rain.  Partly to kick the tires on mobile site metrics and usability, partly to walk the mobile talk, and partly because it was overdue. If you're in/around the marketing world, you can hardly have an industry conversation without the buzz topics of social media, mobile marketing, or blogging coming up in the discussion.  In fact, I remember recently reading (can't recall the source) that nearly half of the world's population now has a mobile phone.  And with the browser-friendly iPhone gobbling up market share, the time for mobile marketing is now.

To that end, we see real potential for mobile sites in certain verticals.  What used to be just for mainstream media (some Sioux Falls media outlets have launched mobile sites here and here) is now being used across a broad range of industries (a local example here - technically not a mobile site but they are certainly embracing mobile technology).  I also recently noticed Ralph Lauren promoting their mobile site at m.ralphlauren.com. Communicating via SMS, properly (note: properly) developing a mobile ready site, and ensuring people know why/how to use these mobile tools can provide your organization a nice advantage in the mobile space while your competition struggles to figure out where to start.

Next time you're on your mobile browser, click over to m.clickrain.com and check it out. While you are there, drop us a note through the site, click 2 call, or sign up for our text updates.  Let the mobile goodness roll. 

When Cuil hit the market a few weeks back, the hype leading up to their launch was pretty big.  After all, they had some top talent from Google and a marketplace hungry for an alternative to the big boys in search (sorry Google and Yahoo, but consumers still like selection).  We posted about the epic fail of the Cuil launch the day after they went live and, as expected, their marketshare in the search space has fallen to virtually nothing.  There are some serious go-to-market lessons to be learned from this one....great fodder for some future posts.