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Augmenting email with social media - No Exact Target Edition - Pt.1


often the most effective action is to pass it along

So following on the heels… or perhaps in the footprints of last month's "Exact Target Social sharing: Augmenting email with social media", I'm going to go over replicating some of the "share this" functionality in Exact Target through alternative sources. This first part is going to be fairly basic, adding your standard set of social sharing buttons into an email, and using them to submit an HTML version of your email.

Things you will need:

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Beginners guides and how to judge links - Monday September 14th Roundup

Is it Monday again already? I swear I was writing one of these just last week (astute readers, will note that I wasn't. We didn't have a roundup last week thanks to a holiday and absurdly busy schedule on my part). Time flies when you're having fun. Or when you're under the gun.

This week we have beginners guides for PPC and local web marketing, tracking zero results in GA, and how to judge the value of a link.

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Google Analytics Traps #6:Subdomain tracking Robs AdWords. Blame _setDomainName() or _initData()?


Who gets credit for the Goal

You're getting AdWords traffic. You're sure that some of those visitors are converting. But Google Analytics is not giving your Campaigns the credit they are due. Could Sub-domain tracking be the problem?

All sub-domain tracking problems lead to _setDomainName() and _initData(). _initData()? Just when you thought it was deprecated, dropped, kaput, gone and forgotten !!!

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Persuasive Web Design, Part One: The Principle of Reciprocation


Last week I promised to share a few of the general principles covered in HFI's new 3-day course on "How to Design for Persuasion, Emotion and Trust". This is the first of this mini-series.

One of the more interesting persuasion techniques is the "Reciprocity Principle". This is one of many techniques that isn't strictly logical. Reciprocating is something we do instinctively.

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VKI Studios in The National Post - "Marketing strategy begins online"


VKI in the news

It seems like every Tuesday something exciting comes up, tossing aside my hopes of a social sharing post mid-stream. Today is no exception, the National Post has featured VKI studios in a center spread across its back page!

This, of course, is due to the fact that we've recently announced that we recently finished our GWO test on Youtube, one of the most visited sites on the internet.


From financialpost.com:

Last year, Vancouver-based VKI Studios Inc., an Internet marketing and website usability firm, identified an opportunity for growth by thinking about what it had to offer and the type of client that was the best fit for its services.

As a result, VKI Studios embarked on a new strategy that took the company from primarily servicing small to medium-sized companies to a customer base of medium-sized to large businesses.

"It was just a strategic decision we made," says John Hossack, chief executive and principal of VKI Studios.

"A lot of it came down to what it was we wanted to do to help clients and it was just much more involved than the small/medium companies could actually afford."

VKI Studios' client base now includes such giants as You-Tube, Virgin Money, TELUS and Mutual of Omaha.

Read the rest here

Persuasive Web Design: The PET Methodology


you have to start with trust. then you hook 'em

I just returned from San Diego, where I participated in a 3-day course on advanced persuasion techniques. Led by Dr Eric Schaffer, Global CEO of Human Factors International, the seminar was called "PET" for Persuasion, Emotion and Trust. However, Dr Schaffer admits they call it PET only because it's a better acronym than TEPC: Trust, Emotion, Persuasion and Commitment.

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Server Status Codes and SEO


it’s important to return the correct server codes

Server status codes play a very important role in search engine optimization. These codes provide search engines with information about page status, and how pages should be treated by the search engine bots. Let’s take a look at the list of the most used codes related to SEO and review their influence on indexing process.

200 OK

The URL request was successful. In terms of SEO it means that the search engines could successfully access the URL. The page under this URL is visible to the search engines and could be indexed (if there no restriction--for example, blocking the page in robots.txt) without problems. This is the most common status code for the majority of pages on an average website.

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Facebook Privacy: Canadian Privacy Laws and How Facebook is Changing Pt. 2

The following is a continuation of Facebook Privacy: Canadian Privacy Laws and How Facebook is Changing

The Report

The following are excerpts from the privacy commission's report detailing where the commission found Facebook in breach of Canadian Law

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Facebook Privacy: Canadian Privacy Laws and How Facebook is Changing Pt.1

I was going to write about email marketing today, particularly how to get many of the same features that you can find in ExactTargets "social sharing" with some spit and elbow grease, but then on Friday Facebook announced that it was going to implement the changes suggested by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner. Big news. However, while a lot of people are talking about the decision, few people are covering what is going to change.

In this post I hope to clarify for you all Canadian Personal Information Protection law (as it applies to Facebook), the concerns of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook's responses, and what that means not only for Canadian Facebook users, but for Facebook users world wide.

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Twitter teens, Phrase Based Optimization, and Canadian Copyright Craziness - Monday Aug 31st Roundup

Quiet week, but some good content. Sadly I'm a little too rushed this week to talk about it in detail, so you all will have to read it for yourselves.

We've got Google's new phrase based optimization, teens on twitter, and Canadian copyright craziness.

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