Amazon Applies Intelligence to the App Store. You Should Too.

I've long argued that Apple's iTunes and the app store are woefully unintelligent. They are akin to merchandising in a storefront... when there is data available to make the store experience more compelling and better converting. Here's an example of that argument beginning in 2009 (!). After a week with the Amazon Kindle Fire (more to come - hint: I love it), they get the storefront concept and execute it well.... as we have come to expect from Amazon. Rather than using Facebook data, Amazon uses your purchase and search data. Below is an example of the Kidle Bookstore and notice that it's not just a compilation of bestsellers. Theses are items specifically tailored to me based on what I've bought, what I've searched for, and what they consequently think I like (sports, health, tech, young families, etc).

What's this mean for you? You likely won't have Amazon's breadth of data and users profiling... but platforms like Twitter and Facebook do - and you can leverage them to personalize your experience specifically for your users. It's more compelling. It's differentiated. And it's therefore converts.

Leveraging Facebook for Startups: Part II, On-Facebook

Note: this article originally appeared on TechCrunch: 10 Ways to Leverage Facebook for Startups: Part II, On-Site Part I: Off-Facebook Strategy Part II: On-Facebook Strategy

Yesterday I discussed how to improve user acquisition, activation and activity by building Facebook directly into your web experience. There is of course another half to the equation: leveraging Facebook.com to expand your reach and engage your users. On-Facebook success is less product-heavy than success off-Facebook, although they both ultimately aim for the same outcome: engagement. While it is as much an art as a science, if you optimize for engagement and continually test your way across Facebook’s myriad of products – you may well find yourself sitting alongside The Rock (Facebook’s best personality?) and Spotify (terrific example of being a platform first-mover).

As a startup, you may not reach the scale Spotify or the brand / reach of Starbucks (27 million fans) – but this guide will help you think about strengthening relationships with your fans, expanding your fanbase and unifying your off-Facebook experience with your on-Facebook presence.

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How to Leverage Facebook for Startups: Part I, Off-Facebook

Note: this article originally appeared on TechCrunch: 10 Ways Your Startup Can Hook Into Facebook, Part I: On The Web Part I: Off-Facebook Strategy Part II: On-Facebook Strategy

Having already covered how startups can use search and Twitter to find customers, here’s 10 steps for finding people on another key marketing platform: Facebook Facebook has evolved from a social network into the fabric with which much of the web is constructed: identity, product, data, experience and so on. Even if you chose to no longer use it as a social destination, you would still find immense value in it through your every-day web usage: registration, personalization, sharing, interaction, etc.

This is of course a huge opportunity for consumer-focused startups. Facebook plays a core role in touching each step along the standard product / user funnel:

- Acquisition: virality, referrals, paid traffic - Activation: conversion paths from new to active users - Activity: user engagement and retention

Below is a slide presentation with five ways to think about leveraging Facebook to affect those three steps on your web experience. Tomorrow I will share five ways to find success on Facebook.com.

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Zappos Security Breach a Reminder that Facebook is the Web's Identity

The Zappo's security breach of a couple weeks ago was a reminder that your online passwords, data and activity are vulnerable... and to change your passwords often! For me, it was a reminder of another sort and crystallized my latest thinking around Facebook & its role on the web. Facebook is obviously a social network. But it has become something different over time... something arguably more important: it is an identity network. Facebook is the identity thread that connects people, content, data, logins, etc. Whether your Facebook social activity has increased or decreased over time - I guarantee your 'social exhaust' has increased. By that I mean: you may post to your Facebook feed regularly - but you are likely using Facebook to access, use and improve the rest of the web.

So how does this relate to Zappos' security breach? Simple: much of this would be avoided if my account was fully tied to Facebook. No new passwords would be exchanged / needed. Changing my single password (and having a long, unique password) would be so much easier if it were just my Facebook account.

For Zappos, this doesn't mean that they are ceding control of their users - they can still supplement accounts & details. Rather, it means outsourcing identity to Facebook... and that has some big benefits.

Philz Coffee, Free Wifi and Facebook Fans

I spent time working at Philz Coffee yesterday (now in downtown Palo Alto - and if you haven't enjoyed Philz... hurry. It's amazing coffee). They provide free wifi and do something really simple and smart... and surprisingly unique. When you access the free wifi, you are prompted with a screen to acccept them terms & conditions. This is very normal:

When you accept the terms, most companies redirect to you an ad or content hub of some sort (here is an example from Starbucks).

Philz redirects you to their Facebook fan page. Simple. Clever. You are in Philz already... why not like their page? Why not check in? Post a picture of your coffee?

Why doesn't everyone do this? It is clearly a better return than some CPM ad that users are dying to get away from... it's relevant, not spammy and surprisingly welcome.

14 SEO Tips for Startups

Note: This article originally appeared on TechCrunch (“14 Steps to Successful SEO for Startups”). For startups, it is dangerous to entirely separate product and marketing – both strategically and organizationally. A great product isn’t overly useful without an audience. And a great marketing strategy can’t save a poor product. Product and marketing have to coexist.

So when imaging, building and eventually launching your product, it is important to also hone the marketing strategy. There are five core channels:

- Paid marketing (SEM, display, affiliates, etc) - Social & viral marketing - Search engine optimization (SEO) - Partnerships & business development - PR

For early-stage companies, advertising at scale is expensive and consequently difficult. Furthermore, PR and business development become easier efforts as the company matures. So where does that leave you as a resource-constrained startup?

Marketing needs to come from the product itself. Last week I explored the role that social and virals play. And while the tech world is fascinated with social media and major platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we shouldn’t overlook the role of SEO (and consequently Google). Like Facebook and Twitter, SEO is another opportunity to expand your funnel and increase your audience — without an advertising budget! Also like social, SEO is far more effective when built directly into the product (“from the ground up”). Here are 14 guidelines for thinking about SEO.

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Be Actionable. Be Different. Facebook Listen & Read Buttons & Google Offers as Examples.

Before the holiday, I wrote that Facebook was testing "listen buttons" in the Ticker. I commented that it was sure to boost activity and conversions... but what happens when the 'action' graph expands and there are buttons galore? A couple thoughts / notes on that: click image for full-size

1. This is the first time I have now seen "Read" buttons. They look exactly like the listen button - but clearly focused on different actions, publishers and canvas apps. It really stands out.

Again: what happens when the entire ticker is action-oriented? Is it too noisy? Is there new column? Unsure... but I like the fact that posts are action-oriented.

click image for full-size

2. Which brings us to point #2: it is a reminder to be action-oriented and to stand out... whether you are creating content, delivering emails or crafting ad units. Great example below from Google's own search ads.

The first unit is for Google Offers. It *of course* looks great and stands out: big branding, big imagery, etc.

The second is a little further down and is by Lonely Planet. The unit stands out because it is different and integrates ratings. The copy is action-oriented.

click image for full-size

How to Grow Your Brand on Twitter. 5 Overarching Guidelines. Tons of Examples.

Note: This article originally appeared on TechCrunch ("5 Ways for Startups to Grow Their Brands on Twitter”). Last week I began an effort to answer those questions I get asked most frequently, starting with how to create an early-stage pitch deck. Today, I address the next most popular question: how best to grow your brand on Twitter? Twitter is the ultimate marketing platform. But the scale of Twitter is so extraordinary (250 million tweets / day) that it is actually quite easy to get lost in the noise.

Separating yourself from the masses really begins with the recognition that Twitter is first and foremost a platform for conversation. If you believe that, you avoid the mistake most brands make: treating Twitter as a mechanism to push content rather than create engagement.

And once your goal is to foster conversation and engagement, you can follow these five guidelines:

1. Listen. 2. Be authentic. 3. Be compelling. 4. Find the influencers. 5. Extend off-twitter and onto your site.

In the below presentation, I breakdown these core themes and provides examples of people and companies successfully using Twitter to drive engagement and grow their brands.

How to Grow Your Brand on Twitter

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Facebook Moving Sponsored Posts Above Ticker? Always a Balancing Act

Last week I wrote a post about the the balancing act of revenue versus user experience. These tug of wars appear all the time, for instance - while at eBay, I used to think a great deal about the trade-offs of SEO as compared to usability / design... tough decisions. And we see it now with LinkedIn (who recently became a public company) - whose web experience has shifted a bit towards revenue (suggested by my anecdotal, personal usage). This is all a set up to the following screenshot of my Facebook homepage - which seems to have shifted Sponsored Posts above the Ticker and Birthday / Events alerts. Sponsored Posts are clearly the big revenue opportunity on the the homepage - and, by being above the Ticker, CPMs, conversions, etc all improve. Of course that affects interaction rates with the ticker and therefore my friends.

It's always a balance. And it's fascinating to watch.