DR. WHAW? - October 23, 2009

And so another week ends!  I am sad to say that I will not be traveling to the University of Minnesota to visit my little sister, who is a freshman.  I’ve been feeling kind of lousy, and I felt it wasn’t safe to drive for 12 hours this weekend.  So I shall be catching up on my blog (get pumped, readers!) and getting my life organized.  I’m jet-setting off to Sydney, Australia, in two weeks, and I could not be more excited or more unprepared!  In the meantime, I bring you what I Didn’t Read While Hard At Work today!

DR. WHAW? – October 23, 2009

1. Social Media: The Need For Measurement from SEO Book — You know why I’m including this one without even clicking the link, right?  Any article that argues for the need of measurement in social media or any other medium is a must-read in my book.  So why this one in particular?  This one is thorough, and I think that with slight tweaking it could be something you show directly to a boss who needs serious convincing.  Do you agree?

2. Explaining (Some of) Google’s Algorithm with Pretty Charts & Math Stuff from SEOmozBlog — Ever wondered how Google works?  I certainly have.  This is a very thorough and straight-forward explanation of how Google works, and this information could help you to write  content that will rank higher on Google’s search pages. Interested?  You should be!

3. “Listening” graphics have a long way to go by Mark Schaefer — I’m all about measurement, but I have never claimed that the current methods or metrics are perfect.  I love that Mark Schaefer took the time to analyze what is currently available to demonstrate what we still need.

4. How Google Analytics just got a lot more powerful by Guy Kawasaki — Google Analytics recently announced a whole slew of new services, and this is a great explanation of what this means and why you should be paying attention.  He says who cares about Google Wave when there’s more to Google Analytics.  Your interest should be piqued and rightly so.

5. Social Networking ROI by Greg Gianforte — Wow!  An examination of the ROI of social networking, I love it!  I’ve not seen this before, and I’m happy to see that someone is taking a look at this.  There is no real mathematic backing here, but there is some great theoretical suggestions as to how to measure the ROI of social networking.

6. Coke Weighs in on Earned Media ROI by Carol Kruse — Another big WOW!  A major corporation has weighed in on ROI, and I can’t get enough!  I’m happy to see a big player recognizing the importance of ROI and hope it will show other corporations that they need to be measuring, too.  There’s also just some plain good insight, which is worth a read in and of itself.

7. Top 10 brand and marketing trends for 2010 by Robert Passikoff — This is a great look at what might lie ahead.  I strongly urge you to read through these and think about them seriously.  Do you think this is right?  What would you include or exclude?  It’s always important to be looking to the future, and this is a great start to what should be a broad conversation.  Weigh in!

Thank goodness it’s Friday, eh?  I’m happy to be relaxing and spending some time checking things off my to-do list this weekend.  Also, I’ll be happy to sleep in and get really better.  What are your plans for the weekend?