Aaron Friedman – Social Media | SEO

Search Engine Land Post: Optimize Facebook Open Graph Tags: They Are the 50% and other updates

by Aaron Friedman on January 10, 2012

Earlier this week my newest article was posted on Search Engine Land. It was about how to effectively optimize open graph tags and included a study I performed with Brightedge.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Open Graph tags and how to effectively optimize them so anticipate more around this topic.

And in other cool news, my post, Freshness Update + Social Media = Happy Users was one of the top 20 search and social posts of 2011. So that was pretty exciting!

Now if only I could figure out a way to grow the user base on this blog

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FedEx: An Example of Handling Crisis Well

by Aaron Friedman on December 22, 2011

By now I am sure most people have heard about the potential disaster FedEx was faced with. If not, I will summarize really quickly.

Basically, a guy caught a FedEx delivery driver on his home surveillance camera throwing a new LCD Monitor over the fence.

Here is the video if you are interested:

Obviously the internet went crazy about this and FedEx was potentially faced with a serious problem on their hands. Andy Beal, a blogger who I often read, rightfully asked everyone for their opinion on how they thoguht FedEx should respond to this. At the time I didnt say anything because, well, we have all seen how this goes. Companies often dig their own grave and everyone else learns from their mistakes.

Andy wrote a follow up titled FedEx Delivery Driver Debacle Ends With a Whispered Apology. The point he was trying to make was that since the situation has gone global and viral with over 2.6 Million views on Youtube, you have to wonder why FedEx isn’t doing more to protect its reputation.

But in this case, I don’t agree AT ALL with Andy. I think FedEx handled the situation flawlessly.

They responded quickly
They corrected the problem and
They kept it an internal private and isolated incident

Video of the apology:

And sure enough, it worked. I haven’t heard much chatter about it and I know my twitter feed has NOT been going nuts abuot this. Well done FedEx! You set a great example for how to handle an isolated incident. Don’t make a big deal and it will subside. The dust will settle.

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Movember 2011 Summary

by Aaron Friedman on December 2, 2011

Today is the last day of #Movember. Honestly, I have to admit, it has been a journey on so many levels.

Let me explain and try to sum up a month of experiences into this one small post.

First of all, without doing much promotion at all, my team raised over 2K. Good job everyone! That in itself is great to know that we helped raise money to support a good cause.

A few other insights that came out of participating in Movember:

People are much quicker to ask about a mustache then they are about a beard. The simple fact that the MO was there, made people pause and seemingly gave them permission to start talking about it. I can’t explain the logic behind it, but something about a mustache causes people to talk. Which is why I think the guys who created Movember are some kind of insightful marketing geniuses. I will admit that it was a relief to shave my stash last night knowing that I won’t get that question for another 11 months. But I liked telling the story. People didn’t always understand how a mustache cures cancer (my movember rebuttal post will have to be more thorough next year), but they were asking the questions and I told them it was for charity they usually just nodded and walked away. This was probably the best accomplishment of this entire month. Because I knew what to talk about, I was prepared to answer people’s questions or send them in the right direction for answers. For sure more people heard me talk about Movember than contributed money, but that in itself was an accomplishment.

Stepping outside your comfort zone: I regularly get into a conversation with a friend in my office about her comfort level using social media. You might guess by the simple fact that I have not linked to her that her comfort level is low (to say the least). Finally, I made a breakthrough while talking about the mustache that one of the great accomplishments with it is stepping outside of your comfort zone. I am a regular reader of Matt Cutts blog and something he has been doing, which I never gave much thought to, are 30 challenges. Staying committed to something new outside your comfort zone helps you grow as a person and experience new things. It keeps life exciting. Well, I consider this mustache a sign of commitment and the accomplishment of my first 30 challenge. My Next 30 day challenge will start soon. I think I will try meditation for 15 minutes a day.

A few more learning’s:

When you have a mustache and your kid throws a temper tantrum in the aquarium, people WILL give you strange looks when you try to pull him away.
Everyone has a doppelganger that not only looks like you, but apparently does the same things at the same time as you.

Well, that’s all I got for now. Thank you everyone for helping out, supporting a great cause and tolerating my Mo.

Mustache, out!

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Search Engine Land Post: Freshness Update + Social Media = Happy Users

by Aaron Friedman on December 1, 2011

I had a new post up on Search Engine Land today. The topic deals with the Google Freshness Update and how adding in social media can significantly improve your visibility in the SERP.

A couple of the tips I gave were:

Ensure content is current and up to date as well as create a full blown content strategy.
Set aside time to market. Share buttons are great for quick sharing.
Join and participate in Social Networks.
Share with the search engines using XML sitemaps and RSS feeds

Read the entire article at Search Engine Land.

Stay tuned and find more articles on my author bio page.

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Our Kids will Make us Feel Old

by Aaron Friedman on November 18, 2011

This time of year always brings for me a sense of reflection. I like to reflect. I like to look back on the things I have and see how they have changed and how time has made improvements on them.

The other day I had one of those experiences.

While we were visiting my parents on Sunday, my son wanted to watch the Lion King. I obliged and went to find the DVD. Not finding it in the DVD player, I scoured the house searching high and low in every conceivable place, only to discover that my parents, in fact, did not own a DVD version of the movie, but rather a VHS copy. And the video was in the most obvious spot of all… the VHS player.

Its not like VHS wasn’t popular in my lifetime. I grew up on them. But today, they are thought of so infrequently that it’s as if they no longer exist. It’s not much to say now, one day it will be, but I can even remember the time before DVD’s existed! Remember when you actually had to rewind it before you returned it to blockbuster or you would incur a fine? Remember video stores?

My son is still young, but his patience for things like rewinding a VHS, or waiting for commercials to end is small. Yet, today I subjected him to just that.

Cassettes are a thing of the past too. And I have no doubt that one day, my daughter will come up to me with an artifact she dug out of my parents basement and say, ”daddy, what is this black circular thing?” to which I will reply “that’s called a record honey.”

For them I am old school, and they very well might not be comfortable using a mouse on a computer because everything will be touch screen.

And yet, I am able to look back on history and feel a sense of pride that I was there and have a deeper appreciation for a life with social networking, tablets and streaming video’s because I was there before them. This, my children will not.

But as a father, I know that one day their children will make them feel just as old as they made me feel today. And that nothing will make them happier.

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Search Engine Land Post: Control Your Message With Social Sharing & Open Graph

by Aaron Friedman on November 9, 2011

My first post is up in Search Engine Land. The topic was on Learning to control your message with social sharing and the open graph.

Basically, I wrote about the importance of including social media in a general site audit. I put the focus on the open graph protocol and social share buttons since they account for a siginificant amount of traffic shared across the internet.