outbrain

Publishers Can Get More From Archived Content

More and more we are hearing that publishers are looking to lift page views by getting visitors coming from search engines to click deeper into their sites.  These visitors, called "deep linkers", come to the publisher pages from a search query on a specific topic.  The issue is that many of these visitors are arriving at archived pages on the publisher site.  The problem is these "deep linkers" are arriving at content pages that are simply out of date with little to no updated content.  So the "deep linker" arrives at the archived page and bounces off.  The opportunity here is to get these "deep linkers" beyond the initial page they land on from the search engine.  Enter outbrain.  When publishers install outbrain, our java-script running at the footer of each post will automatically show the "deep linker" the most relevant and fresh set of links, even on posts that are deep within an archive.  This means that "deep linkers" looking at content pages that may be months or even years old can also see links to interesting links that are up to date or "just breaking."  Do the math.  Look at how many visitors you may be getting from the search engines, Facebook or Twitter on pages  that are not current.  If that traffic amount is significant, calculate the lift in pageviews that may result if you can get some of them to click another link.  We have seen some numbers and it can be quite staggering.  If you want to learn more ping john (at) outbrain (dot) com. So yes the conversation is all about revenue these days, but traffic acquisition will always be a key component for a publisher.  Addressing large swaths of traffic opportunities is always a good idea to win the short term battle and also the long term war.

"Chicago Blogger" TweetUp tonight @ Clark St Ale House

Tonight at 5:30 in Chicago come down and join the founder of outbrain and other fellow outbrainers at the Clark Street Ale House for a cold beer.  Choosing which beer to enjoy sounds like the hard part as they have some 30 on tap and another 70 ready to go.  Keep your eyes out for some folks from the Chicago Tribune and bloggers from www.ChicagosBestBlogs.com. 

Clark Street Ale House
Neighborhoods: Near North Side, River North
742 N Clark Street
(between Chicago Ave & Superior St)
Chicago, IL 60610

(312) 642-9253

To ReTweet you can grab this "pre-packaged" tweet;

outbrain's "Chicago Bloggers" TweetUp is tonight at the Clark Street Ale House at 5:30; http://bit.ly/Y2cOa outbrainers are wearing stars

The hash tag for the event will be:

#ChicagoBlog

Enjoy!

Outbrain happy hour in Chicago

Next Wednesday (the 15th), we'll be grabbing a beer with bloggers in Chicago. If you want to join us (beer's on us!), either send me an email (galai[at]outbrain.com), or follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/outbrain) and DM your blog's URL to us and we'll send you the details.

Also, feel free to re-tweet this:
RT @outbrain: Are you a blogger in Chicago? Join the @outbrain crew for a free beer next Wednesday (the 15th). DM @outbrain for details.

Hope to see you next week!

{image CC - defekto. Thanks!}

How Remarkable Products & Authenticity Win Together

The issue of authenticity has been raised this week in connection with FORD's social media campaign for the 2010 launch of the new FORD Fiesta.  The spirited debate started here on this post and following comments over @ EyeCube around the ability for FORD's test drivers or "agents" as they are being called, to produce authentic reviews of their experience with the car, given that FORD is giving them the car for 6 months, gas and insurance paid for.

Bill Sledzik from Toughsledding held that agents may be influenced by the program (read FORD's generosity) and this influence may alter their review of the car.  Scott Monty from FORD and Rick Liebling (author EyeCube) both responded that since FORD is being open and transparent upfront, and is encouraging agents to give authentic feedback, good or bad, that the campaign can produce authentic feedback.

As far as the feedback is concerned, I think based on FORD's upfront posture, they will get enough authentic feedback to work with.  Will some agents hold back? maybe but ultimately that's not the point.  The point is FORD is betting that the Fiesta is a remarkable car and that authentic feedback will show just that.  As we know, no matter how much social sauce and WOM tactics we employ, if the product or service is not remarkable (read worth talking about) then it's back to the drawing board. 

From seeing the car in person at the FiestaMovement Tweetup in NYC this week it certainly looks remarkable and worthy of garnering plenty of positive WOM.  Here at outbrain, we are actually staking our company (and our recent raise of 12M) on the value of authentic reviews produced by consumers about products like the Ford Fiesta.  In fact we built an entire system to do just this.  We think that a review from a trusted source (i.e. from one of FORD's Fiesta agents) can be a very compelling method to increase awareness about a product.  In fact we have built a scalable way for marketers to distribute links pointing to people talking about their brands and products.  In the early going here in talking with top brands and agencies, some marketers have objected to not having total control over the environment.  Environment in this case being the landing page where the authetic review lives.  But that's exactly the point.  The authentic review is valuable precisely because the content may not be all positive.  The coveted metric of engagement is directly correlated to authenticity.  We consumers make a decision in a nano second on how trustworthy an advertisement or review might be.  If we deem the review to be trustworthy, then engagement rises.  Engagement metrics with consumers reading reviews (they deem authentic) far outpaces engagement levels with other more common types of ad units.  So kudos to Scott & Co. @ FORD, Bill and Rick over at Eyecube for surfacing this conversation.  We agree that authenticity is the new currency for marketers, now it's just a matter of getting remarkable products out in the market worth talking about.

Tribune gets local with area bloggers and outbrain

People care about what's happening around them.  This is a simple premise but one that is actually underserved in today's media landscape.  Do you know what one of the leading reasons why cable subscribers keep their service?  Because subscribers like the hyper local 24/7 news channels like NY1.  Why?  Because local matters! 

The good folks over at ChicagoTribune know this and wanted to enhance their local online coverage of Chicago.  To do this, they wanted to aggregate content from Chicago's most interesting bloggers.  So Tribune reached out to local bloggers who cover everything Chicago from the Cubs to deep dish pizza. The idea was simple, create a site, ChicagosBestBlogs that would include links from the Trib and Chicago area bloggers.  Think Drudge Report but Chicago focused.  The conduit here is outbrain as Tribune is using our widget as the connection between itself and the bloggers.  By asking the local Chicago bloggers to install outbrain, Tribune created a "smart" link to these great content sources and vice versa. Once installed the outbrain recommendation engine then displays links to interesting posts that are targeted to each reader both on the Trib site and the bloggers site.  outbrain is only displaying links to content, and not the content itself, so all readers who click on recommended links wind up on the hosting blog or site.  So yes this is like a link share agreement, but outbrain also allows a publisher or blogger to include links from other blogs or sites that do not have outbrain installed.  This gives the publisher the freedom to display links to any source or blog they want. Since outbrain is free to any publisher or blogger this a win / win for both Tribune and the local bloggers. Both The Trib and the local bloggers each benefit from getting more exposure in areas that are beneficial.  Bloggers want more reach and Tribune wants to be involved with the long tail.  Smiles all around!

In this era of shrinking publishers, Tribune is bucking the trend and beefing up their local coverage by leveraging our free recommendation engine to serve readers more great content on all things Chicago.  If you have ever been to Chicago, you know it's a great town with plenty to blog about so the more coverage the better. Kudos to the team at the Trib and the local Chicago bloggers who made this happen.  Chicago's hometown newspaper and local blogging community have come together to simply serve Chicagoans some great content from a great town.  We're all for that!