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First, the bad news: Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin is leaving Third Door Media to pursue new projects, and the entire team here could not be more thankful for everything she contributed to the company and especially the search community during her seven years here.

Ginny will be leaving behind some very big shoes to fill, so today we are launching our search for the next content leader for Search Engine Land and our companion conference series SMX — Search Marketing Expo.

This is a tremendous opportunity for someone who has the credibility and composure to lead the search community as an educator and an advocate.

Here is the job description:

Third Door Media is currently looking for a passionate expert in search engine marketing to lead the team responsible for producing Search Engine Land, the publication of record for search marketers, and Search Marketing Expo – SMX, the world’s largest search marketing conference series. 

What you will do

You’ll lead a team of subject matter experts in creating content for online and in-person consumption that elevates, informs and inspires search marketing professionals. 

Under your direction, the team will create: 

• Features, presentations, conference sessions and workshops that are tactical and eye-opening
• News coverage that is original and bold
• Guides and resources with evergreen educational value
• Newsletters that greet marketers daily with timely intelligence
• Research and analysis that explains key trends and their ramifications

The Director works closely with the Vice President of Content in setting and implementing the overall content strategy. This role is essential in the team execution of that strategy. 

The Director will lead by example too, by producing online and in-person content for Search Engine Land and SMX. The ideal candidate juggles their own calendar while effectively managing team assignments.

What we cover

The team behind SMX and Search Engine Land is obsessed with search marketing, so our core topic areas include SEO, PPC, technical SEO, local SEO, content marketing and paid social media marketing at the SMB, agency and enterprise levels. As the need for findability among brands is expanding beyond search and social platforms, we are increasingly focusing on areas like digital commerce marketing as well.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for a subject matter expert who wants to lead the search community. Experience covering search and performance marketing for a media organization or content marketing department is table stakes. Experience in public speaking or teaching is imperative. Overall, we are looking for someone who:

• Is endlessly passionate and curious about search and performance marketing
• Is confident in their own voice as an expert and leader
• Empathizes with our audience’s challenges and sees the content they produce as key to helping solve those challenges.
• Is a strong communicator, writer and editor who holds the clarity and impact of content above matters of style.
• Knows how to cultivate and manage a roster of expert sources
• Has 5-7 or more years experience at a digital publication, B2B media brand, agency or content marketing shop
• BONUS: Experience with creating content beyond text: video, data viz, infographics, etc.

What we offer

• Competitive salary
• Forever work-from-home

If you are interested, please email resume and work samples, including video of past speaking engagements if available, to Henry Powderly, VP of Content, at [email protected]

About The Author

Henry Powderly is vice president of content for Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than a decade in editorial leadership positions, he is responsible for content strategy and event programming for the organization.

Inbound 2020 opened with HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah sitting, alone and distanced, in seats at Fenway Park, reflecting on the new normal. “When I was at business school,” said Halligan, “we didn’t have classes on W-shaped economic recovery and woke leadership.”

The competition for talent. The theme of the virtual keynote was how to “not just survive in the new normal, but thrive in the new normal,” said Halligan. Thriving means hiring the right skill-sets, especially as—thanks to remote working—employers are not just competing for talent in local markets, but nationwide.

Employees, said Shah, now have three new demands: transparency, flexibility and diversity. “The best people want to wok on the best teams, and the best teams are diverse teams.”

Halligan agreed: “We’re leaning in hard on diversity and inclusion. It’s our responsibility to try to move the needle.”

Bloated CRM software. Despite the overall context of positivity, when it came to product news, there was no hesitation to take some thinly disguised swipes at Salesforce. Chief Product Officer Chris O’Donnell described sales reps spending more time updating their CRM records than selling, and said that brands were ready to move away from “bloated CRM software.”

Leelee Srinivasan, Survey Monkey CMO, made an appearance to explain why her company, already using HubSpot Marketing Hub, switched from Salesforce to HubSpot Sales Hub.

Sales Hub upgrades. The main product announcement at Inbound was a series of upgrades to Sales Hub Enterprise, including:

• An enterprise-grade CRM, including custom objects that allow users to create and store categories of information that are unique to their business, and advanced permissions allowing access control down to field level;
• Sales engagement tools allowing reps to manage tasks from any device;
• A new sales analytics tool, and
• Connected CPQ tools, together with integrations with accounting solutions like accounting integrations with NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Nubox.

We spoke with Lou Orfanos, VP Product and General Manager for Sales Hub, about the significance of these enhancements. “It’s a foray into the midmarket/enterprise CRM space,” he said. “There’s a lot of functionality that we feel will help our customers grow with us, and attract new customers in that space.”

It’s an attempt to reformulate the sales CRM, he continued: “Instead of just providing you with a database and making you buy a bunch of things on top, it’s got the core CRM, it’s got the sales acceleration tools you need, it’s got CPQ, and it’s got a full set of reporting. That pack means you can run your whole sales process, end-to-end, natively, on HubSpot.”

With Sales Hub, Marketing Hub and Service Hub natively built on the same platform, the CRM can serve as a repository of customer data across the whole suite. While Sales Hub is most reliant on the CRM, “it’s a common database that they’re all on.”

Why we care. While maintaining its free, starter and professional levels, HubSpot has been systematically introducing enhancements to its enterprise offering, and it’s clearly preparing to go head-to-head with leaders in the CRM space.

This story first appeared on MarTech Today.

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech Today. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.

Quick summary: Starting today, we support shippingDetails schema.org markup as an alternative way for retailers to be eligible for shipping details in Google Search results.

Since June 2020, retailers have been able to list their products across different Google surfaces for free, including on Google Search. We are committed to supporting ways for the ecosystem to better connect with users that come to Google to look for the best products, brands, and retailers by investing both in more robust tooling in Google Merchant Center as well as with new kinds of schema.org options.

Shipping details, including cost and expected delivery times, are often a key consideration for users making purchase decisions. In our own studies, we’ve heard that users abandon shopping checkouts because of unforeseen or uncertain shipping costs. This is why we will often show shipping cost information in certain result types, including on free listings on Google Search (currently in the US, in English only).

Retailers have always been able to configure shipping settings in Google Merchant Center in order to display this information in listings. Starting today, we now also support the shippingDetails schema.org markup type for retailers who don’t have active Merchant Center accounts with product feeds.

For retailers that are interested in this new markup, check out our documentation to get started.

Posted by Kyle Kelly, Shopping Product Manager

George Miller, notoriously known as Joji is among the fastest rising artists. He’s the very first Asian-born artist to leading R&B and hip-hop charts, he achieved this feat with his very first studio album. But Joji is no stranger to fame. Before he was a teenage heartthrob– Joji was garnering countless views on YouTube as FilthyFrank. This online personality was edgy, outrageous, and oftentimes, outright filthy which helped certify as viral material.

To top everything off, FilthyFrank was responsible for producing one of the biggest viral patterns in the history of the Internet.

The Harlem Shake

When TikTok wasn’t a thing and Twitter was simply a few years old– viral trends were rather uncommon, back. It was uncommon for people to reproduce a popular video and take part in activities just because others were doing it on the internet.

The Harlem Shake altered all this. It’s difficult to describe this pattern so I will let Wikipedia do its task.

“The videos normally last about 30 seconds and feature an excerpt of the 2012 tune “Harlem Shake” by American EDM producer Baauer. Baauer’s song starts with a 15-second intro, a bass drop, then 15 seconds with the bass, and a lion roar at the end of the very first 30 seconds. Normally, a video begins with a single person (typically helmeted or masked) dancing to the song alone for 15 seconds, surrounded by other individuals not focusing or relatively unaware of the dancing individual. When the bass drops, the video cuts to the whole group dancing for the remainder of the video”.

To describe it simply, a small 30-second clip of Joji dancing in his Pink Guy persona in addition to his good friends in over-the-top outfits caught fire, and quickly, everyone wanted in on the act. Even the Norwegian Army participated in the fun.

Now, does this make any sense? Obviously not. The internet can be quite senseless sometimes( or perhaps most of the time ). It’s tough to determine just what will capture the imagination of the masses. However this hasn’t stopped social researchers from

evaluating virality and what triggers people to take part in a pattern.

Just what makes something go viral? Let’s say you are a marketing supervisor at an ecommerce shop attempting to develop a viral discount code. You might look at popular patterns and get bedazzled by their randomness. Should you collect a group of individuals in random costumes and make them dance? Perhaps it will end up being the next Harlem Shake?

Ideally, it wouldn’t come to that as numerous academics and marketing professionals have attempted to understand web virality. Among them, Jonah Berger STEPPS Model and Robert Cialdini’s Principle of Social Proof and a study by Cambridge University provides an important insight into the psychology behind viral videos.

1. Jonah Berger’s STEPPS Model

Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger is a familiar name when it comes to comprehending virality. In his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Berger attributes six primary reasons for the success of videos that go viral. He specifies it as the STEPPS model:

1. Social Currency: People share material that makes them seem cool and wise. While the majority of us wish to believe otherwise, we do care what others think about us.
2. Triggers: Relates to the idea of “top of mind, suggestion of tongue”. People speak about things that remain in their minds.
3. Feeling: When people care, they share. People are likely to share content they found emotionally exciting.
4. Public: Anything that’s already popular is most likely to be shared even more. Individuals mimic other people.
5. Practical Value: Useful things is likewise widely shared. Informative content has excellent worth and hence “How to” videos typically go viral.
6. Stories: People are always thinking about compelling stories and stories. Anything that connects with the audience has an opportunity of being shared.

It’s tough not to trace a minimum of a few of these characteristics in material that goes viral.

Old Town Road

Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road became a hit since it had a specific social currency. It was a cool genre-bending tune about nation life that people liked sharing. Considering that the song was released around a time when a game with comparable themes– Red Dead Redemption, was exceptionally popular, it activated a massive action.

People were sharing the memes of Old Town Road long before it ended up being top at Billboard 100. This suggests the tune had a public element as well from the STEPPS model. Undoubtedly, the song offered no genuine useful value. But it had an intriguing story: the song was eliminated from the nation chart as critics believed it did not belong to the genre. This triggered nation legend, Billy Ray Cyrus, to come out in the song’s support and work together with the singer.

2. Robert Cialdini’s principle of social proof

In his book, ‘Influence– The Psychology of Persuasion’, Robert Ciadini introduces the principle of social evidence. In his own words:

“The higher the number of people who find any idea proper, the more the concept will be proper … We will utilize the actions of others to pick appropriate habits for ourselves, specifically when we view those others as comparable to ourselves”.

It’s likewise referred to as herd mindset or groupthink, where we assume an action is suitable since others are performing it.

Consider this: How many times have you retweeted a tweet that currently had countless retweets?

“When a social media post reaches a specific level of popularity– it is most likely to get shares from individuals who are more influenced by the number of likes than the content itself,”

states Julia Markle, the head of digital material at ClothingRIC.

“This generates a chain reaction that transforms a popular post into a viral post.”

3. Viral selflessness

Virality on the web is most spontaneous and often random. Often it is by design. In a paper published by the University of Cambridge, the popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was called as “viral altruism”.

Social psychologist Dr. Sander van der Linden explained some essential psychological aspects that trigger such patterns to ignite. Among these is the power of social standards, in particular the destination of signing up with a social consensus and the goal to conform to prosocial behavior, a clear ethical incentive to act, and the need for a “warm glow”: the emotional benefit that’s gotten from feeling compassionate.

In simple words, individuals act:

• To take part in a popular activity
• To get the emotional benefit of providing to others
• When they believe it’s ethically the best thing to do

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge appealed to individuals’s silver lining and this made it commonly effective. Its virality resulted in $220 million being raised for battling the illness. However, not all comparable obstacles that go viral have a charitable element.

For instance, the “Don’t Rush Challenge” wasn’t for a greater cause however became popular as it permitted people to come together and develop a connection by imitating a popular habits.

What makes the Ice Bucket Challenge unique is that it showed how internet virality can be harnessed and utilized to motivate action. Of course, this is easier stated than done for brand names.

How can brands produce viral material? The web is filled with listicles that guide brands in crafting viral material. Having well-designed infographics, solid backlinks, and hiring influencers don’t constantly drive a flood of visitors to your website.

It’s crucial that along with covering the fundamentals, you keep one crucial factor into consideration; credibility. From the Hit or Miss video to Old Town Road and ALS Ice Bucket Challenge– all these popular patterns were authentic and raw.

Considering this, brand names need to create content that promotes human connection. Practically all people who’ve studied virality think “being associated with something big” encourages people to share content and participate in challenges. Whether you miss or strike, there’s no harm in spreading your word through authentic material that’s designed to go viral.

Don’t make the mistake of creating something that’s an outright attempt to money in on the web culture. Millennials and Gen Z in particular will be especially hostile towards any such effort.

More about:

With no preseason games due to the COVID outbreak, the 2020 NFL regular season is perhaps the most anticipated in its 100-year history. But for the NFL’s Minnesota VIkings, the 2020 offseason led to the creation of customer experiences that had just as much to do with community as catches, and just as much to do with social justice as scoring touchdowns. 

“As we transitioned to the offseason and [COVID] set in, we were seeing how serious the issue was and how much it was going to impact the economy, then at the same time in April we had to worry about how to deal with fan outreach for the virtual NFL Draft,” said Genette Seske Amar, Manager of Engagement and Sales Analytics for the Vikings, who also led the strategy for the team’s first ever mobile app development. “Then we are located only three miles from where George Floyd lost his life and we knew we had to communicate with fans as a community, even though every fan does not want to be engaged at a community level.” 

Creating a new fan DX

The death of George Floyd and the COVID outbreak were two unanticipated factors as the Vikings planned to establish an enhanced digital experience to deliver content-led engagement to its fans for the 2020 season and beyond. 

“Most NFL teams only talk to fans when it is about the game,” said Vikings Director of Analytics Rich Wang. “But we like to think we have a different dynamic here because we are an international brand steeped in midwest culture, and with a heavy U.K. presence in our fan base. We knew we had to deliver something different with our digital experience.” 

The Vikings selected omnichannel marketing cloud Selligent to leverage data to uncover fan insights, create new ways to interact with players, build community and camaraderie, while using relevant content to ensure memorable and purposeful touchpoints with the organization. 

In the cause of enhanced engagement, Wang had led a research project over a four-year period to identify the personas of Vikings’ fans, coming up with six distinct fan personas to build outreach around: 

• Generational fan that roots for the team as part of a a family legacy; 
• Football lover who is engaged with the entire League;
• Intense ex-athlete who enjoys the competition of the sport; 
• ‘Season Sid’ who is a season ticket holder and bases his summer, fall and winter social calendar around Vikings’ games; 
• ‘Sidekick Sally’ who goes along for the ride to the games, enjoys the game experience, and also enjoys wearing Vikings apparel, especially unique and hard-to-find items; and
• Community/social fan who views the Vikings as an extension of the community first and foremost. 

Marketing based on the personas has doubled the team’s conversion rate. 

“We did a lot of research with predictive models and how to engage each fan persona,” said Wang. “Our emails have to look different now and really demonstrate that we care about our community. Simply asking for credit card information for transactions will not work.” 

Providing a platform

The Vikings are using Selligent’s AI engine, Selligent Cortex, to deliver personalized content using their Smart Content platform. Personalization is based on fans’ activities across channels.  

“Our goal is to provide tools and capabilities for simple integration,” said Troy Smith, North America general manager for Selligent. “We have been working with the Vikings for a while to help build this marketing automation platform.” 

The platform tracks Site tracks fans as they engage with sites, sends data directly to the Vikings organization, and uses AI capabilities and real-time learning to create a more robust journey in multiple channels. 

“It allows the Vikings to serve their fans in a real-time dynamic and offer further personalized content,” said Smith. “We have in-depth experience working in entertainment sectors as we deal with casino and gaming platforms. That experience has been key in building our relationship and resources with the Vikings.”  

The Vikings’ built their relationship with the fans during the unprecedented offseason with virtual events for the NFL Draft in April and the release of the 2020 NFL regular season schedule in May. The events drew over 5,000 viewers and gave the team an opportunity to connect with its fans during turbulent times. It also allowed the team to build upon its omnichannel strategy. 

“The NFL is giving us more leeway with content right now,” said Wang. “We now have a pregame show an hour before kickoff and have free games to play in our Vikings app.” 

The increased offseason engagement with the virtual events, and custom emails to address Minnesota’s social justice issues, connected with fans from all six personas, leading to a 99% season ticket renewal rate while collecting payment from over 80% of fans. The recent reopening of the Vikings museum has allowed the team to begin the process of in-person experiences. 

The team’s additional channels for retrieving fan data include social media, email responses, and responses to social and community outreach content. 

“Having transactions-based communications was never our goal,” said Sekse Amar. “It is all about driving personalized content and engaging [the fans] with unique experiences.” Such experiences include personalized surveys, community outreach projects and opportunities, behind-the-scenes player updates, Social responsibility financial donation opportunities; and fun virtual experiences for young fans.  

“We have seen great success from these interactions,” said Sekse Amar. “It really set the stage for our fans as they prepared for the regular season.”

Building a satisfying stadium DX

Long before COVID existed, the Vikings and their state-of-the-art stadium, U.S. Bank Stadium (opened in 2016), were committed to trying to provide the best onsite digital experience and reporting in the NFL.

The digital experience begins as soon as fans enter the stadium. Since the stadium’s 2016 opening, the Vikings implemented a digital ticketing system to track a ticket as it is resold, given away, or transferred to different individuals. This replaced the outdated PDF ticket method that was used at the old Metrodome, which had no way of tracking a ticket after being purchased. Now they can track each person who physically walks through the stadium. 

“When we opened the new stadium we ripped off the bandaid and went straight to a digital system right away,” said Wang. “And the information we learned has been extremely valuable.”  

The team only knew the real identities of about 20,000 people of its over 64,000 capacity at the old Metrodome. Now they know every person that enters the U.S. Bank Stadium, collecting well over one million profiles from attendees since the facility opened. They also now know that seven out of 10 season ticket holders do not attend the game themselves; eight out of 10 game attendees are at their first game at U.S. Bank Stadium; and on average fans attend two games per season. 

“It has helped us elevate our game day experience,” said Wang. “Our game day presentation has to be top notch.”  

That game-day experience includes embracing the cold Minneapolis winters and the fact that the stadium will not be at full capacity for the 2020 season. The Vikings have partnered with Sleep Number beds, Miller beer and U.S. Bank to create “homegating” experiences, and are sending homegating packages to season ticket holders. The Vikings are also creating hashtag campaigns for fans to share their homegating experiences. 

“We have no choice but to embrace this season for what it is,” said Sekse Amar. “Our fans embrace the elements and we have to go out of our way to create a fan experience that is different and dynamic at the same time.”

Talking 2021

A key part of the Vikings CX strategy is the continuous testing of messaging to see what resonates with their fans. 

“We are already looking at what omnichannel marketing looks like for 2021,” said Sekse Amar. “We are looking at best ways to sell and market virtual events while maintaining consistency between a viewer experience and an in-person experience.” 

The team is also reviewing tactics such as what pay-per-click advertising may look like in 2021 as well as non-traditional digital advertising methods that could connect with a fan base that should be mostly at home during the winter months because of COVID and cold weather. 

“Everything is a blank canvas right now,” said Seke Amar. “Some of our fans feel like they are helping us on the field when they are at a game, so it is up to us to maintain that enthusiasm by using all of our digital resources.”  

This story first appeared on MarTech Today.

About The Author

Rodric J. Bradford is the Editor of MarTech Today and has worked in the marketing technology industry as both a journalist and corporate project manager. Prior to joining MarTech Today Bradford served as Convention and Technology Beat Reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Business Press publication and worked as Technology Reporter for Global Gaming Business, the world’s largest casino publication. In the corporate world Bradford has served as Technology Project Manager for CNA, Cigna, General Dynamics and Philip Morris. Bradford is an alumnus of the University of Missouri-Columbia.