Casey Cheshire

I work at EF in Cambridge, MA and they’re always hiring.  It’s a great company and I love working here.  That’s not hot air either, as I’ve worked at quite a few companies over the years so I know good and bad when I see it.  EF is definitely the place to be.  From international tours to domestic trips to DC, there’s a lot going on over here!

What is EF? Sometimes it’s best to grab a quick line of text from the website:

“EF Education is #1 in educational travel. With more than 45 years of experience and offices in more than 50 countries, we are the most reputable student travel organization.

Our all-inclusive tours offer the most value, with the lowest prices guaranteed and unparalleled safety and support.”

Whether you’re in Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Finance or some other profession, I highly recommend you check out the EF open positions.  This is a company that takes care of it’s employees, pushes them to learn & grow, and has a lot of fun while changing the lives of people worldwide.

What’s it like working there? Every day is both challenging and exciting.  We all work hard, but see it pay off in real life dividends.  First and foremost for the folks working in EF Tours, we’re bringing kids to foreign lands on a school trip that will likely impact them for the rest of their lives.  Bridging gaps of culture, language, and geography is a mission that is live and at the front of our minds.  If you get this, then you’ll understand the biggest shared value we all have and are on your way to working here.

And in case your current job is at a company that makes or sells something really boring- there’s an amazing sense of purpose and passion when your company does something with serious positive impact.

I was listening in to a YouTube webinar by the Google team today. One of their slides caught my eye and listed key online shopping dates from 2009.

While I’m mostly playing in B2B these days, this clean look at the mess that is online holiday shopping is an excellent guide for coordinating your multi-channel promotions:

If you’re curious about the content of the webinar, there was a lot of fluff about how “people are excited about the holidays.”  I’m glad they reminded me…

But to their credit, the main point was integrating YouTube into your total digital & social presence. Bombay Sapphire was praised for doing this well- and making it look good too:

The rumor is true: Facebook is down.  Or was, depending on when you read this.

But not the Facebook blog: http://blog.facebook.com/ It’s still churning away, doing relatively nothing- probably because nobody really reads the Facebook blog…

Over 300 servers don’t really matter much right now do they?

WHY IS/was FACEBOOK DOWN?

Al-Qaeda is claiming responsibility on their Twitter username.  But did they really do it?  In the same week that a 17 year old Australian kid unlocked a Pandora’s box of whammy on Twitter, it’s not too hard to picture a 13 year old pressing Control Alt Delete and somehow putting out the lights on facebook.com.

So what does this mean for you and me?  Not much really.

What does it mean for World Peace & Saving the Planet? Not much either.

Some guy, somewhere, will flip a switch- or write some impressive code and fix this situation.  Until then, we wait with baited breath and try to remember our MySpace password.

UPDATE: I’ve permanently forgotten my MySpace password and the email I used it long gone.

UPDATE UPDATE: Facebook is back up.  Yay for world procrastination!

Have you noticed the addition of Google Voice to your Gmail?

Google has been clever and subtle about connecting Google Voice, it’s free phone call service, with the widely popular free email, Google Mail or Gmail for short.  Google Voice is a Skype competitor with bigger plans of replacing traditional telecom.  Could they actually pull it off?  I wouldn’t rule it out at this point.

The above graphic shows “Call Phone” slipped into the Chat/Friend window.  If you click on the entry, you get the below graphic:

One click away from being a new Google Voice user!

Wednesday, all over the world, online marketers experienced drastic changes in their Facebook advertising performance.  Most advertisers saw large drops in both impressions and clicks.  The bigger the ad spend, the larger the drop, some as high as 60%.

There are many factors that go into advertising performance, and some immediately checks come up negative:

• Has the volume suddenly dried up? Are they all on vacation? This is not the case as these drops cross industries, markets, and demographics.
• Has the competition gone up, increasing the minimum bid? No sir, bid recommendations remain the same.
• Did your intern pause all of your Campaigns? No, interns are kept locked in the conference room.

All signs point to Facebook changing the way they serve ads.  Data collected since Wednesday shows no signs of return, leading most to assume these changes are here to stay.

While you may think it a bit odd for Facebook to suddenly change the way they do business, keep in mind they continually change their interface- much to the (dis)like of the majority of their users.  Those changes, however, typically allow people to revert back to the old style for a few days.

If you think it’s confusing, you’re not alone.  Reps at Facebook have been scrambling to come up with answers as large checkbook advertisers flood their phone lines.  I can almost imagine the hoards of online marketers yelling: “This wouldn’t happen on Google!”

I applaud Facebook for continuing to grow and mature it’s ad serving platform. They’ve got plenty of targeting power and are slowly learning how to enable everyone to use it.  My problem is with their implementation and lack of communication. If you’re the biggest, badest, fastest growing social platform- the future of the web, ACT like it.  Get a campus like Google, hire a beebop flute player, and seek measurable perfection in all that you do.

Potentially related, Facebook has publicly discussed their work on optimization the News Feed with a system called EdgeRank.  A great News Feed will make for better user experience, but the ad platform is what keeps the iguana fed at Facebook.  They need to devote more attention to the business side of the house.

Triage – What can you do? Test results haven’t come back yet.  In the mean time, here are a few potential band-aids:

• Ensure your bids are within the suggested range & test upping your bids.
• Create new ads with the same & new copy.
• Compare performance across multiple accounts & campaigns.

The way I see it, Facebook will either revert and reevaluate or adjust and inform.  My guess is that they’ll tweak what they’ve done- though there is a sense of urgency.  You’re spending less, and they’re making less so it’s going to be a working weekend at Facebook.

I also recommend adjusting your Facebook advertising strategy.  The system is changing and soon the new levers that affect performance will become clear.  Gear yourself up for a Facebook Quality Score, complete with it’s own set of algorithmic quirks and voodoo rules.  The positive side is that they’re moving toward Quality, which should benefit us all in the future.

If you’ve had any performance changes recently, please post them below: