Dot Tom

Yesterday was “#FollowFriday” on Twitter.  It’s a great chance to tell others about the most interesting people you follow on Twitter, the practice is growing in popularity.  I took the opportunity to visit a number of new and interesting people and came across @UtahNewsGuy, Leo Dirr.  @UtahNewsGuy doesn’t have a huge following on Twitter, although his following is huge compared to my own, but it’s clear that he’s one bright guy who thinks like a marketer!  When I saw a Tweet referencing a blog article by @UtahNewsGuy, Anatomy of a Successful Tweet, I couldn’t resist.  In simple language Mr. Dirr offers a very interesting strategy and analysis of a tweet he did which points to an article he wrote on the future of newspapers.

It’s clear from the blog post that the web site where his original article was first posted experienced an increase in traffic specifically from Twitter.  Any analytics package will capture general source stats.  Nevertheless, as a marketing guy I can’t help wanting to measure a little more precisely.  People use TinyURL.com all the time to embed a brief URL into twitter posts.  What’s really cool about TinyURL.com is that since you’re abbreviating the URL it doesn’t matter how long the original URL is, so adding tracking codes to the URL is a simple and powerful way of getting precise information on the impact of a Twitter post.

Regardless of the analytics package you use on your blog or web site you can tag a URL with tracking codes that will allow you to see exactly the traction your getting on that specific post.  Suppose for instance that @UtahNewsGuy’s publisher was using Google Analytics to measure results.  He could take the existing URL and add the following string: “?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=online&utm_campaign=newspaper_survival”.  This is captured in Google Analytics identify the Source, Medium and Campaign Name with accurate stats on the user sessions generated by that URL.  By take the combined string of the original URL and the tracking component and it would look like this:

http://www.utahstories.com/utah_newspapers_decline.htm?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=online&utm_campaign=newspaper_survival

By plugging this string into TinyURL.com I get:

http://tinyurl.com/cs53oh

As long as UtahStories.com is using Google Analytics (which they are) @UtahNewsGuy doesn’t need any technical assistance to add this string when he does his Twitter post.  All he needs to do is ask the analyst at his publisher to update him on the results captured in Google Analytics.  In fact by my creating this Tiny URL and you clicking on it, you’ll be automatically compiling UtahStories.com traffic data in their Google Analytics Reporting Suite.  Just remember that each analytics suite is a little different in convention but the principles remain the same.

I’ll post a tweet about this using @UtahNewsGuy’s technique with Google Analytics Tags myself and let you know what happens!  Visit me at @TomStockwell.

GoDaddy.com Invoice

Recently I received the e-mail seen on the right from GoDaddy.com announcing that they had automatically renewed the “Business Registration” for several URL’s that I own.  At first I was thinking that this was an automatic renewal for my domain names but this was not the case.  In fact GoDaddy.com had bill me for a service I had never requested.

I immediately called GoDaddy customer service and asked for an explanation!  The customer service agent told me that I had “chosen” to receive this renewal.  At which point I about blew a gasket!  B#&%$HIT! I never proactively requested any such service!  It may have been that I missed unchecking a prechecked box but that’s totally diffierent then me making a choice.  It’s possible that GoDaddy slipped this by me when I originally purchased the URL’s, as was the case with this guy.  Nevertheless, I never would have actively chosen to participate.

So I continued with the customer service agent asking, “What exactly is Business Registration anyway?”  It turns out that GoDaddy.com Business Registration is nothing more then a business listing service.  By Compete.com’s accounting the GoDaddy service halls in a paltry average of 23K+ visitor a month.  Perhaps that might seem like a lot to some but when you compare this to Yahoo’s Directory average of 50K or Google’s directory with 160K, or The Open Directory Projects 1.2 million or Business.com with 5.4 million visitors you begin to realize that even a $5 fee is a complete rip-off! Not to mention the unscrupulous practice of billing me first and begging forgiveness afterwords.

I guess that’s what pisses me off the most!  They reached into my wallet and took the money and then told me about it, almost as an afterthought.  GoDaddy’s customer service kept telling me this was “my” decision, my choice, not theirs.  Funny thing is that they didn’t automatically renew my domains, so why automatically charge me for this service?  Their customer service agent wasn’t the least bit apologetic.  How many folks do you suppose receive this e-mail and just accept it or confuse it for the domain renewal?  Far too many I’m afraid.   If you want to be a part of a real directory at no cost then get listed in The Open Source Directory for FREE!

In the end I got my refund, but I can’t help but wonder Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Danica Patrick or Canice Michelle endorse these types of business practices.  It’s all a little bit sleezy to me, but I guess that’s all a part of their brand strategy and they are remaining true to their core values.