• Too much personal information is available.  Most users have at least one of the following in their profiles, yet if an interviewer were to directly ask about any of these during the hiring process, he would find himself in a heap of trouble:
  • Marital status
  • Sexual preference
  • Religious affiliation
  • Age
  • Family size
• It creates an environment of distrust. How happy is your employee going to be if he thinks you are logging into his account everyday to see what he’s “hiding”?
• It violates Facebook’s own terms of service.
• It sets a dangerous precedent; what’s to stop an employer from asking for personal email passwords?
• It’s practically begging for discrimination lawsuits

Maryland has already banned employers from doing this and California isn’t far behind. My guess is that most, if not all, states will follow suit.

Do employers have a valid concern?

Perhaps. Instead of attempting to pry into employee’s profiles and Big Brother them, here at Intrapromote we’ve created a social media usage policy that covers both use during work hours and overall expectations.  If an employee presents himself as a representative of the company on his social media channels, then the company can set expectations.  Be careful here, too.  You can’t dictate exactly what your employees say, but you can have some safeguards in place that can protect the company.

Remember, if you’re a good employer and treat your employees well, you won’t have to worry about what they are saying about you on social media channels.

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What they don’t see right away is that these metaphorical LEGO bricks will eventually all combine into one awesome metaphorical LEGO car.

To pull the metaphor back to reality, the “car” is a complete online marketing system at a dealership, a balanced and harmonious blend of as many available channels & media as a dealership can handle.  (At Intrapromote, we call this Integrated Search.)

If you need an example of the kind of LEGO car I’m talking about, check out Acura Columbus.  This dealership dominates their Google pages for critical regional-specific searches like “acura columbus” (see below).  They are at the top of the paid listings, top of the organic listings, they comprise 8 of the first 10 organic results, and their business page on Google shows nearly eighty customer reviews across four well-trusted third-party websites.

See here:

The top bill at both paid and organic lists come from strong SEM and SEO efforts.  What’s really interesting is the other seven organic search spots they fill: one is their blog page, two are for third party review pages, two are for video-centric social media and two are their dealership’s pages on two of the world’s biggest and most active social media platforms.  This shows us they are actively creating new videos, engaging on Twitter and Facebook, and soliciting positive word of mouth.  What this shows car shoppers is that they are the clear number one choice for Acura dealers in Columbus, OH.

Note – the importance of Local Search Engine Optimization is not lost here – a dealership can only expect so many customers to come from far away.  Strong focus on the regional results will tend to bring in regional customers.

Additionally, their business page shows us two things: one, that they really took time and care to get their business properly listed on Google itself; and two, it shows us they are successfully getting customers to write positive reviews on third-party sites.  These reviews not only pay off handsomely on their respective sites, but also improve the SEO efforts they are already working on.

All these channels work together to create a very strong and clearly-branded online presence.  With 98% of car buyers today using the internet for research and decision-making, a car dealership’s online presence is crucial to their business.

That’s why I say that when life gives you a bag of LEGOs and an instruction sheet, go ahead and build it!  Sooner or later you’ll have your LEGO car, and when you do…oh, life will be so, so sweet.

Bil Gaines is a member of our Search team and his highly versatile talents in the online marketing world have thrust him into internet fame and fortune. Ok, maybe not fame and fortune, but he’s well on his way.

Bil, a published author who was once so thrilled to meet Tracy Letts he admittedly acted “totally weird in front of him”, knows the ins and outs of search engine optimization as only our team can. Surrounded by cacti and couple of crazy felines in his home, Bil enjoys spending time with his wife and daughter and marveling at his collection of piles of books just waiting to be read.

When he’s not enjoying indie music, eating cajun food or riding around in four door sedans, you can find him blogging here about the automotive industry and general SEO topics. If you ever met him in person, he’d likely buy you a cup of coffee and tell you about his adventures moonlighting as a mad scientist.

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This Mother’s Day, we want to take just a minute and thank our moms for everything they’ve done for us over the years.

Thanks to my mom, Donnamarie Hehn, for teaching me what it means to be a strong person. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without your guidance and influence. No matter what you always have a smile on your face and a laugh people can hear a mile away. Love you!  - Katie Hehn

Search results make me enraged.
The results are very hard to gauge.
But I type M-O-M
In the search bar and then
I see you at the top of the page!
Happy Mother’s Day to you Mom and all IP Moms!  Thanks for everything!
– John Castronova

To My Mom, Thank you for always being there for me. You’ve always brought joy to our entire family, and carried us through the tough times. I couldn’t have asked for a better Mom. Love always – Kyle Misencek

Thank you to my Mom, Teresa Berick! The best cook I’ve ever know, and there’s no doubt that her family is the number one priority!  She goes to great lengths to spend time with her kids and gather everyone together.  She even embraces all of my Geek-dom, and occasionally joins in.  Who else’s mother would wear Joker makeup and go see The Dark Knight at midnight? – AJ Allen

On this Mother’s Day 2012, I am breaking with tradition to pay tribute to three special women in my family. My “daughters” Jennifer, Amanda, and Amy make every day special for this Mom and Nana. Enjoy your special day ladies! – Linda O’Neill

Hey Ma (pronounced M-eaah – Mom for Vietnamese — since this is what I called you growing up)…Thanks for being such a great mom!  Even though I felt like I could never do much as a kid, there was so much that you and Dad instilled in me that made me the person that I’m proud to be today.  Happy Mother’s Day! – Bobby Pham

And last, but certainly not least, to my own mom. A woman of grace and elegance who has not only overcome so much in her own life, but given me guidance and strength to overcome my own challenges. You are my hero, role model and one of my best friends. I love you Mom!

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Google’s Mobile Crawlers (User-Agents)

When viewing server logs for a mobile web site last month, we saw that 5 Google mobile crawlers had stopped by to visit.  Not only had Smartphone Googlebot-Mobile crawled the site, but we also noted that a number of other Google mobile search crawlers had visited: Feature phone, Adwords Mobile and simple Google Mobile. We feel that there’s evidence that Google’s trying to cover the entire spectrum of mobile devices by deploying these multiple user-agents.

In Mid December 2011, Google introduced Smartphone Googlebot-Mobile.  This was added to complement the previous feature phone user-agents and is directed at mobile devices with a fully featured web browser. As tablet devices continue to grow in popularity, it is probably safe to say that there will soon be a tablet specific user-agent for devices such as the iPad and PlayBook.

For those who are curious and have access to check their own server logs, below are the Googlebot-Mobile crawlers that we are aware of to date:

Feature Phone User-Agents:

• SAMSUNG-SGH-E250/1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Browser/6.2.3.3.c.1.101 (GUI) MMP/2.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
• DoCoMo/2.0 N905i(c100;TB;W24H16) (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Smartphone User-Agent:

• Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Adwords Mobile User-Agent:

• AdsBot-Google-Mobile (+http://www.google.com/mobile/adsbot.html) Mozilla (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3 0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile Safari

Simple Mobile User-Agent:

• Googlebot-Mobile (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

It’s easy to see that Google views mobile web browsing as an important component of search that is here to stay.  For more information relating to Google Mobile and other Google website crawlers, visit this great resource.

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We decided it was time. Time to make our offices a place where we enjoy going. Time to get ourselves organized and ready for mind-bending productive spells. Time to make our offices IP-worthy.

Mission: Accepted.

So, we have a couple of things going on over here. There are a few of us who have taken on the challenge to clean up our offices and get organized. And just for fun, we’ve taken some before and after photos.

Submission #1: Bil (Search Team)

Bil’s office in the before photo looks an awful lot like my favorite college professor’s office. The after picture makes me wonder if his back hurt after moving all those  books around.

Submission #2: Crystal (HR)

Her desk was taking on a life of its own until she reminded it who’s boss:

For some IPers, though, just cleaning and organizing the desk and office wasn’t enough. We needed a bigger challenge. One that would reward us for months on end. So, in addition to our already busy work weeks, a few of us have taken on a challenge to re-do our office space and complete a full makeover.

For a mission this dangerous, we needed support. That’s why we enlisted the help of Kim Ausbury of Staged & Styled. She took each of our participants on a journey that allowed them to decide what style they really wanted in their office and then make a complete transformation.

Starting next week, we will be telling you more about the project itself and you will see the transformations that three IPers underwent in their workspaces. Once all three are revealed, we will let you tell us who did the best job and ultimately be declared our winner.

Until then, we wish everyone a happy and organized rest of the week.

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