Many of our “100th Tweet thoughts” are still true today, and we’ve added some tools to make our Tweeting even better:

• Our main focus with Twitter remains keeping up with the Search Marketing community and their blogs, re-tweeting information and linking to posts that will help keep our clients updated on digital (and traditional) marketing trends.
• Each day, we highlight our five most recent Tweets on our website home page, ensuring constantly updated content for visitors to the site.
• We track our favorite blogs in Google Reader as the primary source of our Tweet material.
• Each time we update our blog, a Tweet goes out to notify our followers.
• Our tweets are used to update our status on our Facebook page.
• We use TweetDeck for desktop as a personal real-time browser to update our status and to follow the Twitter stream of lists, hash tags and friends.
• We registered g-3.me to use as our Custom Short Domain, then mapped that URL to bit.ly pro. This allows all of our Group 3 Solutions Tweets to be branded with the g-3.me shortened URL.
• Each week or so, we compile our messages into a Tweet roundup blog post.

Has our Tweeting been a game changer for us? Not really. But it has allowed us to improve our knowledge of the real-time information network as we assist our healthcare vertical clients in their social efforts and introduce business-to-business clients to how they can enhance their marketing program with social networking.

Where is real-time information networking heading? Let’s take a look at what is happening in the ever-changing field, and what others are saying.

• Real-Time Search. We think Twitter, and other services like it, will continue to have an impact on search engine marketing, with real-time search results becoming increasingly important in the future. Danny Sullivan, the authority on SEO industry reporting, took an early look at Google’s real-time efforts. Here’s Google’s page on the topic, and Bing has information here.
• Social Media Marketing. As marketers seek to tap into the 120 million or so Twitter users (as of July 2010), new advertising companies are being formed, small agencies are expanding their offerings, and larger ones are buying these smaller firms or establishing their own social marketing divisions. “Ad spending on social networks worldwide is expected to rise 14% this year (2010) to $2.5 billion,” according to research firm eMarketer. “Although social media represents only a fraction of the $55 billion online-ad market, it is one of the fastest-growing segments,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
• Multimedia. ReadWriteWeb reports that Twitter may soon be displaying images and video inline, perhaps “betting that 140 characters just isn’t enough anymore.”
• Real-Time Advertising. Is Twitter best for public relations, or will the new advertising platform be better for ROI? Mashable suggests keeping in mind the affinity already built with Twitter as you consider going to Sponsored Tweets or other advertising opportunities on the service.
• Competition. Location-Based Social Networks (LBSN) such as Foursquare may vie for marketers dollars with Twitter. “The time for marketers to get involved with LBSNs is coming,” Forrester says.

So … a lot has changed while other aspects have stayed the same between our 100th and 1000th Tweets. What will change as we work toward 2000 Tweets? Follow us on Twitter to find out!

• The web is ‘info about things in the world’ so Google buys Metaweb, ‘a company with a database of things in the world.’
• [A free case in every pot!] It’s small, says Steve Jobs, but there is a problem with the iPhone antenna. TechCrunch
• Already doing so offline, this month Yahoo to start live testing of Bing-powered paid and organic searches. Search Engine Land
• At Hallmark.com, you can customize birth announcements. KC-based Hallmark addresses, stamps, mails the cards. KCBJ
• [Just when we figured out the market..] GOOG Q2 report: net rises 24%, clicks rise 15%. In after hours trading, the stock is down $20/share.
• Danny Sullivan takes a satirical look at the New York Times editorial on the Google algorithm.
• Did Apple know about possible iPhone antenna issues beforehand? TechCrunch says they did.
• WSJ reports that Google will announce today an online display advertising partnership with Omnicom Media Group.
• BIA/Kelsey annual forecast: ‘Yellow Pages To Clock In 39% Of Revenues From Digital Offerings By 2014.’ via Search Engine Watch.
• [Good stuff!] RT @thehilker: bookmark this: How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made.
• A Facebook advertising primer from the folks at Search Engine Land.
• SI goes to print with LBJ cover. Then Steinbrenner dies. The result: iPad SI features The Boss on the cover. WSJ
• Twitter is ‘”confident its ad platform already works for big brands in terms of the reach and engagement.’ AdWeek
• Twitter: ‘@earlybird gives people an easy one-stop destination to find out about the best deals on Twitter.’
• With 74% of enterprises still using Windows XP, Microsoft extends downgrade rights of the OS. All Things Digital
• Will social media references soon outweigh the importance of links? Search Engine Watch takes a look.
• ‘If you can email it, you can blog it’ with sites like Posterous, which may be bad for Wordpress, et al. Guardian
• Social networks ‘flood the market with inventory, drive down CPMs’ for online ad prices. AdAge
• Ahead of Google’s Q2 earnings report on Thurs. 7/15, Search Engine Watch has a nice round-up and forecast.
• Kansas City-based Cerner announces the resignation of its president, Trace Devanny. Kansas City Business Journal
• Looks like Google’s social network may address the ‘college friend posts something inappropriate’ issue. WSJ
• [Oh, to be a fly on the window.] Schmidt, Zuckerberg ‘peel away’ in the Google CEO’s light blue rental car. WSJ
• Been following Silicon Valley’s Tesla Motors (TSLA)? $17 to $24 to $29 to $30 to $19 to $16 since its 6/29 IPO. Wall Street Journal
• ‘Advertisers are social too,’ says Facebook.
• [Too little, too late?] To compete with Redbox, Blockbuster to install kiosks in QuikTrips, including 70 in KC. Kansas City Business Journal
• ‘Life in a Day’ project by Google looks to document ‘what it is like to be alive on July 24, 2010.’
• Search Engine Land: Twitter does ‘24 billion search queries per month (+33%), up from 19 billion as reported in April.’
• Some Japenese are learning a new language by Twittering in English. Wall Street Journal blog
• Yahoo’s Upshot blog to ‘generate news content on the basis of queries conducted across its sites.’ Search Engine Watch
• ‘Google Testing Maps In Top Right AdWords Spot.’ Search Engine Land

Previous Tweet Roundups are here. Follow Group 3 Solutions.

Despite having more than 400 million active users, Facebook still has its skeptics. Some common complaints include:

• “It’s a waste of time!”
• “Who needs an update on what I’m eating for lunch?”
• “Why do I need to be a Fan of anything?”

Okay, sure. Status updates aren’t always riveting or note-worthy (see: “Dear Coffee, Marry me. Xoxo, Kelly”) and I’m not ashamed to say I “like” a Fan Page called “I Don’t Feel Like Folding My Laundry So I Just Restart The Dryer.”

But while I’m not alone in using the Status Update and Fan Page for innocuous fun, some people are using these basic Facebook features to help improve their health … and even save their own lives.

Like this guy, who decided to quit smoking and inadvertently created a support group among his Facebook friends simply by updating his status with the number of days he’d been smoke free.  As his friends followed his progress, they “liked” his status as the number of days increased and left comments of encouragement when his updates expressed wavering resolve.   Having a virtual audience to not only hold him accountable but also to offer him support no doubt helped contribute to his continued success.

Then there’s this woman, who is using Facebook to help her find a kidney donor.  Living in a state that ranks among the nation’s lowest in percentage of licensed drivers who are registered organ donors, she got creative and set up a Page called “Mel Needs a Kidney.” As of the end of May, she had heard from about 100 people who offered to get tested to see if they were a match.  In addition to increasing her chances of finding a donor, her efforts are also helping raise awareness of organ donation and registration in Michigan.

So while it’s true many Facebook users limit their activities to tending virtual farms or tagging friends in party photos, there are some who are using the platform to improve their lives.  And that’s something I’ll “like” any day.

Kelly Hemmingsen, a Dobies Healthcare Group account coordinator, specializes in copywriting and editing, market research, project coordination and public relations services. She also runs support for their interactive team, specializing in social media, search engine marketing, e-PR, and Web content and development.

• Hadn’t heard about The Quisenberry Tree in Kansas City. Which proves Joe Posnanski’s point.
• BP’s display URL in AdWords didn’t match the destination URL. [Hey, Google, can we do this, too?] Search Engine Land
• Will the combined 30% marketshare of Microsoft and Yahoo make a difference in search? These 2 guys hope so. AllThingsD
• ‘Google is giving users ability to promote sources they’d like to see in results, demote unworthy ones..’ AllThingsD
• Jeff Jarvis on the concept of ‘hot news’ and legacy media (NYT, Gannett, etc.) vs. new news (Google, Twitter).
• Call tracking: Some businesses seeing online marketing drive more conversions via phone than on the web. SEWatch
• With Buzz not enough, Google said to be modeling a social network on the target it is pursuing: Facebook. InsideFB
• ‘Users fear ads more than identity theft’ says eMarketer as ‘privacy concerns fail to slow social activity.’
• comScore: JPEGs represent 42% of display ad impressions in US; Flash, Rich Media ads are 40%.
• When it comes to ‘less is more minimalism, it looks like MSNBC.com’s redo actually means it.’ paidContent.org
• Will Google’s new workaround for China’s censoring work? AllThingsD
• Great video from a Lincoln, NE bar focused on fan reaction to The Goal. Shared by @greghall24 YouTube
• Google Ad News offers ‘coverage of the media and advertising industry.’
• Twitter is ‘improving our Find Friends section to make it easier to find and follow the people you already know.’
• ‘Bing is making a first step today to help make entertainment on the web easy and fun.’ New Bing release
• Inside Facebook updates on a location service and social plugins news.
• Upgrades in LinkedIn Groups platform improves commenting, allows liking, improves communication.
• ‘SEO should be an invisible layer beneath a smart site architecture and fabulous user experience.’ SE Land
• Google Content Network becomes Google Display Network. Inside AdWords
• New study finds that where you start your digital day can say a lot about you. Mashable
• Promoted Tweet for Toy Story 3 appears in Twitter’s trending topics. SE Land
• You can now edit video online with the YouTube video editor.
• WSJ reports that newspaper ad revenue dropped 28.6% last year to $24.8 billion while online (excluding mobile) rose to $24.2 billion. Online ads will grow to $34.4 billion in 2014 while newspaper will fall to $22.3 billion. Compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers and reported in Wall Street Journal. Only TV surpasses Web.
• Inside Facebook: ‘FB users can now record voice messages, post them on the walls of friends through Voice Wall.’
• Sprint may suspend laptop customers using excessive data … while Starbucks offers free Wi-Fi
• With Twitter places, ‘You can tag Tweets with specific places.’ Includes 4square and Gowalla integration. Twitter blog
• ‘Dear iPad User: We apologize for the incident. And we blame hackers.’ AT&T via WSJ

Previous Tweet Roundups are here. Follow Group 3 Solutions on Twitter.

Developing key messages is perhaps the most essential practice of a strategic communications department or company. We all know the stress and anxiety of writing the perfect headline or lead sentence, but how often do you sit with your colleagues or clients to diligently develop phrases that represent the main ideas you want to convey to your audience(s)?

If you are a PR professional, you’re probably familiar with this practice; it’s how we develop talking points for clients. However, the act of identifying the features, advantages and benefits (FABs) into phrases that form compelling unique selling propositions (USPs) is a skill I learned years ago.

While talking points ensure everyone says the same thing (especially to the media), key messages developed using FABs ensure that all marketing materials consistently promote the benefits of the offering. Most of us can speak or write about features and some can even follow a feature with an advantage, but this isn’t always easy. Following an advantage with a benefit requires practice and a commitment to connect emotionally with your audiences. Using benefit language is challenging when promoting a service – especially a healthcare service.

Before you begin your next marketing campaign, gather internal experts and other stakeholders to nail down the FABs of your product, service or company by target audience(s). We take our clients through this exercise in the planning stages of a new campaign or initiative. And while the process can prove tedious, the results will pay off time and again. A well-written set of “go-to” phrases that serve as the backbone or core of the campaign creates:

• Consistent, targeted messages across all communication platforms
• Talking points for leadership and other spokespersons
• Up-front buy-in, which often means faster turn-around time for copywriting and approvals
• A cohesive team who is “on the same page” due to the time spent brainstorming to develop verbiage that best reflects the essence of the brand and its audience
• Focus on the features that are most compelling to the audience
• Patient-centricity!

What are FABulous messages?

Auto manufacturers are expert FAB’ers — watch carefully the next time you see a television commercial for a new car to see if you can follow the pattern.

I’ll bet you’ll be able to identify the three components:

• Feature: A prominent part, characteristic or special attraction
  • “The new Cadillac CVS has pop-up navigation, a 40 gig hard drive, wood trim and a sunroof.”
• Advantage: A favorable impression or effect (of the feature)
  • “It’s a luxury vehicle…”
• Benefit: Something that promotes well-being (from the perspective of the recipient)
  • “…that will turn you on.”

Auto manufacturers drive home the benefit by using sound and images. They create their brands on television and rely on the internet and dealerships to sell them.

How to create FABulous key messages

Develop a grid for each offering for each target audience, and if needed, a separate grid for the company. Don’t try to combine products/services or audiences. In the end, there may be enough repetitive phrases to consider combining audiences, but you won’t know this initially. Start first by listing the unique features that differentiate your product from your competitors. Choose selectively as not every feature will benefit every audience. Ideally, features should be ranked by relevance and value.

Next, list an advantage of each feature. Sometimes, one feature will have several advantages or one advantage could apply to several features. While this is tiresome to plot out, you will soon understand the significance of the repetition: patterns may emerge that lead to further exploration — “all of our features have the same advantage; should we combine them to create one message?” or “one feature has multiple advantages and the others have just one; should we focus on the one feature and consider the others low priority?”

Lastly, develop benefit statements for each advantage. Remember, benefits can and likely will be repetitive. They should appeal to our basic human needs — survival, security, social, ego and growth. Often this is the most difficult step to complete. Be patient and ask your favorite professional FAB’er (me?) to help. Soon you’ll be creating FABulous messages with confidence!

Developing key messages is perhaps the most essential practice of a strategic communications department or company. We all know the stress and anxiety of writing the perfect headline or lead sentence, but how often do you sit with your colleagues or clients to diligently develop phrases that represent the main ideas you want to convey to your audience(s)?

If you are a PR professional, you’re probably familiar with this practice; it’s how we develop talking points for clients. However, the act of identifying the features, advantages and benefits (FABs) into phrases that form compelling unique selling propositions (USPs) is a skill I learned years ago.

While talking points ensure everyone says the same thing (especially to the media), key messages developed using FABs ensure that all marketing materials consistently promote the benefits of the offering. Most of us can speak or write about features and some can even follow a feature with an advantage, but this isn’t always easy. Following an advantage with a benefit requires practice and a commitment to connect emotionally with your audiences. Using benefit language is challenging when promoting a service – especially a healthcare service.

Before you begin your next marketing campaign, gather internal experts and other stakeholders to nail down the FABs of your product, service or company by target audience(s). We take our clients through this exercise in the planning stages of a new campaign or initiative. And while the process can prove tedious, the results will pay off time and again. A well-written set of “go-to” phrases that serve as the backbone or core of the campaign creates:

• Consistent, targeted messages across all communication platforms
• Talking points for leadership and other spokespersons
• Up-front buy-in, which often means faster turn-around time for copywriting and approvals
• A cohesive team who is “on the same page” due to the time spent brainstorming to develop verbiage that best reflects the essence of the brand and its audience
• Focus on the features that are most compelling to the audience
• Patient-centricity!

What are FABulous messages?

Auto manufacturers are expert FAB’ers — watch carefully the next time you see a television commercial for a new car to see if you can follow the pattern. I’ll bet you’ll be able to identify the three components:

• Feature: A prominent part, characteristic or special attraction
  • “The new Cadillac CVS has pop-up navigation, a 40 gig hard drive, wood trim and a sunroof.”
• Advantage: A favorable impression or effect (of the feature)
  • “It’s a luxury vehicle…”
• Benefit: Something that promotes well-being (from the perspective of the recipient)
  • “…that will turn you on.”

Auto manufacturers drive home the benefit by using sound and images. They create their brands on television and rely on the internet and dealerships to sell them.

How to create FABulous key messages

Develop a grid for each offering for each target audience, and if needed, a separate grid for the company. Don’t try to combine products/services or audiences. In the end, there may be enough repetitive phrases to consider combining audiences, but you won’t know this initially. Start first by listing the unique features that differentiate your product from your competitors. Choose selectively as not every feature will benefit every audience. Ideally, features should be ranked by relevance and value.

Next, list an advantage of each feature. Sometimes, one feature will have several advantages or one advantage could apply to several features. While this is tiresome to plot out, you will soon understand the significance of the repetition: patterns may emerge that lead to further exploration — “all of our features have the same advantage; should we combine them to create one message?” or “one feature has multiple advantages and the others have just one; should we focus on the one feature and consider the others low priority?”

Lastly, develop benefit statements for each advantage. Remember, benefits can and likely will be repetitive. They should appeal to our basic human needs — survival, security, social, ego and growth. Often this is the most difficult step to complete. Be patient and ask your favorite professional FAB’er to help. Soon you’ll be creating FABulous messages with confidence!

Randee Gannon is a professional FAB’er, and director of client service, for the Dobies Healthcare Group. She has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, public relations and advertising. Her area of expertise includes developing, implementing and measuring strategic healthcare marketing plans.

• Search Engine Marketshare for May from comScore: Google 63.7% — Yahoo 18.3% — Bing 12.1% — Ask 3.6% — AOL 2.3%.
• Twitter announces their own URL shortener. How will this affect SEOs?
• Google Blogger Template Designer is now available to everyone.
• For the 3rd time, KC will host MLB All-Star Game. 2012 will be the first time since new Royals Stadium in ‘73. Kansass City Business Journal
• Wall Street Journal says the FBI is investigating the hacking that exposed email addresses and ID numbers of iPad owners.
• Colorado’s ’stampede’ from the Big 12 reminds us of a ’stampede’ with CU’s ‘Ralphie the Buffalo’ in 1987. Group 3 Solutions Blog
• Goodbye, Google Auto-Background Feature. We hardly knew ya. Search Engine Land
• [Who has better demographic info than Facebook?] ‘Facebook PPC: Finally, True Demographic Targeting!’ Search Engine Watch
• You can add your own image to your Google homepage, or they’ll do it for you. Google blog: http://g-3.me/9EsXAz
• AT&T breach allows about 114,000 iPad user accounts to be compromised. Gawker
• Google: ‘We’re announcing completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine.’ 50% fresher, continuous updates.
• Twitter: ‘We’re taking steps to expand the link service currently available in DMs to links shared through all Tweets.’
• Pulse iPad app praised by Jobs, pulled from store, back up for now…. all in one day. WSJ: http://g-3.me/dehjW4
• Co-founder says the Huffington Post isn’t for sale to Yahoo or anyone else. WSJ
• ‘Roller coaster day’ sees Pulse iPad app praised by Steve Jobs in the a.m., booted from app store in p.m. AllThingsD: http://bit.ly/bKpbpZ
• The ‘Pro-Am Media World.’ Entrepreneurs, examiners, furloughs, down-sizing. AdAge  … Newsosaur
• ‘Network effects — users getting friends to join’ likely accounts for Facebook’s record number of new users. Inside Facebook
• Search Engine Land: ‘Search Marketers Guide to Facebook Ads.’ Likes, Interests, fresh ads, micro-targeting. http://selnd.com/ciSKq7
• AdAge: Yahoo, Microsoft to visit agencies, marketers this summer regarding the integration of their search engines.
• Went to the comedy club and a Royals game broke out: Rudd, Riggle, Sudeikis, Ferrell in KC for @ChildrensMercy event. Sporting News
• Our weekly Tweet Roundup of social media optimization, search engine marketing, digital media for week ending 6/4/10.

Previous Tweet Roundups. Group 3 Solutions on Twitter.

While a sophomore in college in 1987, we saw an ad in Mizzou’s student newspaper for Truman the Tiger mascot tryouts. Because we didn’t have a test or anything else important until the next day, we thought we’d give it the ol’ college tryout. Lo and behold, the childish antics we practiced to perfection in high school (which our teachers so wrongly predicted would get us nowhere in life) actually paid off and we were selected to the Spirit Squad as one of the Trumans. Our parents, we are sure, had to be so proud that their tuition money was going to such good use. Actually, though, we did get awarded class credit for it each semester. And, we needed every “A” we could get.

Someday, we’ll write a book (working title: “Tails of a College Mascot”) about the whole experience, so we’ll save some details and skip forward to our first road football game as Truman. It was Nov. 7, 1987 in Boulder, CO. Though it was a long, long bus ride from Columbia, MO, it was worth it. Boulder was a great town, and we had a lot of fun (more on that in “Tails”). So on to the game.

We’re not tough guy, mind you, or we would have put on the pads and been a football player, not put on big feet, a tail and a large head as an animated tiger. But when you put on that Truman suit, it kind of changes you. You’re on stage. You’re tough. You won’t back down from Cornhuskers or Wildcats or Jayhawks or Nittany Lions … nothing. So in the pre-game festivities at Colorado that cool fall day, we marched around Folsom Field like we owned the place, messing with Chip (our Colorado costumed counterpart) and haranguing a university police officer enough to where he peered out over his cool mirrored sunglasses and grumbled, “Better get away from me, Tigger.” But I was tough. He didn’t scare me.

Shortly after we harassed the cop, a gentleman in cowboy boots, chaps and a Stetson come over to tell us to get off the field. Say what … did he know to whom he was speaking? We’d already spent considerable time pestering Colorado’s cheerleaders, mascot, police officers, etc. … we weren’t moving for some urban cowboy.

“Move,” he told us again. Playing to anyone in the crowd who may have been watching, we didn’t budge. We’re tough. So the cowboy came over real close and proceeded to tell us: “Look, we’re fixin’ to unleash a 1000 lb. real, live buffalo here in a moment. Six of us are going to lead her around the field and several of us will help try to keep her headed in the right direction. And, if we can keep control, we’ll bring her right by this spot and into her trailer down yonder. If we can’t control her, she’s liable to go after the biggest, brightest thing she sees, and with that goofy head you’re about 6’5” and very yellow. I suggest you move.”

Did we mention that, underneath that costume, we’re not very tough?

We got off the field right quick and bravely hid behind one of the cheerleaders. Sure enough, shortly thereafter a big ruckus broke out and here comes Ralphie III leading the Colorado Buffaloes onto the field, six guys hanging on to her for dear life (including my new-found cowboy friend). Right by us she ran down the visitors sideline and headed for her awaiting trailer.

[To show what all can go wrong with a buffalo in this situation, take a look at this video of a different Ralphie on a different day. And watch that trailer they finally get her into ... it plays an important role later on.]

We should add that Ralphie III is no name for a lady. Apparently Ralphie I started out as Ralph, but a smart Colorado undergrad discovered that he was a she, so Ralph became Ralphie. They are up to Ralphie V now. Our game actually marked the debut of Ralphie III, as II had just passed. If you are so inclined, you can read all about it on the Ralphie the Buffalo page.

But we digress …

Anyway, Ralphie runs by and, back to full tough guy mode, we pushed the cheerleader who was protecting us aside and ran in hot pursuit of the buffalo. Her handlers ran her into the trailer and, as soon as the gate slammed shut, we jumped on the side rails and “gave Ralphie the business,” flexing our tiger muscles and thumbing our nose at her.

We were having a grand time, playing to the Tiger fans in the crowd and getting a few good laughs. Then the cowboy dudes intervened. “Oh, a tough guy, huh. Well how about you go in there with her.” They sounded very, very serious. Our heart sank. Remembering that the cowboy had said she’ll go after the biggest, yellowest thing she can find, we thought we were dead. Buffalo food. And no one would probably help us, thinking it was some sort of funny mascot routine.

“Look, Mommy. The buffalo is eating Truman.”

“Don’t worry, honey, it’s just pretend. Isn’t Truman funny?”

The cowboys took us to the trailer gate, opened it a little, swung us by our hands and feet like you do a little kid, and counted like they were going to let us go on three. 1 … 2 … 3 …

And they didn’t throw us in. Of course not. They wouldn’t throw a big yellow tiger in with a real live buffalo. But the thing is, we weren’t so sure at the time. They were talking a lot of smack and seemed intent on the guy in the tiger suit taking on the buffalo in the trailer. And we were convinced that our first road football game as Truman was going to be our last appearance ever.

But, as mentioned, they didn’t throw us in and we survived to fight another day, spending the rest of that day being our tough guy self. Except around the cowboys. We shined their boots and made nice. You just never know.

Now, about Colorado leaving the Big 12 ….

• The Gulf oil spill is appearing on more than beaches. How BP and others are ‘fighting the oil spill on Google.’ Search Engine Land
• Behind the blog: A majority of bloggers today are aged 21-35 while gender distribution is nearly even. Mashable
• [3 Of A Kind!] KC’s own Paul Rudd, Rob Riggle, Jason Sudeikis in town for @ChildrensMercy Charity Poker Tourney. KCTV
• Bit.ly welcomes a ‘long list of new partners to bit.ly Pro’ with custom short domains, dashboard, etc.
• ‘Understanding Quality Score is fundamental for successful paid search campaigns.’ Search Engine Land explains.
• ‘Aimed at making it easy and fast to make key decisions and just get stuff done,’ Bing launched one year ago today.
• ‘In the end, nobody’s perfect.’ As only Joe Posnanski (@JPosnanski) can tell it, ‘The Lesson of Jim Joyce.’
• ‘What does e-mail marketing really accomplish?’ 25 Things to Tell Your Friends and Family. ClickZ
• Bing unveils new Bing Health Map Application, ‘helping people make more informed decisions related to health.’
• WSJ’s ‘D: All Things Digital’ conference session with Steve Jobs posted (see Featured Videos).
• Mashable: Facebook Clickjacking Attack Spreading Through “Likes.”
• Danny Sullivan says the mainstream media stole his Google maps lawsuit story.
• Getting a Windows machine at Google now requires an act of CIO. Reuters
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently looked back at the Google IPO. Now, we offer a look at the Google IPO from a small investor viewpoint.
• April 28-May 3 Google ‘May Day’ update affects long-tail queries, is a ‘quality win.’ Matt Cutts video
• Since launch on April 3, Apple has sold 2 million iPads. Jobs: ‘We’re working hard to build enough for everyone.’
• Roundup of our Tweets on social media optimization, search engine marketing, digital media for the week ending 5/28/10.

Previous Tweet Roundups are here. Follow Group 3 Solutions on Twitter.

That’s why it is hard to look back and realize we didn’t follow our gut instincts and buy into the Google IPO nearly six years ago. Here’s a look at what GOOG has done in that time:

So what brings this up now? In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Google CEO Eric Schmidt offered his first-person account of the “quirky IPO,” from the Founders letter by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to the Google Guys interview in Playboy (we hate to link it; just Google it!) that almost derailed the process to the unique Dutch auction concept that aimed to help allow the little guy to get in on initial shares.

And we were in on every step of the auction bidding process. Until we were out.

So we thought it might be a little fun to take our own look back at that process, which started in January 2003 when we first contacted our Morgan Stanley broker to inquire about Google going public. We followed up in November of that year when we heard the company was getting closer to going public and that Morgan Stanley had been tapped to lead the way. Keep us in the loop, we said, as we’ll be buying shares.

By January 2004, we were really all over it. News was out that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs would indeed be managing the Google IPO. We’re in. Our only concern was: How many shares would we be allotted? We knew we couldn’t afford much, but it would be fun to participate.

In April 2004, Google filed for the offering. By July, things were moving along and Google had outlined a “Dutch auction” process that prospective investors would have to navigate to purchase shares of the company. First, we had to go online to the Google site and register to get a bidder number for the IPO. We did. Number 0126-6035-3855-2803-4600. That gave us the right to participate in the auction process, in which each investor could tell Google how much he or she was willing to pay per share and how many shares he was willing to buy at that price.

Mr. Schmidt said this process would allow his company to “do a better job than the traditional approach of setting a price for our shares – and would allow our share price to remain stable after we went public.” In other words, the large institutions couldn’t hoard all the shares, then flip them at a huge profit at the opening bell as the stock started trading and the small investors got their first chance to buy. Theoretically, the little guy would have as much of a chance as the big boys, and Google would not leave any money on the table at the offering.

So now that we had our bidder number, it was time to bid. The company initially came out with a suggested bid range that went up to about $140. The Dutch auction process is complicated, but the general concept is that the company takes bids on what investors are willing to pay and the amount of shares they would buy at that price. Each bidder can even offer a range of prices they will pay and shares they will buy. Mr. Schmidt says the company could then “move down from the top bid until it reached the highest price at which it could sell all the shares it wanted to offer.” So if it had enough orders, it could sell all shares at $140. If not, it would move down the list until it reached a price where all the shares would be purchased. Everyone who bid that price or higher would get the shares at that price.

So here was the chance we had waited for. We’d already been working in Search Engine Optimization for some time and had dabbled in the AdWords bidding process for our clients, an online auction if you well that somewhat resembled the Dutch auction. As a result, we (like so many others) were convinced that Google was the best positioned search engine in the market place. We wanted to have a little bit of equity in the company. Make no mistake, we didn’t have a lot of money, and what we did have for retirement and our young children’s college funds we didn’t usually “gamble” on stocks. Instead, we mainly invested in mutual funds and hoped to watch those investments grow slowly over time.

But in this case, we decided to make up to a – gulp — $10,000 investment. So we bid on 25 shares if the price at which Google went public was $140. If it ranged down to $125, we’d buy 25 more shares (50 total). At $110, we’d buy 25 more (75 total). And if it went to the low end of the estimate at $100, we’d go with a round lot (100 shares) and invest the full $10,000.

We put in our bid and waited to see what happened. Which was nothing. Instead, the range for the offering was lowered to a top end of $135. That’s okay, we’re still in. But clearly Google had to lower the bids because not enough folks bid high enough to cover all 20 million or so shares being offered in the initial range. What did the savvy investors know that we didn’t?

Anyway, we put in our bid again in the lowered range. Starting with 25 shares at $135, down to 100 shares at the lowest end. And once again, they didn’t end the auction. Meaning that, even at the lowered price, Google and its investment bankers couldn’t get enough bidders. So, the range was lowered. We were still in – we love Google, remember? – but we were getting very jittery. Why were we willing to pay up to $140, but not enough folks were even willing to pay the previous low end of $108 to buy up all the shares? We put in our bids again, down to $90, but we weren’t near as confident in our decision.

Then it happened. They lowered the pricing again. To a range of $85-$95 per share, or 60% of the initial price we were willing to pay. So if we liked the company at $140, we must really love it at $85, correct? What we should do now is double down, put in $20,000 and enjoy a good investment over the coming years. Sure, the stock price might go down initially. But Google is such a good company, the investment will pay off in the long run. And we’re long-term investors, so let’s go for it, right?

Wrong.

We called our broker and dripped out of the auction. We’re not in for any shares of Google. Not 25 shares at $140, nor 50 shares at $115 or 75 shares at $100 … not even 100 shares at $90, which had been our final offering on the low end. Nope, we don’t want any shares at $85. Though in our gut we just knew that Google was the major player in the ever-expanding field of search, we worried that all the smart money folks had driven the price down, so there must be a reason. Surely the stock was going to go down, not up, when it started trading.

The rest, of course, is history. Initial investors received their shares at $85 in the IPO. The first public trade of GOOG on that first day (August 19, 2004) was $100, which is about where the stock closed that day. So a 100-share investment at $85 ($8,500) was already worth over $10,000, a gain of 18%. As you know, it gets worse from there (worse, that is, if you didn’t buy any shares). At its highest point in late 2007, the stock reached $714.87 per share, meaning that initial $8,500 investment would have been worth $71,487, about 8.5 times the original investment.

Of course, we probably would have sold long before the $700+ peak. But you get the point. We really wanted to be a part of the unique IPO. We were willing to invest at $140 per share. But we couldn’t pull the trigger at $85 per.

We often wonder how many small investors there were who, like us, wanted to be involved but got skittish and backed out as the big money drove the price down. Did Google accomplish its stated goal of letting everyone participate? In the end, the answer is probably yes, at least to a degree, though the company didn’t accomplish its goal of not leaving money on the table. With the IPO priced at $85, remember, but the first bids coming in at $100, Google could have made 18% more for the company. Just like we look back with a little regret, we guess Mr. Schmidt and Company may as well. But with the stock currently hovering around $500 per share, that regret likely passes pretty quickly. Ours lingers.

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