Behavioral Insider this month reports on where surfers are spending their time. “The disconnect is that consumers spend only about 15% of their time actually searching, and the other 85% of the time surfing or in email,” says Brett Brewer from AdKnowledge.

Last week, Eat Media VP Ian Alexander documented his surfing habits and found out he trusts who he knows and wants to know what they know.

7:30am

The Social Network
-Read email from Facebook, click to Facebook.
-2 friend requests–approve the friends.
-There are no ads on Facebook (which I like).

The General Content
-Surf direct to CNN.
-Browse the content. Get my daily world news fix.
-An advertisement for Lifelock catches my eye.
-Surf to Lifelock.

Relevant Content/Relevant Advertising
-Lifelock is an interesting site promising to secure my identity against hackers and identity thieves. I’m not in the market for it, but I’ll remember it.

The Content Connection
-Surf back to CNN and click on a story about bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed last August. (My partner attended a client conference nearby just few days before the bridge collapsed.

The Coterie
-Read email from Junta42.
-The interesting headlines on Joe’s newsletter always get me to bite.
-Click on Junta blog link–great content as always.
-Joe’s blog gets me thinking of other folks in the industry I like to check in on.

-I surf directly to Webinknow.
-Webinknow, David Meerman Scott’s blog, is edgy and knowledgeable. A great resource.

-Surf directly to Web-strategist, Jeremiah Owyang’s blog. The web-strategist is slanted more towards social networking and sharing information. I always learn something here.

-Surf directly to Church of the Customer.
-Ben McConell and Jackie Huba’s blog is updated frequently and full of great industry insight.

The Customer (Dis)Service
-Read email from hosting provider (about a complaint I lodged).
-Surf to hosting provider to look for another contact address (they only have a form).
-Surf Google and start searching for a new hosting provider.
-Write down a few hosting providers to research later.
-Read email from a Local Professional Group I am a member of. The newsletter is poorly designed, has pixilated images, and no unsubscribe. Very unprofessional.
-Send them an email to point out these problems.

The Content Connection
-Read email from LinkedIn.
-Click on advertisement for Booksurge.com (they want my email before they tell me what they do; I click away from the site). A second check today shows a new homepage. Booksurge is owned by Amazon who also owns Alexa.
-Surf directly to Alexa. I want to know how many sites an average individual looks at per day. They don’t have the information on their site. I email them.

The Content Connection
-Read email from Biz Report.
-Surf to the site. Content is very report-centric, new apps, studies, etc.
-I follow a link to a free whitepaper on Social Marketing, they want my name, address and answers to a few questions before I get to see the whitepaper. In a few seconds I am reading the whitepaper. It is a tad pedestrian but well designed. This proves why I don’t normally like squeeze marketing ploys—the payoff is rarely worth my email address.

The Social Network
-Read email blast from a friend’s little brother’s band.
-Surf to their MySpace page.
-Surf to Google, search for “We the Kings.”
-Select YouTube link, which features over 30 videos of the band (the most viewed video had over 700,000 hits). If you think the kids are on to something, you are correct. If you think this social networking is a fad, chew on this. The lead songwriter of We The Kings just got a big check and procured the majority of his fans online. Thanks to YouTube, MySpace and exposure on other social networking sites, you can now hear their songs on the television show One Tree Hill. Talent + web presence and content marketing = success.

8:03am

Morning Surfing Summary
-Email is a launch pad for my web surfing.
-I go back to sites with content that interests or informs me.
-I am apt to follow links off sites that have content which interests or informs me.
-Bad customer service (via email) leads to lack of confidence.
-Your customers aren’t randomly searching for you.
-Getting your customers to trust you and your content is key.
-Social Network sites generate buzz, create business and make 24-year-olds rich.

After the wheel caught on and people realized they could get where they were going in a tenth of the time, they didn’t wake up and say, “Nahhh, let’s go back to walking.” The same can be said about content marketing.

Five years ago, a small number of people would have Googled your company before doing business with you. Today, anyone interested in your products or services is most likely going to see what’s been written about you on the web before, or after visiting your site. They are no longer interested in just your pitch.

What customers are really interested in is what additional information you bring to them. They want assurance that you, as a brand, are trustworthy and knowledgeable.

They want to know:

• What your customers say about you.
• If you’re up on the latest trends and news in your field.
• Where you stack up among your peers or in your industry.

Why is this important?

Here’s the big hammer (or the new wheel): Content marketing is not a trend. In another year, customers are not going to say, “No, I didn’t Google them. Who does that anymore?”

Instead, the companies focused on content marketing will be racking up sales while you are left wondering what the heck happened. Earlier this week during an Author Teleseminars, teleseminar, Seth Godin revealed, “Content marketing is the only marketing left.”

That’s it folks, that’s your new office—when people type your company’s name into a search engine, your bottom line is dependent on what returns, period. Wake up tomorrow, take half your marketing budget and spend it amping up your product, take the other half and dive into content marketing. It’s either that, shut down Google, or find a big wad of investment capital and pray for the best.

Here’s a few upcoming events to get you up to speed on Content Marketing:

CUSTOM CONTENT CONFERENCE

When:
March 9-11, 2008

Where:
Marriott New Orleans
555 Canal Street in the French Quarter

What:
The conference will bring together marketers, advertisers, and custom publishers. Attend and network while debating and exchanging ideas for leveraging custom content in today’s digital marketplace.

Register:

Register here

ONLINE MARKETING SUMMIT 2008

When:
February 21-23

Where:
Sheraton’s Harbor Bay International Flagship hotel in San Diego

What:
Session will Feature Speakers from Microsoft, LinkedIn, Cisco,
SEMPO, and National Public Radio

Register:

Register here

Dear Hosting Service not only are you are killing me. You are killing your own business and I am moooving on. Last Monday we got to the office early to prepare for an afternoon pitch. Around 9am, I got this email from our designer.

“Have you been having problems with the site lately? I’m not able to connect via ftp or view the site online.

Kristine”

I went to our site. Nothing. Blank. I tried to login to my FTP – error #mysiteisntworkingandIhaveademoinafewhours. In other words, no login possible.

I hopped over to our hosting provider Fatcow and looked around for a contact email. Nothing. I clicked on “Need Help” and got an FAQ. There was an option for LiveChat, but I’ve done that in the past and have found it to be like the self-checkout line at Lowes—a great concept lacking execution. My last option was to contact the “Moo Crew” (their term)—I prayed that this was going to lead me to an email address, but instead I got stuck staring at a form.

The form in this instance was acting partially as form of squeeze marketing, a device used when you have something I want (say a whitepaper or an e-book) and I have something you want (an email address and/or phone number), and partially as a filter. But what I wanted was my site to be up and running, and Fatcow already had my email address, phone number, and credit card number, so there wasn’t much more I could give them. At that moment, a form was the most inappropriate thing a company could have possibly offered me.

My last option was a call to Fatcow’s 800 number, where I sat on hold for 30 minutes. The only blessing of the hold was knowing they were going to take forever. With the speakerphone on full volume I greeted the UPS guy, took a call on another line, and stepped outside for some air. I even had a little time to search for a new hosting provider on Google. The whole time, the same terrible Muzak Jazz blared on and on. Finally, a gentleman answered and gave me the third degree about my URL, my favorite dog, and mother’s maiden name. After all that, I got:

“How can I help you today?”

“Well, my site is down and I have a demo in a couple of hours.”

“What is your URL?”

“www.eatmedia.net. (The same one I gave you 19 seconds ago.)

“Yep, she’s down.”

“Yep, that’s why were talking. The question is…when will it be up.”

“Not sure. We had some servers go down. Could be awhile but it shouldn’t be too long.”

After hanging up I sent this email to Fatcow:

As a longtime customer, your outage last week is indicative of a downward spiral from your good old days The India tech support (LiveChat) was a terrible idea, the Canadian service (phone) is better. But overall, I am very disappointed. I used to recommend you to everyone and sing your praises, but I think I will be “moooooving” on.

And this is what I got back the next day:

“Thank you for getting back to us.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I’m glad you shared this because it gives us a chance to improve our quality, and this is what we intend to do. I again apologize and assure you that we’ll provide you with the stable hosting and support you are looking for.

If you have any further questions, you can e-mail us seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”

A huge opportunity for Fatcow to make things right zipped by like a Nolan Ryan fastball circa 1973. After telling them I was thinking of leaving, they chose to share with me that they are happy I shared. The problem is, my sharing with them doesn’t make me happy.

The lesson here is every single contact with your customers is important. There is too much competition today to tick them off. If you outsource any functions of your business, be it customer service, tech support or even sales and marketing, make sure those who represent you and your business understand that your brand is in their hands. And for god’s sake, if you built your business based on great customer service and support, don’t let it slide into mediocrity. Servers are cheap these days. But finding new customers? Not so cheap.

*I have been using FatCow for upwards of 10 years now. When I first starting using them, it was known as a nerdy, tech friendly hosting provider. Over the past two years, I have seen a noticeable decline in services. If you know a reliable, customer friendly hosting provider, please drop me a comment.

Last week I got tagged by Joe Pulizzi from Junta42 to reveal “8 things you didn’t know about me.” So, without further adieu:

1. I have had three exactly cell phones my entire cell-phone career. Only the most recent phone has been a flip phone.

2. Before I met my wife eight years ago, I didn’t own a television. Today I own two.

3. I have the uncanny ability to guess which Borough a New Yorker is from and can correctly identify, within four towns, anyone residing from my home state of Massachusetts.

4. In my 20s, I had a business reproducing Frescoes and lived in Italy for a summer. Some of the Frescoes I designed/produced made it into the Vatican gift shop and the Ringling Museum of Art.

5. I once held the official/unofficial title of “Magic Pony” while working at the MIT startup, Z-Corp. With the exception of co-founding Eat Media, it was the most thrilling, educational and fascinating experience of my life. Watch my former boss, Tim Anderson, make a canoes out of rattan chairs and microwaves into welders here…

6. When I first took a job at a NYC dotcom, I had nowhere to live, so I slept at the office and showered at the gym. My first big task as director of technical projects? Find the CTO a stand-up Spy Hunter video game. Those were the days.

7. The composer Charles Ives is one of my heroes. Sadly, when his former home went on the market in Irvington, NY, I was 7 or 8 hundred thousand shy of purchasing it.

8. A friend of mine is a big wig at the NBA. I asked him to get me into scrimmages at IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida, where the pros play in the off-season. He said, “You’re fun to watch play and could hang for a few minutes but you don’t stand a chance.” (I still foolishly think I could run the point for a few teams.)