Does Using a 3rd Party API Decrease Your Engagement Per Post? | EdgeRank Checker.

Eli Pariser makes some good points about filters, gatekeepers, and the personalized internet. His concern is that as the web serves us the information that we want, it also deprives us of the information that we should have. In the realm of information & opposing ideas, this is something to be worried about.

However, I’m looking at this as a low-brow marketing type.

• Google uses 57 criteria to filter your search results and that’s if you’re not logged in to your Google account. What you see when you’re searching for restaurants is not going to be what I see.
• Facebook filters out friends from your feed based on whose links you click on.

Here are two big areas of internet marketing that are being personally filtered: Search Results & Social Media. There are two ways you can look at this; panic that your message isn’t reaching as far as it can or be happy that your business or product is being targeted to people that are actually more likely to sample your services & design your marketing with that in mind.

YouTube – Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”. via Lifehacker

Someone is a GENIUS!
YouTube – Woolite: Torture via Neatorama

Bridging The Gap In Social Media Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC] via @spikejones

Here are a few things that stood out to me as I read the article and looked into the restaurant.

• Mr. Friedman is a tracking fiend. He tracks what the Groupon customers spend, how much they tip and whether or not they came back again after the deal was over. He’s got solid numbers to back up his opinion.
• He ran the numbers and made the deal reasonable. If you check out his menu (http://grandpaeddiesbbq.com/menu.htm) you’ll see that two people are easily going to exceed the amount of the deal.
• This isn’t the only marketing he does. He’s got Twitter going, Facebook, a email list as well as text coupons. I’ll bet money that he regularly does tv, radio, print, and direct mail too.

Finally, and this is the most important thing, he’s got a great product that he believes in. He’s not begging people to come back. He knows that once he gets them in the door, they’re gonna come back. Awesome food at great prices. How can you beat that?

The Rib Man’s Response To Groupon Bashing.

Spotted at Sahara’s down the road from McDonald’s.

The real secret is to be awesome.

Don’t bribe your customers to brag about you online. Be so amazing that they can’t help but do it.

Oh, before you think about a Groupon campaign, you should read this article: Entrepreneur.com :: Groupon Nightmares (and How to Avoid Them)

What would be awesomely cool is if they could include a way for locally owned businesses to get in the mix, instead of just the 70 national retailers that they include in the search.

It’s not a matter of Google leaving out the little guy out o spite. There’s logistics to consider. Haw do you get the info to them and keep it updated with a reasonable amount of fuss?

Ah, well. Maybe someone will come up with an idea on how to do it without breaking the bank.

Update: The always on top-of-things @WilliamLang points to this:  Google Merchant Center