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Photo by D Sharon Pruitt via Creative Commons

It’s Friday. It’s National Donut Day and Paula brought us donuts. And I’m planning to rock my brains out at tonight’s 311 concert. In the meantime, I may need to wrap myself up like a duct tape mummy before my guts explode from all the excitement. Maybe sharing some cool stories will alleviate some of this bottled up energy and restore my yin and yang.

It makes sense to start off with everyone’s favorite SEO Zen master. Over at the Fire Horse Trail, David Harry points out a fascinating Google Bomb campaign and link contest by Greenpeace. It looks like the environment-oriented nonprofit is using their SEO smarts to get their cause on the radar of high-ranking corporate leaders. By encouraging people to link with strategic anchor text in exchange for links, they’re raising eyebrows in the SEO community as well as questions about Google’s tacit approval.

Here’s something to make you smile. Bruce Clay, Inc.’s Aussie cousins have posted a piece on 13 reasons to love SEO. The competitive, the logical and the facial-hair-loving are going to get a kick out of Marc Elison’s heartfelt ode to search engine optimization.

Microsoft’s new search, ahem, decision engine, Bing, went live Monday and saw generally positive reviews. One traffic analysis organization reports that Bing was the number two engine this week. Another report found that more than half of the thousand people polled said they could see themselves replacing their main engine, Google, with Bing. Search marketer Sascha Kimmel gives us a rundown of how to use Bing’s webmaster tools, while Joe Hall outs the engine for questionable Title tag display in SERPs.

SMX Advanced came and went this week. As expected, it was the source of news, knowledge and some excellent analysis. There were quite a few live bloggers, including those from Search Marketing Sage, Outspoken Media and SEO Gadget, bringing coverage of sessions to those unable to attend. Search Engine Land has rounded up SMX posts from day one and day two.

The major news out of the conference was Matt Cutts’s comment that nofollow-based PageRank sculpting was less effective than before. The news was slightly concerning to Internet marketers who have dedicated much time and resources to the tactic. But it was nice to be reminded by search marketer Andrew Girdwood that knowing about the nofollow policy change is better than the alternative. The search engine leader also released Google Squared this week to mixed reviews.

During SMX Advanced, Bruce was a speaker on the SEO Vets Take All Comers session. While I have no way of showing you what he said there (other than pointing you to liveblog coverage), I can share this just-released interview on WebProNews. In the video, Bruce addresses some of the biggest changes to the search marketing space since it first emerged in the 90s.

Along with offering premiere liveblog coverage of SMX Advanced, Outspoken Media recently released their Online Reputation Management Guide. Considering the source, it’s bound to be a priceless resource for all your ORM needs. From assessing your online reputation to preventing or responding to negative criticism, it’s all within the pages of this free guide.

Rebecca Kelley of SEOmoz fame retweeted a quiz made just for dessert lovers. How many desserts do you think you can name? Paula’s currently in the lead with 28. Any takers?

Our friends at WordStream are giving away a sweet treat on their blog. It’s a template for “internal link building”, i.e., getting your employees to link to you. Not a bad idea for gathering link love through your closest allies. And it comes in a handy, ready-to-use format!

Affiliate Convention, presented by WebmasterRadio.fm and affspot.com, is just around the corner. Denver will host the annual event from June 17-20, and as always, affiliate marketers get in free. Something that might prove more costly? Tweeting your whereabouts. An investigation into one home robbery has highlighted the fact that alerting people about your week-long vacation could have serious consequences.

I know it seems like you can’t go two steps these days without hearing about trendy social networks like Twitter or Facebook, but social media is nothing new. There’s a fascinating history of social media at Social Media Rockstar that takes us from the phone era to the age of Google Wave. The photo of a young Steve Wozniak is priceless.

Before I sign off, I want to share a touching post by Marty Weintraub of aimClear. After SMX Advanced he wrote about his affection for the search industry and his appreciation for the people in it. It’s a lovely story that illustrates the strong bonds so frequently formed in the search community. Thanks for summing it up so beautifully, Marty.

Things I learned from Boing Boing this week:

• This crazy head game could make you correct more often. But what if you’re always right anyway? /sarcasm
• Want to really scare your kid about what could be lurking under the bed? Yikes!
• Ladies will be equally frightened when faced with what exactly we’re putting on our face. The things we do for beauty.
• Everyone can join the effort to map the Internet.
• What happens when you tickle a gorilla? He LOLs of course! Hehehe!

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Friday Recap - Smile, It’s Friday Edition

Funnyman Will Ferrell is good at getting attention. But the promotions for his upcoming summer blockbuster “Land of the Lost” make any previous attempts to draw eyeballs look like simple child’s play. The team tasked to promote the film has pulled out all the stops in their wild-romping, anything-goes campaign that knows no boundaries. I’m seeing mentions of “Land of the Lost” everywhere I go and in the most unexpected places. It’s gotten to the point that I’ll probably see the movie, ignoring the facts that the trailers make the it look mediocre and that I have no nostalgic connection to it whatsoever. In other words, I had no motivation to see the movie — until now.

There’s this special trait of the human condition where people can be convinced of something if they see or hear it enough times. Like some Pavlovian filmgoer, I’m making drool-worthy associations about the movie based on past conditioning. Every time I see mentions of “Land of the Lost”, I’m eating or playing or laughing so hard I can’t see straight. Not bad experiences to associate with a splashy summer movie. Let’s take a look at some of the multi-platform promotions “LOTL” is running and consider whether or not they’re effective.

In the Real World

It appears that part of the strategy for “LOTL” marketing is to use a multi-pronged approach. The Web gets a lot of attention being the new kid on the block, but savvy advertisers know that an integrated approach to marketing increases the odds of reaching a wider audience and reinforcing brand recognition. As long as you target channels that fit your audience, reaching out to your consumers across many different mediums increases your chances of sparking interest and getting them to come to you.

Out in meat space, “LOTL” has formed a relationship with Subway and Pop Rocks. Each campaign is different. The Subway promotion is a contest where players can win cash, vacations, movie tickets and more by locating entry codes on Subway cups and receipts. This campaign targets adults who are willing to do the work to collect codes and enter the contest in order to win legitimately cool prizes at a time when belts are tightening. The Pop Rocks promotion is a simple image on the package, enticing children with the promise of heart-stopping excitement.

In Traditional Media

Another place people hang out these days is their cozy traditional media venues. Again, it’s unwise to discount traditional media because fun and accountable online media has hit the scene. Studies show that 67 percent of Internet users are motivated by offline marketing, and of those people, 39 percent convert. And yet, 45 percent of marketers lack online-offline integration in their strategy. By not sharing marketing efforts across traditional media channels like newspapers, television and radio, direct mail and billboards, advertisers are at a competitive disadvantage.

“Land of the Lost” certainly has television commercials, but they took their TV marketing a step further by putting silver screen comedian Will Ferrell on the Discovery Channel’s “Man vs. Wild”. Watching Will stumble on the ice and stomach a frozen deer eyeball — I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. The words “Land of the Lost” were never uttered by Will or host Bear Grylls, but you can bet the wheels in my head started turning. If Will could bring me to tears during an impromptu romp in the wild, I thought, he could certainly accomplish it during a scripted, multi-million dollar movie.

On the Web

One of my favorite parts of the “LOTL” campaign is what they did on the Web. This is where we really see their marketing prowess — the most fickle and demanding channel yet. Everything online is an experiment because there’s no telling whether a tactic that worked once will work again. The standards of creativity are higher than ever and the ability to keep viewer attention is lower than ever. Rather than trying something that had never been done before, “LOTL” attached itself to proven successes: LOLcats and iTunes.

“Land of the Lost” has teamed up with ICanHasCheezburger.com for the Best Rawr Contest. Is anyone surprised that hundreds of pictures of cats agape have been submitted? The lolcat fan base is interactive, dedicated and passionate — just the kind of audience a marketer dreams of. On iTunes, there are two “LOTL” games available. Games are interactive and also encourage the player to empathize with the character, put themselves in their shoes. If games give people feelings of fulfillment, excitement and a sense of connection, then they would appear to be an ideal marketing tool.

Are there any other “Land of the Lost” promos you’ve seen? Be sure to share in the comments!

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"Land of the Lost" Loses No Marketing Opportunity