Online Society in 2010

It’s now not long until 2010 – and already we’ve seen how the collaboration of social groups online can manipulate the pop charts (if you are uninformed on this recent story, check out the BBC News Article explaining how this happened).

If a network of Facebook groups and a legion of dedicated twitters can have this affect on such a popular commercial topic, then what could marketing professionals achieve with these easily available tools? Importantly – how can it be used to promote a brand without it becoming an active marketing campaign – how do we create viral marketing?

The individuals who supported Rage Against the Machine did so because they were, in a sense, campaigning against what they saw as a manufactured competitor – one that was designed to become Christmas Number One. An army of marketing professionals, advertising gurus and brand managers not to mention months of TV exposure were thwarted by the spread of a social media phenomenon – and this put into question the ability of even online marketing professionals to create online brand awareness to such an extent.

The trick in designing these campaigns is to leave the topic hanging and not to force it into the hands of the online society. So let’s imagine a – what will be typical in 2010 – marketing strategy using online resources and social media. Remember that the RATM vs. Joe/X Factor story wasn’t just about a raised profile but a conversion to tangible sales. Online branding is a tool that’s able to bring in revenue – unlike most traditional and print media…

So we have a product – and a message prepared. But the message needs manipulated before it becomes “usable” by social media. It needs not only to be an interactive and discuss-able message, but thought provoking and to some extent, biased. Products, in social media terms, need to take a side otherwise there is too much agreement on the state and application of the product. This means that the discussion never moves beyond “I like it” or “I don’t like it”. The social aspect then remains idle.

Once this message is created, then the trend setters of the social media world are easily exposed to it. There are a variety of ways to do this – but behavioural targeting is effectively what this act is. Often it is overcomplicated by large international branding corporations, but the tricks of behavioural targetting are easy to learn and can be understood by any seasoned marketing professional.

The channels in which the message, product and brand is distributed are of course important – but it is important to give these trend-setters the opportunity to spread the message themselves. The channel created itself for the RATM vs Joe/X Factor case – and it wouldn’t have been as successful if the updates on the story were already sitting on the lesser known social media sites.

The differences in 2010 will be related to the spread and effect of the message. Right now, we consider maximum exposure to be paramount when launching a brand, and we use the same messages within each channel. In 2010, the selection of channels for maximum social uptake will be the most important thing, and the copywriters involved in the original material will also have to prepare separate material which works back-wards.

By “working back-wards”, we mean that the message will be turned into a variety of key phrases, tag lines and images rather than exposing a large message to channels. Allowing social media to create its own content allows it to be distributed effectively – so working back-wards from the core message into quotable and expandable chunks will be a new task for copywriters.

Once the message is distributed then the effects on awareness can be easily monitored but it is again important not to overexpose the web with the message. If done correctly, then social media will be the engine that organically grows the message – and with this, the responsibilities of marketing departments changes quickly from creation of messages to online analytics. Of course, e-commerce and retail sales need to pay attention also…but what the right strategy will accomplish is a natural growth in the profile of a company and product – and massively exposed products find their way beyond the web as we have seen through news outlets in the UK covering stories on Google and Bing.

There’s more on Social Media Advertising on the IRW website and a small amount on my own website. Feel free to comment and enquire – there’s opportunity for discussion!

Ali has Twitter. Why so shocked?

So I have some issues with Twitter. I never liked the concept – and of course I got called a hypocrit for constantly updating my Facebook status which is effectively all that Twitter is.

So I have it now and you can, apparently, view my “tweet” here: www.twitter.com/alisyme

Enjoy! And…behave!

Ali

‘BING! – and the Google is gone’

Not just a search engine – but a complete search service

Though the beta of Microsofts search engine ‘Bing’ was released earlier than expected, I think it’s fair to say that it is progressing well and the popularity of this MSN spin off can only grow.

The 20th most used site on earth (naturally Google is number 1) may not have the greatest results but its indexing parameters mean less spam in results and the look and feel means that sifting through results is less time consuming. The end result of this leap by Microsoft into the search market will be an ideal searching tool – one that uses both an improved MSNBot spider and a developed Algorithm (still to be tweaked).

The problem lies not in the indexation or algorithm but in search queries – the front end of search engines. Bing has a big focus on domains and MSN network sites (Live.com, MSN.com, Microsoft.com, etc) so a site like Wikipedia or Dictionary.com may come up lower than a site within this network or a site containing the query in the domain. But if we compare results to Google we can see that the results, though similar, contain less “problem results” on Bing. Type “word” into Google and Bing and compare the results – you’ll be surprised what you see.

The point for Microsoft, of course, is to make money through search advertising. Now this wouldn’t be possible until the Microsoft Advertising interface is pimped up – but considering the size of the MSN network, content marketing with Microsoft may be a very effective way to reach an audience of experienced internet users. An ad released through Microsoft could reach 300million people on their MSN Messenger applications – an application that remains the worlds most popular IM tool.

A plus for Microsoft is of course their network of 3 million partners around the world including many influential Microsoft Gold Partners with a portfolio of public sector and enterprise clients with specific search marketing needs. Leveraging this network along with an expanding MSN network not to mention various aquisitions over the last year and you have a search tool that could rival Googles content network.

So let’s look forward to:

Less spam in search results
More accessible and functional search options for developers
A massive content network spanning the globe and
A platform of 3,000,000 companies able to consult and develop search marketing around the world

New Website!

I have a new site at www.alisyme.co.uk- it’s all about my internet marketing services in Glasgow and has a portfolio of the work I’ve done.

It’s still a work in progress but let me know what you think!

Ali

Where PPC fails…

Recently I’ve seen a lot of businesses, quite successful e-commerce businesses in fact, who have extremely low natural PageRank on Google.

I take little joy in setting up PPC campaigns for clients. For me, the foundation of search engine marketing is always content optimisation (more on this and PPC at www.alisyme.co.uk or www.internet-marketing-seo.co.uk) so when customers suddenly find their traffic depleting because of a smaller rival company, they pour more and more money in thinking it will help.

This, of course, is not the case and can seriously dent both your future campaign budget and your faith in paid search services. The solution? Well this may sound bias but it’s true – hire a professional! If you’re failing despite large amounts of money being poured in and the problem isn’t obvious – then there are professional problem solvers out there (like myself) who can help. If you contact us, we won’t repeat what you’ve told us – you’ll get more information than what you started with and a lot of suggestions and it may be something very fixable. But to avoid confusion, here are some common causes:

1. You’re not monitoring the content network – if you choose to advertise through the content network then your ad could be landing on the wrong sites and a click on some of these pages can cost you £10 and lead to 0 sales.
2. The meaning of your keywords has changed – you simply aren’t going for the right keywords and you’re paying for clicks you don’t want.
3. Platform error – either you have a setting misconfigured (this is likely if you have no impressions for ads) or your billing options are faulty
4. Your search terms aren’t being found on pages – very likely if you neglect to optimise but rather keep adding search terms that are suggested.

So my advice is, consider each of these simple issues and if you still can’t find a problem that you know how to fix, get in touch with professionals who can quickly diagnose the problem.