Social Media and MC Hammer

With his 1.5 million followers, this former rap artist has become somewhat of a social media phenomenon. MC Hammer had a few tips to share last night at Social Media Club Sydney.

1: Tell your story

Hammer reminded us all to tell our stories. The concept of story telling is applicable for both businesses and individuals. When telling your story in the social media space, there are a few questions to consider:  what is your story?, how do you tell it? (think Mr Men or War & Peace) and how does your story compete for attention and how does it compare to others that are being told?

2: Be at the centre of the social media information flow

Hammer has lots of screens and is constantly watching the social media data flow. This enables him to control his story and direct how his own personal brand is being influenced. When positive messages are floating around, he not only feels good, but he also gains insights that enable him to foster and build on the experiences, thus further enhancing his brand. When negative messages arise, he is able to react quickly to control his story and provide clarity to distinguish between fact vs fiction. Hammer rightly notes that data and analytics are the “secret sauce” and once you have control and know what works, you’re empowered to act confidently to further along your story. In your own social media marketing, consider if  you need more screens or maybe better tools for analysis or possibly just s few insights that you can act on.

3: What do you have that you are trying to hide?

Interesting to hear that the integrity of brands can be seen clearly within the social media space. Hammer indicates that if brands or individuals have something to hide,  they should really direct their attention to changing what is wrong  and fixing what’s broken rather than trying to keep things under wraps. Solving problems and addressing  areas of concern that you want to hide is critical as it liberates brands and individuals to act openly and transparently within the social media space.

Going further, social media seems to provide the perfect platform for apologies, remorse and rectification. Once a brand or individual acknowledges what they did was wrong, explains why it may have happened and provides a suitable remedy, then surely the overall integrity of the brand is actually enhanced – and not eroded.

Now I’m off to get me some of those happy pants…..

When it comes to keywords and web domains, a popular online marketing strategy is to try and capture misspellings of some of the more popular keywords and domain names. And it’s surprisingly effective (within reason), as Suzanne Speier from Search Engine Journal notes. (I actually didn’t know this myself, but the correct phrase is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight Savings Time – which from a grammatical standpoint makes sense, as the time is about saving daylight etc.)

In the age of SpellCheck and Google’s “Did you mean….” to help correct misspelled phrases,  our spelling and grammar skills are deteriorating rapidly. Teaching grammar in schools was pretty much abandoned in the 1970s and is only now starting to make a bit of a comeback, although there’s no real standardised curriculum. Meanwhile, a recent study from the UK shows that native Britons make 3 times as many errors as non-native English speakers (and from what I can see, I doubt Australians would fair much better).

Is this the fate of the English language? As social media grows and communication gets boiled down to 140 characters tweets and “c u l8er” TXT messages, where do all of the conventional  linguistic norms fit in?

Thought Building (and that’s what I meant to say!)

When Gutenberg first developed the Printing Press in 1440, his new invention gave birth to modern mass media as it allowed large quantities of texts to be printed relatively quickly (compared to wood block printing or old movable type). Setting up a Gutenberg press was still a laborious process that required a typesetter – and no doubt – there were plenty of mistakes – but spelling and grammatical accuracy were willingly sacrificed to facilitate faster communication.

Today, a similar phenomenon is occurring in the online space. In an effort to be the first tweeter, blogger and broadcaster of breaking news and exciting developments, we’re probably likely to forego some degree of grammatical accuracy and spelling, so long as the overall message is clear.

Yet, sometimes we don’t always get our messages right on the first go. Online, our use of words more readily reflects our haphazard thought patterns. Instead of carefully crafting sentences with nouns, verbs, conjunctions and prepositions – we’re throwing together search terms like “afl fixture 2009″ and “yankee parade 2009 route”. If any of us tried to use these phrases in an actual conversation, we probably wouldn’t get very far.

What it really all comes down to is, online communications give us a sense of security to make mistakes since they seem temporary and we feel we can correct things later on. We put up a blog post so we can say it FIRST – and we might come back and tweak it a bit later. We type in search terms to see what comes up, before refining our thoughts and narrowing the results down. You start your search with “yankee parade” and then realise you’re really just looking for the “2009 route” and not the whole play by play of the series. It’s like being back in grammar school and writing your first essay. The search engines, of course, are also trying to do the same thing and display the most relevant results based on what they think “you meant to say”.

For SEO and Online marketing purposes, it means that we have to, on some level, account for this temporariness in our keyword research and strategies. Instead of just aiming for broad terms and generic summaries because they are the most searched for keywords, websites need to figure out what searchers are ultimately looking for – the final phrase and not the thought building process. It’s  about honing in on “that’s what I meant to say”.

Check out the most commonly mispelled misspelled words according to Yourdictionary.com

A very quick look back at the Google story over the last 11 years. From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.

Thanks to @chloerobot for pointing it out

The Inside AdWords crew announced the launch of a new feature today which allows AdWords advertisers to add links to four additional landing pages within each Adwords ad (see screenshot of sample ad above). According to the Inside AdWords crew, the ad site links will improve the search experience by “providing users with more options within each ad”.

The process is pretty clear and straight forward for current AdWords users. Follow the easy steps in order to use the new site links feature:

1) Log into AdWords
2) Select campaign settings for campaign you want to edit
3) Click on Ad Extensions edit button (see screenshot below)
4) Add links to deeper site content you would like to promote

We’re pretty excited about this update as the new sitelinks offer some great opportunities for a number of business to increase the success of their ongoing AdWords campaigns. Here are just a few examples we can see where additional sitelinks will really boost results for AdWords campaigns:

a) Retailers – Promoting multiple Xmas offers in one sponsored ad

b) Car Dealers – Provide links to Finance, Insurance and Servicing with each ad

c) Insurance – Proving links to various policies available

Best of all, it’s great to see that Google has already launched this feature in Australia and we’ve already seen a number of good implementations across a range of our accounts. We’ll be looking forward to the results!

Leading Footwear Retailer Uses SEO To Build Brand
Hype DC appoints Switched On Media to head its Online Search Campaign

Sydney, Australia, 1 November 2009 – Following a competitive pitch, Hype DC has appointed Switched On Media as its SEO partner to develop its online search strategy. It is part of the leading footwear retailer’s plan to significantly expand its re-launched sneakers website and extend the brand beyond its 30 retail stores.

“We’re very excited about this partnership and see a lot of opportunity in this collaboration,” says Andy Jamieson, Director at Switched On Media.

Switched On Media have been tasked with making search the main traffic driver to the Hype DC website with an ultimate objective of increasing sneaker sales and brand visibility, as well as consolidating the brand as the leading fashion sneaker retailer, in store and online.

The new Hype DC website was launched in April this year with new features, including the ability to view the latest styles available in store and to make purchases online. Hype DC, already Australia’s leading fashion sneaker retailer, has been looking to expand its fan base across the country and believes that having a strong online search strategy is the way to continue developing the brand.

Adam Milgrom, of Hype DC, says: “Hype DC have chosen Switched on Media as our Search Engine Optimisation partner because of their professional approach and reputation for providing solid results and ROI.”

The new online portal will allow Hype DC to reach its youth centred audience beyond the geographical scope of its retail outlets. The company has 30 stores established across the capital cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Alex Asigno, Head of Search at Switched On Media, says: “We will ensure that Hype DC will continue to cement its status online as one of Australia’s leading sneaker retailers.”

Switched On Media will track performance, analyse customer journeys and execute strategies to identify the most relevant keywords, ad copy and landing pages for consumers through all stages of the buying cycle.

Other recent Switched On Media wins include Cochlear & Thomson Reuters.

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact:

Adam Milgrom
Hype DC Pty Ltd
web & marketing
adam@hypedc.com

Alex Asigno
Switched on Media Pty Ltd
Head of Search
alex@switchedonmedia.com.au

About Hype DC

Hype DC is Australia’s leading fashion footwear retailer. In 1998 the first Hype DC store opened, in Mosman, NSW – revealing a new concept in sneaker and footwear retailing. Hype DC has since sold over 1 million pairs of shoes, and there are almost 30 stores spread across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia and online at www.hypedc.com

About Switched On Media

Switched on Media is a leading digital marketing agency combining Search and Social media enabling brands to engage with consumers and deliver ROI. Switched on Media has proven expertise in the automotive, financial, retail and travel sectors, working with world renowned brands such Canon, PayPal and Westfield. Employing a team of industry experts enables Switched on Media to deliver deep levels of expertise, service and results across search engine optimisation, social media and pay per click marketing. www.switchedonmedia.com.au

I read an interesting article from Justin Scarborough in the latest issue of Search Marketing Trends which I thought was a good snapshot of the recent developments in the last week. Both Bing and Google have announced deals with Twitter, who will share real-time tweets, with each major search engine. I wanted to share the article with you and get your thoughts. To me, it appears Twitter will finally make some money, while search engines can begin to incorporate real time data in their search results.

Justin’s article is below:

“While Microsoft has already created a co-branded Twitter trends and search product (bing.com/twitter), it is widely speculated that each engine will start indexing and serving tweets within search results pages.

From a search standpoint, the implications are vast. A major criticism of algorithmic search has forever centered on the inability of search engine crawlers to index and serve real-time information quickly enough to respond to consumer demand for breaking stories or popular trends. Though Google has come a long way by integrating semi-fresh news into search results pages via Universal Search, any regular search engine user has at least once attempted to search for information on a breaking news story only to be forced to navigate directly to news sites because the latest stories had yet to be indexed. The value that Twitter brings is that not only are users picking up on stories as they happen – often times from the scene of the story – but they are directing other users to content around the web in real time, as it is updated.

The flip side is that anyone who has searched for breaking news on Twitter’s vastly underdeveloped search engine (twitter.com/search) is often inundated with irrelevant information, worthless or sometimes inflammatory comments, or even spam. Where the search engines provide value – and why this marriage is so promising – is the integration of the algorithm and the human. Should Google or Bing find a way to apply a filter or relevancy funnel to tweets, they would be able to offer searchers real-time, human-generated information in a way that’s useful and informative. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where some breaking news happens and Google is able to filter Twitter results that only show the original source of the story, re-tweets by only the most respected or influential Twitter users, and the most respected news sites or blogs. Call it a TweetRank, if you will.

The second potentially valuable outcome of this deal is the fruition of something the search engine industry has been clamoring over for years: social search. While Google has made the Internet vastly more manageable and useful (not to mention a boat load of money: #GOOG) with algorithmic-based search, nobody has to this point been able to find a way to give users and consumers a centralized way to access the opinions, thoughts, and sentiments of web users. Ranking and serving websites based on a formula of content relevancy, link popularity, and accessibility has proved useful, but it has had little to do with what the collective voice of the Internet population may think. It’s the content creators, not the content consumers, who matter.

Although you can get opinions about a new restaurant from places like Yelp, or learn about what Kanye did at the VMAs on your favorite pop blog or through your Facebook feed, you’re not going to actually find out what the Internet thinks unless you can harness all of the conversations and serve them up in a relevant way. This is where 140 characters of tweets come into play. Not only does Twitter offer millions of succinct thoughts in real time, but it offers links to millions of different areas of opinion and content that have nothing to do with how many inbound links a site has, or what the anchor texts of those links say. The promise of social search is a way to couple algorithmic relevancy factors with the conversations, not just the content.

There will always be a large percentage of searches that will require nothing more than rank of relevancy or thoroughness. What search engines are missing are the searches that require a voice and an opinion, or that are happening as the Internet is searching. Twitter has played its hand and has given away its treasure trove. If recent history is any guide, it will be up to Google and Bing to come up with the most relevant and user-friendly way to serve it to you, with the winner taking the gold (and the money).”

Thanks again to Justin at avenue razorfish in the US for sharing his thoughts.

Google announced today that they are starting to test comparison ads in AdWords beginning with the mortgage industry. According to the Google team, the comparison ad’s will improve user experiences by “letting users specify exactly what they are looking for and helping them quickly compare relevant offers side by side.”

Images via AdWords BlogSpot

This will be an exciting development for businesses, as the new comparison ads offer:

1) Wide range of application – Comparison ads can be applied across a wider range of verticals  (e.g – travel, finance, online shopping) and will enable searchers to save time across each vertical

2) Improvement in CTR – Comparison ads should have a positive effect on the ad click through rates as searchers are more likely to find the rate/price they are looking for.

3) Lowers Search Time – As Google mentions in their post, the comparison ads are seen as a way of reducing the amount of time searchers spend in trying to find the mortgage rate they are looking for

4)  Higher quality of leads – With this new ad format, searchers will go through a more rigorous qualifying process before they see rates/prices from different advertisers

Keen to see when they roll this test out in Australia and across a wider range of verticals.

James Tuckerman over at Anthill Magazine has been conducting a social media experiment over the past 2 weeks, that he says has not been working. He raises some points as to why he thinks the campaign may not be attracting so many entrants – one of the reasons being the number of “required recruits” may be too low (the competition asks for entrants to refer 3 friends to the competition).  Tuckerman looks at his results from a business POV, but from a user’s perspective, recruiting more friends means taking a bigger social gamble.

So what are some of the factors that affect online competitions in the age of social networking?

Barrier to Entry

I’ve had some experience running online competitions before with mixed successes, but some very interesting results. A $400 solar back pack received more entries than a solar hot water system valued at $5000. And a year’s worth of car insurance (valued at $1500) also didn’t do particularly well, compared with a simple $150 skin care hamper.

The first thought that springs to mind with the difference in these competitions was the “barrier to entry“. Competitions that require users to do a lot of work won’t do as well as those that are straight forward and simple with very little drawback. For example, with the car insurance competition, entrants were asked to go to the website and get a quote for a specific  make and model of car. It wasn’t really that difficult to do, but the fact that the process was unfamiliar and required some careful reading (most people of course scan emails instructions) – this posed too much of a barrier for many potential entrants.

On the other hand, Anthill conducted another experiment where they offered a bottle of wine to the Xth Facebook fan or Xth Twitter follower. That experiment seemed to work quite well, as the barrier to entry was relatively small. Participants had to perform a simple action and there was little repercussion.

The issue with increasing the number  “required recruits” that James mentions, I believe, is that the increase of a single required recruit “exponentially” increases the perceived barrier to entry.

In my list of 300 Facebook friends, I can think of maybe 3 friends who wouldn’t mind receiving an invitation for a Business DVD competition, so I would enter and refer them, no sweat, they’d be thrilled that I thought of them. But if you increased the required recruits to 5…suddenly I can think of maybe two more people who MIGHT not mind receiving it…but any more than that and I would have some unhappy friends on my list. And that’s a social detriment that, to me, might be greater than the social benefit of possibly winning some Business DVDs. (They’d be nice, but I certainly don’t want to be losing friends over it). So that increases the barrier to entry beyond my own personal threshold.

Social Networking is a very “social” phenomenon, with social benefits and repercussions. It harks back to the days on the school playground, where if you bring in the latest cool new snack, your social status gets boosted and you reap the rewards. But if your mum packs bran muffins or sultanas -  you won’t be looking to share those around, even if they’re your favourite thing.

So what does work?

If you’re really looking to get more entrants and induce the likelihood of a “viral” effect with your online competition there are few key things to keep in mind:  keep the barrier to entry low, the prize “cool” and make sure the competition appeals to the general public. Solar hot water systems only apply to people who own houses, car insurance means you need a car and Business DVDs require an entrant to be interested in watching Business DVDs.  (I personally prefer books!) Meanwhile, a solar back pack makes a great talking point and who doesn’t have a mother/sister/ girlfriend who wouldn’t want a great skin care pack?

The wider your capture and the lower the potential social risk, the more likely you’ll find entrants willing to come on board and spread it around.

Does more = better?

It currently takes over 3.6 m followers to make the Twitter Top 3 most popular twitter users list. As I write this, Switched on Media has 2346 and we’re gaining about 20-30 followers a day. At this rate, in order for us to be listed on the Twitter Top list, it would take about…328 YEARS for us to overtake Ellen!

This gets me thinking, does having more followers really make twitter better for the account holders?

First and foremost, I imagine that the list of top one thousand most popular twitter accounts exhibits elastic behaviour. By this I mean, by simply being listed on the list will automatically generate more followers for those accounts. The result, therefore, reinforces and entrenches the most popular users, giving them more followers and making it even harder for them to be overtaken by new and interesting accounts. So while Switched on Media is gaining 20-30 followers a day, these guys are probably adding 50-100 to their entourage just from being on this list. If the above elasticity argument is true, then follower growth is more of a function of current positions, rather than the quality of the account’s execution – and I reckon this correlation between the number of existing followers and follower growth doesn’t stop at the top three.

The underlying question still remains,  does having more followers really mean that you are doing a better job, and more importantly for a company, does it lead to more meaningful business outcomes?

What is your goal for Social Media?

Knowing what you want a twitter account to achieve helps to determine the best plan of action. If you’re really just looking for rapid growth in your twitter followers, then you’ll want to discuss broader keyword terms, use popular hash tags, engage in #followfridays and comment on or to popular accounts. Of course, the assumption here is that growth is the key measure of success and this may not always be the case. From our work with both blue-chip clients and smaller accounts, we have found that growth in twitter followers and the achievement of business goals are not always aligned, and more followers does not necessarily translate into social media success. The key question you need to have clearly defined before you engage in any  social media campaigns is, what is your goal?

What are your competitors doing?

If you are struggling with what to do or how to begin twittering or participating in social media in general, I always suggest to clients to start by finding out what their competitors are doing. Competitors offer various insights that you can learn from and build upon. Deep competitor analysis may reveal when your competitors’ accounts get more followers, how often they are retweeted, and what comments or tweets generate the best response. The easiest way to learn from competitors is to set up searches within tweetdeck for competitors’ accounts as well hash tags and relevant keywords related to their brand,  such as the name of their CEO. Learning from your competitors can help with setting your goals, knowing what level of followers you can expect and how much interaction your audience may require.

Twitter Handles for Top 40

Congratulations to all those who made it into the this years AdNews Top 40 Under 40 list. The list comprises the best and brightest from the advertising, marketing & digital industries. We’ve compiled a list of the twitter handles and personal blogs for the Top 40.
If you know the Twitter handles of anyone who is listed as unknown then please leave us a comment and we will get right onto adding it to the list.

JustinBaird – justinbaird

1. Justin Baird @ justinbaird
2. Jay Benjamin @ j_benjamin
3. Frank Bethel @ Unknown
4. Cam Blackley @ Camblackley
5. Paul Bradbury@ Paulbrad22
6. Josie Brown @ Unknown
7. Tim Bullock @ Unknown
8. Jacques Burger @ Unknown
9. Tristan Buller @ Unknown
10. Matty Burton @ mattyontheside
11. Lauren Cassar@ lscassar
12. Brett Dawson @ Unknown
13. Andy Dilallo @ seniordilallo
14. Craig Ellis @ Unknown
15. Sasha Firth @ Unknown
16. Mark Frain @ Unknown
17. David Gaines @ dave_isbald
18. Mark Green @ Unknown
19. Toby Hack @ Unknown
20. James Hannan @ jamesmhannan
21. Kent Heffernan @ Unknown
22. Justin Hind @ JuZout
23. Toby Jenner @ Unknown
24. Simon Langley @ langers_ok
25. Stephen Leeds @ Unknown
26. Jaclyn Lee-Joe @ Unknown
27. Andrew Little @ Unknown
28. Rohan Lund @ Unknown
29. Kerry McCabe @ Unknown
30. Paul McMillian @ Unknown
31. Russ Mitchinson @ Unknown
32. Jee Moon @ Unknown
33. Stuart O Brien @ Unknown
34. Ben Phillips – Ben_Phillips
35. Mark Pollard – markpollard
36. Di Richardson @ Unknown
37. Nicole Sparshott @ Unknown
38. Kat Thomas @ Unknown
39. Mike Tyquin @ Unknown
40. Ant Warne – Ant7000