11.24.08
Posted in Online Marketing, Search at 12:23 pm by Jono
On Thursday last week (20 November 2008) Google launched its new SearchWiki.
What this allows you to do (when you’re logged into your Google account) is to ‘vote’ results up in the rankings of your personal searches and remove items you feel are irrelevant. You can also add sites that you may know of which you find are useful regarding the search you are conducting. The SearchWiki also allows you to make comments on specific search results.
These modified results will show up whenever you do the same search in the future.
The SearchWiki does not affect Google SERPs, nor the way others’ see results.
You will only see your personal searches when you are signed-in to your Google account. However, you can see how the community has ranked results for similar searches by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.
So, does this SearchWiki have any bearing on the SEO industry? For the moment it would seem not, as the tailored results are only related to specific profiles. Although Marisa Mayer did comment to the New York Times that, while this was the case for the time being, SearchWiki may in time be used to influence rankings.
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11.19.08
Posted in Articles at 9:50 am by Jono
I remember, several years ago, while I was at University, doing an English lecture series on postmodernism. I will state right now that some of the material was the most surreal and bizarre I have ever had the misfortune of being forced to read. What I did take away from this course, however, was an understanding of intertextuality and the concept of metatextuality.
In plain English? Texts that make critical commentary about other texts and texts that are based on, or contain some elements of other texts. The concept of intertextuality also refers to the way meanings of texts are shaped by others. I suppose this is what postmodernism is. (What is ‘what is’? will haunt me forever).
So, it’s about deconstruction, derivatives, building on the old, fragmented identities and so on and so forth. But what does this have to do with internet marketing I hear you ask?
Well, there seems to have been much debate in the recent past about ‘copy cats’. We’ve seen it with the DA’s relaunch and their new branding, on several sites in terms of their design, and even with regard to other design elements.
I suppose the question now is – is this plagiarism? Or are there really just no truly authentic ideas anymore, and is everything basically just another incarnation of what has gone before?
It’s interesting to note, that (certainly in my experience) a large percentage of blog ‘content’ is just re-hashed versions of news and information that has been published elsewhere. Also, a great deal of our discourse (to use an academic term) in the blogosphere revolves around commentary. This isn’t a negative thing at all - but purely metatextuality in practise.
On the web today, in a world of stock widgets and stock templates, where the ingredients are available to all – how you use the common ingredients by process of crafty selection and combination will determine how flavourful a social media dish you whip up.
So, maybe it’s time to stop being precious about ‘my’ building blocks, in the web world ownership of intellectual property is almost a secondary consideration to reputation and impact.
With an entity like the web, which is a ‘free-access to all’ type setup, how would you retain absolute ownership of anything?
Just something to chew on.
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11.18.08
Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media at 7:15 am by Christine
CINCINNATI (AdAge.com) - Social networks may never find the ad dollars they’re hunting for because they don’t really have a right to them, said Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co., at a forum on digital media.
“I have a reaction to that as a consumer advocate and an advertiser,” he said. “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”
Just two extracts from a great article “P&G Digital Guru Not Sure Marketers Belong on Facebook” on Ad Age yesterday. He says there is a growing feeling from consumers that social advertising is “hijacking conversations” in their current format.
This, amongst others, was one of the primary reasons that Facebook (and a few other networks) had its interface revamp a few months ago. The advertising elements are now more integrated to the general experience rather than standing out like a sore thumb.
Much like the concept of using AdSense for monetisation. If you integrate the colours and make it look more like part of the content on your page, the higher the chance of a click.
McConnell further continues with a very accurate statement IMO
Consumer Generated Media: Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.
Of all media it is true that marketers jump on any opportunity to get more face-value and interaction from their demographic audience. We do it in Magazines, TV (thank goodness for PVR that let’s you fast forward through adverts!), search engines and social networks, blogs etc.
One the one hand that is the pure definition of marketing - on the other - I have often had conversations with people that feel that SEOs saturate the engines with irrelevant content. For example, quite simply put, if you have a website and you do not apply SEO tactics, the chances of your site appearing Top 10 is slim to none. Even if you have the most relevant content compared to the ones appearing on Top 10. You are competing with other SEOs for eyeballs (market share). This has obviously a factor that has also influeced the way in which we search…(more keywords to narrow down results. ‘pages from your country only’ etc.) But that is a convo for another day 
Back to topic: From our experience FB flyers do work well - depending on the product and how it is targeted. In some instances more niche targetting results in higher conversions, in others, the broader the better. But applications still seem to get two thumbs up. Well those that have a functional purpose at least. The only problem with applications (in the SA market at least) is that they are quite expensive to your average SME. And in my opinion they work most effectively in multi-channel campaigns: online-offline-online. But second to that combined with a robust online campaign. (network-website-online.advertising)
Elements such as FB flyers do make social advertising much more accessible to the SMEs though, it is still much cheaper than running a PPC campaign - IF your target market is present on the platform of course…
‘Spray and pray’ is a little harder to do when you’re under economic pressure. Ted McConnell
Return on Investment (ROI), or “bang for your buck” is what it is all about at the end of the day. I have always been very result oriented, and try to *encourage spending CPC (cost per click) rather than CPM (cost per million impressions). This way it is performance driven - so you are guaranteed to see results on your campaign.
(* This does depend on the campaign though. A good reason to adopt the CMP model is if it is for brand awareness purposes for example, and then also very carefully defined.)
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