I recommend the SEO Toolbar (Firefox only). You should download and install it now. Why? Because your prospects and wider stakeholders may stumble across your products and services in social interaction, on- and off-line, but they also revert to search engines to find what they’re looking for. Search is important. ...
I posted a few weeks back about how organisations must engage stakeholders in dialogue, and how this conversation starts by not just having something interesting to say, but delivering it in an interesting way . After all, whilst marketers consider the 30 second ad to be on its last legs because it tries to wallop all and sundry, you can take longer to get your point over if you’re talking to those whose interest is already sparked and who want to find out more. My last post featured a video and an animation, and I promised to come back with some more formats for starting a conversation in an interesting way. For topical reasons I have another animation for your interest, but the main feature in this post is a call-to-action-microsite. ...
An indulgent post bag this week. So many fascinating posts, I couldn’t keep the short-list all that short. Take the debate about search engine optimisation (SEO) amongst various pockets of the digital marketing profession. My approach to SEO has always been to develop content for humans first and search engines a close second. But definitely second. And where does SEO stand when future ‘votes for’ a webpage, as interwoven into the search engines’ algorithms, come not solely from links from other websites but from more inclusive sources such as social bookmarking services like Delicious and Stumbleupon , and Twitter ed links? David Meerman Scott hints this week at his view of SEO… “SEO and your crap filled site ”! And in case you remain uncertain, click over to Graham Jones’ “Search is on its deathbed…bye, bye SEO ”. And if you fancy getting into this sort of stuff more deeply, Brian Solis struts his visionary stuff again this week with “Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere? ” Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. ...
So last week’s Roundup featured some posts with good old fashioned moaning, and the email click through rate was amongst the best ever. Right then. So I’m going to pick a super moan to lead the Roundup today. Thanks to Vero for a heartfelt post criticising a government social media sex education campaign that falls just a teeny weeny bit short in Vero’s opionion of delivering value representative of the four million odd pounds it cost. How not to… And whilst we remain steadfastly focused on matching last week’s click throughs, how about this post by Trevor Young on how not to express yourself. And just in case you’re not going to be tempted by negative pieces this week, check out Graham Jones on how to get retweeted . Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. ...
There’s nothing like a blog post to have a good old fashioned moan. It’s cathartic. Good for the soul. Brian Solis has a bit of a go at Facebook’s consistent shortcomings in good community relations. Stephen Waddington rips apart the journalistic coverage of new research that shows social networking is harmful, or does it? And I waded in on a PR Week article about Twitter that made many Twitterers very Twangry. Twangry. That’s a new word I learned this week. Mmmmm. Have a super weekend. Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. ...
In an unstunningly simple article in PR Week today ("Twitter has suddenly exploded ") we learn amongst other things that Edelman has 17 twittering staff and Racepoint 8, whilst Drew Benvie has twittered 3779 times. I’d write here things like “AWESOME” and “WOW, HOW ENLIGHTENING”, but I understand sarcasm is the lowest form of wit so I’ll refrain. What’s with all the numbers? Why on Earth are they the story? But before I explain myself, I will just dwell on the numbers for a minute. …I don’t know a Racepoint consultant who isn’t on Twitter, and there’s a lot more of us than eight people! How can Porter Novelli global digital director Mat Morrison feel so confident in his data? He should have at least added the caveat that one can only determine when a Twitter user is a consultant from a specific PR consultancy should the individual chose to promote the fact in their personal profile. ...
To recap, this is where marketing communications has got to… Interruption marketing (stop right there for 30 seconds while I hit you with this message even if this message is totally irrelevant to you) is dead. Your brand and reputation is defined by everyone’s experiences with your organisation and their compulsion to share those experiences with others. You simply have no choice, you have to converse. Dialogue is where it’s at. If you’re into monologue, then it really is the same thing as staying at home and still thinking you’ll get the girl. So I thought I’d focus here on how to present your conversation starter rather than the content per se. Multimedia engagement is one of the most compelling and interesting ways to start a conversation about something interesting. Just think what’s grabbed your attention online recently. The 30-second TV ad may be as relevant today as monetary policy, but the 300-second roll on the Web is perfect for the niche audience out there with whom you really want to engage and who really wants to know more about what you’ve got. So what kind of multimedia are we talking? How can we spark the conversation by communicating the really interesting thing we have to say in an interesting way? There’s no formula (that I know of!), but here’s a couple of my favourites to stimulate your “PR 2.0” synapses, one film and one animation. I’ll follow up this post some time soon with my favourite interactive-game-with-a-point-to-make and call-to-action-social-microsite. ...
What did we talk about before the current intergalactic financial burp and the rise and rise of Twitter? Just as recently as 2008, you could actually meet people quite regularly who had never heard of twitter outside the context of birdsong, but not now. So “how to” and “for idiots” and “the ninety nine things you’ve always wanted to know but were afraid to ask” guides now abound, which is kind of odd for anyone who was around before the hashtag and just had to sort of fumble around like teenagers discovering a new genre of music and the opposite sex at the local youth club. Nevertheless, these things are invaluable for mass market adoption, and Ben Matthews points us to five of the best . Top marks for most attention grabbing presentation title goes to Radian6 for “Become a Twitter Ninja”. Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. ...
Despite the recent follies of the bankers, business remains business and technology marches onwards. And at this year’s Mobile World Congress the mobile industry is putting the user front and centre in every effort to differentiate one from another. Smaller. Lighter. Brighter. Faster. Easier. And most of all, as user-friendly as can be. This colourful image is a bank of Samsung Omnia ’s demonstrating their bright OLED screens. I’d like to show you one of their new devices but photography was not permitted. What a crazy decision. This is a SHOW. There are many journalists and bloggers here and Samsung tells us photography is not allowed… it can only make anyone think that the Samsung team has no idea about social media marketing! I spotted a marketing innovation from Qualcomm Mediaflo … a technology to stream data to mobile devices predominantly for video applications such as real-time TV. Rather than interrupt viewing with the same adverts for all viewers, one of their latest innovations allows a different set of adverts to be delivered based on rudimentary user segmentation. ...
What’s Twitter for? Interesting question, but we know we enjoyed the Tweetstream from @cluetrainee this week. Subtle. Satirical. And beautifully efficient in poking fun at the bankers who have wrought the current financial terror and are feeling like they want to apologise this week, over and over and over again. I’ve appended an extract for your convenience :-) before this week’s post highlights. @cluetrainee gets it, but thanks to Rebecca Caroe for posting an entertaining video ridiculing those Twitterers that don’t. ...