Big Deal Week for Twitter

They have wanted to be taken seriously as an advertising medium for a while now and it seems as if they might have succeeded. Twitter has just signed the biggest advertising deal in its history, worth what is reported to be hundreds of millions of dollars, with an agency representing clients so big they have changed our vocabulary. Coca Cola, Microsoft and Walmart are just some of the brands that have become part of our language and which agency SMG brings to the deal.

For their chance at what Twitter hopes will be the real thing the advertisers get access to premier advertising spots on the site’s feed plus access to data on the audience it reaches. New products allowing advertisers to poll users for their opinions are also said to be ready for launch. Sweetly for Twitter, the deal is not exclusive so if this one works the company is free to sell the same deal to other advertising agencies.

From insider reports the key decider on this deal was not Twitter’s dominance of celebrity ‘guess where I was last night’ tweets or its clear lead in being first to carry first-hand accounts of news as it happens. The decider lay in the sheer number of people who tweet while they lounge and watch TV. Couch surfers might not know or even care but there is every chance they could yet rule the world of social media.

There are Stories in Them There Tweets

While it basks in the golden sunshine of serious advertising revenue Twitter has not let things slide in the work it does best. There are stories in those tweets and the company has just appointed a proper journalist to find them. Simon Rogers is a former Guardian news editor and data journalist whose sole job as data editor will be to find and uncover the stories that lie behind so many of those enigmatic tweets. As a feed that potentially comes from every street corner and every breaking news event in the world it is a powerful source of inspiration. Rogers said he couldn’t imagine a better job than being able to tell these stories. Journalists pounding their local beat for something interesting to happen could only agree.

If you Can’t Like it Please Want it

Just because you haven’t yet seen a movie or heard a song whose links are posted on your Facebook wall does not mean the site is prepared to let you go. The byword for all social media has introduced two buttons for the sponsored stories it carries on things such as movies, music and books. One says ‘watched’. The other says ‘want to watch’. As a means of delivering a receptive audience to advertisers this is an audacious move on the part of Facebook. Whether users play ball and care to share things they have not yet watched, heard or done remains to be seen. A third button might perhaps read: ‘clutching at straws’.

Rumblings in the machine Thanks to the ever watchful eyes that keep track of Google’s every move there is news of some significant tweaking going on within the vast and secretive search engine. Eagle eyed users spotted three different interface design experiments going live for a while over the weekend before the screens were rolled back to Google’s existing format. The tests seem to have been restricted to the US and were not reproducible on all computers, but they were significant enough to cause a flutter of excitement among insider SEO circles. The first report of testing was a tweet showing a screenshot of Google trying out a bigger font size on the URLs it lists in search results. It was not clear, however, if this was only being applied to selected URLs because the test disappeared before the professional tech bloggers could get their hands on it. The second sign of rumbling within the machine was a post on Google + from a user who said the familiar ‘cached’ and ‘similar’ links on Google search results were displaying as a drop down option on his screen. The third came shortly afterwards with another Google + post reporting that the results line which shows the number of similar products listed on a page was appearing as a rich snippet. No one outside of Google knows what it is up to but the signs are that it could be in the final test phases of some notable design changes. Advertisers shift to social This year could see more money being spent on social media than ever before if the predictions of a recent survey prove to be right. The figures, compiled in the US by the Nielsen company Vizu, show that two thirds of the advertisers surveyed are aiming to increase their social spend in 2013, pulling the money away from other online and offline channels. The rises are modest, up to ten per cent, but a sure sign of advertisers beginning to take the social media very seriously indeed. The survey also found that the average US internet user spends between 20 and 30 per cent of their online time on social media platforms. The signs are that advertisers can see where their audience is heading and are hot in pursuit. Twitter under fire Twitter’s defenses were breached last week when it came under attack from a mysterious group of hackers who broke into its user database and accessed personal details of around 250,000 users. Although the attack was quickly spotted and shut down the damage was already done, and Twitter found itself in the embarrassing position of having to reset passwords for all affected users. It may have been small consolation that they are not alone – there have been a series of sophisticated attacks, thought to originate in China, on high profile sites such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times recently.  Twitter says it is working with law enforcement agencies to track down and prosecute the hackers responsible for this latest attack.

This mini-series of blog posts will be full of useful information and tips to help you plan, structure and execute an effective social media marketing campaign for your small business. This post looks at the most exciting (in my opinion!) and potential-rich social media platform, Google+. All of the ideas and tips below are 100% free and quick and easy to implement.

Since Google launched its social network over a year ago, opinion has been divided over the value it adds to businesses and consumers. In November 2011 Google launched brand pages on Google+, allowing businesses to easily create or bolster their online presence. With Google now claiming to have 75million daily Google Plus users worldwide, this represents an excellent marketing opportunity for brands and businesses both large and small. Why should small business invest time and effort into Google+? 1. Get an SEO boost

Ok, this one’s a bit obvious but somewhat unsurprisingly, Google+ pages seem to rank well in Google. Creating a business page can earn you a very quick top ranking for your brand name or can support rankings for your businesses website. Secondly, your website’s listings in Google Search pages will be enhanced with your Google+ page and additional information displayed. Thirdly, all your posts and updates are available publicly and therefore viewable and commentable from anyone on Google+ who may be searching but also via traditional Google search pages. In terms of reach, this is without comparison, even beyond Facebook’s reach. 2. Earn top rankings overnight with Google Local Entering your address/ location details will trigger your Google+ page to appear in local searches for some localised search queries, which is a great way to capture relevant, high converting traffic. This is particularly important, nay essential, if your business only offers services to a specific location(s) or area(s). Tradesmen (plumbers, electricians, builders etc.), restaurateurs and bar owners for example must have a local presence and Google+ offers a very quick and easy way to earn that presence. 3. Give customers confidence in your offering with customer reviews Zagat’s review engine has been incorporated onto Google+ pages and can really help to convince potential customers of your businesses credibility. Should a customer not be sure whether to use your building services, or need convincing of your credentials as a freelance designer for example, a handful of positive reviews can really help to reassure a nervous customer. We’ve witnessed the impact of site ratings on traffic and revenues from Google Shopping and the Zagat reviews will have a similar effect in terms of Google+. 4. Directly engage with your customers face to face using Hangouts Google+ gives its users a free and easy to use video conferencing tool which has myriad uses. Freelancers can use the platform to host video conferences to pitch business or present latest work to clients, clothing designers can host Q&A sessions with customers and to showcase products or trade professionals can use the platform as a branding tool by running tutorials.

The technology allows start-ups and small businesses to engage and market themselves in a professional manner, with no overhead costs. Also, Google Calendar can be synched with Hangouts, allowing you to create a calendar event and invite specific customers (competition winners for example) in a structured, professional and efficient way.

5. Segment your audience using Circles Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Google+ allows its users to group contacts into specific ‘circles’ meaning that marketeers can segment contacts demographically and send out posts and information to specific demographics to achieve maximum impact. For example, men may be interested in some information that women won’t, finance directors may be interested in things that marketing managers may not etc. 6. Rel=Author tags Should you have a blog set up already, you’ll be able to synchronise it with your Google+ profile using an HTML tag that references your Google+ profile page. Should your blog posts earn rankings in Google, your Google+ profile picture, name and circles details will appear next to your listing, making the space more eye-catching and likely to improve click through rates. 7. Personalised search will improve search exposure At time of writing, this only exists in the US though, as most Google products do, the UK will surely follow suit soon. Google+ users that have your business page in their circles are deemed to be interested in your services, for obvious reasons. This influences rankings of websites in organic search for fans or followers, creating personalised search results where favoured websites earn a ranking boost. For example, if you have a comic book business page in one of your circles and then search Google for a specific comic book sold by that company, their website will earn a personalised search boost and will be listed higher in search results pages. This is potentially the most significant future change for Google to make and, assuming it catches on, will change SEO forever. So, that concludes my Google+ tips for small businesses. Google+, though still in its relative infancy, is so packed full of potential that with a little creative thinking, the possibilities are almost endless. It’s so simple to create an account that it should be a no-brainer for any small business. Similarly, it belongs to Google. Ergo, its influence over search results is more than likely to continue to grow and, unlike many failed Google products of yesteryear (Buzz, Wave, Hotpot…), this one will stick around as Google charges headfirst into its war with Facebook.

Tweeting and the Law

With over 500 million users, it is safe to say that there is a vast array of opinions and views expressed on Facebook every second, every day. This week we have seen two different cases of where tweeting inappropriate content, or extreme views can result in the users ending up in the court room. The first case is of the Twitter user @LaPwnage (account has since been removed), who posted racist and seriously offensive tweets aimed at two black English footballers. Both players missed crucial penalties in England’s quarter final penalty shoot-out with Italy, subsequently this user looked to take his frustration out on the Social Medium in a grotesque fashion. The West Midlands Police are said to have launched an investigation as the user can be punished under England’s Public Order Act. A contrasting case is that of Paul Chambers, who this week was appealing a conviction made against him last year for posting inappropriate content on Twitter. He was convicted in May 2011 for sending a “menacing electronic communication” contrary to the Communications Act 2003. On January 6^th 2010, Chambers sent a tweet saying that he would blow up the closed Robin Hood Airport if it did not re-open within a week. Chambers was fined nearly £400 and ordered to pay an additional £600 legal costs, he also lost his job. This particular case has become quite famous as the “Twitter Joke Trial” as many have actually been supportive of Mr Chambers as by defending his case they believe they are also defending freedom of speech. To them it was obvious that the tweet was a joke. TV great, Stephen Fry is campaigning for Mr Chambers and has reportedly offered to pay off all fines and legal costs. The appeal continues… Both these stories are examples of how users are becoming ever more accountable for what they post on Social Media sites. They highlight the debate that has encircled sites like Facebook and Twitter, i.e. the rights to freedom of speech vs. causing public offence. It is vital you know and understand the laws surrounding the use of Twitter, and how accountable your actions are.

How to build and engage your audience [INFOGRAPHIC]

This is definitely our favourite infographic of the week. It highlights key tips and important considerations a blogger must make when trying to build up and hold their audience. Here at Mediarun, we always try to ensure that our content stays interesting, fresh and easy to understand. It is important to vary your content, and keep it relevant to the reader and likely audience you would have reading your blog. Have a look and let us know what you think are the most important aspects of building a loyal readership.

For those of you who are not familiar with the event, “El Clasico” is the nickname given to one of the biggest football matches in the world: Real Madrid v FC Barcelona. The two will clash Saturday night at Real Madrid’s Estadio Santiago Bernabéu for their first match of the season. The event sees us football enthusiasts/online marketers hunting for historical stats to back our theories of who will win this year.

The reality is that Real Madrid have faced FC Barcelona in 215 official matches. Real Madrid has so far won 86 times, while the Catalan team have emerged victorious on 84 occasions. At home in the Bernabeau, Madrid has faced Barcelona 85 times, with 45 victories, 19 defeats and 21 draws making them statistically, marginally the best team… I am sure many Barcelona supporters will disagree.

In the battle of statistics to prove who is the better team I came across a very interesting article in the sports magazine, Sport. The article takes the argument to the social media arena by measuring the two teams’ popularity and makes some interesting points that I feel can equally apply to any company’s social strategy.

Amongst some of the more interesting conclusions the article highlights the following:

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Madrid) is the football player with the biggest following (40 million fans on Facebook and Twitter) although Leo Messi (Barcelona) with half the followers is 4 times more spoken about.

2. Real Madrid, as a team again is the most followed but is not the best spoken about with only 45% of its comments being positive rivalled by Barcelona’s 64%. This might reflect the negative media that both Cristiano Ronaldo and trainer Jose Mourinho seem to attract.

3. Although not leader in terms of followers Barcelona’s Cesc Fabregas is one of the players that best manages his personal social reputation with one of the highest engagement levels in up to three languages: Spanish, English and Catalan.

In my opinion this research highlights a few truths of social media. First, it’s not always about the number of followers but the engagement and how this can positively be steered to communicate and improve a brand’s reputation. Second, social media is becoming increasingly a more important tool and asset for a brand to communicate and engage with its customers. In football when a club is thinking of signing up a player it will consider how the player can contribute to the team winning trophies but will also asses how many shirts and tickets the individual can sell. I wonder if in the very near future when clubs look in to signing players their social media profiles will be viewed as an asset the team can exploit to build their own reputation and therefore quantified monetarily. Furthermore I wonder how long this will take to translate to the rest of the business environment.

Google Maths

This week Google launched new graphing results on their search engine. By simply typing in a mathematic function into search, Google will provide the graph as an image in the first result. Mathematicians are now able to zoom in and out on the image and pan across the plane to explore the detail of the function. The tool allows users to draw multiple functions, which is done by simply separating them with commas. This feature is available globally and in all modern browsers.

Minnie’s Verdict

Surprised grunt/ puff It is another impressive feature to add to Google’s collection, always looking forward to seeing what they’re going to come up with next. This way they guarantee loyal visits from A-Level maths students.

Google in the EU’s Firing Line

Within the next few weeks Google should be receiving a 400 page document containing allegations of “abuse of dominance” from the European Commission. This document will be a result of an investigation into Google that the EU started a month ago. The investigation into the search giant stems from a complaint made by search engines Foundem, eJustice and Ciao!. Google should attempt to settle the dispute as the fine imposed by the EC could be as much as 10% of Google’s annual turnover. That and Google are in the process of a take-over of Motorola, which could possibly be hindered by such legal proceedings.

Minnie’s Verdict

Grrrrrrrrr… If Google are hit with a fine (a considerable one at that) it could be incredibly damaging for the brand and business. Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt has flown to Europe on a so-called “courtesy visit”. We can only imagine this is as a move to calm the situation as well as ensure the take-over of Motorola runs smoothly. This story adds to the ever growing pressure on Google, that have been coming under increasing scrutiny surrounding their growing dominance over the internet. We will watch developments closely.

How Social Media Has Changed the Advertising Industry [Infographic]

There is no denying it, Social Media has become one of the most significant areas in marketing, specifically in online strategies. Campaigns have developed to become more creative and innovative, meaning advertisers are now working harder than ever to maximise their affectivity in this area. Results show that users are spending more of their time (and money) on social media sites. Below is an infographic created by MDG Advertising, which shows how and why marketers have had to adopt social media strategy to survive.

Minnie will now be providing weekly news about the online marketing industry, giving you the final verdict on what matters and what doesn’t. Minnie is a 3 year old Staffordshire bull terrier, who has been a valued member of the Mediarun team since we broke her out of Battersea Doggy Prison. She has since sniffed her way into the online marketing industry, providing a canine perspective to all things SEO, PPC and Social Media. Minnie has a unique set of responsibilities in the office; being the official Fun Manager she encourages regular ball games and daily outdoor activities like walking, tug of war and hide-and-seek in the park. She has also assumed the role of Charity Donation Supervisor, each bark will cost you a pound! Minnie is an expert meet-and-greeter, unconventional dishwasher, and persistent tail-chaser. When she’s not giving cuddles or redecorating the floor, Minnie is raising money for charities across London and sharing her digital marketing wisdom across the blogosphere. Ladies and Gentelmen, here she is…Our Minnie!

Minnie dictating a new blog post to one of our team members.

Google URLert

On 31st of October 2011, Google webmaster tools announced the launch of a message alert service. This will be to inform site owners when one of their URLs is not ranking in Google, because they would be indexed as “duplicated content”. If you are noticing a drop in traffic to one of your web-pages, it may well be down to the fact that the content on that page has been duplicated on another site or domain. This service will highlight when this is the case. A lot of the time, you will receive an alert having implemented a rel=canonical attribute to an original page of content. In this case the alerts will act as a confirmation that your redirects are working. However if this is not the case, the alert will prompt you to check the originality of your on page content and whether there has been any mistakes in canonicalization and redirects.

Minnie’s Verdict

Tail-wagging, slight excitement plus a bit of rolling on the floor This is good news, as the more Google recognise and assist in the challenges site owners face, the better the site owners will work at providing good, original content for the algorithms. Remember Google only want what’s best for their users, duplicated content to Google is as annoying as a Henry Hoover heading towards my basket!

Let’s GoMo-bile!

Google introduces mobile web initiative “GoMo” as a way of getting brands to improve their mobile website pages and presence. This launch comes as mobile phone internet usage continues to sky rocket. The GoMo website highlights the ever growing importance of having a good mobile:

• By 2015 there will be one mobile devise per person on the planet
• Users expect their mobile experience to be as good as their desktop surfing experience
• Users prefer using mobile websites over apps for information.

The scheme has been launched with Google’s partners and will provide a number of resources, i.e. mobile web development tools, to assist in optimising mobile websites, as well as tools to measure user engagement on mobile sites and how their current designs can be improved.

Minnie’s Verdict

Yawn… returning to basket. This is a good initiative to take by Google, and they are right to highlight the ever growing importance of mobile sites and mobile online presence. However, this is nothing new. Mobile site optimisation is a service offered by some online marketing agencies, including Mediarun!

Facebook Comments “Google’d”

In online marketing, it is commonly encouraged for website owners to utilise User Generated content in their websites, especially blog posts. It enhances the user’s experience and is a great way of drawing repeat users. Facebook Comments is one of the most popular add-on commenting systems, it has never been implied that content written in them have been Index worthy in the Search Engines… until now! Content written in the Facebook Social Plug in tool is now being indexed in Google SERPS. Even though the content is technically AJAX/Javascript, the Googlebots are now smart enough to read and index the user content.

Minnie’s Verdict

Ears pricked, grunt/yelp of excitement (did someone mention “walkies”). This is good news that the Googlebots can now read parts of Javascript. Site owners have always been encouraged not to use Javascript where SEO is concerned, and that may change. Facebook comments aren’t likely to affect rankings all that much, however when it comes to Real-Time observation i.e. monitoring trends, Facebook comments can now be read and indexed. For Google they also benefit in building our social profiles, and would use the gathered information to provide the user with more personally based content.

I have owed this post for quite some time and this week’s industry news around Edgerank and Facebook’s algorithm reminded me that I had this one in the pipeline. I figured given recent events marketers and businesses either already using Facebook or planning to do so will find the post useful. Be warned that this post is specifically targeted at ecommerce business that may already have Facebook fan pages, however the approach is very much useful to any other businesses with online presence that may want to consider targeting multiple territories without necessarily over complicating their existing site. With that said and with no further ado, I shall explain the concept in hand. So we have established that you may be a successful retailer with growing sales and you have noticed an increasing number of sales and enquiries from overseas. Perhaps you have distributors or resellers in these territories, in that instance you have already considered expansion and spoken to your web development company. If you got that far I would have expected you to get a quote which might have made you fall off your chair. At this point you have probably decided not to proceed and, had you not, you would still need to consider other costs such as SEO, hosting, translation of your content and possibly PPC to get it off the ground. With all that in mind why dive directly into a multilingual site?  Why not test the water and evaluate what the audience response to your product, service and brand on the designated territory might be? So why not use a platform with existing global capabilities like Facebook? If you don’t already have presence this may be a daunting task, however Facebook can be a good entry point into the multilingual arena. A great example is Clarin’s Facebook page there you can see on the bottom left hand corner they have links to other Facebook pages specific to territories. On each regional page, as one would have expected, the content served is targeted to the native language of that territory, improving the overall local user experience. To encourage some more interaction without having to go down the road of immediate interaction (which would be required in the long term) with your localised page, you could also try using Facebook shopping. For those who are not aware of what  Facebook Shopping is, it may be worth a quick recap. Earlier this year Facebook began rolling out its ecommerce functionality onto Facebook pages, allowing fans of a given group/page to purchase products without having to leave Facebook. Some good examples include: Livescribe (the only niggle here is that this one actually takes you to an external site) ASOS (obviously the fashion giant has enabled the feature to buy straight from Facebook on the proviso that you become a fan first!) The combination of these two techniques may make a very appealing business case towards multi-territorial expansion, especially when all you need to do once you have the product feeds is to structure the copy and tone to appeal to the local market. If that market doesn’t work you can take the learnings and try again. You can probably recycle the same templates and product feed; all you need to do is produce the localised version. It may well be that we can say good bye to overly complicated multi-territorial projects and instead embrace the 2.0 technology to deliver the same result at half the cost. Are you engaging on Facebook on other territories? Or are you using Facebook shopping? If so,  tell us what you like or dislike.

Facebook is again at the forefront of savvy advertisers minds.  A new feature is being tested and speculated to be fully rolled out this year that is said to dramatically change how ads are being served to fellow Facebookers. The current model of advertising serves ads based on preferences set by the advertiser which match those of the target user’s profile preferences. For many, this was already in itself smarter than the Google AdWords targeting which was designed to be keyword focused. The only similarity between the two is the bidding system; Facebook’s ad bidding system is similar to Google’s in theory but not quite in practice. A key difference is that after clicking on a Facebook ad you can attribute an “I like” which gives a vote of confidence to the page where you ended up and effectively goes beyond bounce rate. On Google, things are changing and Google +1 is meant to deliver exactly the same functionality from the SERPs. More on that will come in a separate post from us.

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To the amusement of many in online marketing this week, Sarah Palin has been caught out commenting and supporting her own posts and content on Facebook with a second, fake account. Needless to say, this is somewhat discrediting. Therefore, I write this post, partly for her so that she may learn and move on to greatness she is destined for. Ahem. I attended the annual Search Engine Strategies meeting this week and was lucky enough to catch Liana “Li” Evans’ (@storyspinner)session Killer Facebook Marketing Tactics. She talked about how Facebook is not a search engine and rather a connectivity platform. She showed us an example of a search she did for a hotel called “The Mint”. For obvious reasons Facebook does not show the correct, or in this case; desired result.

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