This week saw the launch of Google Dashboard, with which users can view the information Google has collected on them in relation to various Google services. Google Dashboard allows users to view and manage information related to the Google products they use when signed into their Google account, such as Gmail, Google Calendar and Docs, YouTube, and web history.

“In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we’ve built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we’re delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this — and we hope it will become the standard.”

However, the general consensus online seems to be that this is a move on Google’s part to appear more open by putting control over data collection back in the hands of its users (prompted by concerns raised about the amount of user data Google collects) while actually not telling us very much that we didn’t already know.

Readwriteweb points out that that the data provided on the dashboard is not the data Google’s really interested in – what’s more relevant is how the data is used to target Adsense Ads at the right users, and this information is the data Google is unlikely to share.

So how often will most Google account owners really use the Dashboard? While it may make users feel reassured that they are able to have some control of their privacy (and also freak us out a bit about the amount of data Google has on us), it seems unlikely to be used a great deal. As CNet says:

“Still, it’s almost certainly never going to be used by the vast majority of Google users. Ever. Why? Because for all our hand-wringing over privacy—and for good reason—the reality is that most of us, most of the time, really don’t care. Or, rather, if accessing useful services or getting work done more efficiently requires some privacy concessions, we gladly concede. It’s not that we don’t value our privacy. It’s just that in many contexts, we value other things as much or more. We weigh the risks versus the benefits, and often the benefits trump the privacy risks.”

So what do you think? As people are increasingly using social media properties, more and more of their personal information is accessible to Google …so is this a useful tool and exercise in transparency or simply an empty gesture on Google’s part to appear less evil?

The death of TV and radio may have been overstated when it comes to your web marketing kit bag. We’ve been playing around with some optimisation experiments lately to see what traffic we can draw from search engines as a result of public interest in TV shows and the like…

Turns out, we’re living in an age that’s much closer to 1960 than we think. The programmes we watch and listen to are still the things we tend to talk about the next day. The difference is that we now have Google and Twitter (etc) to turn to when we want to investigate some more.

In other words, you can bet your backside that searches relating to X Factor contestants are going to spike on a Sunday morning. And this is something we can tap into if we want to draw a little more traffic.

I’ll use my wife as an example…

She runs a web site called Skiff Vintage Knitting Patterns, which sells – guess what? – vintage knitting patterns. With Remembrance Day approaching she, and others around the web, have been busily knitting poppies to wear and promote the cause (a great initiative organised by KnitontheNet.com).

On Tuesday she blogged about her poppy – encouraging other knitting fans to do likewise.

On Wednesday, her site traffic peaked at around 600 visitors – almost double her average.

On Wednesday night she began to wonder why (something seemed out of whack – she often does similar cause-related things). Here’s a quick view of the search terms people were using to reach the site that day:

The blog post was (somewhat inadvertently) optimised around the term ‘Knit a Poppy’… and is now ranking extremely well on that term for Google UK:

On further investigation, she learned that “ace knitter Susan Crawford had a five minute spot on the Sarah Kennedy show on BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday morning to promote the KnitontheNet.com Poppy Appeal campaign.

So, listeners tuned in, liked what they heard and hit Google to find out more… Resulting in a healthy bump in traffic for my wife.

The learning here is not that we should rush out to hijack charitable causes and other trends that are unsuitable for marketing (see here for a quick analysis of how to mess up royally on this score, courtesy of Habitat)…

No, the point is that we shouldn’t forget mainstream media as a significant driver of public web activity…

And it works. From our own (silly) experiments, we tend to get a disproportionate amount of traffic from the search term ‘Susan Boyle’, recent X Factor star and flavour of the month in June 2009. Granted, nobody searching for Susan has ever bought anything from us (yet!), but you get the point. Seek out a traditional media event or happening, have something positive, helpful, interesting and relevant to say about it (in a non-spammy but well-optimised way) via blogs, Twitter, etc… and drive traffic. It’s a fairly routine PR / sponsorship tactic.

Meantime, the above shows that we should all be working harder to align what we do in marketing with good causes that capture the public imagination. Poppies are not just being knitted right now, they’re also being used for Twitter badges. Go get yours here if you want to show your support for war veterans.

And if you need a spot of knitting advice, talk to my wife : )

Last week saw the release of a pretty significant new piece of functionality from Twitter…. the List: a basic but incredibly helpful tool for discovering / following people and researching trends and conversations in any given topic area.

Here’s a quick run down of what Lists are, how to use them, some examples of Lists and a great new service for making them more useful.

How Twitter Lists Work

For a comprehensive overview on the nuts and bolts, see this piece from the Next Web. It gives you everything you need to know to get a List up and running in two minutes and start using other people’s Lists effectively.

What a Twitter List Is

In a nutshell, a Twitter List enables you to group your favourite Twitterers into an easier-to-mange group for monitoring and interactions. Those of us who use third party Twitter apps like Tweetdeck won’t be new to this idea… like them, the List allows you to create a filtered view of all of the people you follow, according to whatever criteria you please.

This much is simple: if you’re using the main Twitter interface for your Twitter activity, it creates some sort of order out of the general mayhem that’s your real-time hose of Tweets. For example, you could – as we’ve done – create a list for your work ‘team’ in order to tune into just the Tweets from those people, while screening out all of the Tweets from other people that you’re following.

Why Twitter Lists are Great: Discovery and Subject Research

Aside from bringing a little order to proceedings, Twitter Lists – in the course of time – will become a fantastic resource for discovering new people to follow and doing Twitter-based subject research. Think of them as a Yellow Pages / directory service for Twitter. Lists provide a simple and incredibly effective way to broaden your Twitter network and your general learning / inputs. Just track down someone you know and/or respect, and check out the types of lists that they’re creating.

For example, if you’re into Online PR (as we are) then someone like @dannywhatmough usually provides good value in his Twitter activity. And – lo and behold – Danny’s also been collating a crackerjack list of PR-related people to tune into.

One click later and I can tune into this list too… and introduce myself to a bunch of new people that I might not have been connected to before. This is powerful stuff for any research exercise – not least because it’s people-powered and comes with more than a strong whiff of recommendation.

(In essence, it’s like Danny is giving the world access to his Tweetdeck groups. Thanks Danny!)

Being people-powered, the value of Lists depends on a healthy sense of altruism on behalf of the List-maker… but I see them growing in popularity and use. The creation of lists of tools/resources/insights is a time-honoured way of attracting interest and comment on the Social Web. The 20% of people who build these sorts of list do a tremendous service to the 80% of people who can’t be bothered to do their own research…and long may this continue. When we share our work we all benefit in kind. 80% of the web then raves about the work of the 20%, and new followings and overnight leaps in Google SERPs follow for the industrious few.

Why Twitter Lists Can Change Our Life

The above example is a rather manual way of using lists to do research, build new followings and make new connections. The real power of Lists will come in the shape of third party apps and services, and enhancements to tools like Tweedeck and the like (which we’re yet to see – but await in the coming weeks.)

For example, check out this uber-list service from Listorious (well, at least it wasn’t branded with a ‘Tw’).

As a List aggregator, I’m already in love with this service. A list of lists – what could be better for a bunch of Online PR closet geeks in a cabin in East Sussex? Marketing Lists, Media Lists, News Lists, they’ve got them all. We regularly provide this kind of research and ‘follower’ collation as a semi-manual service using tools like Twellow, etc. The Twitter List may well make the business of Twitter a heck of a lot easier from this point forwards….

Over the past few months, you may have noticed links appearing within the description snippets on Google’s SERPs. These extra links are appearing with most regularity for Wikipedia results. To demonstrate, here is a search for a dearly missed personal hero, Rod Hull. It’s the secondary links we’re looking at here; the ones below the main description (ie, ‘Career’, ‘Emu’, etc…).

These links, rather than directing you to other pages within a site, now act as ‘jump to’ links within a single page. So in the above example, clicking on the main link will take you to the Wikipedia article about Rod, and clicking on the secondary links will take you to the section of the page about Emu, for instance. And who doesn’t love reading about Emu?

Google are also including links in this style that direct to deeper pages. The upshot of this is that it could now be possible to direct users to a particularly high converting page (a shop page, for instance), without a user having specifically searched for it. This addition to search snippets seem to be all about giving the user more options right off the bat; they can go ahead and read about Rod Hull, like they set out to do, or they can go down the other path of acquainting themselves with Emu, just like Parkinson.

At the moment, these links are generated automatically by Google, without your say so,  but there are things that you can do to encourage it to happen.

From the Google Webmaster Blog:

First, ensure that long, multi-topic pages on your site are well-structured and broken into distinct logical sections. Second, ensure that each section has an associated  descriptive name (i.e., not just “Section 2.1”). The new in-snippet links only appear for relevant queries, so you won’t see it on the results all the time — only when we think that a link to a section would be highly useful for a particular query.

The takeaway? This poses a great incentive to keep your page content neat and tidy, organised and with a disciplined keyword relevancy match for headers and subheaders… which has to be a great benefit for visitors once they hit the page as well.

Great post here from the guys at eConsultancy which looks at spend trends in the paid search market (ie, PPC) vs Google’s recent movements to incorporate more real time ‘Social’ elements into its search results. (For more on this see here – from the Daily Mirror of all places …proof that Social Media is well and truly mainstream!)

eConsultancy says:

Old media advertising has for years seen its budget poached by digital advertising. And now the stable growth of the search market may be threatened by the increased adoption of social media by brands.

I wrote yesterday that one in five web surfers is now comfortable with status updates online. And it looks as though marketers who use real-time services are finding that their social media efforts are helping boost search. Meaning they have to spend fewer dollars paying for search terms.

….Google currently controls over 70% of the $10.5 billion search market in the U.S. But advertisers are getting choosier about where they put their search dollars because so many companies are bidding on search terms now.

Given the choice between bidding up terms in search and making a (relatively) cheap push in social media, it makes sense that brands would forgo search for social. Put will it pay off down the line?

So, with search marketing (PPC) estimated to grow by a relatively flat 6% or so in the coming years, vs the gains predicted in other areas of web marketing, is Google’s recent dabbling with Twitter a sign that they need more pieces of different pies?

I’d say probably… When you step back and think about it, search as a pure information archive function is a little antiquated.  The growth in web content (ie, stuff that we will want to search amongst) is being driven (exponentially) by non-standard-web-page-like assets…. things like Tweets, reviews, maps, wall posts, bla and bla.  If we need to know something through search then all this new stuff is super-relevant.  Searching for a new mobile phone…?  Then a review or a Tweet about it can be very helpful indeed.

The fact that Google is looking to integrate more forms of web content in its search results is nothing new.  Video, news, pictures and local maps have been part and parcel of our search experience for some time.  (For an example, check here.  This is our favourite search exercise at C&M :  )  The interesting thing is that most of these ‘universal’ search facets from Google tend to be geared to incorporate content that they own – YouTube vids, local business maps, etc.  And, usually, this is the first step towards monetisation of those assets – see YouTube.

Twitter makes for an interesting development departure.  We need more Social-ness in our search results.  Google needs to develop its service around Twitter, etc, if it’s to stay in pole position as our search engine of choice (and it needs to look out – Bing!)… But right now this isn’t a money spinner for the G-Monster. (Until it gets its proper cheque book and buys the Tweet Peeps, of course…)

Thoughts…?

Anyone who ‘does’ Facebook will probably have noticed some changes this week, with the evolution of Groups into something much more closely resembling Pages. Groups were the original home for people to gather in honour of a shared cause or interest, but were also widely used by brands and companies before the introduction of the more advanced Pages.

It is a common quandary among clients who have built large Group memberships whether to ditch their Group in favour of Pages – which offer more functionality including custom tabs and wall posts that appear in members’ news streams. The trouble is that Facebook has never offered a simple way to migrate a Group across to a Page and the only option is a manual switch, meaning that some members may get left behind.

Here are a couple of examples from clients:

A Facebook Page for Escape Studios (just launched!) and The Argento Wine Club Group

While the new style Groups have a similar look and feel to Pages, they have yet to incorporate many of the more sophisticated features. Apart from the aesthetic changes, the only practical difference is that activity will now appear in news feeds and users will be able to able to comment directly from their own home page stream.

Many people are asking “why bother keeping both?” when it would seem logical to merge the two, give everyone the same functionality and save the confusion over which to choose. Facebook’s take is that Groups are for societies, causes and fan clubs, whereas Pages are expressly corporate.

It will be interesting to see how the Groups vs Pages debate evolves in light of these changes. Do let us know your thoughts on the subject.

Looking for a Social Media Agency? Ditto! So are we : )

C&M isn’t really a ‘Social Media Agency’ per se – we’re more of an Online PR Agency …which is to say that we do great PR and great Social SEO through the use of Social Media tools, platforms, channels, communities and so on.

Confused? Yes, it’s all a bit mangled isn’t it?

We figure this is to be expected in this brave new world of ‘Social Media’. So much noise, so many claims and – let’s be honest – so little substance. Our intention here is to share some learning with you. We’ve been around the block a few times with folks like IBM, Hackett and Expedia/Hotels.co.uk and we have Social scars and Social medals to prove it.

If you’re looking to hire a Social Media Agency, here’s some things to consider:

• DO NOT PANIC – DESPITE WHAT AN AVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY MAY SAY
• THERE IS NO NEW WITCHCRAFT (DON’T LISTEN TO AN AVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY!)
• THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR. GOT IT? YOU CAN RELAX NOW
• (…THERE ARE, HOWEVER, A BUNCH OF NEW TOOLS AND SKILLS TO GEN UP ON)

Meantime, to help you in your quest, here’s a bunch of thoughts and some free best practice ‘Social Media Agency’ white papers and ‘Social Media Agency’ resources to make your life a little easier…

For the record, we feel that:

1: Social isn’t media (there’s no such thing as a ‘Social Media Agency’)

(You can read why here…. It’s a blog post that talks A LOT about the dangers of getting fixated on the Social Media channel and not the message. An old one but a gold one – and a view we very much still stand by.)

2: Forget the labels: Social Media Agency / Online PR Agency / Wotnot

(Read why this idea is very important here…. It’s a post that talks about the relative importance – and limitations – of the labels that we all apply to ourselves. If you want yourself some Facebook, then read on. You might need a Social Media Agency. You might equally need an Online PR agency. But don’t get wigged out by the label – you probably just need some specialist help from people who have done good work in this domain before.)

3: Trad PR is dead meat (err, you may need a ‘Social Media Agency’)

(Read why this is the case here… It examines why, in the current economic climate, not many traditional PR agencies are taking the necessary steps to build skills, processes and services offerings to deliver great work in the Social / Online sphere – whereas your average specialist Social Media Agency / Onine PR Agency is …and so you’re probably better off working with them instead.)

4: Measurement rules. You need smart Social Media Agency thinking

(Read why here… It’s a post that describes why the search for a Holy Social Media Measurement Grail can be a dangerous diversion: it can become a veritable fire hose of data p0rn. What you need is an approach to measurement that’s driven by objectives – and this requires a different kind of Social Media Agency mindset.)

5: Social Media Agency ROI should be measured qualitatively

(Read why here… A post that looks at how you can establish Social Media Agency ROI in some essential – but very different – ways. Importantly, all this new-fangled Social Media-ness may just be helping you to buy your Corporate identity back. Forget outsourcing all those fancy Dan creative ideas and get on the content wagon yourself…)

6: Not Rocket Surgery. Run from the Social Media Agency that says it is

(Read how simple the principles are here… In it we describe that 99% of what we do revolves around good old fashioned content marketing. The difference is that we’re trying to help our clients to do (better) content with a small ‘c’, not a capital ‘C’… Oh, and it also talks about how we’re trying to wean them off of building new things. Because there’s more traffic acquisition headaches in them there microsites.)

Meantime, here’s some of our free best practice ‘Social Media Agency’ papers

We hope you enjoyed the rants. If you did, and if you’re in the mood for some DIY, then fill your boots. Here’s what a decent Social Media Agency does Mondays through Fridays…

C&M Guide to Social Media Agency Campaigns

C&M Shut Up Listen and Spin 5 Step Guide to Online PR and Social Media Agency Work

C&M Party Harder 5 Basic Theories of Online PR and Social Media Agency Work

…And here’s some free best practice ‘Social Media Agency’ resources

Still curious? Good – so you should be… We feel the following should be pretty helpful. It’s a collation of thoughts, guides, presentations and other curios from the darkest corners of the mind of a ‘Social Media Agency’.

C&M Social Media Agency Content Strategy Map

…And here’s some pretty sweet ‘Social Media Agency’ case studies

Still with us? Great. That means you’re probably wanting to know how this stuff comes together in practice. So here you go…

C&M IBM VFC Social Media Agency Campaign

C&M Case Study Online PR Agency

C&M Social Media Case Study Hotels.com

That’s all Folks

That’s it. Free-thing-fest and general rant over. Do tell us what you think…

And, if you’d like some help from a ‘Social Media Agency’ then please do get in touch….

I presented a few thoughts on PR, Social Media and Content to a bunch of folks from banks, retail and the public sector last week… and thought it might be a good idea to share the slides. It was an interesting session because the response from the room helped to refine some of our recent thinking and learnings here at C&M.

Much of what we’re doing is evolving, but quite a lot remains the same. As our name suggests we think that content is key. In fact 99% of what we do revolves around good old fashioned ideas of content marketing. The difference is that we’re trying to help our clients to do (better) content with a small ‘c’, not a capital ‘C.’

This may sound trivial but it’s not. We work hard to dissuade folks from building another microsite, and we like to encourage them to sit in front of a browser (and a bunch of Google tools) rather than in all day creative brainstorm sessions.

Fact is, Marketing (capital ‘M’) isn’t very comfortable with Social. This is because Social isn’t really Media at all. Twitter, Facebook & Co are just a set of tools that help people to quickly publish opinions, stories and interactions on a free (as in ‘free beer’) basis. They don’t lend themselves well to display advertising principles.

In other words, we spend lots of time helping folks to stop doing Marketing and start doing some talking.

Now this isn’t rocket science, but it does require a slightly different approach. We suggest firms get out of ‘Deliverables’ mode (capital ‘D’) and into story/conversation mode. In the process, like them to get happy with talking directly to customers/partners/prospects/etc. In fact this is a prerequisite (think Twitter).

This in itself is a different discipline to Marketing or Press Relations. It’s a communications effort… which may (or may not) be owned solely by marketing people. I won’t dive into marketing integration issues here, but it’s worth noting that as a day-to-day comms discipline, Social doesn’t really work as an exercise in approval processes, creative reviews and grandstand launches. Like a dog, it’s for life – not just Xmas. Besides, when was the last time a sales or support call required an upward approval cycle at your firm?

Here’s a nice (Ad Age) quote I found to illustrate the theme. It’s from Rick Web (great name : ) of The Barbarian Group: “Marketers need to abandon the time-limited campaign online and start to think of it as a constant application of a rigorous discipline. They should think of their marketing the same way that Facebook puts out a new feature every two weeks, tweaks it, changes it, and re-releases it…”

I’ll buy that. We need to stop polishing things and start getting into the trenches if this stuff is going to work properly.

A different (non-technical) analogy is the architect. Creativity isn’t solely based on the deliverable. What makes something fly or die has a lot to do with the environment (or space) that gets created. I think a lot of our work would be better if we forgot the gongs and started focusing more on how to facilitate our comms and content…. What tends to make stuff stick isn’t down to the ‘wow’ factor in the first instance. Values like ‘usefulness,’ ‘share-ability’ and ‘free-ness’ tend to be a lot more important. Foursquare’s a good example of this in practice. Not a game-changing creative idea – just something that integrates itself really well with the way we’re already using the web (Twitter meets iPhone meets Facebook).

Another observation is that we’re all totally sick of being sold Nescafe-like creative sagas. Microsoft’s Windows 7 party video is a classic in this respect – Social gone wrong (or radically right in terms of distribution, for all the wrong reasons).

And I love this recent story about ex-NYC ad guy Ji Lee. He wanted to talk back so he printed a bunch of speech bubbles and slapped them on the faces of display ads around the big apple. The results are brilliant.

The funny thing is that brands don’t need their display ads to be defaced if they want to communicate. They just need to rewire the way they approach their content and (unlike Microsoft) stop talking at people. Twitter’s already here. So is Facebook and all the rest. We don’t have to build new things if we don’t want to, and we don’t need to ham it up quite so much …We can choose to employ tools that already exist and use them to talk different. Got it?

Anyways, here’s the slides (PR, Social Media and Content Isn’t Media)

And here’s a neat little PDF we made on how to re-think a content strategy (PR, Social Media – Re-Wired).

C&M Social Media Content Strategy Map

Do tell me what you think….

Hot damn – excited to say we’re blessed with two very talented new people here at C&M. Welcome newbie Claire Eden and (nearly newbie) David Preece.

Both can be seen at HQ and other work-related locations sporting new-fangled interfaces for TweetBeep’ing, Twinfluenc’ing, Addictomaticas, Prog Rock and French disco. (Claire also wears Ugg Boots and David kind of does a near-beard.)

They are currently deploying themselves as white-hot, infra-red, Optimised-Social-Media-PR-Online-Missles deep behind client engagement lines. In their spare time they are also drinking beer and/or vodka lemonades at the Gardener’s Arms. Approach with caution/or an appetite for long chats about relative merits of Facebook Fan Pages.

YOU SHALL KNOW THEM BY THEIR TWEETS:

“I just hit my head on the door. More accurately, I opened the door into my head.”


“Headphones on – in my happy place listening to 90s pop.”

Welcome guys – great to have you on board : )

One of the things people always ask me when they are trying to get to grips with Twitter is “why should I care about a load of people spouting off about themselves online? I don’t see the point.” Naturally, I am swift to enlighten them as to its (now much more) conversational qualities and the possibilities for sharing useful, funny and sociable information and content.

Why Live Tweeting?

The increasing use of Twitter as a reporting tool connects it very much to the real world and is a brilliant way of bringing it to life for skeptics. The prolific tweeting of high profile happenings like Obama’s inauguration is switching more and more people on to Twitter as a means to keep up and interact with important events in real time.

Lately we’ve been helping some of our clients with some ‘live tweeting’ – capturing key moments at conferences, performances and the like, and bringing people together who may otherwise have only met across the ether.

A Twitter Debate

At Squiz’s ‘Future of Web Content Management’ event earlier in the summer, we used Twitter to stimulate debate and take questions for the panel, whilst also fielding technical queries about their own CMS, MySource Matrix. Even people who were not at the event participated, following the #CMSDebate hashtag we’d created (which incidentally ended up on the Twitter trending topics that day). It was a great example of how Twitter can reach beyond the virtual world and facilitate and enhance real life happenings.

The #CMSDebate on Hashtags.org

Beyond Flashmobs

Flashmobs and Twitter were always going to be natural allies, but in August we took this partnership one step further, helping London’s Southbank Centre at their Dancemob event – a mass synchronised dance routine in which the public were the performers. As well as using Twitter to rally the troops ahead of the day, it was also a fantastic way to capture the action as it unfolded.

Much like a sports commentator at the racetrack, we delivered a blow-by-blow account of the day’s events, complete with photos and videos (courtesy of services like Twitpic and 12Seconds). But unlike a sports commentator, detached from the public in his little box, we could also interact with participants and spectators using Twitter and see the action from their perspective.

 

Live tweeting Dancemob videos via 12Seconds.tv

Using Twitter creatively in this way can add an extra layer of interactivity and buzz to any event, whilst also having the added benefit of building followings in the process.

The C&M Live Tweeting Lowdown

Here are a few tips for anyone thinking of live-tweeting an event:

• Create and use an event hashtag (e.g. #CMSDebate / #Dancemob) to help people follow and contribute to a stream of event-related tweets
• Use other event material to promote Twitter participation on the day and beforehand (e.g. flyers, posters, screens)
• Only tweet notable or interesting moments, quotes etc.
• Always respond to questions or refer them to a fellow tweeter who can
• Re-tweet other people’s interesting or funny tweets
• Keep track of anyone who has participated in the hashtag conversation and follow them (if you’re not already) after the event
• Keep the conversation going afterwards and ask people for their feedback via Twitter

The same basic rules apply as with everyday responsible tweeting – be sociable, share content, respond and interact. Live tweeting is more than just being a scribe – you’re journalist, photographer, interviewer, PR and party host all rolled into one. You’re there to help other people be reporters too and to encourage them to connect with each other online and in the real world.

You’ll know you’ve cracked it when you can step back and enjoy that “my work here is done” feeling as you watch the event come to life on Twitter. Of course it helps if you have lined up a cold beer with which to toast your success – and I would heartily advocate the use of Twitter to engineer this.

Creating optimised ‘Social’ content to rank for key terms isn’t a new idea but the search results are becoming more eclectic.

With that fact in mind, I’d like to briefly run through which content types regularly appear and how to use this content to clamber through the sweaty throng of competing pages.

Firstly, here are some broad content principles that you should be focused on:

Keywords

…need to be selected, based on competitiveness, search volumes, and long-term trends.

Research

…the content themes and formats (eg, Videos, Blog posts, Tweets) that your target audience is most interested in.

Create

…good, interesting, valuable, sharable, content – and publish it freely where possible. Create something of unique value that can’t be found elsewhere.

Optimise

…this content. I’m not advocating a selfish SPAM approach, but why wouldn’t you want to give your content the best possible chance of being indexed, noted and linked to? Search Engines need to be given explicit cues (in titles, headers, links) – regardless of quality, content, and context.

Identify

…influential hubs and make sure that you promote your content within them (responsibly). The mantra of ‘build it and they will come’ won’t usually work.

Done That… What’s Next?

Here are the main forms of content you should be interested in. The key to a lot of content optimisation is getting search terms in a) The Page Title b) The URL, and c) including links to raise awareness, link equity, and the likelihood of others linking to you.

SEO Tip 1: Blog Posts

It’s also best practice to register your blog with Google and Technorati.

Why?: Good blog content can quickly appear on the front page.

Ideal when: Your blog is well-read, established, and has garnered some respect (from both users and Google).

Example: (Term = ‘Social SEO’, Results no 5/6 / PageRank 5)

SEO Tip 2: News Articles / Press Releases

Also, make sure you’re indexed by Google News and add selected keywords to your XML news sitemap if you’re using one.

As with blog posts, most CMSs can be used to add keywords to the most important places.

Why?: News articles rank (transiently) in most SERP sectors – increasingly at the pinnacle.

Ideal when: You’re regularly producing good, neutral, and newsworthy content and have the resources to continue to do so. Even better if your competitors aren’t using the same technique.

Example: (Term = ‘Hotels in London’, Result no 1)

SEO Tip 3: Facebook Pages

Why?: Social Profiles are becoming more prominent within the SERPs. Facebook pages are publically viewable and ranking with more frequency. Within pages, discussions and sub-sections can also infiltrate the results pages.

Ideal when: Your page has attracted high membership and you’re in a market that isn’t saturated with similiar pages. It’s also more auspicious for your page if your brand name is highly searched for.

Example: (Term = Hackett London, Result no 3 / 1,090 fans)

SEO Tip 4: Twitter Profiles

Don’t worry too much about links and the language used within them, they don’t pass any value or PageRank. However, I generally don’t shorten links unless I have to: user experience is improved if link text is explicit and descriptive.

Why?: Recent Google updates have led to Twitter profiles becoming far more prominent in the SERPs (although this trend has tailed off in recent weeks).

Ideal when: Your profile becomes established and linked to. Most profiles that rank are well established, highly followed, frequently updated, and continually on topic.

You’ll also stand a better chance of ranking with a valued brand name and a comfortable ‘social’ fit. eg, if you’re a known quantity in the Art or Tech sector, you’re likely to be followed in high volume.

Example: (Term = ‘Social SEO’, Result No 10 / 894 followers)

SEO Tip 5: YouTube Videos

It’s also best to include links back to your page in the video description and whenever possible.

As YouTube is effectively an independent search engine, make sure that tags are optimised so internal searches are returned in response to keywords.

Why?: Google owns YouTube and loyally places its video content within SERPs.

Ideal when: You’ve created a video that really is going to be viewed, rather than a thinly veiled corporate advertorial: most videos that rank are fairly popular.

Also helps if you’re in a relatively uncompetitive search sector and competiting against few similiar videos.

Example: (Term = ‘Social Media’, Results no 2 / 3 , 320,400 / 697,381 views)

SEO Tip 6: Images

Why?: Images regularly appear within the SERPs. Note, Google isn’t affiliated with one particular channel (like Flickr) and uses a slower bot (googlebot-image) to crawl images for inclusion within its image search index.

Ideal when: You’ve got a hefty selection of quality images to use on your site

Example: (Result no 1 for ‘Lesser Spotted Woodpecker’- the highest volume term on the teletext internet)

SEO Tip 7: PDFs / White Papers

Why?: Within niche, emerging, sectors, white papers and focused PDFs are vessels of valuable knowledge. Framing the paper by a key term also increases the chance of users linking using search terms as anchor text.

Ideal when: You’re in an emerging sector and have something interesting to say. As the sector grows, (early) established rankings can stick like muck.

Example: (Term = ‘Social Media Marketing’, Result No 7)

SEO Tip 8: Listings (Products/Jobs etc)

Why?: Product items feature heavily on the first page for specific search terms, and other items are Increasingly – but still sparingly – appearing.

Ideal when: You’ve got a steady flow of products to release onto the web that cover a wide range of long-tail search terms

Example: (Term = ‘Board Game’, Result 4)

There are a few other relevant content formats, but the principles remain the same.

Stick to the above and you’ll stand a good chance of ranking – even in more competitive sectors.

Adios.

How to Win Friends and Influence People With Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and the Blogosphere.

Here’s our simple four step plan for doing effective, results-driven Social Media and Online PR work…

Tell us what you think!

C&M Guide to Social Media Campaigns

We met with the good folks at Hackett London yesterday to discuss Social Media and Online PR plans for the coming months. Much of the conversation centred around creative ideas and the role of key people within the organisation in content production.

Thankfully, Hackett has always good content in spades and over the years has consistently invested in assets such as brilliant sponsorship, iconic front men and great, great advertising.

Think Hackett, think British – it’s like eggs and bacon.

As a customer, one of the things that sits well with me – aside from the quality of the product – is the story that’s been built around the brand. Take Jeremy Hackett’s book, ‘Mr Classic,’ for example.

If you want an insight into modern British tailoring and classic clothing then check it out – it’s a superb read. It was published a few years ago – before Social Media arrived – as a ‘best of’ compilation of his weekly column in the Independent on Sunday.

In it you’ll find little in the way of selling, but bags of tips, anecdotes, insights, humour and personality that provide a ringside view of the world of menswear, Mr Hackett and his company. I first read it before I had enough cash for a Hackett key ring. A few years on I’m wearing a Hackett shirt and jacket as I write (granted, both sale stock – but hey I’m getting there). In other words, I’m a customer now mainly because Jeremy Hackett took the time and effort to tell me a bunch of great stories about something I care about.

Our role with Hackett is to help them to deliver this story to the web using Social Media. I won’t dwell on what we’re doing here, but our work together is highlighting something rather important….

Outsourcing Your Communications

In the time between my reading his original weekly columns and buying the brand, corporate comms has changed a lot. Today we’re pondering abstract content ideas like Thought Leadership, Ghost Blogging (great post, btw – do read), Brand Advocacy and the like.

Brands have grown, directors and managers have gotten busier, agencies have been retained and the soul of it all has disappeared.

All of which is fine if you’re dealing with professionalised disciplines like Media Relations and Advertising because you, the brand, only need to dip into certain parts of the process on a part time basis. You can turn up for press briefings and video shoots, say your piece and let the system take care of the rest. Your agency support – by and large – takes the shape of an outsourced production effort and grand creative scheming…. rather than a series of day to day services. (Granted, there are exceptions to this – but only amongst mega-brands who have a multi-million pound, ‘buy the team’ attitude to communications.)

But this approach to content won’t work for Social Media…

The Return of Identity

The point of Social Media (and its value) is that it helps you to talk to people directly and build new kinds of relationships. The mass of supporting tools – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc – allow you to do this extremely quickly and cost effectively. No real production effort is required… and the basis for communication changes. We’re dealing mainly in conversations and stories now, not ‘events.’

This makes total outsourcing difficult. Because communication is frequent (think Twitter), it’s expensive to pay for your content on a day rate basis. Also, as a conversation – a set of tips, anecdotes, insights, humour and personality – it only really works when delivered from the inside, via the people on your front lines who generate the chat – marketing, support, sales, etc.

Getting back to my Hackett / Mr Classic example, Social Media can only really work when you make a serious commitment to a certain type of content …You need to start telling a series of stories again as part of your day to day life, and, in doing so, you need to take back the ownership of your brand and identity.

Social Media (ROI) Return on Investment

So here’s another spin on the great Social Media ROI debate….

Stop pretending to infuse leaders with someone else’s personality. Stop trying to distill fleeting thoughts into ghosted Think Pieces. Stop gambling on barnstorming creative virals and microsites.

Stop wasting money.

A Social Media strategy isn’t a ‘Media’ strategy at all. It’s a content and communications strategy. You are now the media and all these Social widgets are your tools – you blog, Tweet, post, chat, etc. From the get-go ‘being the media’ in this way can save you money and enhance the value of your brand if you rewire the way you communicate and produce your content.

Like Hackett, this requires a senior commitment to developing a content legacy. Important people need to start telling the story, rather than outsourcing it. Your leaders (and/or your front line) should be blogging – on a weekly basis ….they can also be capturing their slideware, documents, photography and general discussions in a way that’s fit for versioning on Social platforms. This costs next to nothing and is easy to do. When this happens, your stock of ideas builds – quickly – and you open up a mass of opportunity for engaging with new people in new networks.

You should also consider hiring specialists into an Online PR/Social Media/Digital Marketing role. These folks will take the content, shape it properly and give it legs in new domains – Facebook, Twitter, etc. This can also save you money. Ditch some of your agency retainer and reinvest it in staff.

Neither of these ideas are radical. When your firm was young it was driven in exactly the same way – through conviction, ideas, stories, chartware and conversations ….not Thought Leadership papers and a bunch of flacks.

Social Media is an opportunity to start over and bin the Corporate communications junk.

Social Media Agencies…?

This may sound a little odd coming from an agency, but it’s not.

The lessons of the past year tell me that our clients need to own much of what they communicate, and that this is healthy. It’s also essential if our work is to be a success. When Social stuff is out on its own on a wing on a prayer – as a tactical offshoot of something else – its impact is very limited and there’s a high risk of failure.

The role of the agency today needs to be as consultant, enabler, trainer, planner ….and as creator and executor of bigger content pieces. We’re helping CEO’s to Tweet, Marketing Directors to use a Flip camera, and Product Developers to blog. In the process we’re helping them to understand their market again in very anti-marketing ways. No key messages, just keywords – based on optimisation techniques and public data.

This is helping them to regain their voice and their identity and save money. And, as any decent brand consultant will tell you, this is the really valuable part.

(Non-Social SEO) Foreword

As I write this post, at least two essential global inter-species combat tournaments are taking place. On the one hand, Microsoft has declared war on Google with its new(ish) search engine, Bing.  On the other, in a field in the middle of Kent, a Fox is locked in an epic battle against three Azure Winged Magpies and a Chaffinch.

And who cares?  Well, we do.  We have a vested interest in SEO, and we’ve just stuck a fiver each way on the Chaffinch. (Bite those ears! Bite them off!)

Back to Business:  Google vs Microsoft’s Bing

The rivalry between Google and Bing is now even more pertinent due to Microsoft’s recent alliance with Yahoo. A move which has also led to a plethora of bad portmanteaus – like Microhoo*

Nonetheless, If the Bing/Yahoo team does manage to wrestle more power from Google, then the algorithmic and presentation differences need to be analysed and understood. I’m starting here, through the nepotistic medium of C&M search queries.

Notes from the field…

Search Term 1: Online PR Agency

First things first: in Bing we’re first (and third) for the query and in Google we’re a shoddy second. And, In Bing our results generally seem higher, but our social content ranks lower.

Bing’s meta descriptions are neater than Google’s due to a less savage use of the guillotine. The handy pop-up meta description on the right hand side, with additional info, is useful.

A final quirk to observe: when I tried the query at an earlier date I was presented with a weird (but fleeting) local result at the top of the Bing SERP, concerning an Online PR agency from the hedonistic paradise of Preston.

The presence of this result implies that Bing’s either confused – interpreting the PR query text as a postcode – and/or approaching search from a more local angle and returning results to a wider range of queries. Local SERPs for local people.

Search Term 2: Social Media Agency

The key observation this time is in the way that Bing seems to be (non-) handling, and (non-) indexing, social content. Within the Google SERPs we rank for very recent posts and content, but in Bing, our results are older. The Bing result below is from January 2009.

Another historical observation: a few days ago I was presented with a Bing result referring to a blog post, but framed by the URL and title of the broader blog page – which is unusual, since SERPs usually just return the meta title of resulting page.

A final observation: Google’s content is also ‘richer’ – there seems to be a dearth of video, image, and news results in the Bing SERPs. However, this could be due to a lack of uptake for Bing’s ‘enigmatic’ listing services.

This, alongside the less prominent blog posts in the Bing SERPs implies that Bing is a) less social (it cares less for social content and profiles) and b) placing more filters on social content within it’s SERPs (it cares less for optimised social content).

Search Term 3: Social SEO

First shard of insight. It looks like Bing is less focused on exact keyword term matches – with four exact matches for this search phrase on the first page (within URLs and page titles), compared to Google’s nine.

The second thing to note is that Bing has less of a tendency to group results together from the same site. With Google, it’s common to see one or two pages smashed together, like this:

Bing has potential plus points here: if two results are grinning together like The Chuckle Brothers, then users are less likely to click through on both and, from a usability perspective, not using this technique will provide searchers with a more diverse selection of results (it becomes possible to render a more varied set of results on a single page).

Illustrating the increased importance of social content – and the need for SEO to embrace Social approaches, is the ninth result on Google (now 11th). It’s interesting to note that the ‘twitterer’ in question is an influential twittizen with over 1,000 followers, and a low following/follower ratio.

This content is transient, and won’t stick around on the first page for too long – however, it does show that Google is paying more and more attention to relevant social content and Social Media in general.

Meantime, Bing’s results are  – once again – far less rich and socially inclined that Google’s.

Once again, we rank higher in the Bing SERP: second as opposed to number six in Google.

Conclusions: The Bing vs Google Smackdown

This is a work in progress: Google is constantly evolving and Bing is still developing. These nuances could evaporate as new ones appear. There are already a few historical observations in this post.

It’s going to be interesting looking at the differences in the two engine’s differing approaches over time, and a full analysis of the importance of backlinks will be even more iluminating.

More soon…

*I like Yahmsoft. Or Yaft. Both could be successfully adopted by industry leading butter brands.

Free is good, right? Useful is even better…

Here’s a roundup of some of our recent white papers, think pieces and case studies …all in a highly desirable, super sharable, PDF format.

Dig in and tell us what you think….

C&M Social Media Content Strategy Map

C&M Quick Start Content Optimization SEO Guide

C&M Social Media Case Study Hotels.com

C&M Case Study Online PR Agency

Meantime, our full archive of Online PR Agency papers and downloads is available here via Scribd. (We love Scribd.)

Fact: the Interweb is huge.

A quick Google search for “Twitter Tools” gives 83 MILLION results.

We’re constantly looking at new tools, so that you don’t have to…

So here’s a few essential Twitter gizmos for you, along with a spot of explanatory text for each.

Do tell us if they’re useful!

Kasabian are the new Oasis, with a psychedelic twist. A board of organic crumpets, olives, with a selection of cured hams, is the new all day breakfast. According to an audacious poster campaign – dreamt up by mentalists – Chichester is the new Copenhagen. Patrick Swayze and Richard Gere are the same person. This is unarguable and final.

But is ‘Social SEO’ – connecting ‘Social Media’ approaches and SEO thinking – the new approach to doing SEO?

How, and why, should Social channels be used? Where are the similarities, cross-overs, and (brace) synergies between SEO and Social Media?

Here are 10 thoughts on the matter…

Social SEO #1: Social recommendations = the new backlinks?

Looking into a future that (disappointingly) looks nothing like Blade Runner but a lot like Brazil,  it’s likely that Google’s algorithm is going to place more importance on Social recommendations and pointers. Backlinks have held the power for a long time – and will continue to do so – but there’s an array of Social information available and practices such as URL shortening have mangled the language of the web. Google’s already placing more importance on sentiment related content – particularly reviews – and these cues are being assimilated to create a more Social approach to ranking pages.

Social SEO #2:  Brand updates = more need for Social SEO?

Google’s recent algorithm update has placed more emphasis on brand value in order to filter out the rivers of SPAM that burst from the levees of competitive SERPS. Although this update has only had a noticeable effect on a few competitive sectors, it does mean that SERPs are becoming more reliant on intangible ‘brand’ attributes when ranking pages.  How can these brand-dams be built? By being socially active and conversational on the web.

Social SEO #3:  Useful content (publicised through Online PR) = backlinks

Engaging content encourages backlinks: but consider the caveat that ‘build it and they will come’ won’t work. If your content is talked about by, and know to, influential Social hubs then backlinks will stream in like british-sunbathers-to-a-half-sunshine-sky. Crispy.

Social SEO #4:  Online PR and Social Media activity + good content optimisation = good backlinks

Aye. Further to the last point, if you use the language of search to frame your content and – crucially – get keywords into your URLs, then you’ll increase the likelihood of others using your key terms when linking to you. URLs are frequently used as anchor text (I’m briskly sidestepping URL shortening issues).

Social SEO #5: Content curation – a new affiliate channel?

Useful content shouldn’t be static or ephemeral. It should be gathered together and curated to expand its lifespan. Facebook, Netvibes, Ning, et al, all allow this to be easily achieved and when the container spaces can be optimised, a nicer, kinder, affiliate page is born.

Social SEO #6: Offline Marketing (and memorability) = SEO?

Just like the pre-Altamont 60s, all strands of content can exist in in peace, love, and harmony. Online and offline don’t have to be inimical and memorable TV adverts and catchphrases are still effective. Take my favourite shoulder-melting, appendix-assaulting, soft drink Red Bull: I like their sketchy adverts and their memorable catchphrase ‘Red Bull gives you wings’. ‘Offline’ content can quickly spread Online (when it’s good) and will be frequently viewed, searched for, and linked to. So, is it a step too far to SEO your offline communications in preparation for Online crossover using influential Social channels? Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s no penalty for framing your content in this way from the start.

Social SEO #7: (Social) semantic data is the new meta data

This deserves a post of its own – but the Web is changing and, in the (indefinite) future, we’ll be given much more than just meta descriptions and page titles in our SERPs. We’ll be presented with reviews, profiles, and all sorts of related content in response to keyword searches from dystopian devices. Being Social may be the future equivalent of writing a good (and more persuasive) meta description: those that add semantic data to their pages will have the advantage over their search competitors. Interesting developments on this score include the ‘common tag’ and Google’s recent support for rich snippets.

Social SEO #8: Good user experience – the new no-follow plugging?

This isn’t strictly a Social point, but there’s been a lot of wailing about Google’s recent announcement that nofollow links don’t actually conserve PageRank flow for ‘follow’ links on the same pages. This is a complicated issue. However, there is a solution: provide a logical, user-centric structure to your web site and make sure your most important content has single pages. Clarity, brevity, succinctness: these rules are good for users and for PageRank flow.

Social SEO #9: Well optimised content is the new… well optimised page

Simple one this – not at all new – but still important. Google (increasingly) likes placing all breeds and species of content – web pages, blog posts, video, images, etc – in its ‘standard’ SERPs. Content should be submitted to relevant search engines, talked about on as many Social channels as possible (eg YouTube, Flickr, etc) and Google’s probably-soon-to-be-more-important content database – Google Base.

Social SEO #10: Local and Social is the new Long Tail

With reference to semantic data, local and niche search results are becoming more important, widespread, and relevant. For instance, Instead of just search + location, Google is beginning to list local results for less strict searches such as ‘search near x landmark’ and this trend could continue to permeate its SERPs for anything that could be interpreted as regional. This trend could place some emphasis on building a brand with a strong regional (and therefore Socially-grounded) association, using Social channels and recommendations. Interestingly, Google also seems to be using user recommendations and reviews when returning local search results.

Conclusion: SEO has to be Social

‘Social Media’ and SEO approaches need to work together. They are two distinct entities but compliment each other like Yin and Yang, Superego and ID, Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus from Milli Vanilli, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. Take one away and the other’s less effective. I’m just thinking through the connections – any other ideas about where they lie?

P.S. I’m leaving out a review of Google Wave here as it’s a whole new post and this one’s already longer than it should be….!

We’re mighty proud to say that we’re now Hackett’s Social Media and SEO agency of record.

Over the coming months we’ll be helping the home of Essential British Menswear to break new ground in Social Media and to optimise its presence on the web.

Our brief is to enable the brand to engage with a new generation of customers on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and to drive new online sales and bolster its position in Search.

Our work to date has seen the launch of a new Social Networking strategy and the re-optimisation of key areas of Hackett’s site. Both are already bearing fruit.

Watch this space: Hackett’s new menswear/kidswear Autumn/Winter season launches very soon and we’re building a stock of great Social Media strategies and Online PR campaigns that will open new doors for fans of quality, unique and distinctive, menswear and kids’ clothing.

Our Social Media Goal?

Like the clothes, we want the brand to develop Social Media assets and consumer relationships that “wear in, not out.”

Content & Motion is a totally hot new Online PR Agency.

We’re based in East Sussex, UK.

We really need a shiny, dynamic, junior Online PR consultant type – someone who:

• Takes Twitter to bed
• Loves LinkedIn
• Maintains a rip-roaring blog
• Gets turned on by Google Analytics
• Writes a great headline (and sub-head, and body)
• Knows how to distribute, agitate, and generally get stuff into people’s faces online
• Understands the basic mechanics of SEO, web development, social media, and the rest
• Can successfully convey groovy web ideas to skeptical clients
• Argues about this stuff at the pub on a Friday
• ….and inspires maximum love and adoration in clients and colleagues alike

If this is you – and if you’re up for getting in at ground level with one of the hottest properties since the toaster – then drop us a line using the form below…

We’re based in Lewes, East Sussex – 10 minutes from Brighton and one of the finest places to eat, drink and be merry on the planet. (Boy, life is good here!) We work with a bunch of great clients and agencies, helping one and all to win new friends and influence people.

You’ll be working directly with MD Roger Warner as part of his team. He’s a nice guy who promises to help you get everything you want and more out of a digitally enhanced working life.

Did we mention the wonga? £18k, depending on experience/aptitude.

We’d guess you’ll have some good experience in doing the kind of things mentioned above. We’d assume you’re also extremely ambitious and are up for growing your role quickly within a real pocket rocket of a new-fangled web marketing firm. You may have a degree, but frankly it’s not that important to us. We only really care that you’re a really smart cookie.

See this page here for further information about our Online PR agency…

Apply NOW!

If you’ve read this far then we’d love to hear from you. If you’ve read this far then we’d love to hear from you. Just use the handy form below…

So, we set our designer to work and told him to go make all of our best case studies and best practice papers more interesting through the magic of desktop publishing software and a dash of inspiration. And here’s what he came up with…!

This one’s all about our Social Media Agency work with IBM & Text100…

C&M and Text100 work together as the Online brains behind IBM Software Group’s Social Media action. Recently, we’ve been helping IBM to showcase all of the development smarts behind the Virtual Forbidden City. Here’s how we got on…

C&M IBM VFC Social Media Agency Campaign

This one’s shows you how to execute a smart Online PR and Social Media Campaign…

Confused about all this Social Media Agency witchcraft? Well, help is at hand. Taking the pretentious out of PR, this paper demystifies all this hip digital marketing stuff and show you how we execute a basic Online PR campaign – in under 10 pages!

C&M Shut Up Listen and Spin 5 Step Guide to Online PR and Social Media Agency Work

…And this one shows you how to be more successful by being more ‘Social’…

In order to engage with your audiences online, you need to shape your words, messages and tactics around their agendas, not yours. In other words, your Online PR efforts need to be a whole lot more social than they have been up until now. Here’s how to do it properly…

C&M Party Harder 5 Basic Theories of Online PR and Social Media Agency Work

Enjoy! And do tell us what you think of them…