Nice! Ive been published in Computer Weekly ! the only downer is that 350 words just does not do the subject justice, so I thought I’d a little more to it.
My main assertion is that in the UK, the Microsoft/Yahoo deal probably won’t matter all that much…Ive speculated that were looking at 18 month before any real action.
On the PPC side, I’m fortunate to work with a really clever PPC guy (Kemley Sellars) and last week we had been discussing how this will affect him.
His view is that Microsoft have lifted their game as far as making it easier for PPC managers to upload accounts and manage them. Its now almost a simple porting across and if you ask nicely … they will even build the account for you. Of course you could say its desperation but then I prefer to thing it’s helpfulness.
But share is declining and traffic talks. So its a small side show until something bigger rolls in.
On SEO it’s a case of a spammed and an Algo that just is not as mature as Google’s (this tool will give you some idea: http://www.blackdog.ie/google-bing/ ) And with the Yahoo deal an arms race has escalated with the prospect of a commercially viable amount of traffic in the US (about 21% market share on BingHoo) to go and spam to get ranked and thus make revenue from.? And yes spamming is cold hard big money making.
So of course Bing is going to have to up its game, but can it? Remember there is a stream of patents churning from the big Tec companies and Google is a major source of patentable technology (Bill Slawski’s SEO by the sea have a ton of stuff on Google Patents) So for every innovation that gets nailed by a patent is obviously a technology competitor won’t get to use unless they pay a massive price.
My feeling is that Microsoft will not be able to catch Google on search software. Same on Hardware to power this massive infrastructure – Google is genius ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_platform and if they can run a server for 30% less than anyone else, that means more servers and lower running costs.
More servers means >? more computational resource for their data infrastructure >? for the right money > and that means a more sophisticated algo, to get you better search results.
And then there is a sense of mission and shared identity within Google and Microsoft. I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of Googlers and Microsoft people and whilst they are all very nice, the Googlers stand out as having a real shared sense of mission. Theirs is “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Everys single one of them I had met seemed to have this enshrined in their makeup as a mission. Microsoft? I don’t know what it is. Do you? Try a search and see of you can find anything here
So weaker technology, probably less effective hardware and a lack of a clear virtuous mission spells a road to failure.
The BIG thing was community. WordPress has tons of it.
WordPress makes it easier to publish online. This in combination with Google means more useful opinion and information can be found more easily . This free flow of information makes the world a more open place. And that hopefully means more knowledge, truth and so power to the citizen. I know its lofty thinking, but when you hear Matt Mullenweg speak, his vision and everyone’s combined commitment will help the flow of knowledge. Yes WordPress is more than some php code.
This gives you an idea of how he thinks:
“Matt Mullenweg, founder and lead developer of the WordPress publishing platform, explains how the open source philosophy and “Golden Rule” apply not only to technology — but to such fields as politics, economics and environment. Recorded at Wordcamp Montreal 2009 by Christian Aubry. Licence: Creative Commons BY-SA.”
The Event There were about 140 people at wordcampuk. Of those I would say 50% were developers, 35% semi technical / marketing and the rest a mixed bag of site owners and the curious.
Wordcamp UK
I did 2 sessions, one on SEO and wordpress (see below) and another session: Web Doctors fix it session, where a bunch of us went through a group of sites including:
Having been to a number of big conferences, the ones that cost about ?1200 for 3 days… I thought wordcamp was way beyond anything ive been to in terms of:
- community togetherness
- sharing of knowledge
- networking – enlightenment (yes big big word, but relevant here)
I felt privileged being in the company of so many bright people who understood the true nature of the Internet and its capacity for change. In conclusion I reckon I’ve learnt some more about the spirit of the people who drive the Internet. As a marketing person, this is invaluable.
Kudos to everyone actually, since we all made this work.? But how about a few names…
Yes, I know there is a massive recession underway – so who on earth is hiring !?, but randomly I’ve been peripherally involved in helping a friend hire a new staffer to handle a social media role.
The main idea is to become a part of a community and from within, promote certain services. A problem is how to filter applicants, so you get it right 1st time. My experience is that its not qualifications, it’s time spent online, the innate nature of the person and their ability to ‘socialise’ very well online in a structured way.
Also for marketing,? since social media is about influence not buzz, its critical to find candidates who are natural influencers.
So I wrote this email to help out:
Questions you should ask
- Have you got a blog? or do you guest blog or write on any site? yes? whats the URL?
This shows that they like to give their opinions and share them online. It also shows they have some initiative, since it takes effort to set? up and run a blog. the popularity of their work obviously shows they can make themselves prominent online and that they like being at the centre of attention.
- Have you ever done any affiliate marketing i.e. got your own affiliate site?
If you don’t know what affiliate is see here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing.
Its not that likely they have done any, but if they have thats great. it shows genuine initiative and commercial awareness, which is important since ultimately they are an extension of your sales function. Its not terribly important whether its been a big success, just that they learnt from this and can apply their knowledge to the business.
- Do you understand SEO?
Trick question, since very few people do…and its a great opportunity for people to dig themselves into a hole.
If they do understand the principles, it will help your online marketing by another 30% or more.
People who do know it will talk about sites they have done and search rankings they have achieved. The more commercial and commonly used the phrase and the higher ranking the better.? So ‘car insurance’ is better than ‘under 18 car insurance kent’.
For a 101 guide to seo see here: http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-1-page
- Do you hang out on forums? which ones? and how long have you been there? and how many posts have you done on these forums?
More is more…so more time spent, more forums and more posts? is all good. This shows the person can embed themselves within communities and become trusted. Building trust is core to all this social stuff.
- How many friends do you have on facebook? what groups are you a member of?
On facebook over 120 friends is good – 600 is very good and above is really working the system. This just show how much of an online socializer the person is. Lots of friends means they can build contacts easily.
- How many connections do you have on linkedin?
Same as facebook.
- Do you use twitter?
If they have over 600 followers then good, but great if the person has fewer following than followers. i.e. more follow this persons updates, then he or she follows. If they bang on about how awesome twitter is, then bad, since there is not a great deal of utility for marketing in twitter (yes it’s true!).
- What other social networking communities are you a member of?
In SEO there is sphinn which I do some stuff with. Do they hang out on any specialised communities and if they do, how prominent are they? more is more here.
- What is your ‘handle’
People usually have a handle like anddroid or whatever when hanging out on the forums. Type it into google and see how many times the handle comes up. If 1000′s of times then good.
I’ve been looking at ‘web 2.0′ sites and ideas surrounding how they can possibly make any money. This interesting project has loads of nice ideas and in late July some of these are going to get built!
Nearly all of these ideas are based around exchanges, but as ever with this kind of thing its going to be critical mass that gets them off the ground.
So I reckon the basis of a great web 2.0 marketing architecture is:
- Site is of use to a niche group of the web searching public. You have to start niche since there is too much competition for anything mass market.
- Get mass decentralised participation (wiki’s) so it self generates. More is more whe you think about the long tail and the easy by which you can find stuff on teh most obscure subject.
- Organise your site so engines can get in and comprehensively index.? Search engines typically account for about 50-60% of a well built site’s free traffic and they are critical to the word of mouth effect on the internet.
- Make the content very ‘linkable’ so the engines and ‘connectors/mavens’ (bloggers etc) give these sites authority. Linkable is another word for socially acceptable on the internet. The more social standing you have, the more prominence you will gain.
- Make sure the meme behind the idea is very strong. If you can put it into 6 words, great! The simpler, the more useful, the greater chance it has of spreading
- Build the site so its in the self interest of the user to pass it on.? The clever thing hotmail, gmail, various IM’s, user reviews on Amazon, facebook apps, facebook, linkedin, any social network site has, is more people is more for me.
- Low barrier to participation, high barrier to exit. So its easy to get started with and hard to leave. Think web hosting, email accounts, photo upload sites facebook. In fact anything where you get a ton ov value, where you invest a lot of time, where its reall hassle to move on.
Then you have a good chance of reaching critical mass and thus making the site worthy of taking revenue as a middleman. Obviously people don’t readily pay for information, but if the site offers enough utility, then there is a space for charging:
- To advertise if the exposure is great enough, but craigslist shows us that there are only certain things that are chargable (cars, jobs, property) I think the caveat is that people will pay if they are sure they will get? a sale, otherwise they just go where the risk is lowest i.e. a free site
- To pay for the utility a site offers, like flickr pro. The catch is that you really have to offer something exceptional.
- If your informaiton can make individuals a profit, then its also chargable. Webmasterworld.com / expertsexchange? /ft.com / wallstjournal.
- When you reach critical mass and you are the only real choice…you can charge, but only enough to make users not go somewhere else / or where you stifle usage and so kill off the critical mass.
Since ad revenues have tanked and probably will continue to do so for a long time (or ever), there is no point in depending on ad revenue for income. Besides, until ads are really relevant, they just fall into the old school disruptive model of marketing. And thats really not web 2.0???
The article on BingHoo is here : Opinion: Will the Microsoft Yahoo deal change your online marketing?
… they will even build the account for you. Of course you could say its desperation but then I prefer to thing it’s helpfulness.
