CheezeDMG Blog

It will help, that is what the BBC and a host of social new sites are saying but I’m not sure I agree with it.

The 2010 UK General Election will be known as the first time political parties will use social media as a significant part of their overall campaign strategy – and it makes sense, after all social media is all about communicating your opinions to the world.

I personally wonder though if it will be as big an impact as everyone is making out. Today Facebook has millions of users worldwide, and most of them thanks to Smartphone’s and WIFI are on it constantly. The novelty of it has worn off, it’s just another tool now like mobile phones or the internet rather than the funky or fashionable new thing.

So a party will have a Facebook and a Twitter page, so what? Brands and celebrities have been doing it for years now – and they have the advantage of their content being interesting and relevant to their fans. Politics won’t have that advantage, to the usual teen facebooker politics is still politics regardless of the shiny new 2.0 cover.

Another big problem I can see are parties alienating the more traditional voter, who prefers debates on the telly or an actual representative to come visit your door and talk about their policies face to face, rather than seeing a generic ‘vote for us’ video on YouTube.

I’m not saying I don’t agree with it, if fact I would like it to work for them – but they’ve never done it before on this scale and things can go badly wrong if they’re not careful. A party using social must avoid just plastering their pages with worthless generic information copied from publications or stats reports and communicate simply and personally with a view to discuss, encouraging interaction and feedback.

Unlike RSPCA and now Nestle, they’ll have to make sure that any negative feedback is handled correctly with relevant comments and ‘agree to disagree’ language. If they start deleting negative feedback and fans the news will spread thick and fast, and hundreds of comments appearing on your page criticising your actions will certainly affect the votes.

Personally on reflection no matter how much they utilise social, I wouldn’t expect it to revolutionise elections or politics now or in the future – considering how much social has now ingrained on our lives I think the parties felt they needed to use it, rather than choosing to use it.

With the Yahoo Microsoft Alliance being recently approved by the EU, it will be hitting our screens at the beginning of 2011, so what effect will it have on SEM, can it compete with Google?

Talking to UTalkMarketing.com, Tim Cook Group Acct Director, CheezeDMG, has warned that the new Yahoo Microsoft alliance could actually slow down advancements in technology within the search marketing space, as search engine competition within the marketplace is reduced.

“Digital marketers could find Search Engine service levels decline,” he added. “Microsoft has agreed that Yahoo will service premium level customers. This is ironic as Microsoft sees its level of service to clients as one of its strengths over Google and Yahoo.

“Google will feel less threatened in terms of service now that Microsoft is no longer servicing their own traffic, but marketers will need to make sure they have technology in place to separate the results they get from Yahoo and Bing to optimise their campaigns effectively.”

To read the rest of the article, header over to UTalkMarketing.com

Christmas 2009 saw a change to the usual, predictable nature of the pop charts. Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ managed to beat the X-Factor competition to claim this year’s Christmas No1 spot in the charts thanks to 975,000 fans of a Facebook group.

Most would say it was a victory against commercial dominance within the pop charts. But I supported this for another reason, it was for this reason I bought a copy myself.

I think this event is a testament to the power that social websites can have when a group of inspired people combine for a common aim and actually follow it through, as far as I know this is the first time a basic Facebook group managed to do something this extraordinary – we see groups for every cause and ideal there is but let’s be honest, all that happens is that they get left to gather dust, and eventually forgotten.

But this group has managed to get mentions and stories from every mainstream news channel. It has used its influence to change pop history with the first track every to get to No1 on downloads alone as well as raise nearly £95,000 for charity. You got to wonder how on earth how the group’s creator, Jon Morter, did it. The idea itself was great as it is a hotly contested point of view but you need more than that to gain a real following. And I think we can learn a few things by his example.

From my experiences with the group, Jon and his fellow administrators on the page did very well in the most important (and often forgotten) part of social media – interaction – by frequently updating the members with news and viewpoints and encouraging them to spread the word and give their own opinions. When the critical period of asking supporters to download the track arrived they supplied news on what download sources to use, Jon contacted the chart authority itself for advice on the danger of overbuying and commented to fans accordingly. And they updated fans constantly on copies sold.

They never ignored critical, insulting or pro X-Factor comments either, they would reply and disagree without being immature or insulting. They made a point of reminding people not to insult or spam rival pages or points of view.

The mass media coverage of the group has been great, with every mainstream channel at least mentioning it. In this respect even the critical stories that painted the group in a negative manner didn’t harm it – if fact I believe that it did the opposite. The band themselves even supported the UK rock masses in its efforts, to the degree that they promised to donate their earnings to charity as well as celebrate the victory with a free concert sometime in 2010 (fingers crossed).

So there you go, by keeping people interested and involved you can spread the word on any point of view as long as you keep at it. Already there is another similar campaign underway, this time to get the Sex Pistols ‘God Save The Queen’ to number one in time for Her Majesty’s birthday – if they receive similar success she may get a birthday to remember too.

The world of social media is in constant evolution and there are no hard fast rules on how to interact with users. Whilst most companies learn by trial and error, a few have learned the hard way that responding to a social media PR crisis can prove very difficult in a world which holds freedom of expression as its underlying concept.

Information published on fan pages or via Twitter can be replicated instantly and there is no end to the amount of users who can be reached using the ever expanding social networking platforms available.  So what do you do when something goes wrong? How do you react when a crisis snowballs? First of all it’s useful to look at a recent crisis affecting a pet charity which illustrates how it can all go wrong very quickly.

After a story broke in the media on the treatment of some animals in the charity’s care, their Facebook fan page was literally high jacked by outraged fans criticising the charity’s actions. Moderators responded by deleting many of the negative comments and banning their authors from the page, whilst limiting the charity’s response to a cold, official statement issued from its press office. The situation quickly escalated, with users protesting about censorship and a petition being created online, as well as many users withdrawing their financial support.

So how could this situation have been avoided? First off - respond quickly. After leaving the site without a moderator during the bank holiday weekend, comments multiplied, with no staff on hand to react to the blast. Having a presence on social media requires considerable time to be invested - social networking sites can’t be left unsupervised. Constant monitoring will ensure no situation escalates to such a level.

Secondly, deleting comments makes users feel censored and the damage to your organisation could be measurable. So should negative posts be removed? As a rule, no. A polite answer, a subtle apology for any distress caused and a link to your organisation’s complaint department will usually diffuse the situation and ensure fans have the option to take things further should they wish to. However, in exceptional situations where the language used or comments made are unacceptable, posts can be removed.

Thirdly, don’t just delete comments. If this proves necessary due to the nature of the post, you should issue a short statement explaining why it has been removed. Contacting the user personally also ensures they are aware of your guidelines and are given the chance to express themselves should they still wish to, without inappropriate language.

Finally, personalisation is also a major part of a successful response. A web link to an official statement issued by company is insufficient. Distressed or disillusioned users should be acknowledged on a personal level and a customised answer provided. In any case, a sincere apology for the inconvenience cause will usually warm users.  Whilst having a presence on any social media platform might be daunting, the clear advantage is the self-policing aspect of the community.

Social media allows users to express their personal affiliations to a particular brand, company, product or person. Fans, followers and digital users opt-in to follow your world. It is a way for them to interact with their favourite brands and find a community which shares their taste. As long as your response has been transparent and well-handled, negative comments will soon be drowned with responses from your loyal fans. So ride the storm, monitor your online world and respond as you would like to be responded to.

eConsultancy recently posted a three part article on the “Vince” or “Brand” natural search update, concluding that human intervention was behind the changes. Although I do not rule out the possibility of Google manually meddling with the search results, I do not agree with this particular prognosis. The effects were just too widespread. In particular they had a dramatic impact upon the commercial search verticals.

The Increasing Role of Advertising in Natural Search

eConsultancy’s analysis did include a comparison of “brand” metrics, but it omitted the greatest unifying factor of the websites benefiting from the update, marketing spend. Although online advertising has previously held an indirect bearing upon rankings because of its effect upon traffic and brand searches, it now appears to be a direct factor in the equation.

Is Google now feeding Adwords data straight into the natural search algorithm?

My own experiences of the last few months certainly suggest so. Since the update I have witnessed several sudden jumps in rankings accompanying sharp increases in online advertising, particularly hikes in Adwords spend. Of course investing in paid search does not guarantee high natural rankings, but in highly competitive markets such as finance, it might be enough to be the differentiator.

Why would Google do this?

The move creates a double boon for Adwords investment. It rewards Google’s biggest spending customers with an increase in both natural and paid search traffic. At the same time it promotes new investment by companies that invest relatively small budgets in paid search as well as those who have suffered drops in rankings looking to regain market share.

Conclusion

There have long been rumours of a secret link between SEO and PPC optimisation, but it appears that there is now sufficient evidence to prove a connection. Are we are now in a situation where PPC and SEO algorithms have converged? With this update and the recent changes to paid search, such as the inclusion of deep links in PPC listings, the lines between paid and natural search in Google appear to be increasingly blurred.