By Adrian Goodsell, The Wall, 30th January 2012

Looking for a huge numbers of fans? Can’t wait a second longer? Then read on, this blog post is for you…

1. Buy your fans
This is definitely the easiest way to guarantee a following fast; decide how many ‘fans’ you want then simply go to any dodgy-looking site (probably via a Facebook ad) take your wallet out (remember to stick your head in the sand) et voila, success! But wait a second; by definition once you directly pay for a relationship what does that relationship become? What does it really mean? There’s a very obvious analogy here, one that doesn’t involve any love at all…

  [Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, 27th January 2012

What is influence? It’s a massive question in the world of social media. Thousands of man hours are being pumped into companies who are trying to solve the problem in the hope that one day, you’ll be able to search a category and an application will spit out exactly the 5 top influencers you need to be communicating with to push your product.
I’m in the lucky position whereby I could be classed as an ‘influencer’ in a field (not social, sadly!), so I can quickly decipher which tools work and which don’t. I’ve tried blog ranking systems, I’ve had a go on Klout and I’ve used bespoke services. The commonality between all of them? [Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, 26th January 2012

Social media has clunked its way through many evolutions over the years. The past four has seen the digital world settle into a social rhythm. Facebook being the daddy of them all, Twitter is the cooler, younger kid on the block, and LinkedIn taking the lead as the place to hang out to talk serious stuff. The commonality with all of those platforms is they are essentially for everyone. The barriers to entry are extremely low. Most tech savvy people will generally have those three, even if they’re not active in all three (I bet everyone who reads this has all three).

[Read more →]

By Gareth Owen, Search Engine Watch, 18 January 2012

One area that search engines have made a number of significant advancements in recent years is in how they evaluate content on a website. So what does a perfectly optimised page look like in 2012? Let’s look at 10 elements.

[Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, January 13th 2012 

Facebook insights. Dear oh dear. I’ve got to come out and say it – I’ve found their new and “improved” suite of analytics entirely perplexing, lacking in usefulness and extremely complex to explain, aggregate and apply to the real world.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in the industry who has been using the old Insights page to report back successes to clients. I’ve been living in hope that they’ll never switch it off , but the time has come – the old insights page is still an option, but it’s not recording new data. I haven’t felt this down since I said goodbye to my Bebo account…

What are my gripes about the new Insights page and why do they matter? [Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, 11 January 2012

In the world of B2B, there is no doubt that LinkedIn is king. It’s a fantastic place to cultivate contacts, develop new ones, show off your business knowledge in a brash self-indulgent way and potentially win new business leads. It’s also been a pretty clever way of searching for jobs and it’s a  great way for a multitude of recruitment consultants to access your details and contact you for a ‘chat’.

Things were fine with LinkedIn and business. Employees went on there and pushed their personal brand by imparting their wisdom, this in turn benefited companies because those employees were acting as brand ambassadors which could help generate leads. Everyone was a winner.

[Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, 6 December 2011

I was recently asked about the effects of social media and public outrage. Specifically, the question was around Jeremy Clarkson and his ‘oh so controversial’ comments on the BEEB last week. You know, the comments that were definitely nothing to do with shifting copies of a Christmas DVD.

Anyway, let’s paint the picture of how the average outrage works in social media.

[Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, 2 November, 2011

Manchester United have struck a deal with Sapient Nitro to become their global digital agency and as part of that deal, word has it they’re going to create a social media platform that will allow the club to engage directly with their online fan base of nearly 660million.

[Read more →]

By Peter Wood

Facebook has always been about driving engagement, the problem they’ve had over the past few years is that their mechanism for engagement hasn’t gone much further than the inflexible ‘Like’ button, a share, or, if you’re lucky, a comment or two. This was great while it lasted, but it did open brands pages up for social media black hat techniques. We’ve seen a well-known socially irrelevant brand up their likes by 5,000 in the space of a week and take unprecedented engagement from people, that if you investigate, either work for their PR agency, or are praising the price of a product they’re ineligible to purchase. 

All very naughty and not in the spirit of organic brand growth.

[Read more →]

Leon Wong, Paid Search Strategist, Steak

We know what you’re thinking: How can I spend more time on social networks?  Surely that question was buzzing around the Googleplex this year, as the internet monolith prepped for its fourth foray into social networking. The result was something – regardless of Google+ success – that will forever up the bar in social networking tools (a la Circles, Hangouts and Sparks) – and more importantly, monetize social data.

With more than 10 million users in its first two weeks, and  more than 20 million in its first three, Google+ may accumulate over 3 percent of Facebook’s 750 million users in its first month by the end of July. Sure, one month is a blip when testing massive roll outs like a social network, but it’s a sign that – after many tries – Google may finally have its star in social.

As search marketers, we often need to figure out consumer’s intentions (don’t ask us about the guy on the corner though).  Now we’re taking our lens to Google’s to determine its intentions with its social arm, its implications on the public – and of course, on search.

Here to shed light on Google+ is Steak’s paid search strategist Leon Wong. With three years of search marketing experience with Fortune 500 clients, Wong shares his thoughts after touring what could reinvent online sharing, if not social networking altogether.

Google...plus you.

What’s in a Name?

As confusing as Google Plus sounds, the idea is quite simple. The search giant’s latest effort to integrate social media with search may be the next big thing – or perhaps, a revisit. Google Buzz, the predecessor of Google Plus, launched in February only to halt over complaints of security concerns and information leaks.  Since then, the buzz around Google’s social media was crickets – until now.

The new and improved social media integration will attempt to dazzle you with a bunch of features, such as the Circles, Instant Upload, Hangout, Huddle and Sparks.  At launch date, this buzz made me want to play in the sandbox with the rest of the exclusive invitees. Now, that elusive “invite” is more common than Lindsay Lohan mug shots.  Google+ is stretching its legs.

Let’s face it: Google has hundreds of millions of users, the vast majority of whom trust the company. Some may believe if they can’t find something on Google, it probably doesn’t exist.  It’s a wonder, though, how the search king with over $30 billion in annual revenue and 28,000 employees worldwide found itself chasing the coattails of Facebook.

But here we are. Google knows that it must fill the void of marrying people with data: something that if they don’t fill, someone else will — and win the Web, admitted Google insiders.

People love Gmail; they love YouTube; they love search. And now with Circles, Google has fixed something that Facebook unwittingly failed to do. Instead of mashing all your contacts into a single feed, you can now organize your contacts into a hierarchy.  It allows you to “follow” people, not necessarily request them (like Twitter meets the anti-Facebook), so anyone can be in your circles — family, friends, coworkers, hobby groups, even celebrities. You can create a circle of those you don’t know, but want to follow.

The buzz is there, the ‘wow’ factor is there. But the next big question is why now?

Google Plus Features: Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Sparks, Huddle

Data=Dollars

Up till now Google has been an algorithmic company. But they have come to realize – after many failures – that consumer behavior is inherently irrational and can not be anticipated through pure metrics.  At its core this is a data play in that Google wants to understand consumers’ behavior in the here and now, but it also may answer how to monetize social.

If Google can marry its massive search data with its equally massive display data alongside topics that you and your friends like – nicely self-organized by interest – Google can learn your interests based on what your friends have (or want to have), and start presenting hyper- targeted ads against that.

For example, Google knows that I have searched for fly fishing equipment, have viewed fly fishing videos on YouTube, and clicked on display ads related to fly fishing.  That’s the old Google.

The new Google now knows that I have a group of friends that I “circled” as Fly Fishing Buddies.  They saw a “spark” related to fly fishing, and they can now mine my posts about fly fishing.  They can now serve me relevant ads across the web (through their display network and beyond) that are related to fly fishing, providing me specific brands that my friends already purchased, or specific locations where I’ve expressed a desire to fish, etc.

Google has the advertising inventory that Facebook doesn’t have.  Google also has years’ worth of prior search and display data that the recent Facebook-Microsoft Bing alliance doesn’t have.  If Google can convince people that aggregating all this data is not a privacy problem, it could deliver something special.  This is search targeting + contextual targeting + audience targeting + social network targeting.  Viola, instant monetization of social!

Show Them the (Ad) Money

Google+ Sparks, a personal-interest stream feature

Well, I’m sure all the advertisers are curious as to how Google+ will impact search, particularly paid search. While taking the tour, I couldn’t help but notice the Sparks feature. Initially, I thought it was a place for people to meet. However after a few clicks through, I soon realized that it’s actually a search bar, which allows you to look up items of your interest. Google’s algorithm will automatically sort and group articles that it predicts your likes into a drop down menu, and allow you to bookmark your interests.

Having the ability to create a personal space where you could indulge at leisure is very attractive. The bottom line is if there is a place to implement sponsored ads, I will not be surprised to see a few banner or text ads around that area.

The ad value is amplified when you start sharing your articles and bookmarked searches with a specific person, circle, group of circles or the general public that you might find the articles intriguing as well.  Though I can hear the news organizations grumbling already…

More Toys

What about Hangouts, Instant Upload or Huddle?  If these features look familiar, they should: they’re derived from other platforms or social media sites like Facebook. Hangouts will let you virtually hangout with up to 10 contacts via Skype-like video chat, while Instant Upload allows you to upload pictures from your mobile phone “instantly” (duh!). Huddle is just simply a group chat with your friends (well, hello again, AOL chat rooms!).

All of this translates into one goal: to gather social behavior data. By building an integrated platform for you to manage your friends and interactions, Google can now collect information about you and how people interact with you. This type of data can only be harvested from an integrated social media platform – thus Google Plus!

World Domination?

Google+ Circles, a group contact organizer

So the development of Google Plus is not just another one of Google’s plans to take over the world, but rather to own another piece of real estate in the social media space. Creating another channel to collect data and serve relevant ads to a particular group or individual is more logical and the right path for it start breathing down Facebook’s neck, especially considering the cozy partnership Facebook has with Bing. (See Steak’s opinion on the Facebook-Bing partnership, 5/17/11)

After all, paid search is still Google’s bread and butter. It helps the search giant make more than $33 billion dollars in revenue per year. Features such as Circles, Hangout, and Sparks are just few examples of how Google plans to garner user data in this space. Whether Google is trying to steal the social media crown or just simply create a new channel to collect information, I know my Steak comrades and I will be dissecting its every move.  I sure am glad I found that dang invite.