Digital Media Blogger

Dear Al,

Thanks for your short but eloquent mail this morning (‘You won’t get away with this. I will win!’).  A very brave ambition stated, but given our relative positions on the leaderboard can I ask ‘Where are you now Al Roberts, where are you now?’ Actually it seems that you are at Island Crest – still Mayor of the building and all surrounding amenities. As you sit by the clubhouse with water gently lapping the poolside you must be proud of all you survey. I too am proud of my Mayoral reign of the Nike basketball store at the end of Swatow Street and of Southorn Playground by exit B of the Wan Chai MTR. My proudest Mayoral achievement of course is my ongoing role as Mayor of MEC Hong Kong and it would take you at least a fortnight of checking in to knock me off my spot.

I’ve had an interesting time Al since we friended in Wagyu Lounge over brunch twelve days ago, but if I knew then what I know now indeed I might have rejected your request! Who knew you could be so competitive and my word what a point’s race it’s been. I’ve visited venues and places that I would never have thought possible prior to friending you. Who would have thought that I would have experienced all that I did in less than two weeks! Thank you Al. Thank you Foursquare.

I found religion in the Methodist Church off Johnston road and in the prayer room at Chep Lok airport.  In London I visited the historic landmark that is Battersea Power station and Buckingham Palace (in deference to improving Anglo-Irish relations of Course).I became mayor of the village where I grew up in Ireland.  I discovered a new love of sport and exercise checking in at the ice skating rink at Citi Plaza, visiting Happy Valley race course, golfing at the Jockey Club, Hiking on the HK trails, swimming in Victoria Park and working out in Fitness First. Of course, I should also mention my session as Oasis Dance Centre in Wan Chai and my martial Arts work out at Arena Thai and Kick Boxing.

My love for food of course helped me spurt past you Al and who knew that such a massive variety of ethnic specialties would have travelled my digestive tract; from Himalaya at 8.30 this morning, Asian, Chinese, French, Thai and Japanese cuisine in such a short space of time. I was the first of my friends to check into the fast food category and was rewarded with a full nine points as the first of my friends to visit Mcdonalds. Although I only had a BigMac and fries it was indeed a Happy Meal indeed.

But the time has come Al Roberts that I need to end our Foursquare jostle. Although you I appreciate your ambitions and eagerness to continue, it’s time for me to disengage. With over a hundred points difference you face a stiff task in catching up and were I to choose to continue with our Foursquare-off, I think we all know who the winner would be.  I now officially step down and hand the reigns of OCD check-in activity to you. I am happy to say you won if it makes it easier for you to accept my resignation but I think we all suspect that winning on Foursquare might be a misnomer.

Warm Regards,

Seán de Cuirtéis

Google have a habit of springing product launches and product innovations without much fanfare (Google Android 2.2 update in May of last year, Self Driving Cars in October) and the same happened with Google Instant back in September.

Touted by Google as ‘Search before you type’, the insight behind the engine’s revision is that people want to have the most likely search result displayed before they finish typing their full query. I’ve been using Google instant for the last couple of months and I’m a fan. It took me a bit of time to get used to the full search results appearing before I finished typing; almost like somebody interrupting before I’ve finished speaking. Rude. Although not as instant in my forgiveness as Google are with their results, I’ve not only accepted this impoliteness I now prefer the experience.

Using Google instant I have noticed typing less - (one worries that a lack of typing will lead to fat fingers). The main advantage of Google Instant, according to the company, is time saved. Google cite time savings of between 2 and 5 seconds per search inquiry which combined, works out to be 11 hours saved every second. Not only are they saving hours, days weeks, months, years and lifetimes…combine this with the launch of Yahoo! Direct and they very well might make a break in the Space—time continuum.

As mentioned above Yahoo! Direct has now launched and if indeed, imitation is the greatest form of flattery, Google should be blushing. I wouldn’t exactly call Yahoo! Direct an exact copy but certainly a variation on a theme.

In addition to quicker results and less typing one thing that Google Instant and Yahoo Direct have in common is censorship. Neither will display search results for certain words.  Upon Launch Google decided to manage the user experience on some specific keywords and for example, if one types the word ‘ass’ (followed by a space) Google Instant becomes tongue tied and displays a blank results page. Donkey lovers beware, Google Instant does not appreciate asses of any kind in the query box. Yahoo! Direct on the other hand is flexible on donkey related keywords and seems to have less blocking even on somewhat more risqué terms. If you’re interested to see what Google deems unworthy of an instant response you can check out a Google user blacklist here  but be warned, there are some rather choice keywords included in this list. There doesn’t seem to be a similar blacklist available for Yahoo at the moment.

Of course advertisers are interested in how this new search experience impacts their marketing. Having talked with some search experts their advice was as follows…

Paid Search

-     Look at extending the length of keyword phrases and focus on long tail queries.

-     Be careful when using CTR as a benchmark. Search engines credit an appearance in instant results as an impression and so with more impressions and the same number of clicks, CTR could drop.

Search Engine Optimisation

-     With results appearing automatically against fewer, un-typed keywords it is as important as ever to focus on core, highly relevant search terms and their optimisation.

-     SEO strategies should allow experimentation with page titles and snippets of keywords. The way that people are searching will change with the appearance of Instant results which will in turn impact on keywords that sites use. The ways users search will see a move from single keyword to phrase based strings of keywords.

Although the impact of Instant search on advertising results hasn’t been fully realised, it is safe to say that users search experience has changed (if only slightly) and a broader gradual shift is happening in search. These revisions benefit the user experience and maintain relevance.  I’m a fan of instant and think well done Google on the innovation and congrats to Yahoo for copying. Having attended a Google conference in HK earlier this week I think we can also look forward to additional developments around personalization, voice and the mobile search experiences over the coming months.

Sean de Cuirteis

sean.decuirteis@mecglobal.com

Social Media and CRM

As is the case with everything, some advertisers and industries are simply better at CRM activity than others.  However, these market leaders could be losing their edge if they haven’t been focused on the changing media and consumption patterns of their customers – especially when it comes to the use of social media. A CRM strategy is no longer about customer retention and sales. CRM is now about engaging with customers over multiple touch points in a relative way. Effective CRM uses dialogue to reinforce brand positioning and encourage loyalty while building long term customer value.

Any channel that allows for customer dialogue needs to be understood as part of an overall CRM engagement strategy. Potential CRM touch-points now include applications, social media spaces, micro-blogging, equivalent mobile channels and even standard banner media (through cookie retargeting). No more is CRM about bulk emails with last minute sales and special offers.  Social media offers brands an opportunity to converse with their customers, gather feedback and build an ongoing dialogue with both existing customers as well as potential customers. An especially effective example of this is the much lauded Old Spice Campaign. Not only did this advertiser harness social media as an effective awareness channel, they encouraged users to interact with the brand. Old spice answered questions asked and subsequently posted response on a variety of social media and emerging digital platforms including Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

Advertisers need also to think about CRM activity in the context of an integrated marketing and communications strategy. With media evolution and the opportunities for dialogue presented by digital, CRM practitioners, advertisers and agencies need to make sure the marketing communications path (including creative and media) are in sync. For example, if a brand has already connected or engaged with a consumer on a brand website or through email etc, ads reaching these users should recognise this. Tracking and retargeting technologies are core to this process as advertisers build expertise around integrated CRM activity. 

In many ways the effectiveness of the Old Spice can be attributed to a creative idea, we also need to appreciate the implementation behind this campaign. Harnessing and coordinating production multiple digital touch-points takes a lot of hard work and resource. If advertisers want to extend CRM activity to social touch-points they need to have the resource in place to effectively manage these communications. They will also need the right kind of talent to manage these communications.

Cheers,

Sean

Sean.decuirteis@mecglobal.com

I blogged about Google and China in January of this year. This was before Google shut down their mainland China search offering. I speculated that Google and China would sit down, iron out their differences and figure out how Google could work in this market despite their objections to mainland’s security hacking and censorship practices. Oh how wrong I was and on March 22^nd of this year Google effectively pulled their Chinese search presence. All mainland traffic was redirected to Google Hong Kong’s uncensored search engine. Of course, a redirect to Hong Kong isn’t quite the same as pulling out of the market, but nevertheless, it certainly sent a strong message to the government in China.

We can be sure that the decision to pull mainland searches wasn’t taken lightly by Google. Foregoing search revenue from the world’s single largest internet population has a bottom line impact. Principals are well and good but a luxury where revenue and shareholders are concerned.

The situation remained static between March and June with all mainland traffic heading South to Hong Kong. Last week however, Google’s business license was up for renewal in China and things changed. Shortly before the license renewal date, Google ceased redirecting their China search traffic to the uncensored Google Hong Kong site. Ultimately this was a small, albeit significant concession on the part of Google, sending a message to the Chinese Government saying that Google still want to do business in their market. Had Goggle continued to redirect search queries to Hong Kong, they would have been in danger of losing their business license and presence in China. Google HK search access is still available in China but now users need to specifically type in the Google Hong Kong url directly into their browser to access these results.

It’s not a stretch to speculate that Google share holders are pleased to have a business license in China even if they have stopped providing search services. Google have a diverse product portfolio to offer China and so will want to be in a position to build revenue from existing and future products.

Of course, an interesting thing to note in all this is that even if Google were to have provided uncensored search results in China, the ‘Great Firewall of China’ would  have blocked access to the sites listed in Google results. Regardless of Google’s censorship stance, ultimate access was always going to be managed by the Chinese government.

Cheers,

Sean

Sean.decuirteis@mecglobal.com

And with the news that China will see a massive 14.4% increase in digital advertising spend, you can be sure that agencies and clients in China and elsewhere are focused on filling talent gaps in their staffing. When talking to people across the region, digital staffing is a question that comes up time and time again. In regards to digital talent agencies are under resourced, not able to find talent in the market, talent is too expensive, candidates are too young and the list goes on. Finding digital staff is tough.

I recently interviewed a digital candidate and she caught me off guard in that about a quarter way through the interview I suddenly felt that was the one being interviewed. This candidate had a few years of digital experience and made it quite clear from the get go that she was shopping for the agency that would fit her needs and match her ambition rather than the other way around. It is now a candidate’s market and agencies are no longer able to pick and choose – it’s the other way around.

I’d love to have a solution to this, but finding talented staff in a growth area is always going to be a problem. There are a couple of things that should be kept in mind when looking at digital hires.

1: Be sure about what you need: a generalist or a specialist? “Digital’’ is too broad a label to put on specific skill sets. We already see agencies splitting digital specialists into social, analytics, search, mobile, CRM and Creative to name a few. Digital generalists are great to have in selling ideas and talking to clients, but specialists will actually do the work. What do you need to service clients and win new business?

2: Grow your own. Let’s face it – there aren’t enough experienced digital people available. However, Digital Natives are on the increase. While digital natives ‘get’ digital they don’t necessarily ‘get’ the bigger picture and agencies need to remember that they cannot put too much pressure on these new recruits. Digital natives, with the right training and support can evolve into the full package.

3. Retrofit your existing staff. I have long been of the conviction that the best digital staff are those that have ‘evolved’ from traditional media channels. These people understand the bigger picture and have a more holistic understanding of media, communication and client servicing. If you do have a limited pool of strong digital talent disseminating basic digital skills across all staff allows your specialist to focus on the areas that you need them most .

4. Don’t recruit out of desperation. It’s disheartening to interview and not find a candidate. Desperation means that you settle for a candidate that you otherwise might not have hired. Of course, every new recruit is a gamble but some bets are safer than others.

5: Retention. Keep you digital staff. Retention is easier than replacement in digital. You shouldn’t be held over a barrel by your digital staff but you should work at having a strong, productive and mutually beneficial relationship with staff. This doesn’t mean that you pay them more money or give into their every whim. The basics of talent management still apply to digital staff and a making sure your company fits other needs will instill loyalty.

Cheers,

Seán

Sean.decuirteis@mecglobal.com

You’ve finally managed to get your search engine management strategy sorted. You’ve figured out your objectives. You’ve worked out how much you want to spend. You’re comfortable with your performance benchmarks and know how you’re going to optimise your account. After months of figuring it all out, you breathe a sigh of contented accomplishment and head down to the pub. Over a couple of beers you tell your friends about how happy you are with your search engine management strategy – until one them asks;  ‘but what about your natural listings?’. Your cheeks turn red while you stutter and mumble in what is has suddenly become a socially embarrassing occasion or ‘SEO’ as it is known in the industry. 

 As most of us know there is probably nothing more embarrassing than being caught off guard by your friends on your Search Engine Optimisation strategy (which, interestingly, is also abbreviated to SEO). It’s downright embarrassing and so to help you avoid these situations, I’ve touched on some of the more basic areas within the dark arts of SEO below.  Before you jump to the more exciting parts of this blog however, you need to be aware that I am in no way, shape or form an SEO expert and at best, I can bluff my way through a basic conversation on this topic and this blog can be considered as a bluffers guide to SEO if you will. You can see where the SEO results appear on a search engine below…

So why even bother with SEO? Aside from making great pub conversation, SEO can be a cost effective way to drive traffic to your site. Not only will SEO help drive traffic to your site, but it can do so without the same direct cost per click charges that you get on search engine management activity (SEM). Numerous studies show that people tend to click on the top result listings in a results page and SEO helps advertisers drive traffic, awareness, interactions and sales by pushing their brand to appear in the top listed results.

So what exactly is SEO then? Effectively, SEO is the practice of making a site accessible to search engines thereby increases the chance of a given site being found by the search engine when performing a search on behalf of an internet user. Search Engines ‘crawl’ the web to find pages to display in its search results. SEO helps search engines find relative sites to include in the result listings.

Some of the main areas that you should be concerned with when making top-line SEO pub conversation include…

Keywords – These are the life blood of SEO. People search for specific words and you need to have these terms optimized to get ranked by search engines and drive traffic to your site. The trick with finding the right keywords to optimize is that you need to know what words people are searching for. Brand words and obvious keywords aside, an SEO specialist or webmaster will use keyword research tools to understand which terms to work with for your SEO product.  Google Keyword tool is a popular place to source the right keywords. The latest version of this tool is in Beta here. Another obvious place to source your keywords is from your SEM activity and a combined SEO/SEM approach should ensure that your site ranks on both paid for and natural search listings 

Information Architecture – broadly speaking this is to do with you site and content structure. Search Engine spiders are logical insects and they like a well structured site. The information and content structure of a site should allow a search engines to easily index a given site or page. The best time to implement best practice SEO is while a site is being built when search engine friendly architecture can be embedded in the foundation of the site build.

On-page SEO – A page should give information about your company and what it does –  with this, you should be as straight forward as possible. Pages with genuine content that are optimized correctly should drive traffic. Onpage SEO is very important for key pages of a given site (e.g. the home page or start of a purchase/transaction path).  Make sure your name and your page have a relative title tag. You can modify your title tag to keywords that describe what you do. The key to this is to be relative because relative keywords around high volume search terms can generate higher volumes of traffic to your pages. In addition to title tags, meta keywords (the keywords used to describe a page) are also an important area to work on

Off Page SEO – It’s always the popular kids that do well isn’t it?  The more people like them the more attention they seem to get. The same is true in off page SEO. Other sites linking back to your site make your site appear more legitimate to the beady eye of the search engine spider. The more links you have the more popular you seem to the search engine and the more relative you are considered. Having content to share (press releases, articles, videos, etc) and allowing other websites to link to this content makes search engine spiders perceive your site as popular. A reciprocal linking agreement between sites makes for a ‘win win’ situation. Most SEO specialists will recommend a link building program as part of any SEO Project.

 As I said earlier I’m not an SEO expert but I know enough to know that you can’t afford to ignore SEO. I know too that SEO isn’t a once off project or something that you leave unchecked. Unfortunately the way that search engines index sites is constantly changing and this means the optimisation you do on your site needs to change too. Left unchecked, a once successfully optimized site will lose traffic to competitors and decrease in ranking relevance. Regular position and competitive analysis and reporting are key to measuring your SEO performance. Consistent tweaking and updating of you SEO to improve performance will ensure a site stays ahead of the curve and give you lots of material to regale your friends with over pints down the pub.

Cheers,

Seán de Cuirtéis

Some advertisers are indeed missing links. Hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands of them and of course I’m talking about digital media tracking. Levels of tracking in Asia are still pretty low and comparatively speaking we’re well behind other regions. According to a friend who works with a global tracking company, local advertisers in Asia have been slow to start tracking digital media performance. International advertisers on the other hand have been leveraging global best practice and are leading the practice of tracking in Asia.

While I might complain about the relative lack of digital media tracking and accountability in Asia, I can’t pretend that advertisers aren’t moving in the right direction. Slowly but surely, more and more advertisers are implementing some level of tracking against their media activity, whether it’s basic web analytic solutions or full 3rd party tracking. When talking about tracking with advertisers, I sometimes see a grinding reluctance from advertisers to get involved in tracking their digital activity. The usual reason for an advertiser to reject the idea of tracking is cost. Tracking is incorrectly seen as an additional cost above and beyond media and creative investment. This is not how tracking costs should be perceived.

Adserving digital media activity provides the backbone to bench-mark digital media performance. With tracking implemented, advertisers can understand which site, banner, creative, search term, placement, etc. works best in achieving their goals. Performance assessment allows for optimization and this enables streamlined and more effective media planning and buying. Tracking costs represent an investment in media optimisation. Any advertiser tracking digital media performance should be able to do a cost benefit analysis against optimized cost per response (or customer value) compared to tracking costs.

Increasing digital budgets and an increased number of competitors operating within the digital space means that advertisers in Asia need to start tracking. While it is an agency’s responsibility to educate their clients about tracking, it’s also time for advertisers to start figuring this out for themselves. Digital Media Tracking enables cost saving and performance improvement. There are hundreds of documents and presentations available online that explain what tracking is all about and how it works. There is little excuse for advertisers spending money on digital to remain in the dark.

Cheers,

Sean

This week Google launched Google Buzz The idea behind Buzz, according to their official blog, is Google believe…

”…that organizing the social information on the web — finding relevance in the noise — has become a large-scale challenge, one that Google’s experience in organizing information can help solve. We’ve recently launched innovations like real-time search and Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step with the introduction of a new product, Google Buzz.

Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.

Effectively Buzz represents Google moving into the social media space with the logic that using their ‘experience in organizing information’ will make for a better social media experience. Google have built Buzz right into Gmail so it means that if you have a Gmail account you can now also have a Google Buzz account. When I first logged into Buzz however and before I had time to look at the product I found that I already had people ‘following’ me. You have to be kidding me?  When did I agree to have people follow me? Other people obviously had the same issues and yesterday morning Google announced that they had changed some of the privacy settings.

Privacy concerns aside, within the system I’ve been toggling between my mail and the Buzz feature and I’m still waiting to see what benefits it will bring me. So far there doesn’t seem to be as much going on and indeed the first buzz message I saw on Buzz was from my friend Alan saying ‘This is about as busy as Google Wave’. I would have to agree. The success of Buzz will depend on people actively using the platform and I feel that most people aren’t necessarily looking for a new social media platform – even one that promises to make life easier.

To give some credit to Google however, Buzz is an open platform and allows feeds from Twitter, Flicker, Picassa, Youtube, Google reader and a host of other sources. This enables personalised aggregation and this is where I think Google Buzz has potential. I use multiple different accounts and platforms and it might be nice to have a central place to look at updates or information that I would like to share with additional friends external to whatever other platforms I use. This remains only a might and will ultimately depend on the level of traction Buzz achieves and so far I’ve not seen much of anything on Buzz. I’ll keep an eye on Buzz for now and look to coffee for my buzz experience of choice.

Kung hei fat choi
Sean

Paid-for content has been discussed as long as there have been websites. Rupert Murdoch announced last August that News Corp would start charging for content over the coming months. “Quality journalism is not cheap… The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”

He followed up in November to announce that Newscorp would also de-index their sites from Google and discourage less valuable, single article clickers from visiting.  By and large the media responded by questioning Murdoch’s understanding of how the Internet works and how people behave online. We can expect to hear more about his plans in the next few months, but, in the meantime, do you really think that you will pay for online content?

With the Wall Street Journal as one of their stronger titles, News Corp has been able to successfully charge users to access content. But even with the Wall Street Journal, there are areas within the site that are still free to access. The homepage, autos, travel, life and style do not have a payment barrier. Additionally, there are always a few headline stories that are available for the non-paying crowd. With a large supply of high-end advertisers willing to pay for premium inventory, constructing a bigger pay wall could reduce income by allowing access to only paid subscribers.

In my opinion there are only certain types of information that internet users will pay for. Breaking news is not one of them.  News is news. With the recent earthquake in Haiti you didn’t need to pay for site access to find out what was happening. Multiple sources offline and online were available and why would you pay for something you can get free elsewhere? Big news will find its way to every corner of the net regardless. Paid-for news can be easily copied and pasted to free areas and there is very little News Corp or other publishers can do about this. People are not going to pay for online content if they can get it somewhere else for free. Content that people might pay for includes opinions, analysis and insights. These are the areas that I feel News Corp should focus on if they follow through with their payment plans.

An interesting pay for site that carries no advertising is http://www.stratfor.com/. This site focuses on ‘unique insights into political, economic, and military developments’. It is a very niche site focused on a niche audience and is a perfect example of a company focusing on specific content that people will pay for. In this situation, it deserves a pay wall.

On the other side of the coin you have sites like The Sun with news of Vernon Kay and ‘sexting’ in it’s headlines.  This kind of news, exclusive or not will still find its way onto the web either through competitors or user generated pages, all of which will still appear on Google.

Content is king but not all content is worth paying for. Perhaps News Corp would be better to look at alternative ways of generating digital income and figuring out specific areas of thier site where a paid for model makes sense.

Sean

Me! And you. And anybody who tweets, facebooks, youtubes or uses any other form of user generated content. However, for this blog, when I talk about ownership I mean it in the context of who an advertiser should talk with when they want to move into the social media space;  creative agency or media agency?

As a media head, I’d love to be able to state emphatically that media agencies are the best places to bring clients into the social media space, but unfortunately this isn’t necessarily the case. Much of today’s social media activity has been pushed though by creative agencies. This makes sense in that successful social media is often attributed to the application of whatever needs to be generated. Assuming there is a compelling enough basis for interaction, the campaign should look after itself. Couple this with the fact that, for now – there are usually minimal amounts of paid for media involved. Essentially, you have campaigns where there are creative elements and few media elements. Media agencies are therefore not seen as an integral part of the process.

Creative agencies, to an extent have staked a claim in the social media space. As a result there is a flurry of activity within media agencies in a rush to develop the necessary skills that will allow them to grab the social media territory. This makes total sense and increasingly clients are sending through digital briefs that require a full service offering. Digital agencies are up against both traditional creative agencies and start-up full service digital agencies (not to mention those gosh-darn-it public relations agencies and stand alone social media agencies) when pitching for social media projects.

Where I think media agencies have an advantage over creative agencies is that that they can support a social media campaign through bought media. Media agencies buy media more effectively than creative agencies. Media agencies also have the experience needed to track activity and measure the digital performance. Looking to the future as more and more clients push into social media, there will inevitably be additional media support required to drive traffic through to their social media effort. Not all campaigns are going to be as good as ‘Best job in the world’ or the Cadbury Gorilla campaign, but, increasingly, media support will be used to prop up social media efforts.

I would be foolish to dismiss the future of creative agencies in relation to social media as they already have a lot of experience in this space. Additionally, behind every successful social media campaign lies a good idea. Creative agencies are well versed in idea generation whereas I feel far more adept in the process of generating and realizing successful campaigns, social and otherwise. Media agencies lack this experience and while they compensate by attracting creative staff, it will take time to match creative agencies’ move from PC to Macs.

Ultimately both media agencies and creative agencies are likely to be pitted against each other in winning social media projects. The creative and media agencies that succeed in this are the ones that prove themselves to be communication agents with strong strategies, insights and ideas. It’s very much a case of watch this space but agencies that can build up their social media capabilities over the next 12 months will benefit greatly from the increasing serge of social media and have a valid excuse to spend even more time on facebook during work hours.

Sean