Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Facebook turns web upside down, watch out Google, watch out privacy

The world wide web used to be simple: you had websites and you had Google indexing them. Based on the ‘Google formula’ they would rank in a way Google thought was best, and we’d agree. Ok, this might be a little bit exaggerated, but its the essence of how we work with Google. Yesterday at the Facebook f8 conference however things changed.

Google is one of the biggest players, if not the biggest player out there. There have been many over the past decade who have tried to compete with the search giant and none of them really succeeded. Bing probably made the most impact, but only because it won a few percentages of market share in the search area. But now Facebook has stepped in. And they make a very good chance of ‘beating’ Google when it comes to web dominance.

Facebook announced several new features with the new Open Graph API, the social plugins and the Open Graph protocol as biggest changes. These elements are supposed to change the way we look at the web. Using this API Facebook will try to integrate websites and applications with your social network. This will mean different ‘points’ on the web you use are connected using your social circle. As Zuckerberg said: people are connecting the web, not links. (more…)

Is Twitter @Anywhere Bad News For SEOs?

There was a huge amount of anticipation for Ev from Twitter’s Keynote at SXSWi, and though it didn’t quite reach Apple levels of frenzy, it did upset a few people when the announcement didn’t reach expectation. The Chirp development conference promised similar levels of hype.

Rather than the much-anticipated Twitter ad platform, they announced @anywhere. Most of the web sighed and said a collective “So What?”, but I think this has a much bigger impact than most SEOs would have initially realised. (more…)

Brand SEO: Tips for building equity off-site

We’ve all heard how important it is to “own your page one” and “lock out your brand SERP” and suchlike. I am a big believer in brand SEO myself, as from my perspective the plus-sides are not just limited to the ability to dominate a few pages of Google for a search on your brand name. Numerous additional benefits can be had, from the SEO benefits of citation/link matrix – to the traditional marketing benefits of brand and message ownership; most are pretty simple to achieve… (more…)

Social Gaming – The Next Web Economy

An interview with Oliver Lo, Senior Marketing Manager, XPD Media/Vojo World – creators of Medical Mayhem, Vice Central and Pixie Pets.

Oliver is Senior Marketing Manager at Vojo World. In that role he oversees brand positioning, viral marketing and monetization strategy for their social gaming products. Previous to that Oliver worked in advertising in London where he worked on brand campaigns for clients such as Ikea, Lloyds TSB and Virgin.

I recently met Oliver after seeing him on a panel at Social Media World Forum in London a few weeks ago. I was struck by how passionately he spoke about the phenomenal growth in this sector; plus the opportunities for brand marketing that such micro-finance models have opened up. When I saw him in the bar at the post-show networking event, I just had to bag an interview!profile oliver 150x150 Social Gaming The Next Web Economy (more…)

Social networking it’s just a matter of connecting the dots

Today we welcome Jeroen van Eck as a blogger on State of Search. Read his bio here, and enjoy his posts! Welcome Jeroen!

Everyone wants a slice of the social pie. While the classic social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter keep developing by adding new functionality, other companies are trying to create their own social networks. But building a valuable social network takes an enormous amount of time, or does it? Building a social network could be as simple as connecting the dots, all you need is a lot of dots.

The value of a social network is in the amount of users and the amount of usage. So all you need is a large group of users with an account on your social network and a user friendly interface with the proper functionality. A user friendly interface and proper functionality can be developed with a good analysis of the behavior and wishes of your users. Creating a large group of users takes a lot more time. It took Facebook almost three years to reach 10 million users while Twitter reached the 10 million users at the beginning of their third year. To start a new social network with the potential to grow to such amounts your platform needs a major benefit in usability or functionality. Therefore the secret is not in building a new network but connecting the existing dots. (more…)

How to build a solid brand using the mix of social media and marketing

Its the mistake a lot of brands make when starting to use social media-tools: they believe that immediately success will come and that just being on social media will bring their tons of money and even more goodwill. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Social media is not just about using social media tools. Its about how you integrate all the elements of the social media marketing mix. By mixing the elements you can build a solid brand using social media. Its about looking beyond boundries.

This was the topic I was discussing at my panel session at Search Engine Strategies in London. This write up takes a piece from that presentation. I will try to explain the four elements of the marketing mix which you can use to build your brand. At the end of the post I will publish my presentation.

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Double Tall Skinny Non Dairy Social Media To Go Please

I’m sitting in Starbucks, my Blackberry stuffed at the bottom of my enormous handbag so I don’t feel tempted to have a quick look. I usually go to a cafe where they haven’t got ‘free wifi’ to write a blogpost, as I simply get too distracted in the office. Phone calls, emails from clients, ooo just need to read this blogpost, answer this tweet. My life is full of interaction in every shape and form, my job demands it, I need to know what’s going on. But when I write I need to cut it all off, not that my writing is ‘journalist class’ and I need silence to get my creativity out, I’m in Starbucks for goodness sake, couldn’t get more noisy if you tried.

Looking around I pretty much see people from every walks of life; babies, mothers, teenagers (with weird neon painting on their faces, god knows what that’s about), a workman in dirty trousers, a business man and in the corner two “ladies that lunches” both with Prada bags. Starbucks pretty much represents the “main stream”, not in a negative way, to me “main stream” simply means something or someone that appeals to people from all walks of life. So how did Starbucks get so massive, why do people like it so much? Sipping my coffee I’m thinking it can’t possibly be because of the coffee, Costa does far superior coffee! I personally think the success of the massive brand that Starbucks has become is mostly due to; positive association, a brand built with people in mind (And on a different note, timing probably had a lot to do with their success, if you haven’t read “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell I recommend it). But my point isn’t to analyse Starbucks success, although I realise my initial rambling might suggest just that. What I am interested in is how you target the “main stream”, how you reach the Starbucks audience, and more specifically how you can do that online. (more…)

Doesn’t Google know how to rank social media?

Originally posted on Searchcowboys

Pagerank is not dead at all, its alive and kicking and its looking at Twitter. In an interview with Technology Review Googler Amit Singhal tried to explain the way Google looks at how to rank real time search results. The interview showed that Google is still looking at rankings like they did with Pagerank. This is Pagerank all over, only focussed on tweets, not links.

Amit Singhal was one of the lead developers of Googles real time search, so he knows what he is talking about. And without a doubt he is very smart guy, probably a lot smarter in what he does than I am. Still, I expected more from him, and more from Google for that matter. Google failed to come up with a new ranking method and therefore took Pagerank of the shelf. But with that they seem to hint at the fact they have no idea how to rank social media. (more…)

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