2009 AMPC Awards

A huge congratulations to everyone in Cybercom who worked on the Bushmills Trek and Powerade 'Never Give Up' campaigns - both of which walked away from last nights APMC Awards in the Shelbourne hotel with wins. Awesome stuff for all the guys involved.

Also a congratulations to the guys in Strategem for wins with Danone's 'Ireland's Happiest Babies' and Captain Morgan's 'Got a Little Captain in You?!'

Social Media Connections 2

Following on from my earlier post on Social Media Connections, I was having a look to see what brands and businesses are really doing out there when it comes to Social Media. Facebook, of course, is scattered with brands, businesses, products and people, some by individuals and some by the companies themselves. Having been involved in several Social Media integrated campaigns on both Facebook and Bebo, I familiar with how this works, and it's clear that for a lot of the activity out there, it is after thoughts more then planned, integrated and result-driven activity.

The truth is that the vast majority of business are still treating Social Media as a buzzterm, as something that needs to be included in digital campaigns because "it's what the kids are doing these days". Anyone with half a braincell can tell that's not the way to approach any digital marketing channel. Digital provides marketing channels unique in their ability to be tracked, optimised and reported on. Generally all metrics are available, and all of them should be used. So what am I getting at?

Basically, very few people get it. When it comes to making social connections between brands and consumers, there are very few good examples to quote. The best example of late is Powerade's Never Give Up. A social connection is a two way communication. If it's one way and is just you blasting marketing messages at people it's definitely not social. Never Give Up as a campaign, created real interaction with the public and this drove overall results.

Surely there are others out there doing similar? Well another interesting example I found was of BMW in China. BMW has launched an exclusive social network for its drivers in China. Not a Facebook Page or Bebo profile, but it's own social network. There new site is designed to engage with China’s 150,000 BMW drivers. This is a worldwide first for the brand in an effort to bolster brand loyalty. According to Brand Republic, BMW chose to build its own site instead of creating pages on existing social networks to avoid privacy and security setbacks, and to have the autonomy to build the network according to the technical needs of them and its users.

But, is this a good idea? It would seem to me that what BMW have done here is to create a new Bebo with BMW branding. Aside from blasting its marketing messages at users, it doesn't serve to connect with those users. I don't deny that there is potential goodwill for a service that is being offered for free but is there any potential to actually connect with these people. I don't think so. So here is an example of a campaign which will never do any more then provide a platform for Interest Generators to connect. Potential brand benefit is ultimately very low.

Social Media Connections

I have been thinking a lot lately about how people connect with each other on the internet. Who are your Facebook "friends"? Who do you follow on Twitter? Who subscribes to your Blog? As more and more companies start to enter the world of social media, as a way to connect with their customers, it is extremely important to understand what type of connection they are forming. By far the best explanation I have found is by Peter Hershberg, who outlined three types of online connection in his article What Social Media Means for Search. They are:

1. Direct Connections: People connected by real world relationships.
2. Interest Generators: People who share an interest but don't actually know each other.
3. Experience Sharers: People who do or have done something that interests you.

This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. On Facebook, Twitter et al. I have my friends - people who I have known for years. However, I also have people who I have 'connected with' online through blogging and work etc. - I don't necessarily know these people but I interact with them regularly and share advice and experiences. Finally I also have various events, brands and so on - these represent things that I have an interest in in the lead up to, but quickly become disinterested in once they pass.

For a business there is clearly a hierarchy of connections here. The last, the Experience Sharer, is the easiest to create but the most difficult to maintain. The second, the Interest Generator, is more difficult to initiate but once created can be sustained longer without a huge amount of effort. Finally, the first, the Direct Connection, is by far the most difficult to form, but perhaps the easiest to maintain. By actually becoming a friend to your customer you are in a position where not only will they go out of their way to find you but they will promote and defend you. This is a level of trust that every brand should aspire to.

In-Banner Slider

Spotted this ad and thought the slider function was really slick. It's a simple ad but the coverview-style rotation of the images is really nice. I think it's really important to recognise how an otherwise relatively boring ad can be completely picked up with the simplest addition. I would bet that the engagement times for this ad were hugely inflated then if it had not had the slider.

Trekking to Everest

In case no one saw this - Cybercom are sending two staff members to Everest!

The first trekker, Richie, departed today on what will surely be a grueling journey to the roof of the world. Leaving Dublin today, Richie flies (via London) to Kathmandu. From there he flies on to Lukla, and then treks to Namche Bazaar. After that it's "just" a 25km trek to the South Base Camp.

Fair play Richie - here's hoping you all the best! Good luck mate.

The Credit Crisis Visualised

Not much to say - just watch. I loved it.

SEO - Theme Density

I was talking to an American chap recently about SEO practices and he kept making reference to Theme Density. I tried to explain that I was completely unfamiliar with the term but he wasn’t very good at explaining what he meant. I did a bit of research and found several articles that made reference to Theme Density but I haven’t been able to figure out a) whether the practice actually works, b) whether it is a bon fide ‘legal’ strategy, and c) what the limitations are for content duplication in smaller sites.

Basic overview time for those not familiar with the term, I guess. Theme Density refers to building internal linking structures throughout a network of pages and posts that develop strong semantic links (related data content), occurrences of matching keyphrases and synonyms, and thematic modifiers. Now in laymen’s terms; you write several posts all of which are interlinked to each other through multiple keyphrases, while also all being around the same general topic. Basically.

The result of all this is that within those keyphrases you will start to gain multiple search results on both broad match and exact match keywords. By making the practice habitual throughout everything you post, you start to show more page results over certain keywords. Hence Theme Density.

Seems clear and easy (to be honest I’m not sure why that guy couldn’t explain it?).

The best example I have come across is Wikipedia. Consider all the words within a wikipage that are linked to other wikipages describing that term. Now think about how many times you performed a search and Wikipedia is the top result! In the case of Wikipedia this is further reinforced as each word that links to it’s own article, features itself as the H1 on the other end, possible as the H2 and H3 too.

This however is where the average person starts to think about the number of posts necessary to do this effectively, or rather the number of existing posts to do this effectively. It’s a lot. Plus there’s no point in retrospectively linking an old post to a newer one. So the process is slow, and requires that you post a lot, linking between related posts several times for each post you make.

Unfortunately while I now (think I) understand what the process is, why it’s beneficial and how to do it, I haven’t answered any of my original three questions.

Back to the research!