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Are you selling products online? Then you should check out Pinterest…. It gives you an opportunity to showcase all of your products, with photos, and Pinterest is fast becoming a buzzword in the social media world. It is driving more traffic to corporate websites than Youtube, Google+ and Linkedin together, so ignore it at your peril.
Why should businesses be interested? Pinterest offers a great chance to link your product photos back to your website, offering another traffic driver to your site. However, it is also social media and – the clue is in the name – the ability to comment on photos and share offers an additional opportunity to engage with users.
By pinning other people’s images on your boards, as well as your own, you can open up the doors for pins (rather like Facebook posts) to be repinned, shared or sent to other users, and also to go viral if an image is particularly good. The images you pin do not necessarily need to be directly related to your brand or products, as you can create multiple boards for different topics. In fact, Pinterest, unlike many other social media sites, puts subjects and topics before people in its search capabilities so you could create an artistic images board, photos of landscapes, funny shop names or anything that will encourage users to find you when searching on a specific topic.
As with all things social media, this is not a static site and requires engagement to reap maximum benefit. This means finding and following users or subjects that are of interest and interacting with those people. Pinterest is very much not about ’sell, sell, sell’ and anyone pursuing a purely promotional strategy on Pinterest will quickly lose ground. Social media users want engagement, they want conversations, they want dialogue not monologue, they want to be treated as people rather than as a potential customer.
This change in tack for marketing and PR teams has exercised many, who have been slow to realise what social media is and what it most definitely is not. There are few social media tools that work purely as a broadcast channel; yet many companies are still only using their Twitter, Facebook etc accounts simply to put out marketing messages. This works until one person complains on your wall, posts on Twitter that you don’t respond and then others will come out of the woodwork quickly to add their negative comments, whether or not they have any experience of the company, products, brand etc.
Agile responses are required and many social media crises can be avoided by monitoring your socmed accounts and responding promptly to any input, positive or negative. Pinterest gives a gentler arena, particularly whilst it remains new and novel, and is an ideal opportunity for you to use any images you have (don’t forget to also put them on your Flickr account and on your Facebook page) whilst also giving your company the chance to develop a personality through the boards you set up. Allowing your staff to contribute funny pics, or examples of great design, or quirky photos, will help you to attract more followers who will then share your pins on their boards and lead more traffic back to you.
As ever, content is king so choose your images and boards carefully to give the appropriate image of your company. You can optimise your descriptions of your photos with keywords so pick from your keyword list wisely and this should also help the Google and other image search results. Don’t forget to include your brand or product names in the description, and actively follow people so that you can easily engage with a wider audience.
Happy Pinning!
We are increasingly moving from a search driven world to a social driven world. If your online marketing spend includes the vast proportion being spent on SEO and SEM, it is time for a rethink. Google’s development of Google Plus in an effort to ‘get social’ (against the behemoth in the social world that is Facebook) is based on a simple fact: that Facebook and social is beginning to dominate traffic on the Internet. And traffic = money. Not just for the big players such as Facebook and Google, but to those these giants serve. That’s you, and your business.
There is no getting round it. We have moved into a new era on the Internet and there are now companies (and not just those who at first glance would seem most suited to the social world) where anywhere from 30% upwards of traffic comes directly from Facebook activity, and not from the search engines. Some companies, according to research published in 2011, are seeing nearly all of their traffic coming from social sites such as Facebook, Stumbleupon, Twitter etc rather than the carefully crafted SERPs.
Whilst it is unlikely that the world is suddenly going to cease using the search engines, and hence the need for SEO will continue, the reality is that social media marketing is becoming THE traffic driver and cannot be ignored.
“We don’t do Twitter or Facebook because we have banned all access to social sites within our business” sounded fairly ludicrous 4 or 5 years ago. But now it sounds more like a death knell for any company taking such a stance.
Ignoring the fact that Facebook is introducing new forms of advertising and using social signals amongst friends and networks to bring advertisers closer to potential customers would be plain daft. Google would seem to be deeply concerned about the Facebook threat to the display advertising market Google has held almost absolute power over this last few years. After all, that’s part of Google’s core business, and any threat to that level of revenue has to be taken seriously.
We are seeing the big advertisers exchanging www.ourdomain.com on TV and print ads, packaging, websites etc with Follow Us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. Short status updates are so much easier to manage than redesigns and website updates. There is a level of immediacy about social media which is missing from websites; a layer of personalisation and response that is difficult to ’see’ on your bog standard, old school website. Whilst adding +1, Tweet, Like and other social sharing buttons to content on a website can help to illustrate the popularity, authority and quality of content, it somehow lacks the impact of a status update with 100+ comments, or a tweet that has been ReTweeted multiple times. A website also lacks the reach of social updates and it is easy to see how a simple tweet or status update can go viral, (mainly because of the lack of overlap between every individual’s personal network), at a cost – HR and cash – that is verging on impossible with more ‘traditional’ internet marketing methods.
Google’s Search Plus Your World is a clear indication that social signals are receiving more importance in the algorithms. And hence businesses need to pay more attention to the social space.
Are you still focussed on SEO and SEM? Or has your business decided to put more budget into social? What are your social media marketing plans for 2012?
There does seem to be a constant erosion of privacy by social networks, and the announcement this week that Google’s latest privacy changes will use data across the entire product set is already subject to criticism. LinkedIn introduced social ads last summer which had a default opt-out setting for your name and photo to be used publicly in advertising on the network. Facebook has caused untold furores with its many privacy changes and this week is ‘forcing’ users to adopt the new Timeline.
The need to monetise social networks and apps and services is of course standard business practice. However, the consumer created content which leads to the growth and potential of services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube etc should not come as cheaply as it does to the network. The harvesting and use of personal details in order to attract advertisers is the payment that the users have to make in order to generate the profits for the network. This is not on a commission or affiliate level, but is ‘gifted’ freely to the network to do with as they choose. However, the depths to which some social networks seem willing to go in order to maximise this “free” content seems to increase rather than decrease over time. It is this seemingly never ending of the pushing of the limits of privacy decency with little respect for opt-in, permissions, or even the awareness of the users, that is worrying privacy advocates.
Despite protestations to the contrary, there would seem to be a casual yet ruthless attitude towards users’ privacy, mainly due to the cut throat market the networks are in. Facebook has been forced to add the strapline – it’s free and it always will be – after unfounded rumours that users would be charged to use the social site, leaving Facebook with one less route to capitalising on their enormous user base. (Friends Reunited, for instance, made its money by charging a nominal £4-5 per annum to access additional data on friends such as email addresses). However, the continuous drip drip introduction of default settings that require action by the user, rather than opt in, is telling about the attitudes which prevail amongst the internet giants.
LinkedIn require you to opt out from having your name and photo used on advertising across the site. Although this was introduced last summer, it is likely that a vast proportion of the users of LinkedIn remain unaware of the change. For many, the account and privacy settings on Facebook are simply too complex to work out what is being shown to whom. Google+ endeavoured to address these concerns by allowing you to choose precisely the people with whom you shared content, but the inclusion of Google+ posts in top search results, as well as the latest privacy changes across all of Google’s real estate, may have unravelled that feelgood strategy.
There have been users leaving the social networks in protest, but for many the privacy issue, or rather the possible results of such policies, is still unclear – what harm does it do me? Meanwhile, there are a number of start ups looking to create privacy enhanced and open source social networks, but the real benefit of social networks is when *everyone* you know is on them and a start up with limited members will struggle to compete with the phenomenal global user base that is Facebook today. (By the end of 2012, it is estimated that more than a billion people will be using Facebook).
How do you feel about the social networks use of your personal data? Would you leave a social network because of its privacy policy? What changes would be one step too far for you to stay?
Facebook is planning to give away around £4.2M of advertising to help SMEs, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, through the AdBoost programme. This campaign will offer £80 of Facebook ads to companies across Europe, hopefully encouraging more small businesses to use Facebook effectively for internet and social media marketing.
The new Facebook programme is being launched with the British Chamber of Commerce and businesses will be helped with the creation of Facebook pages, engaging with users, and using the ever-growing selection of Facebook tools for advertising on the network.
Small businesses can struggle to commit fully to social media marketing, often not grasping the importance of it for their business growth and reach, or finding it difficult to define a clear strategy for doing so. Small businesses also suffer from a lack of human resources and social media is, by its very nature, time consuming. However, this is where an agency can help, by offering additional resources, expertise and value for money marketing.
A simple Facebook page and associated advertising across the Facebook social network can help SMEs in many ways. For example, by allowing loyal customers to share their recommendations to others, including to their friends through posts on both their walls and the business page. For businesses who struggle to keep a blog updated, it can provide an easy, short form method for keeping customers in touch with new products, offers, sales, or events. However, it should be remembered that not all of the target audience of any business will use Facebook and so a more comprehensive internet marketing strategy will be required to attain maximum potential.
It is to be hoped that the free ad credits will not go to waste and that the 50,000 SMEs Facebook is intending to help across UK, Spain, Italy, France and Germany will benefit from the exposure. Start creating your ad today!
Possibly the biggest differentiator at present between Google Plus and other social networks are Hangouts – the chance to video conference at the click of a button with up to 20 other G+ users. Hangouts are moving forwards quite quickly now as the G+ developers and third parties realise the benefits of making recording G+ Hangouts a one click process with Hangouts On Air.
The Dalai Lama, the Muppets and a few others were the first to be permitted to record their Hangouts On Air, and now the facility to do so is being extended more widely. Hangouts On Air is being turned on initially for celebs, public figures and those with large G+ followings, but it is likely that a full rollout will not be far behind. The really cute feature is that once the Hangout is finished, a private video clip will be uploaded to your account at YouTube.
For businesses and marketers, this new feature, once available to all, offers an infinite number of possible uses to reach a wider audience, to offer one on one training sessions, for recorded customer support ‘calls’, to archive webinars, to preserve fascinating discussions, meetings or focus groups – the list truly is endless.
Until this feature is rolled out fully by Google to all G+ users, there are plenty of other options for recording Hangouts, such as Camtasia, Camstudio (an Open Source version of Camtasia) and Fraps (which avid gamers will know for recording their gaming moves).
The benefits of Hangouts for businesses do not yet seem to be being explored by many businesses, large and small, and yet the content and collaboration and discussions created within Hangouts by those who do use them can be seen all over G+. Are you using Hangouts? For what purposes? Have you experienced any problems? What do you feel is the potential for this type of application within your business?
When it comes to making predictions, no-one has an infallible magic crystal ball. But here at ClickThrough, we’ve got Senior SEO Account Exec, Martyna Sroka – our very own Mystic (Marketing) Meg.
She’s gazed into the future of SEO and drawn some conclusions about the industry in 2012.
Of course, nobody can predict for certain what Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft have up their sleeves. But Martyna’s run the risk of embarrassment in 12 months’ time, and put together a list of her predictions for the coming year. We’ll be back in 2013 to mock her if she gets any of these wrong.
Do you agree with Martyna’s predictions for 2012? Get in touch and let us know your thoughts!
Well, we’re not far into the year and already Google has made an announcement of a new feature which I believe will have a major impact on SEO, if it stays in its current form. It’s already been released in the US on Google.com, if you want to take a look, but hasn’t been rolled out to Europe yet.
You can read more about the change in Google’s official announcement
The new change is about making Google more personal and integrating social conversations. It’s an extension of previous enhancements to personalisation and Google Real Time. Google now effectively has two views – a default view with personalised results included and a non personalised view, that the majority of people are unlikely to click on.
Taking an example of a generic term “fashion”, you can see how big the impact is:
This is the personalised view (default):
The results with the blue heads next to them are personalised results.
And this is the general view:
You can see that in both cases there are prominent recommendations for People and Pages who have taken the time to grow their Google+ circle – effectively large ads to encourage adoption of Google+
Well, the implications are obvious I think:
In short, this change means that it becomes more important for companies to get active on Google+ and build a network based around the content they share.
Of course, the impact will vary by sector. It is greatest in sectors like fashion, media, B2B services and technology where there is a high degree of engagement in Google+ already. But as adoption of Google+ increases in other markets it will have more impact on these.
So, even before this feature becomes live in the UK it’s worth reviewing the impact on Google.com on different types of target keyphrases and benchmarking against competitors to see their success in engaging their audiences through content on Google+.
Finally, you may have noticed the caveat “if it stays in it’s current form” at the top of my post. There are already rumblings that Google may be subject to an “anti-competitive practices” lawsuit. Twitter are rightly angry. They say:
“We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users”.
I agree with this and hope we see a diluted version with the default swapped to the non-social view, though that’s unlikely to happen.
Despite the fact Twitter has now been around for over 5 years, there are still many businesses who have not grasped that Twitter is one of the essential tools for your Internet Marketing. Whilst it may seem less intuitive than, say, Chrome or Facebook, there is plenty of software which makes Twitter simple to use, and effective in promoting your company.
However, there are also a number of myths which continue to do the rounds, so let’s put a few to rest.
1) Twitter is not for businesses.
Rumours abound that Twitter is full of drivel – what someone had for breakfast, celebrity news and so on. However, this is not the case at all, and whilst some companies have managed to get it wrong on Twitter over the years, the vast majority of companies using Twitter are seeing the benefits by adopting a social strategy where the emphasis is on “social”.
We have previously considered how to use Twitter for customer support, for research and for internet marketing, as well as B2B use of Twitter. There are a growing number of success stories from businesses using Twitter both to find and then engage with customers, suppliers and potential partners, and a social media marketing strategy within your business is now more essential than ever.
2. I can’t say anything in 140 characters
The length of tweets came originally on the back of SMS (Short Message Service) or texts, and it is surprising how quickly one adapts to crafting short, snappy, compelling content. The huge growth of URL shorteners has meant that you can squeeze in a link to your blog, content, news item, landing page, store, or image, thereby leading people directly to your own website and content.
3. Twitter is full of jargon I don’t understand
As with any community, Twitter has developed its own language and terms, such as RT (retweet), hashtags #, MT (Modified Tweet), HT (hat tip to the source of information), failwhale, and so on. At the outset, each tweet may appear to be a very short group of acronyms and incomprehensible Twitter lingo with some words and a link thrown in, but it will not take long to be accustomed to the terminology.
4. No-one is following our Twitter account
As with all things, gathering followers will take time. However, the process can be accelerated by engaging with others who are in the same sphere or industry, those who tweet content of interest to you and your consumers/customers which you can then share, and by producing your own valuable content. Many events are now held online and becoming involved through the relevant Twitter hashtag for that event, you will undoubtedly find other virtual and real attendees which whom to connect.
This leads neatly into….
5. Our competitor has a zillion followers
Twitter is much more about quality than quantity. There are plenty of dodgy services available to buy and pay for followers (it really is not wise to do so) but the reality is that whilst your competitor may well be able to point to numbers, what level of engagement can you have with a zillion followers that will help to increase sales or raise brand awareness?
What are your top Twitter myths? We will cover some more shortly.
Google Farmer Update
One of our favourite things about working in online marketing is that there’s always something new to think about. Embracing new technology, expanding our knowledge, keeping up with the ‘new’ and learning from the ‘old’ – these are all essential elements to an effective digital marketing strategy.
That’s why we jumped at the chance to attend last month’s Google@Manchester event – which was led by Google’s director of agency sales, Dominic Allon.
We sent Adam Symes, senior account director at ClickThrough Marketing, along with senior PPC account executives Meriem Nacer and Samantha Thomas, to check out the event and catch up on the latest industry news – direct from Google itself.
They reported back with some intriguing details, and the information that they gleaned from the event confirmed that our innovations in search marketing are very much in tune with Google’s own reports.
That isn’t to say that we didn’t learn anything new, though. So to start 2012 with some fresh industry facts, here are six things we learned from our visit to Google@Manchester – firstly in detail, and then summarised in a ClickThrough Google@ Manchester Infographic:
1. 52% of conversion journeys are multi-click
Shane Cassells, online conversion specialist at Google UK & Ireland, gave a presentation entitled ‘Full Value of Search’, during which he provided some inside information that will be useful for any online retailer. Cassells recommended that the timeout for shopping baskets on eCommerce sites should be extended, and that we should all consider offline sales in our conversion strategies, as it has been shown that 40% of customers will buy offline after researching a product on the internet.
The big statistic to bear in mind, however, is that more than half of conversion journeys involve multiple clicks – whereas nine out of ten PPC conversions are still credited to the final click. As a conversion-focused online marketing agency, this kind of statistic is a nice reminder that we’re doing things properly – understanding that conversion paths are as unique and complex as the people buying your products.
2. Google+ is the fastest growing social media platform in history
Google’s foray into social media has proven to be a powerful marketing tool, with 94% of the top 100 brands already on board. We’ve been keenly watching the progress of Google+ and it will feature significantly in our social media marketing strategy for 2012, as we create and promote Google+ brand pages for our clients.
What Google@Manchester revealed is just how breathtakingly quick the rise of Google+ has been. Despite only being launched in June of last year, Google+ now has more than 40 million members – making its initial growth faster than Facebook, Myspace or Twitter.
To further cement its position as an innovative social networking tool, the portion of the show dedicated to Google+ was delivered as a video conference via the Google+ Hangout feature.
3. Customers are nine times more likely to click on mobile banners
Dr Patrick Dixon, futurist and chairman of Global Change Ltd, delivered a stirring speech called ‘Bringing It All Together: A Look Into the Future’. His scientific approach to marketing had the crowd transfixed – our own Adam Symes described Dixon as “one of the best speakers [he had] ever heard.”
His talk focused on the future of marketing, the emotional effects that marketing has on us and how we can build emotional relationships with our end users – pointing out that 80% of potential customers will lose interest if a process takes longer than 20 seconds. He made enough points to warrant multiple blog posts on this theme alone – but for the sake of brevity, we’ll focus on the intriguing details he offered on mobile marketing.
Dixon pointed out that whilst standard web-based banners typically have a 0.5% clickthrough rate (CTR), mobile banners boast a CTR that is nine times higher. He also mentioned the fact that mobile users are twice more likely to click on a banner after 8pm than earlier in the day. With only 17% of UK businesses offering mobile-optimised websites, but almost half of online consumers using their smartphones or tablets when researching or buying a product, it’s clear that businesses are risking missed opportunities if they ignore the powerful and growing mobile user base.
4. 60% of organic clicks are from top-three search positions
Dr Dixon also shared this search engine results surprise. We’ve always focused on getting top-tier results for our clients in the results pages of Google, Yahoo!, Bing and other leading search providers – what Dixon’s statistic shows is how incredibly important it is to optimise every facet of your business’s webpage. With an increasingly clued-up online user base, appearing in the first page of a Google search just isn’t enough anymore.
5. 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
Another highlight of the event was the ‘Connected TV’ panel, featuring experts from Google, the BBC and IAB (the Internet Advertising Bureau). Here we learned that video-sharing site YouTube is continuing to grow at a phenomenal rate, and how technology manufacturers, agencies and companies can come together to combine the best elements of internet video and traditional television – with the interactivity and customer targeting of the internet, and the quality and reach that television can still offer.
Perhaps the overarching theme that we can glean from this discussion is that YouTube should not be ignored as an online marketing tool. By their nature, Google+ and Facebook offer a quicker, easier and more cost-effective way of communicating directly with customers. However, when a video booms on YouTube, it really booms – few social websites have the potential for viral marketing that YouTube provides. Rest assured, we have some tricks up our sleeve that utilise the video sharing site that started it all.
6. Digital sales grew by 16% in the third quarter of 2011
‘It’s All About You’ was Mark Howe’s contribution to proceedings. The country sales director for Google UK opened the show by discussing the tremendous growth that was been observed in eCommerce in the third quarter of 2011.
This is good news for any business that uses the internet to promote its products, and further proof that consumers are increasingly turning to online purchasing despite the continuingly difficult economic circumstances. With the rise of price comparison websites, and review portals such as Trustpilot – which provide customers with the opportunity to rate online shops according to their experiences – it is more important than ever to ensure that your online business practice and promotional strategy are up-to-date. Dr Patrick Dixon predicted that price comparison websites will destroy businesses within five years if their prices aren’t competitive enough.
Did you attend the Google@Manchester event? If so, what were your highlights?
The 16 changes that mattered to Google marketing in 2011
Since December is that time of year when we look forwards and also reflect, I’d take a look at some of the major changes in search in 2011. I hope these will act like a checklist helping you think through what you have covered and what you may have missed. My update includes a combination of paid and natural search and some of the changes to Analytics which have helped us improve our search marketing better (and in some cases less well).
There’s been plenty to keep us busy in getting the most from digital marketing and I’m sure there will be next year.
We don’t know yet how many changes Google made in 2011, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Congress that Google made 516 updates in 2010. They tested over 13,000 potential updates!
Well I’ve been tracking the changes carefully and I think there’s far fewer that really matter – just 16 in fact, but do let me know about what I missed – there must be at least 20?
I hope you manage an enjoyable break from the digital world! All the best for a successful 2012.
Let’s go!
The year got off to a quiet start with few changes in January before the major changes in the first part of the year. Read this introduction to finding the volume of mobile searches
The official announcement on Google’s High Quality Site updates
How are finding it so far? See Dan Barker’s analysis of the top 10 new Google Analytics features
View the Google introduction to Google +1
Another of the many ad innovations in Google, this one has been rolled out worldwide. Check Google’s mobile ad features on the Ad Network
Post on Evolving the Google Design and Experience – these changes occurred throughout the yeargoogle
The biggest change to Google Marketing this year. View The What’s New in Google+ page for the latest updates
Not new in 2011, but following-up on site visitors became much more popular in 2011. Read this video introduction to Google’s Remarketing
Read The tutorial from Tim Leighton Boyce on how to use multichannel funnels to help with paid search
The official announcement from Google
Read Dave’s update on ClickThrough’s blog
Read how you can differentially bid for clicks vs calls
These made quite an impact on brand search – did you check the impact? Google’s explanation of the changes to: Expanded sitelinks
See the official announcement for Google+ pages with examples
Social extensions – recommendations appear on your ads – November 2011
Increasing the argument for having fresh content on your site. Read this summary from Chris Soames and see how ClickThrough covered the news.
OK, so what am I missing?
