Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Technology

When search does not equate to action

I don't really like American Idol, I actually prefer the early episodes when they focus on the people who cannot sing. Nonetheless, I want to look at a peculiar thing that happened tonight. Typically, search trends for these shows can help to predict who the eventual winner will be. (There is a great article that goes into past trends in more depth on Mashable.)

The assumption is that search volume = interest = intent to vote. This is similar in marketing where search volume = interest = intent to buy. Tonight, however, that trend was bucked. See the charts below.

But, Lambert didn't win tonight. Kris Allen did. Lambert owned the search trends all the way back to late January, so why didn't he convert more voters?

I think the point here is that search volume doesn't guarantee intent to act. What is your take? What does this mean for companies/products who generate interest without generating conversion? How do you make sure you have both? How do you sustain over time?

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Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, search, Techno//Marketer, trends

The cohesion of conversations; brands taking a #(pound)ing

The hashtag (aka the pound sign, #) is a ubiquitous part of social networking at this point. The purpose of the hashtag is to be able to track and lump a strong of asynchronous messages together for later review and analysis.

For example, a group of people coordinate and use the same keyword at the end of every tweet. You probably saw this at SXSW this year when people were ending their messages with #sxsw. You can use third party sites to aggregate those messages into a single string that is ordered by date to see how events unfold.

However, the hashtag is also being used to track the community's brand engagement. Situations like #motrinmoms, #dominos and #amazonfail now have a public timeline that will remain in place forever. The massive volume of similarly tagged content will make it very easy for anyone to find what happened and see how the company responded across search engines and social platforms.

An argument that people have used to avoid engagement in this space is that it's a relatively small sampling of people who engage in these networks. Regarding the Motrin Moms controversy, an Advertising Age article quoted a Lightspeed research study that stated 90% of women had not seen the Motrin ad that spawned the backlash online. Of the 10% who did, 8% said it negatively impacted their brand impression. While that is a small number, you cannot underestimate the power of small, passionate groups of people who use turbocharged platforms to connect with and influence other like minded people. Wildfires can start with a single match, right?

Internal listening is paramount

I can partially understand when companies have some hesitation in listening to the broad community and engaging. It's time consuming and you have to have a corporate culture to make it work. However, I do not understand companies that do not listen in the social space for employee engagement issues, brand perception problems and platform breakdowns. These types of issues are having an impact on Dominos and Amazon right now.

#dominos: This one is picking up steam now. For more info on what happened, go here.

#amazonfail: This ramped up a couple of days ago when a "glitch" in the Amazon system starting delisting GLBT titles. People responded to the "glitch" with the hashtag #glitchmyass. It seems to be trending down at the moment.

[Update] Here is page one of the Google search result for Dominos as of 10:30am on April 15, 2009. Notice entry #3 from YouTube, the top news story as well as the next three stories after the new results.

The bottom line is that these companies should have been listening and engaging all along, should have been prepared earlier with real, honest, personal responses and taken proactive steps to make things right with their community. Waiting a day to respond is WAY too long, waiting hours may even be too long.

Some things to think about:

• Listening is more important than ever
  
• Active listening can pick up issues before they become crises
  
• Community building is key (in advance of an issue)
  
• Events are being linked together by consumers for all to see
  
• The content of those interactions will live on forever
  
• The content also appears in search
  
• A few, passionate individuals can dramatically hurt or help a brand in its interactions online
  

Do you go back through hashtags to see conversations over time? Have you come across them in search results?

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Technorati Tags: listening, marketing, Matt Dickman, measurement, reputation, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends, hashtags

Killing Google

Today, I am featured on Louis Gray's fantastic blog with a post that I've been working on called "The time is right to kill Google (if they don’t kill themselves first)". The post comes out of a couple of experiences I have had with the company at a time when user loyalty and customer service should be paramount. Click here to read the post, and if you don't subscribe to Louis' blog I suggest you do!

[Update:] Some great comments on Louis' blog as well as on the FriendFeed thread. Check em out.

If you're visiting here from Louis' blog, welcome to Techno//Marketer. I hope you stick around!

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Technorati Tags: Google, Louis Gray, Matt Dickman, search, Techno//Marketer

The key is ROI

I've said this for years, and I think every digital evangelist wakes up in cold sweats every night thinking about it. ROI in the digital space (SEM, social media, e-commerce, campaign sites, email marketing, etc.) is measurable, accurate and accountable. You know your digital ROI for every dollar spent, but if you're spending offline, you really have no idea what you're getting. I've seen the equations that publications use to guess their reach and it's total BS. I've also heard radio DJs exclaim that they really have no idea how many people are listening.

I can say this all day long, but I think Gary Vaynerchuk (who I met at Blog World Expo and is even more fantastic in person) does it with his unique passion, so here you go. Enjoy, and if you don't follow Gary's blog and watch his videos please make it a point to do so.

Are you moving more dollars online? Are you seeing more pressure put on magazines, newspapers, radio and TV to deliver? What are you having success in measuring for clients?

I'd love to know what you think.

Technorati Tags:
advertising, conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer, Gary Vaynerchuk

Inside//Out: Cuil

The launch of Cuil (pronounced like "cool") hit the RSS readers and tech news with a bang recently. Despite the horrible name that nobody knows how to pronounce (you would think they didn't want any word-of-mouth traffic) and the lack of obvious "beta" status, the new search engine on the block does have some redeeming qualities.

Most importantly, Cuil does not collect user data to refine results instead looking at the context of the result set. Cuil's topical categories and filtering options are handy and the fact that it is not weighted by a mysterious algorithm (like Google's Pagerank) give it a different set of results. Time will tell if it is better overall. Take a peak at the following video overview.

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]

Here are a few stats that look at the huge uptick and subsequent recoil in attention to the service.

Take this graph from Bill Tancer's blog that looks at Cuil's fading marketshare of visits after a strong lift in the upfront.

Bill's data is backed up by this Compete.com look at daily traffic attention.

Differentiators:

• Does not collect personal data for search result optimization
  
• Uses context of the results to refine set
  
• Different layout including handy sub-categories and topic sorting
  

So what do you think?

• Is there room for change in search?
  
• Do you switch search engines or stick with one? (Take the T//M reader poll in the right column!)
  
• Is there innovation happening in search?
  

Let me hear your thoughts.

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Technorati Tags:
Inside//Out, marketing, Matt Dickman, search, Techno//Marketer, trends, Cuil, SEO

Don't forget the rest of the digital puzzle

With all of the buzz around social media it's easy to overlook the rest of the digital marketing puzzle. Yes, it's fun to talk about Twitter and Facebook and the other new bright shiny objects, but they're just one component of a balanced online marketing strategy.

Take a look at the following chart from e-Marketer that shows how US adults prefer to have companies communicate with them. Note that email is still almost twice as requested as web sites.

That being said, social media has the opportunity to help drive business, create valuable content and serve as a landing point for various customer segments. Content is the foundation of any quality experience online, just ask anyone who's run a website.

Email - Social media (from Twitter to blogs) is centered around constant content updates. It's also a rule that very few people actually participate by commenting or adding content. Most people participate by reading and clicking (which is just as valuable in my opinion). Email is a perfect way, however, to summarize the best, most relevant conversations that are taking place.

Search - Search engines absolutely love social media content. It's categorized, updated frequently and is full of metadata. Results from blogs and other social media outlets are showing up in search result pages alongside corporate websites and official releases. The more relevant, popular, trusted sources will rise to the top...many times they'll be blogs.

Advertising - Sites like Facebook are full of user data that is being leveraged by marketers to create timely, relevant, targeted ads. Facebook made poor decisions early on with their Beacon program, but smart marketers are using the targeting to eliminate waste and only pay for the qualified clicks.

With social media as one component of digital marketing mix, keep thinking about how it can integrate with other tactics. How can you use the content generated in emails, ads, mobile messaging, search targeting, etc.? How can you extend it offline into physical items for marketing. Look at examples like Moo.com that allow you to create social artifacts that lead people back to your space online.

Social media is not an island,
it's a high-power engine on the larger marketing ship.

Social media isn't the end-all-be-all, but it offers marketers unparalleled opportunity to participate in relevant ways. It also provides a launchpad for other marketing tactics. Social media is not an island, it's a high-power engine on the larger marketing ship.

Technorati Tags:
digital, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer

The influence of digital

As a rule, I only talk about my work and my company when I know it will add value to what you do. That's certainly the case today as Fleishman-Hillard (my company) and Harris Interactive release our Digital Influence Index Study. This study was conducted in Europe (using the UK, France and Germany as the initial round of countries), but you can see trends emerge that I think are global in nature.

(You can download the key findings, the whitepaper and the FAQ for the study.)

The study looks to really dig in to the role that the internet plays in the lives of consumers. It answers the following questions:

• Influence: What is the influence of the internet compared to other media?
• Behavior: What online behaviors are consumers adopting?
• Impact on decisions: What is the impact of the internet on specific consumer decisions?
• Attitudes: What are consumer attitudes towards the internet?
• Geography: What are the differences by country?

The actual Digital Influence Index number shown below in the pie charts is compiled like this:

The chart to the right compares the influence of different forms of media on decision making. As you can see the internet is more influential in each country than any other type of media. It's nearly twice as influential as TV and eight times more influential than traditional print media. Interestingly, consumers spend a marginal amount more time on TV than the Internet, but it's not effecting their decisions proportionally.

The study found that consumer behavior falls into one of five categories. They are research, commerce, communication, mobility and publishing. While you can read more detail in the full report, some highlights are:

• 80% of online consumers use the net to comparison shop
  
• 3 out of 4 use the net to manage bank accounts
  
• 30% post a comment to an online newsgroup or website during a typical week
  

Here is how these behaviors relate adoption levels and influence

Though the study found the internet influential, it showed that there are still trust issues that have to be overcome for it to continue to grow. Trust of information from other users, trust of government information and information provided by companies were all relatively low. Trust in commerce was a little better and trust of the security of communications channels was pretty high as well.

Key Findings:

• Across all three countries addressed by the study, the Internet has roughly double the influence of the second strongest medium — television — and roughly eight times the influence of traditional print media. This indicates a need and an opportunity for companies to reprioritise their communications to address the media shift in consumer influence.
  
• Consumers use the Internet in different ways to make different decisions. For example, consumers are more likely to seek opinions of others through social media and product-rating sites when it comes to making decisions that involve choices that have a great deal of personal impact (e.g., healthcare options or major electronics purchases), but use company-controlled sources when making transactional decisions on commoditised items like utilities or airline tickets.
  
• While consumers see the clear benefits of the Internet on their lives, they continue to have concerns about Internet safety and the trustworthiness of some of the information they find online. In the UK, for example, 66 percent of online consumers state that the Internet helps them make better decisions, but just 28 percent trust the information on the Internet provided by companies.
  

I think this quote from Dave Senay (our CEO) addresses the key point from my perspective:

"The research shows that the Internet stands out as the most important medium in the lives of European consumers today, but there's a mismatch between the impact of the digital channel across a wide range of consumer behaviours and decisions and the proportion of resources organisations generally are allocating to it relative to other media.

Insights provided by this study will help communicators be more strategic in their marketing mix. At the same time, we need to be mindful about the concerns expressed about safety and trust, which underscores the need for digital engagement with consumers based on open and honest representation."

So what should companies and marketers do with this knowledge?

• Given the influence of the Internet, audit your current marketing spend and see how it aligns with reality and the influence of the medium
  
• Make sure information that is provided is done so in a transparent, honest manner with full representation
  
• SEM/SEO are crucial as search drives the way people find information
  
• Join the conversation online, support the community and engage in a transparent manner
  
• Keep an eye on mobile trends and poll consumers to gauge demand for such an offering
  

So, what do you think about the information? This is based in Europe, but do you see correlations with the US? You can download the entire white paper here, which includes all of the information above with more charts and graphs.

Technorati Tags:
branding, marketing, Matt Dickman, mobile, PR, search, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, Fleishman-Hillard

Owning your digital identity

Do you own your corporate domain name? It sounds kind of silly in 2008 doesn't it?

Let's go a level deeper. Do you own your personal .com name (i.e. www.mattdickman.com)?

That may be a bit more of a stretch for some of you, but it's crucial from a personal branding perspective. Just ask Shel Israel who did not have www.shelisrael.com purchased and someone else put up a site devoted to poking fun at him.

Other heavyweights like Robert Scoble (www.robertscoble.com) don't own their domain names either. Re-acquiring a domain name from a cybersquatter has some legal precedent, but it can rack of legal fees or large one-time purchase amounts.

Do you own your Twitter, YouTube and Flickr usernames?

However, let me ask you this. Do you own your personal/corporate Twitter username? How about your YouTube username? How about your Flickr username? If you don't, it's probably a good idea that you do (they're mostly free anyway). I lost out personally on my YouTube name because I used my nickname instead. You may not acquire them all, but you can sure try. These usernames do come up with search result pages adding to the importance of owning your identity.

The risk to your reputation that you run when somebody does register your username is potentially huge. There is no legislation (which I am aware of) that addresses these micro level identity-squatters. It could get to a point where people/companies have to pay for their usernames ala the late 1990's domain name deals.

Once you have acquired the usernames you will need to decide how, if at all, you use the account. While I don't like the fact that accounts may sit empty in the short-term, it is advisable that you secure your ID as soon as possible.

What are you waiting for? Go get your identity!

[Update: It looks like Shel Holtz and I are on the same page today. Check out his post on the same topic with FriendFeed.]

Technorati Tags:
branding, communications, PR, social media, social networks, strategy, Techno//Marketer, identity, reputation management

Google is (still) stalking me

A little over a year ago I wrote a post that turned out to be one of my most popular ever. So, to have a bit of fun, I want to revisit that post and see how my relationship with Google has evolved in the past 365+ days.

So come on. Take another trip with me through my day with Google.

	5:15am: Ugh. The day starts to my blaring clock radio. There is an ad running that Google has sold through ClearChannel.
	5:30am: I get up, take a shower and go to the home office to check my Gmail account.
	5:40am: While I am at it I check my Feedburner account to see where my traffic is coming from. Google owns Feedburner now.
	5:45am: Once the email is done I let the dogs outside and turn on the TV. There is a spot running placed by Google.
	7:00am: I start up the car and hear another ad placed by Google.
	7:30am: Driving to work I pass 10-20 ClearChannel billboards. Probably pretty likely Google will place ads on those as well.
	7:45am: I roll into work and sit down. Having stopped at Starbucks in the lobby I open the paper to see what's happening in Cleveland. Again, more ads placed by Google here too.
	8:30am: I jump online, check Google News and my GMail acccount again.
	9:00am: I surf my favorite blogs, most of them have Google AdWords placed on them even in the feeds. I am reading those feeds with Google Reader.
	9:45am: I check my copy of AdAge and see a couple more ads placed by Google.
	10:00am: Finally! I am free from...damn...it's another Google SMS alert on my phone. No peace.
	10:10am: I go to buy an item that I found in a Google search and purchase it with Google Checkout.
	10:30am: I continue writing a client brief in Google Docs (formerly Writely).
	11:00am: Head to the kitchen and see a couple of ads running on TV through the Dish Network which Google placed.
	12:00pm: I'm heading to lunch now, but I can't find that new trendy sandwich shop. I ask Goog411 and get the address and phone number.
	12:15pm: I take a stroll through YouTube to see what videos are hot and why they may be gaining traction.
	1:15pm: I am back at the office now and my phone vibrates again. I have new Gmail. I check it and respond from my phone.
	1:30pm: I am going to a meeting after work and I don't have the address yet. I turn to Google Maps and send the directions to my phone for easy access in the car.
	2:30pm: I take a break from work and veg out with an online racing game. Throughout the game are product placements and pre-rolls. Google places those too through AdScape. I wrecked and lost the game.
	2:45pm: I check my RSS feeds again through Google Reader. I go through about 150 feeds and post the best to my blog roll (it's embedded on the left column of my blog).
	3:00pm: I check on the stats for my blog over the past week using Google Analytics. Interesting to see where readers come from. Hello New Delhi!
	3:45pm: Just in surfing the web I come across 2 or 3 major sites that run Google for searching site content. MySpace is one of those.
	5:30pm: I see some display ads running on a couple of sites powered by DoubleClick's DART system. Google owns them now too. More on this development in a future post.
	6:15pm: One last check of my Gmail and I wrap up a blog post and head home.
	7:30pm: I get home, turn off the phone and play ball with Copeland and Crawford. Just then, the phone rings. Is that Google calling me? They certainly have my number.

Oddly, not that much has changed. Google has crept in a little more through M&A, but they definitely aren't going away. I know I am missing things that Google offers. Leave me a comment with the other ways in which you are impacted by Google in your everyday life.

 

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, Google, search

Faster than a speeding bullet, more trendy than a SoHo hipster; the power of search data

Are you a spotter of trends? Do you revel in knowing things before your friends and colleagues? If so I am going to share a little information that will make you a very happy person.

A couple of months ago I came across one of the coolest RSS feeds that I've ever seen. Google Hot Trends now offers an hourly feed that shows the top 100 search terms. Every hour a new item is sent to my RSS reader for my consumption.

Why is this cool you ask? Imagine the power of the collective, "crowd sourced" data of millions of Google searches aggregated into one place. It's pop culture at its best. Want to get the scoop before mainstream media? Subscribe to this feed.

The type of information is unfiltered so you will get things like:

• Scoops on sports trades
  
• Celebrity news
  
• Breaking business and economic news
  
• World news
  
• Scandals of all sorts
  
• See how powerful TV is at driving search
  

To me, Google Hot Trends represents the real power of collective intelligence. In the case of Google Trends this is information aggregated across the globe, but imagine if you could do this only for technology or social media. The trends that you uncover would be catalysts for innovation and change.

What are you doing with your search data?

If you are running a web site, what are you doing with your search data? Are you storing it? If you're storing it, are you looking at it? If you're looking at it, are you analyzing it for trends and insights?

Search is as key to a site as your navigation. The data is extremely powerful and can tell you what your customers are looking for, what they really want and what you need to create more of.

How are you using your search data?

Technorati Tags:
50Matches, Google, marketing, Matt Dickman, Search, Techno//Marketer, trends, data