MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing

A couple of weeks ago it looked very much as if Google would acquire Digg (at the not insignificant price tag of $200 million). Many people in the search/social marketing world thought that the deal was pretty much done and dusted, people such as Gyutae Park, from Winning The Web, who went so far as to compose a list enumerating the ways in which the Google-Digg deal would affect the internet. Even though the deal fell through or was called off, or whatever (who knows what’s going on the world of virtual acquisitions?), Park still believes that a Google-Digg is on the cards, and he is not alone.

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Harnessing the creative power and “wisdom of crowds” is a concept that has been around since the mid-90s, but it’s only over the last two years or so that it’s gained popularity among online marketers. The term “wisdom of crowds” was popularised by author James Surowiecki, who wrote a book by the same name. Basically, it means that there is more to be gained from collective intelligence than individual thinking. According to Surowiecki, the age-old adage “two heads are better than one” has more than an element of truth to it.

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Creating a thriving presence online among an array of social media sites can be taxing on your time and resources. There are so many choices out there that it can become confusing when deciding on which platform/s you want to create your profile, and with which communities you want to get involved. It’s best to keep your number of profiles down to two or three. This is because you want to be able to dedicate your focus, valuable resources and opinions to only a few areas, as opposed to spreading yourself across as many sites as possible.

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If you answered yes to the question, then this is a necessary read that contains some helpful resources for healing the damaging effects of bad press. I came across an article by Jeff Quipp on the Search Engine People Blog, which discussed burying negative posts that may have surfaced online about you or your company. It lists an extensive array of sites that can be used to your advantage when building up profiles on various online platforms in order to detract attention from the actual negative article that is being circulated, and to push it off the first results page. Removing negative press from the first page of the SERPs can be an exhausting process, but it’s worth it in the end as it could well save your reputation.

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Humour is one of those rare things that has global appeal. While it is true that humour does differ from nation to nation (think dry British humour vs. the more slapstick physical humour favoured by Americans), there are some cases where humour is broad enough to bridge the widest divides (the bizarre antics of pets are usually always good for a laugh, as are people falling or hurting themselves in unusual ways). Humour has the ability to unite, but injudicious use of humour has the ability to divide, insult, affront and incite anger, which is way you should approach humour with caution in your writing.

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Vodacom, a South African-based telecommunications company, recently announced that that it will be launching a free mobile soapie (ad sponsored) to all Vodafone live users. This soapie, SoLikeLife, is specifically designed for mobile phones, a concept that they aptly named a mobi-soap. Episodes are available to download free of charge through Vodafone Live (or via sms for those without Vodafone Live access from their mobiles). The story revolves around two 20+ South African’s who meet and fall in love, etc and is all played out in a virtual cell phone world.

Image From the SoLikeLife FaceBook page

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The landscape in the virtual world is prone to sudden and unannounced shifts and changes. You have to be on the ball to face and conquer new challenges in the most creative and innovative ways possible. Problems are compounded, however, when the law and legal concerns step into the fray, then the matter becomes more than mere debate and concrete solutions become necessary. But concrete solutions are not always that easy to come by. Consider the recent issue regarding who owns blog comments, as raised by Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews.

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Over the past three weeks I’ve been thinking about how print journalists, advertisers and PRs have made the cross into cyberspace, and wondered about the problems they’re encountering. I read this article (I wish I could say stumbled upon this article, but I think that the phrase is taken), which explores various women’s presence on the Internet. It implies that the online communities run by women resemble their print glossies, with mommy bloggers and weight-loss bloggers and Sex and the City-type chicks attracting generous traffic volumes, and both representing and dictating what women read and think about online. I’d add that in response to these communities, bloggers like Violent Acres, Greta Christina and College Call Girl also attract large volumes of readers who react with antipathy to the latest hairdos-type discourses.

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My mom always told me that if you really want something done, “you have to do it yourself”. No where is this more true than in the world of SEO, where there is so much one can do to promote a website or blog. The principle also applies SEO’s new best friend, social media. Social media has a large platform so that you can market your website or blog in a number of different ways. For a start, social media marketing allows you to promote your site or business through social media channels. It’s a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic. In my opinion, there are several methods that you can use to optimise social media from the comfort of your PC.

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Building social networks and establishing relationships with your consumers is often touted as a holy grail of online marketing. Open and honest communication and interaction are supposed to be chief among the goals of modern companies so that they don’t alienate their customers or clients. Alienation is the devil and social marketing your saviour. But social networking and nursing fledgling contacts takes time, and time, as we all know, is generally in short supply.

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