Archive for the ‘Social networking’ Category
Will PRs and journalists own natural search?
July 23rd, 2008
You might say, “who cares?”, but for me this is a refreshing new angle on the ‘who owns online PR?’ discussion that has been going on within the social media industry for a while. Of course I’m going to like suggestions that PRs might be in line to own SEO, but setting my vested interests aside, this line of thought helps explain why it is crucial that journalists and PRs understand the long-term trends that are happening in natural search.
Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker made his own rather crude observations on the subject on Monday, in his overly optimised article, “Online POKER marketing could spell the NAKED end of VIAGRA journalism as we LOHAN know it.” He doesn’t say anything new - online headlines have always been important for driving traffic and natural links, and the only difference is that journalists are waking up to the impact optimised copy can have on their authority and popularity rankings - but the article drives home the SEO control that journalists have at their fingertips, should they choose to use it intelligently.
Similarly, Leon Bailey Green has today contributed a post to the E-Consultancy blog entitled: “Is the role of the SEO dead and should PRs own natural search?“, where he argues “off-site optimisation, link building or link baiting, should actually be in the domain of PR professionals”. He concludes “so if a web developer can build a search engine friendly website, a content writer knows how to write search engine friendly copy and an online PR guru can get blogs/websites/forums to link to that content, where does that leave an SEO?”
Regardless of who might own SEO in the future, or whether anyone will, it’s becoming more and more important for PRs and journalists to have a basic understanding of how relevancy, authority and quality of content will increasingly be the metrics used by search engines to rank sites. In addition, social networks are in some cases beginning to displace search, by creating trusted networks of relevant recommendations - which will make the role that PR plays even more important.
The tactics of PR and journalism don’t necessarily need to change, but individuals working in these sectors will have to be very good at what they do.
Natural search can appear very scientific, and I personally am on a mission to understand the techniques as well as I can…but ultimately, PR as an industry needs to focus on the quality of its output. There’s no place for fakers!
The 5 stages of Twitter from a PR perspective
July 16th, 2008
I began experimenting with Twitter at the start of the year, and in that short space of time have observed a dramatic change in usage patterns of the micro-blogging tool.
From a communications perspective, this can be broken down into different stages of adoption, which I feel offers valuable lessons in how user behaviour is evolving as a whole across social networks. Only today, within my own network of followers/followees, I felt we might be on the cusp of a new adopter stage, and so I thought it might be a useful exercise to analyse this in my own words, to see what lessons can be learnt.
- Discovery - at the start of the year (and admittedly the year beforehand), Twitter was very much in early adopter stage. The tech-savvy were the first to try it and decide whether or not it was a useful communications tool. This stage was characterised by a sense of ‘elite’ ownership i.e. those using it felt inspired by the fact that they were living at the cutting-edge of social media.
- Experimentation - Twitter asks the question : ‘What are you doing?’. Following early-adopter phase, users experiment with how they can respond to this question in an interesting way, increasingly pushing the boundaries of usage. Functionality moves from basic status updates to more engaging conversation.
- Self-promotion - as Twitter networks grow, users realise the profile-raising potential of the communications tool. Until very recently, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people using Twitter for PR/self-promotion purposes. A growing trend has been to use the tool as a platform for seeding blog posts, product launches etc.
- Collaboration -we’ve been heading towards this for the past month or so, but today I saw Twitter come alive as a truly collaborative tool. Social media encourages openness and honesty, and within networks Twitter can be a great place to ask advice and receive timely, expert feedback. It’s a great virtual tool for the sharing of ideas, and bouncing around of creativity.
- Criticising - it’s bound to happen. Just as Twitter reaches its usage peak, people will start to want more than the tool is technically capable of delivering. Users will start asking “what’s next?”.
Which leaves us with ‘Migration’. I think Twitter has a bit more life left in it yet though!
The timeline makes a timley come back!
July 7th, 2008
Timelines have been around for years but it seems just recently they have made a bit of a timely comeback, with a number of new timeline apps doing the start-up rounds. From a PR perspective, they can be a great way of telling a company story in a format that can be shared socially.
There used to be a time when to create a timeline you had to go through the rigmarole of setting-up Excel to crunch the numbers.
Here is a list of some of the better timeline applications out there:
Lifehaps - Simple to use drag and drop life timeline.
timetoast - Easy on the eye timeline that can be edited in minutes.
xtimeline - Make your timeline then add it to a group. E.g if your timeline was about Sony mobile phones then you could add it to the Mobile phones group.
viygo - Simple looking timeline with some excellent features, including your own Twitter timeline. Input your username and get a timeline of all your Tweets.
caplez - This has to be the best looking timeline interface, and it gives you the ability to add multi-media content to your timelines.
Dipity -Is another good addition with a great homepage that has its timelines in categories making them easy to search.
If the above is all a bit easy and you want to create a timeline the old skool way, you can always do it in Excel. Click here to find out how to do it.
Is social media now mass media?
June 25th, 2008
Is the cross-over complete? Is social media now a part of everyone’s day-to-day lives, and does everyone now know what it is and how to use it? Has social media reached mass media status?
What I mean by mass media is TV, radio and the press etc that are common communications platforms. Mass media is traditionally one dimensional in terms of communication, and social media of course is the complete opposite.
Over the past couple of months, social media references seem to be wherever I look, being highlighted in varied aspects of everyday life. For instance, on the radio you hear musicians such as Maria Carey singing about YouTube and other social networks, mainstream TV programmes are mentioning the use of blogs in their storylines (Eastenders), and mobile phone company advertisements (billboards) with social networking features are now a powerful way of selling handsets. As I saw yesterday in Waterloo London train station, Vodafone has massive banners hanging from the terminal building promoting the social networking functionality on its handsets.
That’s just a few instances I have noticed, and I bet you have noticed some too!
Is social media mass media yet or just a flash in the pan?
Here is a little slide show with more on the subject.
Celebrities crash the social networking scene!
June 19th, 2008
We all know about celebrity product endorsements and celebrity’s never ending love of free goody bags from the latest parties or film premiers. So celebrity involvement in social media activity seems like a match made in heaven. Social media is mostly free, and they get to endorse a product, usually a social network!
Nick Lachey’s of newly-weds fame was the first well-publicised social network offering, followed by a whole host of others.
Mashable has a great post on celebrity endorsed social networks.
Here are some others that weren’t mentioned in that list.
WeMix fronted by Ludacris, the U.S. rapper, who has his own ‘Luda’s blog’. One feature that I haven’t seen before is the ability to send a voicemail that can be played back on the site.
Here’s what Luda has to say about WeMix:
Another is WuChess, this is how they describe it: ” WuChess.com is the world’s first online chess and Hip-Hop community. You can create and share profiles with your friends and triumph over enemies on the 64 squares. Not just against people in your neighbourhood but from all over the world.”
From a PR perspective it makes things a whole lot more attractive when you have a celebrity attached to the brand! From a social media point of view the celebrity/social media partnership sounds like the start of a trend. Watch this space for an influx of celebrity endorsed social media products…