Search Sense

Another busy month in the Spannerworks blogosphere: Dax Hamman has been coveting the iPod Touch, Antony Mayfield has been buying an iPod touch, and Nilhan Jayasinghe has been keeping us up to date with the latest from Google.

Last month, Nilhan blogged about the Google update penalising those who have been paying for links rather than earning them – the latest is that there seems to have been a cleanup of AdWords listings for link sellers. Nilhan says:

“Now all Google has to do is to stop bought links from working and we should see them out of the organic results”

Meanwhile, Dax has been to the ABTA travel convention, where he saw a preview of Microsoft’s new Photosynth software.

The software “allows hugely complex 3D, dynamic environments to be created automatically from a set of simple rules.”

There’s a preview of Photosynth on YouTube which Dax urges everybody to take a look at. The preview was created in part by using images sourced from Flickr, and Dax talks about the impact the software may have on social media:

“Social media has changed the way users interact and communicate with each other, tools such as Photosynth are taking this to a whole new level, and add a layer of applications that generate solutions from simple components.”

Antony Mayfield has been to a few conferences too. He spoke at the IAB’s annual Engage conference, and attended the Marketing Society conference where he overheard someone asking “Why does everyone keep pussyfooting around and not just tell us what brands should do?” – So that’s exactly what he’s done, with a list of things he thinks brands should be doing now.

Antony’s also been interviewed by Daryl Willcox Publishing. In the first of two videos, Antony talks about why he chose to ‘ditch’ a successful PR career to join Spannerworks, while in the second he is “banging on again about things PR people might do to take advantage of the digital revolution,” ending with a “nice rallying call to arms for PR people to take over the marketing world”.

Antony has also been busy putting together an update to Spannerworks’ What is Social Media? eBook, with which Chris Eden and journalists Charlie Peverett and Simon Handby were also involved.

Antony also comments on Arjo Ghosh’s recent Search Sense post on integrated media planning and connected thinking. Arjo’s been:

“Thinking a lot lately about whether we are developing into an integrated agency and about the implications of this for innovation in digital marketing, and how this addresses the challenges of how brands communicate going forwards.”

We are collecting in excess of 65 million consumers’ data every day at iCrossing. This data includes indications on people’s needs and behaviours - it is a staggering mine of useful information.

We collect it from search marketing, display campaigns and user behaviour tracking in real-time and, when compared with how marketing has been historically measured, with amazing accuracy… We have tools and people who work everyday to mine this data to develop actionable insights, and clients who are building business strategy based on this bigger, better, and faster way of connecting with consumers.

I’m totally convinced digital is not only going to become the driver of marketing tomorrow, but is largely already there, we’re just getting our ducks in a row. As Herzog says, ‘digital at the centre’.

It’s easy for those of us looking at digital everyday to take it for granted. Some days I just have to pinch myself and say ‘wow’, this is groundbreaking stuff…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether we are developing into an integrated agency and about the implications of this for innovation in digital marketing, and how this addresses the challenges of how brands communicate going forwards.

My take on the term ‘integrated’ is that it is normally used to refer to the combined offering of media planning, buying, and creative services. In digital marketing this often translates into: how much budget can we spend driving people to an award-winning platform we have created. I am obviously being deliberately simplistic in my definition but the point remains the same, how different is this approach from creating a 30-second TV spot?

For today’s marketing environment the integrated story is as tired as the 30 second slot it was built around.

Around the insanely stimulating work environment that is Spannerworks I think that we have settled on a way to articulate our view, and it’s been arrived at holistically and from a point of re-framing the question. Integration fails because people don’t act in an integrated way and some activities just don’t integrate because the thought process is different. People are connecting, traveling, and creating via networks - a concept that’s as people-centered as human history, the only difference today is that we can do it on a far bigger, faster and more complicated scale.

So we settle on a view that is more about connectedness than integration. Connected brands will win big because they interact with their environment. Ideas become the new network hubs of innovation, with the brilliant ones taking centre stage in people’s imaginations, earning attention and engagement in the process.

One thing is certain, changes to our communications environment are transformational they are complex, rapidly evolving and perpetually in motion. But I guess you cannot be involved with a revolution without getting a little stressed out can you? Back to the media plan? Press delete now…

In September 2005 six Spannerworkers climbed the tallest free standing mountain in the world, and raised a lot of money for one of Spannerworks chosen charities – the Amani Kids home in Tanzania.

So this year…we are going back for more! On September 1st eight Spannerworkers are beginning the long climb. The team consists of Jonathan Stewart, Tom Morphy, Alex Asigno, and David Coats, all natural search strategists. The team also includes Tom Kingsley and Will Lockie, account managers, Doug Platts, a natural search analyst and David Hughes, a data strategist. David has yet to give us the exact excel formula to fully optimise our mountain route, but is working hard on it.

Our goal is to raise £10,000 for the children’s home – so they can buy a playground, and also help with their family reunification programme.

We’ve been up to all sorts to raise money – there have been 10K runs, half marathons, and an exceedingly long bike ride. There has been a steady supply of mouth watering food, baked and sold to co-workers. There was even a half time fancy dress race at Sussex county cricket ground.

To cap it all off, and for which we are eternally grateful, there have been incredibly generous donations from all of our clients. We are holding a raffle for some brilliant prizes, so if you fancy winning a holiday, a mountain bike, or some limited edition speakers for your stereo – head over to the official Kili climb site and enter!

So, before we go, we would just like to say thanks to everyone, everywhere, who have been kind enough to help us, sponsor us, donate gifts to take to the home or just plain put up with us while we bang on about cakes, climbing and the perils of altitude sickness.

Technology permitting, we’ll try and post live to the Kili climb site as we go, so check in to keep tabs on our progress..and we hope to see you back in the UK soon!

Asante!

Nilhan Jayasinghe, Spannerworks’ Head of Search and Natural Search Strategists Jonathan Stewart, Alex Asigno and Addam Hassan are currently at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, California. Here’s their thoughts on the conference so far…

The big thing that everyone is talking about this year is blended search – the incorporation of multimedia content within natural search results. Google call it Universal Search, Ask call it Ask 3d – whatever you want to call it, it’s making waves in terms of how search marketers need to react to vertical search. As can be attested by the number of people attending the multimedia seminars on podcast, image and video optimisation, and the standing room only in many of these talks, it seems everyone is eagerly rising to the challenge.

Some excellent examples are being played out in front of our eyes at the conference – the most notable being the search engine results for “hurricane dean”. On Monday, Greg Jarboe of SEO PR presented on Google Universal, and showed current search results for this query. He commented on the fact that at that point, the only extra content to be embedded within the natural search results were news articles, but that as the week progressed, we should expect to see more multimedia content appearing for that search result as people uploaded images and videos. Lo and behold, by Tuesday morning, images were showing up alongside news results within the search results:

This just goes to show the speed at which Google are seeking content from their vertical offerings to help keep their natural search results relevant and fresh.

This being the States, and with an impending presidential election looming, many presenters were using the examples of presidential candidates to highlight the importance of reputation management that blended search has now thrust upon search marketers. Googling Republican candidate Mitt Romney returns the following images befitting of a potential president, embedded within the natural search results:

However, try googling Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton, and it’s a different story:

Is this Google showing their political allegiance, or perhaps the Republicans actively trying to discredit Clinton – maybe she just doesn’t photograph well – either way, this highlights the importance of managing the first page of results for your name and/or brand.