Archive for December, 2008
What is Twitter? and how is it useful?
Twitter is a relatively well known microblogging tool. Most normal people will be lost at ‘microblogging’.
Misunderstanding
The main misunderstanding of Twitter is as a result of it’s marketing which says: “Twitter is based on the simple question of ‘What are you doing right now?’”.
What people typically use Twitter for?
What Twitters front page it should really say is:
-For when you want to send a message to someone but don’t know who, so send it to everyone
-For when you want to share information or links with friends and colleagues
-For when you want to poll opinion on an idea/topic of interest to you or your followers/friends
-For when you want to promote something that you or your organisation has just done
Who Cares?
Initially no-one. First you have to make your presence known by looking for people you know, these might be through work or social or both. You can then ‘Follow’ them, this is a little like adding a friend on Facebook except that by default they are accepted.
People who you follow are notified by an email (assuming they haven’t turned this feature off, most don’t), and can then if they think you might be interesting follow you.
What if I have private stuff that I want to say?
Twitter is like your own little press release news wire. If it’s private there are many many alternative modes of communication you could use like email.. This is especially worth noting as Google tends to like indexing everyones messages aka ‘Tweets’
If you are interested in what I have to say, check out my twitter@ http://www.twitter.com/duncan_m/
Add comment December 19th, 2008
LeWeb08 - How to build a community - Gary Vaynerchuck of Winelibrary.tv
Gary Vaynerchuck is a very well established entrepreneur who has built a multi-million dollar wine business from scratch.
From his talk at the largest European web conference LeWeb I took some very important points which although I’ve heard before, can’t be impressed on too importantly for Agencies, SMBs and Brands alike.
-You’re a clown if you’re not using Tubemogle to upload video, as it is the best way to distribute and track video online.
-You have to love your audience, care about your community, and be authentic with content that you understand. Caring, answer all your fan mails in a serious and authentic way.
-Two things matter: Word of mouth - Now instead of a maximum audience of 100 now people have audiences of thousands if not tens of thousands & Customer service will prevail, if it’s good.
-If you can build a personal/people based brand you should as it will add value to yourself and the company you are working at. A company/brand with a board of celebrities is always going to be more valued by a customer base than one which is invisible.
Live Video streaming by Ustream
Gary @ LeWeb in Paris 2008
Source: Gary Vaynerchuck, Winelibrary.tv
Add comment December 18th, 2008
LeWeb08 - Fotolia an innovation in Royalty Free Photos
If you’re looking for a breath of fresh air from iStock and Getty, check out Fotolia A US based stock photo site, they have 4,6m online royality free images. What is unique about Fotolia is that it’s actually a marketplace where professional photographs are able to sell their photos.
The companies key goal is to provide only very high quality images which they screen. One thing that came through from the interview is their intention to start offering stock video by the end of January 2009.
Watch the interview above. Source: -Interview with Oleg Co-Founder & President of Fotolia - Intruders.TV
They have a very simple pricing model of between $1 and $10 which gives you rights for print and at the top end $10 you can use for resale on items such as t-shirts and mugs.
Add comment December 17th, 2008
MediaCampLondon#2 - Tailoring content to your audience
This weekend I listened to Pete Wailes at MCL#2 on digital content. Most of the things he covered are general knowledge for those writing blogs and creating content but here were a few of his key points:
-Tailor to your audience: Create personas, look at who you are targeting, Age, Sex, Location, Level of intelect, Technical understanding..
-Make it scannable: Keep massive blocks of text to a minimum and break up with bullet points and images E.g. ProBlogger.
-Title is king: For attention and SEO
-Multimodal content: Some people prefer to digest their information in different formats, podcasts, PDFs, Videos.. The more you consistently offer the better you will cater for your audience.
-Video: Don’t be scared to do it, but keep it moving and interesting and if possible fun e.g. YourGeekNews, Newspepper…
-Focus on a niche: E.g. Gamers/Who like Xbox/Who like shooting games/
Source: MediaCampLondon, Pete Wailes ‘Explosive Content: the art of creating content for digital audiences’
Add comment December 16th, 2008
Optimising domain name SEO for recurring brands and events
SEO has become one of the most important factors online with more and more consideration being put into it Year-On-Year. One area which is often overlooked is the optimisation of a domain name/brand.
The first consideration for domain name SEO is based on whether you are aiming to develop a brand or simply a mindless website. Most would probably say yes, that they are either developing a brand or a mini/micro-site for a brand.
Second one must consider two of factors which most search engines notably Google hold in high regard for domain names:
-Age of the domain: Older domains will be considered more important especially if they have had a consistent keyword theme.
-Inbound links (IBLs): Everyone knows that the more links they get pointing to their site the better, especially if they are from other sites with high pagerank.
With these two considerations in mind lets look at two examples.
Example 1: LeWeb
Context: LeWeb is one of the largest annual events which is focused around Internet entrepreneurs each year in Paris.
Why: This is an example which I would consider to be the ‘wrong’ way to go around keeping your brand alive and increasing its web presence year-on-year/campaign-on-campaign.
Problem: When I search for LeWeb on Google, the first result I come across is from the event in 2007 and not the more recent 2008 edition. Quel Disastre !
Solution: The easiest solution for them to follow would be to use their leweb.net address and create a sub-domain for each year/event. e.g. http://2007.leweb.net, http://2008.leweb.net.. and so on. This works especially well if you have a different developer/agency working on your site each year.
Alternatively they could simply have www.leweb.net/2007/, www.leweb.net/2008/… Often simplicity is the key!
Example 2: Carsonified
Context: An events company focussed on running events for developers and entrepreneurs in the UK.
Why?: Because they’re doing it right!
Examples:
FOWA London 2008: http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2008/london/content
FOWA Dublin 2009: http://events.carsonified.com/fowd/2009/london/
Conclusion: New domain names for brands which you want to keep alive year on year need to be under the same core domain name. The examples here are for events however it applies to everything from sites which release annual reports through to mini/micro-sites.
2 comments December 16th, 2008