I was recently giving an associate some advice on marketing his sons new website. It started off with “make sure you’re targeting your keyword phrases at the audience you want to attract”. It moved on to “chasing the long tail”, which was closely followed by “gaining links”, “consider ad-words” and installing Google Analytics. When I asked if the son had any marketing budget it became apparent the company was a single one-man band that was building up a new business and trying to make a name for itself. Nothing wrong with that, in-fact in my eyes this is to be admired. However one thing is for sure, very few one-man bands have a marketing budget and even fewer have time to spend on marketing even if they do.

Many will therefore decide to use an agency. Which is fine. But when using an agency it’s important you are giving them direction to make sure they are spending their time – which equals your money, on the most productive areas.

Many sole-traders however, will not consider an agency for online activity if they have a bit of knowledge of how things work online. They have used the Internet before, searched on google, have their own facebook page and even dabble with internet banking so how hard can marketing their website be?

Therefore I wasn’t surprised that after I had given some SEO and PPC advice which would keep a marketing team happy for a good few weeks, he asked the inevitable next question…

“OK, that’s good – What else could he do?”

Armed with the fact there was little budget, I took a deep breath and started talking social media marketing. Viral videos, Facebook business pages, Twitter profiles, status updates, Digg it, Like this, Buzz that, Tweet the other… It was all in there. I looked at his face and he didn’t have to say a word, “How the f*** are you suppose to do all that” was written all over it.

That’s when it struck me that an awful lot of companies, not just one man bands, will be trying to cover everything in a blind panic that if they don’t they are missing out. I’m not going to argue that the media multiplier effect works. But is it the best use of the marketing coffers to spread it over all forms of media?

The answer is of course simple. Yes… If it works! No… If it doesn’t.

Social media is just that – media, just the same as the telephone, carrier pigeon, postal service or smoke signals! And in turn needs to be measure and quantified in exactly the same way as any other marketing channel (although, good luck measuring the impact of smoke signals!). It may be new(ish) and exciting but it hasn’t necessarily made the revolutionary changes everyone seems to attribute to it.

It boils down to spending the time you have most productively. Which can only be understood through measurement of your activities.

Many people attribute social media with Barrack Obama being in power today. I don’t.
If the massively impressive PR train that was employed for Obama wasn’t using social media they would have been using other channels. Who knows which would have been most effective?
There are too many variables in this case to truly understand if social media had the impact many say it did.

If we look back to a time before social media there have been figures that have changed the world quite easily without one single tweet or status update.  I’m sure Martin Luther King would have had a Facebook page during the Civil Rights era if it had been around. That wouldn’t have meant Facebook caused social change.  It appears the founders of social networking sites would have us believe they have invented a media channel that is far superior to anything we have experienced before.  And this is the reason it is capable of such great things.  I believe it’s simply these now multi-millionaires are simply shouting louder than inventors of the past.  Just think how many important decisions have been made over the humble telephone.  Yet I don’t hear anyone attributing wars that have been won, disasters that have been averted and lives that have been saved to the humble dog-n-bone, do you?

Social media marketing is a worthwhile channel, but only by measuring its impact when compared to other forms of media can you know if this is the channel you should be investing your valuable time in.

This is why the single most important piece of advice I gave my associate was to install Google Analytics.  Unfortunately I suspect it is the one piece of advice he may act upon but never follow up.  To delve into Google analytics and use it to ensure you are choosing the best suited media to your campaign takes time and a lot of it.  Time that a single person battling to make a new company work just doesn’t have.

Alan

My favorite comedian of all time, Alan Partridge, is back with a new series called Mid-Morning Matters.  This is obviously fantastic news for me as I thought the days of Coogan playing my favorite character were numbered.

It’s a small shame that the episodes are only 12-13 mins each, but I’m happy enough that I’m getting anything so I’m not going to moan.  What is interesting though is that this is an “Internet Only” show that is brought to us by Fosters.  Yep – Fosters, the famous Aussie Lager which us Brits apparently consume at a rate of 30 pints every second!

I see this as a master-stroke from Fosters, who have launched a new website called “Fosters Funny” here in the UK.  They have managed to persuade a much-loved character to make a come back as well as try something new and innovative.  Not only this, they have also given us a glimpse of how we will all be consuming media in the not-to-distant future.

The video is hosted on YouTube and the website is a very simple blog-style set-up, but it works perfectly for capturing the users attention as well as their details to ensure Fosters know exactly how successful this initiative has been.  The usual social sharing buttons are present, as well as a a community style “send us something funny” request which helps them feed the site.
A few select “Tweets” from hand picked users are displayed and finally a few social style games are available.  Basically it is a very simple interactive social website that has just enough content while still being  easy for Fosters to maintain.

I know from experience that Alan Partridge has a massive following and promotes enough of a “cult” following to be searched for actively online.  My Alan Partridge soundboard attracts a good number of hits a month from people looking online for “Alan Partridge Quotes“.

Google Search Trends for Alan Partridge

As we can see from the latest Google trends figures, the search term “Alan Partridge” is enjoying the highest traffic since his hey-day with “Knowing Me, Knowing You” and “I’m Alan Partridge” back in 2004/05.  The difference between now and then though was in 2004/05 it was a TV series influencing peoples online search, rather than solely an Internet “Buzz”.

Fosters have been advertising Alan’s comeback on Facebook, Yahoo and through Google Ads.  So combined with the social sharing aspect the website encourages I’m sure the message has been received by a huge audience of Alan fans.

There is no doubt that Fosters has increased its brand awareness though this campaign.  At time of blogging over 228,000 views, 2,270 “Likes” and 779 comments have been recorded on YouTube in the 4 days it has been online.  The video hosts a pre & post roll sequence of an animated Fosters logo as well as maintains the Fosters logo in the top left corner throughout the episode.  As an episode lasts 12-13mins, this is a long time for almost 1/4million people to be engaged with the brand.

Trend for the search term "Fosters" this year

Again using Google Trends we can see the search term “Fosters” is also enjoying its highest peak this year, an indication the “Fosters” brand is at the forefront of peoples minds when online.

If brand awareness was the objective with this campaign, Fosters can surely sit back and think it’s a job well done – and that’s after episode 1 of Mid Morning Matters.
If however, it was to sell more pints… Only time will tell.  I’m a Fosters drinker already, although I’m sure like the majority of lager drinkers I have little loyalty towards the brand.  If Fosters isn’t available I certainly wouldn’t leave the pub… I’d just ask for an alternative.  I can’t see that changing because Fosters have resurrected my favorite comedy character.

With that said, I still believe Fosters have come up with a winner in Fosters Funny. As Fosters is my primary choice already I’m probably not their target audience with this campaign. I may be guessing, but I think they will be trying to convert lager drinkers of competing brands or maybe lager drinkers that haven’t really made their mind up even when appoaching the bar. With these consumers in mind, I’m sure consciously or subconsciously they will connect the large red F on the beer tap with what they have seen on the internet while watching Alan. I’m also sure their next four words will be “Pint of Fosters please!”.

There’s a new slice of Google code written for Apache called mod_pagespeed which apparently trims the excess fat off your website and makes it a mean lean speedy beast. But better than that it’s also a quick, easy process to make it happen.

A Google exec has said “…any webmasters can use mod_pagespeed to quickly and automatically optimize their sites. It can reduce page load times by up to 50% – in other words, essentially speeding up websites by roughly 2x.”

Considering how much emphasis Google have recently placed on webpage speed this new module will do your website no harm in terms of SEO. I’m not quite sure how much I believe the Google optimiser when I run sites through the webmaster tools and it unveils my pages are faster than 60% of all other sites, meaning 40% are faster than my web page that loads in 1.5 seconds! But there is no doubt that site speed is heavily weighted by Google in terms of website rankings. Even more important for me though, is how there is no doubting users certainly lose patience quickly when it comes to loading web pages. If this mod means just a few % use my site instead of leaving, then it’s a good thing.

So how does mod_pagespeed work? It works by rewriting resources using filters. these filters optimise JavaScript, HTML and CSS, JPEG’s and PNG images to conform with best practices. If you’ve already optimised these files the results will be less dramatic, but may still make a difference.

mod_pagespeed currently only supports Apache 2.2 and is available as a down-loadable binary for i386 and x86-64bit systems and as open-source code.
After instilation it will still take some fine-tuning of the configuration to get the maximum benefit in terms of page performance, but once set up for your website your away.

For full instructions on how to use mod_pagespeed visit http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/using_mod.html

and to download the necessary binary’s or open-source code visit http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html

How a domain travels is often not considered. Even many small start-ups have ambitions of “going global”, but how many would really consider this when purchasing their domain name? Not many.

Recently Logo.com sold for half a million dollars, that’s a lot of money on a domain name. However, the justification for $500,000 on logo.com was actually one of the best I’ve heard. New owners of logo.com and E-commerce developers Adam Strong and Alan Townsend said…

The word logo translates the same in English, German, French, Italian, Polish and other languages.

As the services they are going to offer will include logo design, web design, business card and letterhead design and printing services, the domain will be applicable globally and as “logo” translates into so many languages, as far as the url is concerned their search engine optimisation will be assured in all of the search engines various language portals.
This is after all the number one consideration when purchasing a domain.

Of course if you have $500,000 to spend on a domain, you may also argue that a unique domain name could be purchased and you would have funds for marketing a new memorable name. Like “moonpig” really has nothing to do with cards, but is a unique memorable name that once marketed correctly ensures web users will find it.

Many established brands with their domains already sorted, often use their .com as a portal and then sub-domains, or extended alternative domains to convey the region. This often works well, but has still backfired in some cases… powergenengland, powergenspain, powergenitalia!

If you’re about to buy a domain and there is any chance it might go global. Consider the options.

• Buy a domain that translates, at least partially into various languages. Although as the case above proves – this may come at some cost.
• Buy a domain that targets your largest audience, most probably your local audience first. Then use sub-domains.
• Think of a unique, memorable name that you can market to your audience. But be careful. Get your unique name translated into various languages first to make sure it doesn’t mean something innapropriate in a different language.

Most will pick the second option due to the costs involved with the first and last.
If this is the case then consider this last point. You could still purchase an existing domain that has some history in search engines. This will still come at a cost which varies depending on the domain (DiscountVouchers.com just sold for $160,000) but will give you an instant boost in terms of search engine optimisation that may otherwise take you a long time to build up.