3W Design Group – Media

Of course we all know how to use search engines. Using them smarter is important however, and Danny Sullivan reminds us all of some great tips. From Advertising Age:

Danny Sullivan on Search Marketing

By Danny Sullivan

Published: June 29, 2009

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak found Microsoft’s new search engine Bing to be “astounding” after seeing a demo. I found it astounding that someone as tech-savvy as Woz didn’t realize much of what Bing does isn’t new to Microsoft — or even other search engines, for that matter.

It’s a reminder that many people could use a refresher on search tips. So this month, I take off my search-marketer hat and put on my search-professor one.

Photo: Jason Meyer

Danny Sullivan has been covering the search-marketing industry for more than a decade and is editor in chief of SearchEngineLand.com.

DIRECT ANSWERS. Want sports scores? The local weather? A stock quote? The major search engines have long offered “direct answers” or “shortcuts” that answer these and other questions directly within the search results. Google’s just freshened up its instructions about these in an “Explore Google Search” page. Interesting how that came out right after everyone seemed to rave about Bing’s magic tools!

SPECIALIZED SEARCHES. Beyond images, the major search engines all offer the ability to search for video, run shopping searches, tap into maps and search only news content. Bing and Yahoo both offer travel-search features. Yahoo has a Yahoo Answers community where anyone can put out a question and get responses back from people who know the answer. Bing has a medical-search service. Google offers book search, a “scholar” search using academic articles and more.

The key to finding these services is typically to look at the top of the search engine’s home page or search-results page. Also click the “more” link to get to, yes, more options.

QUERY COMMANDS. Time to dazzle your friends with handy commands you can enter into all the major engines. Want to find pages that have an exact phrase? Add quotes — such as “steve jobs” — and you’ll get pages that have only those words in that exact order vs. pages that have those words but not necessarily as part of a phrase.

Getting material that doesn’t match the topic you’re looking for? Use a minus sign to “subtract” pages that have certain words from your results. A search for “cars –movies” means to bring back all pages with the word “cars” on them but not any pages that also say the word “movies.” You can subtract as many words as you’d like.

SITE SEARCH. Here’s a final tip publishers will especially like. It’s the site command. Take the “http://” part off your domain name and insert site: in its place — such as “site:www.mysite.com” — and you’ll only see results from within that site.

Can you ever imagine a search engine upending Google? O.K. neither can I. However there is a challenger that adds a new twist to the search process. It’s called Wolfram/Alpha and it’s differences from Google are outlined in CNN’s SciTechblog today:

There’s been lots of buzz in the tech community about a site called Wolfram|Alpha, which is set to launch in about a week — likely on May 18, according to a spokesman.

On first glance, Wolfram|Alpha looks like a search engine: it has a box where you type in a question or query terms. That’s about where the similarities end, though, because, unlike Google or Ask, Wolfram|Alpha is kind of like an enormous calculator. It takes your question and crunches out an entirely new answer, even if the answer isn’t something that’s been posted on the Web before.

Confused? You’re not alone. An example should help.

Say you’re an investor and you want to see how two companies are faring against each other on the market. You could type in “IBM versus Apple” and Wolfram|Alpha will generate graphs and tables to compare the stocks over time. It also give you the Web-based sources used to generate the data, so you know where the numbers are coming from.

A very cool thing is that you can ask questions that involve number answers and Wolfram/Alpha pulls the correct info for you:

The site is also interesting for academic queries. Type in “Internet users in Africa” and you’ll get the total number of Web users there — 51 million — as well as lists of the number of users by country plus graphs of this information. If you’re in the fisheries business, or if you’re an environmentalist, you could type in “fish produced in Italy versus France” to get an idea of how that sector is faring. The answer includes specifics, like how much of the fish crop was farmed versus what was captured. Such data could be used to argue policy points or to debate whether or not certain industries are sustainable.

Sound magical? Many people seem to think so. CNET and the New York Times have informative posts about the site and what it means for the way we generate and digest information in the Internet age.

Read the whole article here.

Google is probably watching with interest and planning their counter-offensive. I am very pleased with the development as I think Google controls too much of all web information. And they control it because we allow them to do so!

Stay tuned.

How to make blogging work for your business
by Chris Garret: blogger and tech consultant. You can find out more, and grab two free ebooks, by visiting his blog at chrisg.com

Are you looking to grow a business? Do you want to break the demoralizing cycle of cold-call, pitch and knock-back, while attracting the custom, respect and recognition that you surely deserve?

The good news is you can, and many people are doing just that every day. Even better, the answer is simpler than you might have been led to believe.

Gary Vaynerchuk (see image below) channeled his enthusiasm and passion to communicate a love of wine and powered his family store into a $50million business.

Woot was launched July 12, 2004 and sold its 1,000,000th item, a 4GB micro hard drive, on February 5, 2007. Customers stampede to buy its products, and the company does hardly any advertising.

I advise business owners all over the world and, fortunately as an introvert, I do not have to do any sales or ever have to pitch; people call me for internet marketing and blogging advice.

It’s not just mail order and consulting businesses who benefit from this approach. Thomas Mahon is a tailor working from the world-famous Saville Row in London, and sells bespoke suits using only articles on his website, and word of mouth, as marketing. He is constantly booked and has suited up celebrities from Prince Charles to Brian Ferry.

What do all these stories have in common? Blogs.

Now I realize there are some ideas and perceptions about blogs out there. Some of them true, most of them wildly inaccurate. Like most buzzwords, ‘blogs’ and ‘bloggers’ have taken on a fair amount of baggage that we need to cut away to get to the truth, and most importantly, get to what is in it for you and your business.

What are blogs really?

Watch TV news pundits, or read a newspaper, and you might be forgiven for thinking that all bloggers are armchair quarterbacks, chugging back beer, gobbling up mountains of salty snacks, while offering the world choice cuts of their ‘wisdom’. Anything from which football coach should be sacked, to demanding a say in Mr Obama’s first 100 days in office.

Another distorted and slightly disturbing view of bloggers is that they are amateur diarists, offering daily entries with such fascinating nuggets as what they ate for breakfast, fascinating things their many cats have brought into the house, and that strange dream they had last night.

Thankfully, while folks like this do exist, this is not what blogging is about when it comes to business!

For business, think of blogs as online content and information that attracts your target market in growing numbers, keeps them engaged and interested, and produces leads and sales for you and your company.

Best of all it doesn’t cost you anything but a little time and creativity. If you have a website then you are likely to have paid for everything you need already.

The benefits of blogs for business

As I mention above, there are sound business reasons why you would want to have a blog, but to really understand what this is all about, I need to go deeper into what having a blog really would mean for your company and for your profits.

Attraction versus interruption

Traditionally most businesses that want to increase their sales will do so by buying up some (what they hope will be) well placed advertising with compelling creative. It makes sense, it is what has been done for years, and it seems to work. OK, famously fully half of advertising is a waste but we do not know which half. If the sales come in, and the advertising is not too expensive, then it kind-of works out in the end.

In fact most advertising is a waste. If for every $1 you spend you don’t get more than $1 back into your business over the long term then it is a waste. Further, if you do not know what your advertising is doing for your business it is worse than a waste, it could actually be doing real damage.

As business people we get conditioned into doing things that are established practices. The Yellow Pages ad, trade journals, perhaps some radio or television. Some of it works. What we forget though is what it is like being on the receiving end; what it is like to be bombarded with these messages. There is so much noise in the marketplace, so many sales messages and so much interruption to our lives that we are blanking it out more and more from our collective consciousness in order to just get through the day.

On top of all that, some advertising is only memorable because it is just plain annoying. So it is irritating, increasingly ineffective and expensive.

The solution is to change our approach from shouting to attracting.

Instead of louder and more obnoxious methods of getting in your prospects’ faces, find ways to have them come to you; happy, pre-sold and wallet in hand.

Consider how people find products and services online. They turn to Google, they search for what they are hunting for, they do their research, make a decision, and either make a call or put in their credit card number.

Create content that answers your prospects’ questions, challenges, wants and needs using the words and language of your customers, and you are well placed to attract people looking for exactly what you have to offer. Blogs are famously effective in producing excellent search engine rankings.

Retention, trust and long-term value

But there is more.

We don’t just want one-off sales. We want a long-term business stuffed with happy, loyal customers, right? Plus, all too often we don’t get the sale on the first visit. Prospects need some warming up. They need to trust we can deliver on our promises, and perhaps they have been burned in the past.

This is another reason why blogs are an ideal business companion.

Rather than plugging away at your prospects with sales pitches, you offer them valuable tips, news, and information. Instead of hitting delete or hanging up the phone, they begin to look forward to hearing from you! The relationship changes and you demonstrate expertise and grow trust through regular, useful communication.

Get it right and not only do you convert more of your visitors into sales, but you sell more to your existing customers and keep them loyal for longer.

Be realistic

Of course I have painted a rosy picture, but it is true that not everything involved in blogging is a walk in the park.

The web is littered with blogs that were started in a rush of enthusiasm and then abandoned. People forget that it takes consistent effort and sustained creativity to keep a blog going. This is why businesses often hire freelance bloggers or coaches to keep the momentum going and share some of the load. A successful blog doesn’t happen overnight, but then neither does a successful business.

Another aspect to be aware of is that anyone who puts their thoughts out into the internet is going to attract criticism, both justified and just plain weird. The internet is full of life’s diverse characters, and they are emboldened by the relative anonymity afforded by having a fake name, and several thousands of miles protecting them.

Fact is though, the internet will increasingly be talking about you anyway. Better to have a means to answer criticism early and effectively rather than let tempers and egos boil over.

Blog checklist for success

Here are some tips for establishing a better business blog:

• Put the audience first. Rather than focus on what you want and need, what does the audience want and need? Do keyword research, talk to prospects, and answer their questions.
• Prioritize value over flair. People often say to me that they can’t blog because they are not brilliant writers. It doesn’t matter! What counts is offering something useful. People will forgive small writing issues if you do not waste their time, plus writing gets better with practice.
• Don’t overdo it. Blogging and all the associated tasks can get addictive or turn into a time suck. Allocate a certain amount of time in your week and don’t feel you have to write every day.
• Find the watering holes. Discover where your prospects and peers hang out, meet them there and bring them home to your blog.
• Network. Other people will have a profound impact on your success, from links through to advice – so networking is essential.
• Get them to subscribe. You want to keep hold of as many visitors as possible so get them to subscribe to your email list or blog feed! Give them good reasons why they should – perhaps with a freebie incentive, special offer, discount, or other goodies.
• Write compelling stories. Engage your readers with attractive headlines, draw them further in with introductions, entertain with anecdotes, and leave them with inspiration, new knowledge or fresh motivation.

Summary

Copywriting has been called “salesmanship in print”. A good business blog is like the best kind of salesperson; someone who waits to be approached, listens, offers advice and solutions, leaves you to close the sale yourself, is someone you would return to again and again, and best of all, someone you would want to tell all your friends about. Wouldn’t you want some of that in your business?

Related articles: See how iStylista used blogging to double their sales.

It’s obvious that Gen Y has been leading Baby Boomers in the consumption and content creation on blogs, Facebook and in the use of Twitter.  But according to the latest Consumer Electronics Usage Survey from Accenture, Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are the fastest growing users of social networking sites and blogs. Steve Rubel has a summary of the report here.

Link to a summary of the Accenture report here

Rubel’s analysis:

According to the study, baby boomers…

• Increased reading blogs and listening to podcasts by 67 percent year over year; nearly 80 times faster than Gen Y (1 percent)
• Posted a 59 percent increase in using social networking sites—more than 30 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
• Increased watching/posting videos on the Internet by 35 percent—while Gen Y usage decreased slightly (-2 percent)
• Accelerated playing video games on the go via mobile devices by 52 percent— 20 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
• Increased listening to music on an iPod or other portable music player by 49 percent—more than four times faster than Gen Y (12 percent)

Meanwhile, Gen Y…

• Participation slipped in virtual worlds from 23 percent to 19 percent
• Consumed no more video online than they did last year
• Blogged and contributed to wikis less (it’s down from 35 to 33 percent)

The baby boomer results don’t surprise me. What does jump out at me is how the most technologically savvy generation we have seen to date is slowing their adoption. Could they be suffering from social fatigue or do they have enough technology in their lives already? Perhaps they are returning toward more face-to-face venues, which anecdotally, I have heard. It will be interesting to see how this progresses next year.

My take on the issue is now that the older people are doing it, Gen Y maybe doesn’t find these particular technologies as cool anymore. I have a 21 year old daughter who mourned the day all adults were allowed on Facebook! What do you think?

Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia among other online properties and has some new projects up his sleeve. In an iMediaConnection article written by Susan Kuchinskas on March 26, 2009 titled: Jimmy Wales: Why the recession won’t kill digital media this serial entrepreneur talks about the state of digital media and it’s worth the read.

Here’s an interesting back and forth at the end of the article:

iMedia: What (are) some of the new technologies and opportunities for interactive marketers?

Wales: I don’t see a lot a lot of new stuff going on in terms of technology. We’re finally seeing the fruition of some ideas that have been out there for a long time. The ability to target on Facebook is pretty amazing, and it’s getting better and better.

iMedia: What about MySpace or Twitter?

Wales: Maybe I’m not in the right demo for MySpace. It hurts my eyes. But I’m on Facebook every day. Twitter? I’m a little unsure, like everybody is, on what their business is. I’m something of a skeptic. I think it’s appropriate for marketers to think about how they can use a tool like Twitter or a blog, but for many brands, it’s useless. No one really wants to get an update from McDonalds, or a blog post from Snickers. For a super-complicated TV show like “Lost,” it makes sense that they need to be engaged online. But a lot of brands just want to reach eyeballs.

iMedia: As the recession continues and possibly worsens, do you think search and user-generated content will stay strong as traditional media dies?

Wales: Definitely. This is where people are flocking, so advertisers will always want to go and reach the public. We see more and more time spent online is with user-generated content, so it clearly will be a huge part of the whole advertising and marketing landscape.

iMedia: Advertising on user-generated content is a lot cheaper.

Wales: I think it’s priced fairly. Right now, it’s a bit of a bargain to do brand-building online, simply because there are a lot of outlets for reaching tons of people in a very targeted way based on their interests. It’s still cheap because the model and metrics have not matured.

iMedia: Do you have any last words for us?

Wales: Let’s all cheer up; the recession will be over soon.