Tomorrow is the first day of Internet World 2009 at Earls Court, London.

If you have yet to register then check out my Top 16 Things To See guide and then head over the the registration form (it’s free) to book your place amongst 13,000 attendees and hundreds of exhibitors. Read more >>

Kieron from ShareMyPlaylists.com is giving away a Sony PS3 and all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to upload a Spotify playlist to his excellent Spotify community site. If you haven’t visited ShareMyPlaylists.com yet, it’s fast becoming the biggest and best Spotify playlist site around.

In the 7 or so weeks since going live it has gathered over 1000 playlists submitted by it’s users. The site was quoted as “Genius” by NME.com and also won the Site Inspection site of the week award in New Media Age. Praise indeed. Read more >>

Internet World is happening at Earls Court, London on the 28th, 29th & 30th of April 2009 and to help those attending we’ve published this handy guide to make sure that you don’t miss any of the good bits.

Internet World is Europe’s longest running, best attended and biggest event for digital marketing and online business, attracting over 13,000 visitors and more than 300 exhibitors. It’s free to attend but you will need to pre-register.

Click here to print a PDF version of the guide with a detailed floorplan.

Twitter Panel Debate

Twitter is getting huge amounts of attention but most brands (apart from Dell) seem to be unsure how to use it.

On Wednesday 29th April at 11am in the Keynote Theatre a panel of leading industry figures and global brands who have led the way in the social media revolution will share their experiences with the 13,000 expected Internet World visitors.

Panellists include:

• Gareth Jones, editor, Revolution
• Ashley Friedlein, CEO, Econsultancy
• Kai Turner, Head of Information Architecture, agency.com
• Guy Stephens, Knowledge & Online Help Manager, Carphone Warehouse

The panel will address the following key issues:

• How to start using Twitter and how to understand the benefits for your organisation
• How to write relevant and powerful tweets, the do’s and don’ts, and how to monitor and react to the activity around your brand
• Tips and case-study-examples of successful campaigns, how to build followers, who to follow, applications to manage your campaigns, and how to resource effectively

Follow the action via http://twitter.com/iw_expo and twitter.com/patrickaltoft

Keynote Speakers

The keynote theatre is packed full of great speakers and you probably wouldn’t go far wrong listening to them all. However there are 6 that really stand out for me and I’ve summarised them below:

Tuesday 10.15 – 10.45 David Walmsley, Head of Web Selling at John Lewis will be talking about Selling more online – six rules for smarter e-retail.

Tuesday 12.30 0 13.00 Geoff Turral, Marketing Director at Porsche will be discussing how the rapid changes in the make-up of the premium automotive sector are forcing new approaches and how web trends are changing core customer activity at Porsche.

Tuesday 13.15 – 13.45 Alex Hunter, Head of Online Marketing at Virgin Media will be talking about “Brand 2.0″ which should be pretty interesting.

Tuesday 14.00 to 14.45 Stuart Glendinning, Managing Director Mortgages & Local at Money Supermarket is speaking about Strength through diversity: How the world’s most popular price comparison site is riding the storm. Don’t miss this one.

Wednesday 13.15 to 13.45 James Davey, Head of Online Marketing at B&Q will be asking Is your search strategy fit for multi-channel retailing? It should be interesting to hear how B&Q are embracing search in 2009.

Thursday 11.45 to 12.15 Sara Linfoot, Group Head Content Solutions at The Guardian will be talking about Casting the net wider – building engagement
across the web.

The Branded3 Beach Stand

In tribute to our Malaysian studio Branded3 will be bringing some of the exotic Far East to Earls Court – free cocktails, a whack-a-shark arcade game & even fine white sand will be decorating stand E2062.

More importantly we are offering free SEO clinics as well as open discussions about the latest happenings with Google & the SEO industry. So if you want some free advice on SEO, Twitter or just a free cocktail come and find Patrick, Vin, Antony & Tom on stand E2062.

Tuesday Seminars

13.00 to 13.50 in the mobile, online advertising, affiliate & search marketing theatre. Hands on SEO: Experiences and best practices for large sites. Dan Cohen, Global SEO Engineering Lead, MSN

15.20 to 15.50 email, mobile marketing and analytics theatre. Marketing in a downturn: What to consider when marketing to consumers in a difficult economy. Robin Goad, Director of Research, Hitwise

Wednesday Seminars

12.00 – 12.50 Internet Retailing panel debate

10.40 – 11.10 enterprise 2.0 & content management theatre. Sky’s journey towards website accessibility: Review of Sky’s insight into the diverse needs of people who wish to access information and what has been done, so far. Carmel Giblin, Head of Corporate Responsibility & Accessibility, BskyB

12.00 – 12.50 The Future of Social Media panel debate: Buzz Monitoring – How to Ensure you know what people are saying about your brand in social media, and what you can do to influence the conversation.

Thursday Seminars

10.00 – 10.30 mobile, online advertising, affiliate & search marketing theatre. Innovate or Die – Lessons from the last 10 years of online. Chris Cuddy, CEO, Cheapflights.co.uk

10.40 – 11.10 mobile, online advertising, affiliate & search marketing theatre. SEO and PPC synergies – Gulf Air case study. Susana Inarejos, Head of Technical SEO Department, Bigmouthmedia

14.00 – 14.30 internet world theatre. Obama 2.0: Lessons in Social Media from the Obama Presidential Campaign. Kate Cooper, Managing Director, Digital Training Company & Leo Ryan, Director, Ryan MacMillan

The idea of social media being part of the buying process is quite new to most brands even though a lot of forward thinking people started thinking about it a few years ago.

Today the Economist has a piece about how consumers buying habits are changing during the recession, the quote below stood out for me:

The downturn will also accelerate the use of social media, such as blogs and social-networking sites, by consumers looking for intelligence on firms and their products. As trust in brands is eroded, people will place more value on recommendations from friends.

Social media make it harder for brands to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes, but they also offer canny companies a powerful new channel through which to promote their wares and test new products and pricing strategies.

Brands need to start using social media, fast.

After a lengthy period of testing we are pleased to launch a new product which allows companies to track telephone sales with the same accuracy and detail as e-commerce transactions.

Personally I think this is one of the best tools I’ve ever seen and am genuinely excited about it.

The Call Metrics software integrates telephone call monitoring with popular web tools such as Google Analytics & AdWords conversion tracking as well as client CRM systems to provide the ultimate marketers dream – the ability to track ROI for marketing spend. Read more >>

This is a guest post by Jamie Murray Wells from glassesdirect.co.uk. We like to feature guest posts from people who are running successful & innovative online businesses as a break from the normal SEO talk.

“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” Coco Chanel

 I’m more likely to quote Seth Godin than Coco Chanel, but when Carole on my team quoted Chanel at me this week it gave me the idea for this post. In a week where we’ve added Vera Wang and Nicole Farhi glasses to our growing designer collection it seems appropriate to start with a style legend.

What was Chanel talking about? Innovation and the ability to differentiate yourself in a crowded market. In the current climate, where investment is scarce and competition for funding is fierce, innovation and differentiation are more important than ever.

There are lots of examples where this advice is appropriate today – the job market and the online PPC market are just two - so my advice is look at your current business and decide whether you’re innovating enough to survive and thrive in the next 3-5 years. Stelios Haji-Ioannou started out with only 2 planes in 1995 , but through innovation in air-travel Easyjet is now flying all around Europe and helped create a new business model.

Glasses Direct was founded on innovation in 2004. We set out to answer a problem that no-one else realised they had. Running with an idea and making your own space requires a strong belief in what you’re doing. 5 years later, we continue down this path and continue to grow.

For example, we recently added a Home Trial service, the first of its kind in the UK. People often tell us that they need to try the glasses on in the store to “be sure”. But wouldn’t you prefer to try your glasses on at home? With a variety of different outfits? And have it cost less than the parking and petrol for a trip to town? Traditional opticians have never needed to do this because they are relying on the status quo. We think people deserve better and that’s been our mission from the beginning.

This summer we’ll be doing the same for prescription sunglasses and designer sunglasses. It’s a very competitive market and we’ll be competing with Chanel herself.  With that in mind, I wanted to finish with one last piece of advice – once you become successful, keep an eye on your competition. If you aren’t constantly innovating and improving then you’re going to be overtaken soon.

Good businesses, especially online ones, come from challenges to the status quo. Think about how your business could challenge “the way things are” and make a difference in 2009 and beyond.

Aroxo has been named the UK’s Hottest Start-up 2009 at the London Business School Technology Summit.

We’ve had a sneak peek at the Aroxo system and it certainly deserves the award. Imagine a buyer-driven selling platform or a reverse eBay with a whole lot more besides.

Matt Rogers, Co-Founder of Aroxo commented:
After 2 years of hard work, it’s great to get such positive feedback from so many technology people, industry experts and investors. We’re really excited about launching Aroxo and helping UK buyers save money and time on their purchases.

The Aroxo marketplace provides a completely new way to buy and sell online. It’s not an auction site or shopping comparison site, but uses a new buyer-driven mechanism to help buyers get the best prices.

Both buyers and sellers are now looking for new ways to interact and do business online, so Aroxo has been built to work for sellers too. They gain access to a whole new sales channel as well as a range of simple tools allowing them to target buyers at prices that are likely to disrupt the market in a way not seen before.

Will be interesting to see how it goes post launch.

This is a guest post from the Insurance Blog an insiders view on internet marketing in the comparison industry.

We’re the little guys in the big corporation. We’re the insiders in the establishment. For the last few years we have been exposing companies in our sector of UK comparison sites. We’ve been telling you, the reader, what it’s like to work inside a large company and how the playing field now includes unethical data sharing and underhand tactics to get marketing exposure.

Our boss doesn’t know who we are – that’s why we remain anonymous – we’ve slammed our own company a few times so what you read is the truth. We’re honest and opinionated!

Insiders View started as an insurance blog and for the most part, it is. However, we also provide information on some of the latest techniques used by online companies to increase sales on the Internet. As one comment on an affiliate forum says:

He outs all the insurance companies…and no one knows who runs it, reckon there would be a contract on his head.

Source: Affiliates4u

I’m going to give you two key areas to look out for in the comparison market:

Battle is about to begin

It’s going to be a war. Billion dollar affiliate sites like moneysupermarket have become comparison sites. They’re now being challenged with the rise of cashback sites such as quidco and greasypalm. Consumers are being educated by clever journalism from UK newspapers. Customers are now getting educated – they can now make a choice. The third fighting faction is the existing, smaller affiliate sites.

They’re all competing for the same space. They want eyeballs, clicks and sales. But, they’re now offering direct payouts to consumers, that’s something that not even the large comparison sites can handle. The power of the smaller sites with low overheads and customer payouts could just push the market over the edge…exciting stuff…are you ready for the change?

Who is the Fairest of Them All?

Reputation Management is going to be vital. The press have always played an enormous part in the success or failure of companies (just look at celebrities). When Norwich Union quietly launched zuzzid.co.uk last year (now in the deadpool) it supposedly provided impartial, user generated reviews on insurance companies. Was it impartial? No. Just like Admiral own confused.com or Budget own comparethemarket.com – there’s always a vested interest.

There are tons of companies out there indulging in SEO sabotage and mass defamation. Staying on top of your brand in the press but more importantly in the search results is going to be fundamental. If your SEO company hasn’t spoken to you about dominating the results for your company name, perhaps it’s time to hire someone else?

Now one last, bonus point. We’re going to be publishing some leaked insurance data (think AOL data leak). Subscribe to the Insiders View RSS feed if you want to be first to know.

Online PR is something that we’ve been (unknowingly) offering for a few years under various different names. Social media marketing, social media optimisation, blog marketing are all names we’ve used to describe what we have been offering but moving forwards these will all be encompassed under the label of online PR for one simple reason.

Clients understand what it means.

Most companies have worked with a PR agency before, if they haven’t then it’s likely they are either a small business or have a good understanding of PR themselves. Either way it’s much better to use a phrase people understand than to confuse potential clients with jargon about social media.

So what exactly is online PR and what does an online PR offering from somebody like Branded3 look like?

Essentially online PR boils down to 5 set services:

Market Research

Finding out which websites are discussing subjects related to your brand, industry and your competitors.
Examples include forums, social networks (Facebook/Myspace), blogs & news sites, microblogs (Twitter)

Relationships

Establishing relationships with the decision makers and content creators of the target websites and understanding what they talk about, who they link to & why.

Content

Creating the sort of content that the influencers at the target websites will enjoy and hopefully write about or link to from their websites.

Expansion

Branching out from targeting websites & targeting target audiences directly. Where are the target audience spending time online? Which sites are they visiting and how can we get featured on those sites too?

Monitoring

Monitoring the web for brand names, competitor & keyword mentions on all types of websites. Actioning a quick response strategy to handle positive or negative press or sudden changes in the industry.

The following are services which we certainly do not offer as part of an online PR package

Article submission & syndication
Unless the article is being published on a leading authority in a clients industry then article submissions are not part of online PR. Perhaps they might help for SEO but that is a separate subject.

Optimised copy or keyword rich press releases
Press releases need to be written by somebody skilled in the art of press release writing. Press releases should not be used to help with search engine optimisation unless that is the primary goal of the campaign.

Syndication statistics
If you press release was syndicated on 6 million websites that would sound quite impressive wouldn’t it? Syndication statistics are useless – the only figures that matter are the number of people who read the press release and the number who visited your website as a result.

What’s your online PR strategy?