There are no specific guidelines in place on how websites are supposed to gain this consent but the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive laws will be enforceable after this date although it’s unlikely anybody will actually take action.

I don’t think that the people who drew up the laws have thought about how websites will get this permission. If you use a popup window then it will require some clever coding to load the popup window and then set the cookie for something like Google Analytics after the user has accepted the T&C’s. Most browsers have tools to either block, accept or prompt for cookies however these are controlled by the browser rather than the site owner.

Also, how the government intends to police this is beyond me. There is no way in the world that small businesses will change their websites to meet these guidelines.

The exact steps that businesses have to go through to comply with the law and gain consent from customers and users are being drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

A spokesman for the DCMS said that work on the regulations was “ongoing” but would not be complete by 25 May.

In a statement, Ed Vaizey, minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries, said he recognised that the delay would “cause uncertainty for businesses and consumers”.

More details via the FT and the BBC.

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Users will have to explicitly consent to cookies after 25th May

The network is a strange mix of public and private, and besides advertising those with pages for their business or organisation need to think creatively about how to attract fans.

Here are a few ideas you can put into practice very quickly and form a good basis for Facebook marketing campaigns.

Think SEO – pages are indexed on search engines so think in terms of SEO for a normal web page. Your page should have the right title and also the right URL. When you have over 25 fans you can claim a vanity URL. Chose wisely as you are stuck with this URL and can’t change it. The profile box on the left-hand side of your page is a good place to post keyword rich copy which is relevant to your title. Also use the Info tab to do the same in the fields allocated for ‘company description’ and ‘company mission’.

Custom landing tab – a great way of capturing non-fans and asking them to invite others, this will appear to all non-fans when they click onto your page. Here is a good guide on how to put one together using the FBML editor. The best landing tabs have a composite image (744×477 is the best size in terms of formatting) that tells first-time visitors where to click to become a fan and also includes brand imagery. This sits above an invite friends box.

Images – upload as many relevant images as you can. Pictures are great content for Facebook pages. Watermark all images before uploading to the page with your company logo or website address (if you don’t have photo editing software use Picmarkr), then make sure each picture has a caption which includes your keywords and website address. Tag people in images, especially non-fans, as this will ensure your picture ends up in their stream with a watermark of your company logo or URL.

Fanbox – you can create a Fanbox by following a link in the Edit Page section of your Facebook page. You can then generate Javascript code which you should embed anywhere you possibly can – including your blog and website. Also include your Facebook page address on email footers, business cards and on your Twitter profile to keep the traffic flowing.

These basic steps are a good start and should start to yield results fairly quickly. You can now move on to more targeted promotional activity like Facebook only offers and competitions for fans, polls and RSS feeds from your news page or blog. Facebook advertising is also coming of age after long being the preserve of spammers and it offers an unparalled opportunity to target users based on demographic data, geographical location and personal interests.

Share your tips in the comments.

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Facebook page marketing tips

The question came to mind when I heard that one of my favourite virals of recent times was getting a sequel.

J’aime la Tour

 
Commissioned by visitBlackpool to promote tourism, this clip gives a humorous take on the Lancashire town, comparing it to Paris with a cinematic nod to French cinema thrown in.

This video is undoubtedly very clever, but by viral conventions isn’t particularly humorous, is a little slow paced and doesn’t really wow.

Despite that it still attracted 60,000 viewers on YouTube because what really made it stand out when uploaded earlier this year was its ability to jump vertically between different media channels. It had crossover appeal which was capitalised on by an effective PR campaign.

While people sharing your video on facebook, twitter, or even through good old fashioned emails is great, it is never likely to have real penetration unless it migrates to other channels.

Mainstream media remains the biggest game in town and successful PR  increased viewers and the video’s spread. National TV coverage included BBC News and Sky News, with newspaper coverage including the Daily Mail and a host of regional newspapers and websites.

This was in effect a great PR campaign based around a solid, but not spectacular video.

Repeat success?

A lot what we do online is about the ‘new’. People want  a succession of exciting, fun and interesting experiences (as trendwatching.com pointed out, describing it as ‘nowism’).

The media is no different and is constantly looking for fresh content and stories – especially in the 24-hour news cycle we now inhabit.

In that environment can we expect virality to strike twice? It does sometimes as Blendtec’s Will it Blend? series and VW’s recent Fun Theory videos have shown -  but they are the rare exception.

If you can get one of your viral masterpieces off the ground you should consider it a success – thousands have failed in the same quest, lacking the resources to mount a PR campaign that would help it jump between channels and gain mainstream penetration.

In essence though viral videos are an opportunity to look creatively at your brand or products. While they might not lead to overnight YouTube stardom they can give you a fresh perspective on marketing . People like fun, engaging content –whether it is a video, news story, tweet, picture, or podcast.

So will the second video share the same success at J’aime la tour? I’ll let you be the judge of that…

Love, from Blackpool

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Viral videos – can you catch the bug twice?

While waiting for a train on the Underground late one night, I was intrigued by the an advert for Dixons, a high street retail brand. The creative takes pot shots at  well known department stores, advises shoppers to do all their browsing there, and then go to the Dixons site to purchase. The campaign ends with the tagline “Dixons.co.uk – the last place you want to go”.

I am split about the creative message and about the potential negative connotations, especially if you miss most of the creative that precedes it. However I hold judgement, though it would be interesting to see what the results are.

In my usual fashion, I asked twitter and they came up with their opinions:

Thoughts please: if I say a place is “the last place” I would go to buy anything, what does that say to you?

• jaamit: @kevgibbo @rishil exactly my thoughts, complete slogan #fail. what did they reject on the way “dont even bother” / “pull the other one”…?
• kevgibbo: @rishil that’s an awful strapline, although it’s probably true – they’d be the last place I’d try!
• willcritchlow @rishil I actually really like that campaign. I love the use of colour & font so you know who they are talking about
• LordManley: @rishil That place is slightly better than another establishment where you would buy nothing at all, but still not great.
• seobegincom: @rishil all the others were overpriced?
• searchpanda: @rishil is this related to new dixons ad? ‘last place you go’ – i thought it was quite well thought out. recession etc.
• IngoGuava: @rishil That means that at least you know the place as a relevant resource. But only as a resource of rubbish.
• SharkSEO: @rishil I know! The Dixons adverts, right? They’re fucking terrible!
• 101holidays: @rishil it means you wouldn’t buy there. But I see Dixons.co.uk are using it as a sales line. Fine line between clever/stupid
• richardbaxter: @rishil that you’re going home, and that’s the last shop on the way?
• cyandle: @rishil that they suck ass?
• ismepete: @rishil it says to me that you could get the *anything* there, but would try everywhere else before them, presumably cos they r rubbish
• RichardShove: @rishil That you’d only buy it from there if there were no other alternatives
• swerveball: @rishil you wouldn’t buy from there.

It would be interesting what others feel about this campaign, especially those involved in online marketing. The mixed reaction to it is really intriguing.

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dixons.co.uk – The Last Place You Want To Go

Traditionally the ones with the bigger budgets, ad agencies have been staking their claim and winning some high profile social media accounts. Invariably when an ad agency muscles in PR execs claim they’ll lack the ‘right tone of voice’ and the ability to ‘position’ brands. They also suggest that the PR skill set is a better fit for social media.

While marketing agencies can comfortably integrate social media into their campaigns (they already often have responsibility for online advertising, email marketing and to a lesser extent SEO) the main criticism levelled by PRs remains their inability to handle the mysterious duo of tone of voice and positioning.

So what the hell do they both mean? And is that the only difference between PRs and marketers when it comes to carving up the social media cake?

What you say

Ultimately this is what tone of voice means. It is the simple realisation that the same way of communicating a brand to consumers or businesses can no longer be used across different media. It used to be the case that marketing involved two types of copy –  creative words for advertising and editorial words for PR.

The world is a different place now – what you say and the way you say it can differ widely from Facebook to Linked-in and a corporate blog to Twitter. They all offer different audiences which are receptive to different approaches.

I would suggest that one of the major differences is that PR has been a little quicker out the of the starting blocks. Sensing the demise of traditional media and the continual squeeze for column inches, PR agencies rapidly embraced the opportunities available online  to their clients, including blogging and podcasts. Used to adapting their writing for different audiences while keeping a brand’s identity and key messages intact, PR agencies were well placed to take on social media responsibilities.

The charge often levelled at marketers is that they don’t do this very well and instead focus on the mediums they have complete control over – such as banner ads and PPC -  which allow them to focus on selling rather than fostering conversations.

Where you say it

The positioning bit is even less complicated. Online it amounts to effective blogger outreach and the ability to identify and nurture advocates on social networks. Again it comes down to strong writing and that much hated phrase – ‘people skills.’

PRs have been doing this for some time in a different form. Media relations does differ from blogger relations but many PRs have the right mix of skills to engage bloggers, learned from their experiences courting journalists. They also have the research skills to identify and target publications or blogs that are best suited to their story.  

SEO catches a steal on both

The SEO industry has quietly gone about doing what is does best, while ignoring both marketing and PR agencies clamoring for the role as guardian of the social media landscape.

SEO uses whatever tactics it can to build links and improve SERPS. It has a separate - but not incompatible - set of concerns to marketing and PR and has seen the benefits of forging good relationships with bloggers, as well as the benefits of using social media and social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit – all with the aim of producing high quality links to sites.

The activities of SEO closely align with online PR and if done correctly PR can prove hugely beneficial to SEO in a way that other digital marketing techniques can’t.

PR doesn’t do itself any favours

Good PR practitioners draw out and tell stories, enhancing or protecting their client’s reputation – all the while ensuring they fit within target media by providing the right tone of voice and positioning (oh yes, they’re back!). None of this is an easy mix to get your head around and does take experience.

At the best of times people struggle to understand traditional, offline PR and now agencies are faced with also explaining what they do online. I would suggest that PR doesn’t do itself any favours in this respect and can also fail to highlight the SEO benefits of good online PR.

PR agencies need to explain their place within the digital marketing mix more assertively and ensure monitoring online is as rigorous as it is offline.

And the winner is…

Some would say this whole debate is futile as PR is a subset of marketing. In part they would be right, but it does matter in the sense that both marketing and PR agencies are struggling to find new identities during the current media revolution.

In contrast SEO has never known anything but change – the goalposts are constantly shifting as new ideas take hold and the mysteries of Google’s constantly evolving algorithms are unlocked.

At this time anyone can lay claim to expertise  (just look at this SERP) but it will be those who react quickest to the shifting sands of social media and remain flexible and open-minded who will claim the business. In this respect both marketing and PR practitioners could do with taking a leaf out of SEO’s book.

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Who does social media best – marketers or PRs?

Today we have Linda Anderson from comScore explaining that brands shouldn’t worry about the fact that only 16% of internet users ever click on banners and that they should be thinking more about the value that might arrive from the 84% of users who see banners but never click on them.

Marketers who attempt to optimize their advertising campaigns solely around the click are assigning no value to the 84 percent of Internet users who don’t click on an ad. That’s precisely the wrong thing to do.

Savvy marketers are moving to an evaluation of the impact that all ad impressions — whether clicked or not — have on consumer behavior, mirroring the manner in which traditional advertising has been measured for decades using reach and frequency metrics.

The marketing industry is shouting loudly about the effectiveness of banner advertising and understandably so – media spend on banners is huge and for brands to lose confidence in the medium would be a disaster. However it seems that as an industry we are trying to add some extra value to cover the fact that the performance of banners is dropping year after year.

The problem I have is that just viewing a banner has absolutely zero effect on any buying decision I might make. People make the fundamental assumption that just because an ad has been loaded on a page it’s been “viewed” but that isn’t the case.

What would happen if PPC & SEO companies started taking credit for the impressions we were generating in the search results rather than the actual click throughs? We would get laughed at but it’s pretty much the same thing just without the images.

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Banner Clicks: Is The Advertising Industry Clutching At Straws?

While that choice of words is probably best consigned to an industry magazine,  the soft drinks giant is clearly reaping the benefits of brand engagement – claiming to have a mailing list of 13 million customers in the US thanks to its My Coke Rewards site and similar success with its UK counterpart, Coke Zone.

As many companies still struggle to integrate an online offering into their marketing campaigns, Coke seems to be thriving.

Tried and tested

Both Coke Zone and its American counterpart My Coke Rewards use two tried and tested marketing devices to excellent affect.

The first bit is simply an exercise in sales promotion which encourages Coke drinkers to buy the product and use points they are given with each purchase to collect prizes online.

To collect your rewards or prizes you have to register, providing Coke with an excellent opportunity for a bit of old fashioned data capture.

Now on the site you are presented with an array of content and rewards split into popular categories – including music, fashion, games and sport- and groups that reflect the company’s different consumers, e.g Diet Coke. This is Coke’s second masterstroke – converging interesting content from other channels (TV ad campaigns and sponsorship) with desirable affiliate products to create an exciting multimedia node.

Et voila, you have customers supping endless cans and bottles of fizzy goodness to claim points for rewards and a heavily branded site which appeals to consumers by offering a range of content (there also games, avatars and myspace skins on offer) – not to mention a huge mailing list to boot.

Coca-cola community

This all sounds so good so far. But at some point the My Coke Rewards and Coke Zone sales promotion campaigns will end (likely along seasonal lines before Christmas or ahead of next year’s World Cup) and without creating  a lasting community online, Coke will fail to retain the engagement they have so successfully won and the two sites will fade into the ether.

Coca-cola is a little bit afraid of social media. The brand’s popular Facebook fan page wasn’t actually set up by the company. And while Coke Zone has a twitter profile and My Coke Rewards has a Facebook page, neither are particularly well used or maintained.

In some ways they seem to have missed a fantastic opportunity. While gaining a massive mailing list is great result for the campaign in a traditional marketing sense, they had an opportunity to lead the conversation by creating and managing a lasting online community that really loves Coke.

Other companies (including mobile phone retailer Phones4U with Ubar) have recognised the advantage of creating exclusive online communities for their customers. Will Coca-cola also stop selling so hard and start communicating?

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Coca-cola should be more sociable

The start is a little later than last time too at 10am – probably a good move since some of the speakers and attendees are bound to be hungover.

The morning is given over to three keynote speakers – Joost de Valk on WordPress SEO Strategies, Julian Sambles from The Telegraph on Big Site SEO, and Judith Lewis on Maximising Universal Search.

After lunch, (which includes entertainment!) the floor is split into three rooms with three speakers on at once. That means there are nine to choose from during the afternoon so you might find yourself missing one talk to go and see another.

Up first are: Elaine Forth on creating a successful affiliate and ecommerce site; Paul Robinson on using maths and computer science to find out more about your customers, and Fiona Thomson on what eye tracking can show you about user behaviour.

Afterwards are Chris Clarkson talking about being a real life affiliate, Tim Nash talking about the relative value of links, and Tom Smith giving advice on how to make your social media site suck less.

The final three are Rob Manuel on running online community Sickipedia, myself on creating content network Ad campaigns, and Karyn Fleeting on how to make your corporate blog a magnet for new business.

It’s now around 5pm, and the very last talk of the day will be given by Artur Ortega, on how accessibility has led to innovation and new inventions that make all our lives easier.

After the talks we move onto the main event: Drink Visibility! If your partners are not going to the conference then check here for things to do in Leeds.

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Think Visibility 2009

If you have spent a lot of money on a campaign site then you don’t want searchers to arrive at somebodys blog instead.

As you can see from the screenshot below the search results for the Gio Compario campaign have been well and truly taken over by SEO & marketing blogs such as SEOptimise & Andrew in the organic results while several competitors are trying to hijack traffic with PPC ads.

In an ideal world the campaign site http://www.giocompario.com should be ranking first followed by http://www.gocompare.com in second and then Twitter/Facebook third and fourth. If the campaign is going to be a long one then it would be a good idea to try and register a trademark to stop people including the campaign name in their PPC ads.

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Gio Compario campaign by Go Compare taken over by SEO blogs

Conference Calendar as the name suggests is a calendar of conferences, it’s broken down into appropriate categories, like technology conferences, SEO conferences, business conferences, etc. Each section lists upcoming conferences in date order or via graphical calendar views for easy planning ahead.

When you find the conference you are interested in attending the site provides you with details of the event, local hotels, Google map, transport links and if available discount codes (for the upcoming Think Visibility they have a discount code of 30%), so it could save you money on any future conferences you want to attend.

Overall I like the idea and wish Al the best of luck with it, check it out at Conference Calendar, I know Al would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks to Jo from conference calls for the tip.

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