I’m going to speculate here that Google Wave is going to make social media even more important in web site search engine rankings. Let’s assume Google implement Wave in more or less its current form. I see four SEO benefits for social media practitioners.

As you know, comments on your blog lead to traffic and in some cases back-links which pass PageRank. In other words, they help your Google ranking.

Sometimes people comment about my blog posts in Twitter or Facebook. Which is less useful from an SEO viewpoint than commenting directly on my blog. With Wave you’ll be able to re-direct comments made on your Facebook profile to your blog. You’ll probably be able to search for and drag in Twitter threads as well. So if you have a well developed social network and a web site you’ll see an increase in your comments. Where comments are relevant to what you’re writing about, all things equal, your search engine ranking should increase relative to people who don’t use those networks. That’s benefit #1: more commenting.

It’s also the case that the more often you post the more regularly you get indexed. Which leads to higher ranking.

Successfully implemented, (and I think that’s what’s going to happen) Wave will break down the barrier between email and web applications. Your emails will become more like threaded IM conversations and you’ll be able to suck them across to your web site as content. Conventional businesses will not allow instant publishing, but once again the social media junkies will ride the wild tiger. Their email/IM conversations and their conversations on social networking sites will become easily publishable content on their blogs. Benefit #2: more content.

The logical consequence of Wave technology is that social media networks will spawn web sites with multiple authors (multiblogs). In other words a new and very fast way of creating web content, which of course can link back to the site you’re promoting. Benefit #3: link-building.

The ‘federation’ aspect of Wave gives you the ability to aggregate contacts from your different social networks. This will lead to social network expansion and benefit #4: more followers.

If you’re a black hat SEO, you have already started working out how to manipulating Waves for Search Engine Optimisation purposes. If you’re a white hat, you’ve got six months to help your clients build the size and quality of their social networks.

Ad Age reports on Ford lending 100 new Ford Fiestas to especially selected bloggers in exchange for their independence and a share of their souls. 4000 applied but only 100 were young, good-looking, could string two sentences together and had the sycophancy gene. I’m being harsh; the dozen or so bloggers I checked out were interesting enough. A couple of B-grade celebs snuck in there but they’ve chosen people from diverse backgrounds, skewed towards creative types. The totality of the their output – Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and blogs is aggregated on the Fiesta Movement site.

It shows again the progressive credentials of large American companies. They leap into new media because they are hungry for first mover advantage and the publicity that results. The combination of new media and big business is newsworthy (don’t ask me why) and the Fiesta Movement will generate millions of dollars in PR.

I saw a Forrester report that said Japanese consumers were more engaged with social media than Americans but Japanese businesses were slower to develop social media applications than Americans. I’m guessing this is because their media are less willing to give free publicity just because business has discovered a new marketing tool.

Of course, the potential of this promotion is not just what the bloggers say about the Ford Fiesta on their blog but the effect that 100 different streams of writing/video blogging have on the web more broadly; the conversations about the conversations.

It’s risky for the brand because bad things can happen when you surrender control of the message to people who don’t have a stake in your brand. They might be just a little too honest, though from what I’ve seen so far, they’re all too excited to be critical.

But there is a risk too for the bloggers, whose readers may find the car references spurious and commercial. Could damage their franchise but I think 95/100 will finish well in front. In all, I believe this is the biggest and boldest social media experiment in the world today. My hunch is that it’s going to work extremely well. And if it does, the new media dollar has just been revalued.

Here’s Judson Laipply’s fairly compelling video application to be included in the 100:

The marketing term for this is a No-Brainer.

I ran the first Web Promotion SHOCK seminar yesterday and it was poorly attended.

Getting the marketing right is a process that almost always involves risk and failure. I remember a guy who got promoted at Colgate-Palmolive while I was working there. He’d launched a new product into test market. Got the formulation wrong, the packaging wrong and the advertising wrong. But the market research showed why it failed and the company then knew what to do. Risk, failure, knowledge.

In the case of my seminar, I believe I got the proposition wrong and the creative wrong, so I need to go back and do some more testing. I think I’ll do this with AdWords. But where I failed spectacularly was in my attempts to get some PR; promotion that has an editorial component, is unpaid and carries the implicit endorsement of a third party.

I spoke to the Breakfast DJ of a commercial radio station who said he’d be prepared to do an interview. Right demographic and all of that. He asked for an outline, so I sent him some suggested questions and how I would respond. It was light and entertaining stuff about Google and web promotion but I proposed to mention the seminar. He emailed me back saying this: “this is an ad and I will get my ass kicked by management”. He explained that because I was charging for the seminar, company policy deemed the content commercial. Obviously they don’t want to encourage that, given that they’re in the business of charging for advertising. So the interview did not take place.

I had a similar response from the local newspaper. This is commercial; can’t do a story.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Every radio station does interviews with authors. Authors are blatantly promoting their books. Commercially. What is the difference between an author promoting a book and a speaker promoting a talk? The policy that is currently in place gives free publicity to large book publishers many of whom have the capacity to pay for advertising but it withholds free air time from the whole speaking industry; small operators with precious little advertising budget. The clear intent is to make editorial comment unavailable in an effort to extract paid advertising. The listener misses out on good content and the radio network restricts itself to larger advertisers.

Ironically, our public television and radio network, the ABC, have exactly the same approach: free plugs for authors and nobody else. Of course they won’t take your money for commercial advertising. So the effect of our current media structure is to shut the commercial sector out of public discourse.

Society would be positively affected if the public media lightened up about commerce or the commercial media lightened up about editorial. I’m suggesting there is room for another media network; one that preferences good stories and good content, irrespective of commercial content. Create a media channel accessible to professional consultants and businesses. One that does not rule you out of public discourse because you charge money for a product or service.

Here is a problem; here is a solution. It costs money. Get over it.

Mischief. The first twelve Advertising Agency web sites I looked at are making no effort to attract web traffic. Either they have as much work as they want or they don’t believe that potential clients search the internet for advertising agencies. Maybe they rely on being in the Yellow Pages.

All sites run fancy Flash animation; none of them deprecate properly for people with JavaScript turned off. The full Flash sites are extremely annoying for users. Hit the Back button in your browser while visiting The Brand Agency, Campaign Palace or Naked and get thrown out of the site. Oh good, I get to look at that animation all over again!

None of the sites have Title tags that include any reference to ‘advertising’, ‘media’ or ‘marketing’. This is part of the reason why none of their sites are found when you type “advertising agency” into Google.

None of the sites have Description tags. Which means that when you type ‘saatchi‘ into Google it tells you this about the company:

Saatchi & Saatchi PR in Romania has been appointed by Alpha Bank, a leading name in the financial sector, to handle its PR account. READ MORE > … Compelling content for English-speaking people interested in Romanian bank Public Relations – alas, I’m one of the few …

Saatchi’s site was broken when I visited; none of the links worked. I tried IE and Firefox and re-downloaded Flash but still nothing. I emailed their webmaster. Waiting on a response. Update: links now working.

When you type GPYR into Google it tells you this about the company:
home; about us · work · services · tools · contact us · brand partners · careers. George Patterson Y&R is Australia’s newest (and oldest) advertising agency …

‘Wunderman‘ gives you this:
Welcome to Wunderman : Welcome to the site for Wunderman, the original direct marketing agency. To get our conversation… Welcome, welcome. Should be called Doorman, not Wunderman.

Clearly none of the agencies understand that you can control the way Google presents your search result. Many of the sites don’t work if you omit the www; this can be fixed with a simple re-direct. And it seems none of them know how to get a full Flash site properly indexed by Google, thereby increasing web traffic. I digress.

DDB have a one page site that allows you only an email link. Times are tough. The design of many sites, such as BMF and Clemenger has not been updated in years. The gratuitous use of sound is particularly 1990s.

JWT, Grey and Singleton Ogilvy make up the twelve.

It’s as if they created their sites before Google was invented.

Oh! Found one traditional agency who know what they’re doing: Marketforce use the words “marketing” and “advertising” in their Title tag and have written one Description tag. As a result, they come up at #12 when you search for “Advertising Agency”. A bit of tweaking would put them in the top couple.

I’m running some half-day seminars on web promotion shortly in Perth. If you’d like to pre-register, give me a yell.

Perhaps you’ve been listening to Rupert Murdoch’s Boyer Lectures? He has an awful voice but he says a lot of sensible things – as you can imagine, he has the benefit of an unusually wide perspective. His dislike of elites and authority mark him as an Australian; his enthusiasm for change explains why he lives where he does.

Rupert was optimistic about newspapers. He understands that newspapers are a brand, that they are about trust and that their oxygen is the reader. Using that brand, he argues, News Corp will deliver relevant information in whatever technology format is appropriate. Spot on.

Much hand-wringing by journalists nonetheless about the death of journalism now that the Rivers of Gold (classified advertising), are flowing to the Internet. The old newspaper business model said, we will provide the reader with journalism and companies will pay for advertising so they can access those readers. But readers now search Internet databases; a far better system for the classifieds buyer. Simultaneously, the Internet is competing with newspapers for eyeballs. What is to be done?

What newspapers have is credibility, so they should look to use this competitive advantage in subject areas which are perceived as valuable. Where credibility is currently lacking.

This is most feasible in areas where newspapers have not traditionally trodden. Take Search Engine Optimisation for example; a subject close to my economic heart. The web is full of SEO experts, all giving away free content and trying to up-sell you into subscriptions. The problem is, you don’t buy a subscription unless you have a high level of trust. You with me? Would I pay $100 a year for the opinion of one expert? Hmmm. Would I pay $500 for a subscription to the Wall Street Journal’s Best in SEO? If it has 20 contributors and a WSJ banner, I probably would.

Would people pay $100 for a subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald’s Guide to Selling on the Internet? Many would. Would business people pay $500 for the New York Times’ Internet Networking subscription? Yes. The Economist’s Web Marketing? The Guardian’s Internet Relationships? The Mirror’s Best Bargains?

Newspapers should be looking at the e-book market and turning some of those products into premium, branded subscriptions. They should develop new products which deliver expert content in technical and specialist areas. You can’t justify charging for ‘news’ or ‘opinion’ or ‘business’ because they are established as free info but anything new is fair game. Industry specific subscriptions will also work if the content is extensive.

Your mainstream publication then carries normal articles plus pointers to Subscription Only articles, both on the web and in printed form. Newspaper management are not used to new products. They’re used to the monolithic publication. But the splintering of news into specialist subscription publications is a logical response to losing your advertisers. In effect, the newspaper could become the Editor of the Internet.

You’ve described Radio National as the jewel in the crown of the ABC. I don’t understand why you would allow the removal of some of the most distinctive gems.

The ABC Media Release describes the shelving of eight programs. The justification given is the need for more digital broadcasting resources following the success of RN podcasting. 1.7 million downloads a month, 50% of all the ABC’s downloads and 125% higher than the previous year.

*Scratches head*

Why has podcasting been so successful for RN? Do you think it might have something to do with the PROGRAMMING? It is of course good practice to review programming but what confuses me is the removal of highly distinctive shows. For example:

There is no other program in the electronic media that addresses sport the way that The Sports Factor does. It deals with the culture of sport; from a spectator’s, administrator’s, coach’s and player’s viewpoint. It is moving and insightful. Are they words you associate with any other sports show? A great loss to the media. Its replacement is the show that reviews movies. Actually, movie review shows work better when you can SEE a snippet of the movie being reviewed and what do you know? There are ALREADY two TV shows on the public broadcasting network dealing with this!

Radio Eye is challenging, sometimes hypnotic radio. Meandering, poetic documentaries using powerful sound landscapes. Non-linear documentaries. A style of radio not heard elsewhere and not possible on screen media.

The Media Report: analysing the media during a time of critical change in a way that commercial broadcasting has not been able or willing to do. If anything, a program limited by its half hour format, needing longer to properly deal with complex social and political issues.

And the Religion Report. Mark, as you know, I’ve been a liberal atheist all my adult life. So when I listen to someone like Robert Silico, a right wing, conservative thinker, and he argues a case for Christianity as the foundation of liberal values (and he argues the case well) I am learning something. I am being challenged. That sort of radio flicks my switches.

Again, there is no program in Australia that covers this territory; the contest for influence within each religion, discussion of the role of religion, explanations of religious viewpoints… In the broadest possible sense it is a call for religious tolerance.

The Media Release also says that podcasts are attracting a younger listenership. So what? Radio National’s market segment is not an age bracket; it is people who like intelligent discussion. You already have a youth network. The reason for the lower average age of a podcasting listener is simply that they are more comfortable with the technology. The success of podcasting is not a reason to alter your programming mix; it is a result of your programming mix.

These decisions are difficult, but you need to preserve the programs that cover important themes and the programs that are distinctive. The Media Report and the Religion Report fit both categories. Radio Eye and The Sports Factor are distinctive. Please reconsider the decision.

Footnote: Stephen Crittenden, presenter of the Religion Report, was critical on air of the ‘decommissioning’ and has been stood aside pending an inquiry. Management don’t like staff questioning their decisions but because of the importance of these programs in the public eye, you should cut a little slack. The debate as to what is aired should be public. I can even imagine it becoming a Radio National show. Call it ‘The Media Report’.

I have a relation who’s a famous retired sportsman; a household name. He returned to his home town and wanted to join the local golf club, which had a waiting list. The membership officer explained to my famous relative that no, he couldn’t get an accelerated membership. He would be positioned at the bottom of the waiting list. When he recounted this to his 90 year old mother, she said, ‘well; looks like you’re not as important as you thought you were’. Which brings me to social media, in particular blogging and micro-blogging – tools like Twitter.

Reading through Rob Antulov’s summary points of the Future of Media session on Media and Social Networks; wanted to discuss this one: ‘many companies about which conversation occurs online are NOT tracking this conversation, so are missing out on a unique opportunity to listen and engage with some of their passionate consumers’.

Are those consumers who use social media any more passionate than other consumers? I don’t think so. How are they different to other consumers? They use technology more so they might be more passionate about technology but I think the passion ends there. As technology early-adopters they are more likely to be educated and affluent but from a market research viewpoint, this renders them uninteresting. They are not a representative sample. If I’m selling a mainstream product I’m interested in the opinions of a cross-section of consumers, not an elite niche. So much for the Passion Argument.

There are two other arguments often advanced for companies expending effort on social media. One is the Influence Argument, the notion that social media early adopters are more influential in the public realm than Joe Dokes, Couch Potato, passive media consumer.

At risk of heresy, Matt Cutts and Robert Scoble are no more influential on mainstream consumer opinion than Joe Dokes. In their own limited areas they exert influence; no argument. If you don’t know their names, I’ve made my point. Broader society is unaffected by blogging, micro-conversations and micro-blogging. The capacity of social media to influence mainstream media, and hence the mainstream, is pathetically small.

Then there is the PR Argument; that a company can use social media to initiate positive conversations on the Internet and beyond (cue Buzz Lightyear) or respond to an adverse story before it gets a head of steam. Poster child for this is Southwest Airlines, which responds in near real time to Twitter users who mention the airline when they Tweet (blog).

I’m afraid this is influence at the margins. If Qantas had been using SouthWest Airlines’ approach would it have stopped or influenced the mainstream media blitz that followed their recent in-flight explosion? Not a skerrick.

I don’t think social media is an advertising medium or even a PR medium. It is a new kind of word-of-mouth and word-of-mouth derives from your staff and your policies (in that order). The capacity of your marketing department to drive it is negligible.

Well what is social software good for? Access to the knowledge of informed people is a biggie. And you would have to say it has great potential as a tool for personal branding and personal promotion. If you own a business (particularly a tech start-up) and you want to raise your profile, invest hundreds of hours in blogging and micro-blogging – you might very well build a following.

But it’s not probably not going to make you more passionate or influential than Joe Dokes.

From a conversation with Myles Eftos

Is that people insist on interacting with it. If you look at the Facebook applications generated by big business you see that Facebook spam is a major hurdle for corporates. Once again the battle between the old respectables and ambush media.

Businesses continue to treat interactive media the same way that they treat magazine advertising. In interactive media you can’t place the ad and walk away. You need to allocate human resources to managing the medium. That’s code for a spam editor.

Second problem: if you’re a big company and you put up a Facebook ap, expect as much criticism as praise. This is a serious issue with interactive media for business. Doesn’t happen when you advertise on TV but Jesus, people love an opportunity to have a whinge.

Quote from the Dell Spot Facebook site: ‘Ive hated dell from the start, there products are cheap peices of crap, and they charge u wayyyy to much, like damn.’

So having appointed an editor to manage your Facebook ap, now decide if their job description includes editing out the comments you don’t like, remembering that those who are edited out will most likely blog about it.

If you’re in the computer industry or politics, I’d say keep your toe out of the web 2.0 water.

On the other hand, if you’re selling lingerie, jump in. Victoria’s Secret has 350,000 Facebook members. Their content is professionally written, social and full of fun.

Dell’s is unmoderated. One topic is headed ‘Dell wants you to think your eating a cheap dick’. Why do so many people write ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’?

Leslie Nassar: I spoke to him after the Perth Podcamp. He was instrumental in Radio National’s wonderfully successful podcasting effort. Their average user is 40 plus plus, supposedly well over the technology hill. Yet on a pro-rata basis they get THREE times as much email feedback from a podcast as they do from the same show when it’s broadcast. Why is that?

Leslie cites two reasons. Firstly, people are listening at their computer so the email client is within easy reach. Secondly, they have made a choice to subscribe so they have a higher level of commitment and a higher level of involvement. Hold that thought.

Also discussed during the day was the Crikey success story and I wanted to mention Stilgherrian‘s thoughts on this. He said it works because it’s made easy; all the articles are bundled up in a single email that arrives without you having to do anything. Late enough in the day to have commentary on the morning papers and perhaps a little morning news. Filling a niche vacated by afternoon papers.

You can’t explain the two successes in terms of technology alone or even content alone. Here is the similarity. They are both delivered/collected in a suitable context. We are so used to consuming media ourselves that we forget a media campaign – even a media program – must consider the context in which it is consumed.

As Marshall McLuhan so beautifully put it: people don’t read a morning newspaper, they slip into it like a warm bath.

But then again, younger consumers don’t read morning newspapers and they have showers, not baths. What is the context for new media?

Pleased to announce our project for BBC World in Second Life is now complete and will be open to the public from Saturday October 6th for a limited time. We have had outstanding support from the Singapore agency Avantworks, who threw themselves into the project so hard it hurt. Kudos to principal builder Tracylynne Carpenter, whose playful and stylish build is some of the finest corporate work in the virtual world. Thanks also to my partner Loki Clifton for his insight and dedication.

Starting tentatively, the client has grown increasingly enthusiastic about its presence here as they’ve seen the quality of the work and watched the reaction of their staff entering the island. Staff from Europe and Asia have all been chaperoned through the bumpy orientation period.

The project involves convincing senior executives from the world’s major advertising institutions to enter the Second Life environment for the first time. Not a trivial undertaking. The objective is to use the medium to develop relationships with these people who have major corporations competing for their attention.

The use of Second Life for trade purposes is very sensible. In many ways the medium is not suited to consumer applications. We will also be encouraging the Beeb to use the facility to take advantage of the collaborative opportunities that exist for staff located in different countries. When people have a need to meet regularly the time invested bringing them into the environment is repaid.

It’s not complicated. The medium gives people room for self-expression. Not too much of that in a tele-conference.