• Can we pretend that Airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?
• Vicki Chang, do you have something fun planned for the weekend?
• Ordered macho fries and double cheeseburger, but now I feel like tacos. Tacos?
• Is it just me or does Nicolas Cage sound like he’s FREEKING tired of makeing movies? He uses the same monotone voice in every movie DX!
• I am professional to ask and discuss about complicated questions, such as this one : What is a miracle?

I didn’t even have to scroll through dozens of sensible questions to get those – there were literally 4 that I deleted in between to get to those! Not exactly added-value content is it?

I know I’m probably being a bit of a moan-a-lot here, but can’t Facebook concentrate their efforts on trying to make existing elements of the site better, before branching out and trying to reinvent every wheel they can find? I’m not so stupid as to imply that people will leave the site because of this service, because let’s be honest, they’re not. But I’m pretty sure there is going to be a lot of head-scratching going on when it rolls-out in full.

Facebook questions – revolution, or doomed to fail? is a post from: Tamar

And if you do work within the guidelines, the benefits are great. If you talk honestly about and add value to the Games, there is no harm, rather a benefit to the community, the organisers and you.

If you have any relevance to sport, to the Olympics, to excellence, now is the time to start building your online campaign. Plan your tactics around your overall online strategy with care and attention to the rules. Where do the Olympics mesh with your ideas? What can you offer? Is it of any value generally?

Honest content that does not claim official association will always benefit as online interest in the Games mushrooms over the next two years, which should result in high search rankings and visibility.

The London Organising Committee for the Olympics Games (LOCOG) is rightly protective of the brand and the rights of sponsors, who have paid millions to be associated with the Games. The keys to honest representation are to ensure that any online content that references the London Olympics is not an attempt at “passing off”, making a commercial association that does not exist or using the Olympics logos to infer that there is a commercial connection.

Tamar’s latest Sports Index published today focuses on the Games, with one aspect in particular – the Paralympics. We researched how official sponsors effectively harnessed brief spikes in interest online – in this case, Sainsbury’s announcement that it would be the first full sponsor of the London Paralympics. The white paper has a host of lessons for online marketers and you can read it here.

Actually, there is now an opportunity to get involved directly with the 2012 Games preparations. TV Dragon Duncan Bannatyne is leading an initiative launched today -“Our Team 2012” – to raise £15 million to provide Team GB athletes with training and equipment in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

There is more information on the official website but SMEs can donate £9,900 and will have the chance to meet athletes, invitations to prestigious venues, be invited to networking and black tie events, and can use a special “Team 2012” logo on their website and in their e-mail signatures.

Two years to go and the 2012 London Olympics marketing marathon starts now is a post from: Tamar

As reported in the Telegraph, this makes Twitter the fastest growing search engine at present – a pretty impressive feat for a site that isn’t *actually* a search engine in the main. Considering the guys at Twitter have only in the past few months rolled out any kind of attempt at monetising this functionality, it shows what a powerful weapon they have in their hands, and the sort of money they might hope to make if they ever get to Google-scale monetization.

One thing the Telegraph didn’t pick up on though, is the METHOD of a large number of these searches – indeed, this information isn’t obviously available. The reason I mention it though is that I would imagine a large number of what Twitter is counting as ’searches’ are derived from the trending topics, as opposed to people actually typing in a search query.

Whenever a user clicks on a trending topic, either from the right hand ‘trending topics’ list or from within another user’s tweet, this opens up the Twitter search results. I’d argue that these aren’t actually ’searches’ in the sense that the other search engines classify that, but I suppose it’s all relative.

Regardless of the method of the search, it’s clear that Twitter’s star is still on the rise in a massive way. Whether they can turn this growth in to the goldmine that their older competitors have is another question entirely, but I for one will be watching with eager anticipation.

Twitter now second only to Google in terms of search volumes is a post from: Tamar

News is spreading fast among the well-informed that Twitter are getting set to launch yet another arm to their long-awaited monetization plans, following the (presumably successful?) release of both sponsored search results and promoted trending topics.

With less than 260 followers at the time of posting, @EarlyBird is supposedly the next big thing from Twitter, with most commentators speculating that it will be a feed for promoting special offers from selected brand partners. Presumably a feed like this run by Twitter would also receive maximum exposure through the site itself – something that existing services like Groupon don’t have. The staff at Twitter are remaining ‘tight-lipped’ about the service (tight-lipped in a “Let’s get as much buzz as we can around this” kind of way…) and only made the following comment to website ReadWriteWeb:

“There are interesting things in store for @earlybird. Keep waking up early and you might be the first to find out what they are.”

Presumably following one more account won’t be much of a stretch for most Twitter users, especially if there are good incentives to do so – unlike Google, who regularly launch new products with users but try to avoid forcing them down their throats, Twitter have an interface and model that lends itself to subtly highlighting things they want you to try. It’s exactly the reason that sponsored search results and trends seem to have gone down so well – and most likely to be the reason that Earlybird discounts succeed too.

Surely the big money question is less whether or not Earlybird will succeed, and more what Twitter will be doing next?

Being an early adopter pays – will the early bird pay out too? is a post from: Tamar

If you think I’m being unfair, just type ’sleeping’ in to the Facebook search box, and see how many pages there now are – scroll past the big page like “If sleeping was school I would have straight A’s” and you’ll get to the tens of thousands of these ‘community’ pages that have been created as a result of the move to create a page for every single item listed on Facebook users “Likes” section of their bio…

Herein lies the problem. Facebook claims there are around 30,000 pages containing the term ’sleeping’ in their title, so you can probably imagine just how many of these ‘community’ pages there are out there. One has to assume that at some point Facebook will look to merge some of these pages together, and more importantly merge them with the official brand pages that both brands and users have been creating for over a year now.

Merging official and auto-created (or user-created) community pages sounds good in theory, but it’s actually going to be a logistical nightmare, both for Facebook and for the brands who suddenly find they are having to merge their beautifully created and managed brand page with a community page full of nonsense. Just do a search for “Coca Cola” to see what a nightmare this might be for a brand like that… Where would they even start?!

For Facebook, this merger would be a massive project, but the bigger problem will be the brands and organisations they’re potentially going to upset when this merger happens. Up until now, brands have been able to exercise reasonably strict control over their pages and how they’re run – though admittedly the facility for removing unauthorised pages is pretty flaky at best. But if Coca Cola suddenly find that 500 separate groups have been merged in to their official one, that’s suddenly a whole lot of extra content they’ve got to preside over – and in the case of recent ASA guideline changes, be accountable for…

Community pages seemed like a nice idea in principal – Facebook reps have stated in the past that they see community pages rivalling Wikipedia in the future. But in reality they’ve just created millions (maybe even billions) of pointless, half-empty doorway pages that nobody really wants but somebody will have to take responsibility for. As somebody working for a brand myself, I can tell you now I’m not relishing the day when the big merger takes place…

The trouble with Facebook community pages… is a post from: Tamar

The search journey

I doubt anybody at Google would subscribe this view, but user behaviour definitely seems to be moving away from people using search engines as the start of all their online journeys. Whilst Google have the search engine market seemingly sewn-up, and Microsoft and Google both have significant stakes in the address-bar-based journey start-point, more and more people will start search journeys through sites like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, or through aggregation services like CoTweet, Hootsuite, Plaxo and many more.

Sites like the BBC and big newspaper sites regularly include search boxes from Google or Microsoft, but as these services develop their social ideal, I’m pretty sure we’ll start seeing more sophisticated services that pull in content from a much more diverse network.

As well as changing the way they start the journey, natural-language processing will inevitably catch-up with what we’ve been hoping it would be in the next few years, meaning not only will content indexing be a lot easier for the search engines, but search queries will become a lot more human-sounding and natural.

This will almost definitely lead to recommendations also becoming more intuitive – Google Mail already makes a reasonable stab at context-related advertising, so REAL natural language processing could lead to some really interesting movements in recommendations based on conversations you’re having and other sites you’re browsing / posting on. There may come a point in the not too distant future when you don’t even NEED to do a search, the results will just come to you.

The evolution of the engines

As Neil demonstrated in his round-up, the search engines have evolved massively since the early days of search – it’s no longer just about ten, textual blue links on a dull white page. As with all progress, this is bound to increase even more in the coming years – with competition from the less-obvious but still powerful search ‘engines’ on Facebook et al, Google will have to evolve more and more in order to keep up.

Whilst add-ons like real-time search results and the Google Labs ’social search’ experiment show signs of Google moving even further in to the social space, it’s inevitable that within the next 12-18 months the search results from Google in particular will become MUCH more ‘real-time’.

Whilst a page full of Twitter and blog-based results might not provide a great result for the research-focused user, ensuring the pages that are being returned have been recently updated (no more dead websites!) and massively ‘current’ will provide a much more useful experience to the user.

Content is king

In the five years that I’ve been working in and around search, we’ve always scoffed a little bit at the mantra ‘content is king’ – mainly because it’s usually trumpeted by people who don’t get great results, or even build links. But the rise of social sites (or should I say take-over?) means that content really IS important to your site – albeit not just onsite content.

The content around your brand is already out there, and more and more it’ll become a factor in how you rank – and we’re not just talking Google of course. Content is essentially your social currency – what’s being said, when and how will have a massive effect on not only your ROI on any activity, but also the influence you hold.

Google have already hinted at how sentiment may be ‘becoming’ a factor in your rankings – the personalised web means that it won’t be long before companies with shocking reputations find their rankings dropping like a stone. After all, Google don’t want to be returning results that are contrary to public opinion, do they? Future iterations of the Google algorithms will doubtless factor in sentiment, volume of ‘noice’, influence and legitimacy – though what they base these criteria on is anybody’s guess…

At the end of the day, whilst we can have a good stab at guessing the future of search, a quick browse through Google for articles on “The future of search” will show you hundreds of wild stabs that fell flat on their faces. If I’ve learnt one thing in my 5+ years in search though, it’s that whatever happens, it’s going to be an exhilarating ride!

Google, Bing and social media bling – taking bets on the content currency exchange is a post from: Tamar

When the controversial new ball is kicked for the first time competitively at the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg today, the biggest sporting event in the world will be underway.

Online and offline, millions of fans will be tuning in to watch or listen to hosts South Africa take on Mexico.  The World Cup captures the imagination like no other tournament.

Yet, the organising body, FIFA seems reluctant to reach out, engage and deepen its relationships with the audience that supports it. Tamar’s Sports Index Vol 2, just published, indicates that FIFA has failed so far to utilise any of the major social media platforms to connect and engage with football fans.

To us, that seems like a missed opportunity of some scale while at the same time offering online lessons for brands everywhere. You could argue that FIFA is so massive, so global, that online engagement is unnecessary but I think that no brand is too big to ignore this crucial element of marketing.
Brands that want to drive a truly successful online marketing campaign will always win by playing the long game, rather than a quick five-a-side – exciting though that is. This is a team approach where SEO works with social media engagement and conversion-focused web design to deliver consistent, effective results.

Our latest Sports Index shows that while FIFA has made inroads with search it does not have longevity in search matches, which is a key to building brand engagement. In search brand positioning, FIFA has been way behind generic terms when associated with the World Cup, which are between four and seven times more popular. The highest volume keywords associated with the competition in both South Africa and Germany four years ago are generic, rather than FIFA-specific.

At the same time, countless brands are associating themselves with the World Cup through the various search engines and social networks. To date, FIFA’s social efforts have to date been minimal.
The world of search is evolving rapidly and brands need to be aware that SEO really does embrace social media and conversion-focussed design. One element alone will not deliver the long-term results they need.

This means paying strategic attention not only to classic SEO analysis but also to engagement with consumers (fans) wherever they play on the social networks. It also means paying continual attention to delivery of fresh, relevant and useful content, along with those “social objects” we all love to share.

Do read our research paper and let us know your views.

World Cup kick-off – time for FIFA to reach out online is a post from: Tamar

Facebook abounds with status updates relating to the Cup, and many South Africans have changed their profiles to reflect their support for our boys, Bafana Bafana. Things are no different on Twitter this morning, as we have 6 out of 10 of the worldwide trending topics.

Nelson Mandela tops the list, and with an expected appearance at the opening ceremony today all eyes will be on television screens. Next up is Fifa World Cup, followed by #worldcup and #wc2010. Bafana and Sudafrica complete the list.

As the games commence, the world will be watching – and talking – online and off line.

World Cup: It is here is a post from: Tamar

A BP spokesman, Toby Odone, recently confirmed that the company has been purchasing search terms to point users to the company’s official website. “We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer,” Odone has explained.

US President Barack Obama publicly scolded BP for spending over £34 million on a television advertising campaign in which the energy company apologised for the oil slick.  The ad also explained the oil giants role in the clean-up process. Obama’s reasoning is that BP should not be spending money on a PR offensive while allegedly short changing those hit by the spill.

The oil company has been getting flak from every side, and it seems BP is now attempting to save its image by pointing those who search for oil spill related news online to its own Gulf of Mexico response page. It is said that the company has spent as much as £7000 on links to date.

This tactic has however not been received well by the online community. Twitter in particular has come up with a wealth of witty comments in a backlash against the company’s latest move. ‘Proud to announce we’ve partnered with Google to turn the Information Superhighway into a Corporate Bus Route,’ reads one tweet on a fake BP account, BPGlobalPR. ‘We’re paying Google a lot of money to make sure you only have access to the best possible info on the oil spill: our info’ reads another.

BPGlobalPR has unsurprisingly come under fire from its subject, but again, Tweeters have a response. ‘BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean’ explained one US comedian.

What is your opinion? Is BP taking publicity too far? Or making brilliant use of this opportunity?

BP proves there’s no such thing as bad publicity is a post from: Tamar

A lot of bloggers know the importance of utilising current affairs and trending topics to get traffic, but is traffic all you want? There are so many SEO benefits to getting onto the trending topics  bandwagon early, guaranteeing sustainable link generation and a lot of hype for your site. There is a distinct flavour of FIFA World Cup 2010 fever on the boil in South Africa at the moment and the tumult is sure to increase in weeks to come.

The vuvuzela is a perfect example of quick win link building: the Google trends graph below is an example of the search volume out there and it is certainly set to go through the roof in the next few weeks…

search volume for vuvuzela

“Vuvuzela” was a trending topic on Twitter today and it shows how fast these trends can shift. It is important to keep up with these trends so that you can leverage them for your marketing purposes. How do I use a vuvuzela for link building? You might ask yourself this question, the answer is simple – if you can create the most relevant article or  a powerful opinion piece, the links will find their own way to you. The volumes are there and the interest is piquing.

Its important to keep an eye out for upcoming trending topics and abreast of current affairs if it is even remotely related to your industry. Remember to always keep your content fresh and relevant!

Vuvuzela’s and keeping up with the realtime web is a post from: Tamar