Google announced ‘Search, plus your world’ earlier this month which is supposed to be a way of expanding your search results to include more content, especially content specific to you. This meant that they would tap in to what your friends are saying about certain things and make the whole experience more ‘social’. As an idea I think this is brilliant. I would be entirely behind the idea of including results from social media within search results. If I search for a brand it would be great to be able to see what my friends think about this brand straight away without having to research this separately.

The main problem with this new expansion from Google is that this will not be the end result for most people. The results will only show ‘personal results’ from Google products, primarily Google+. This is where the idea falls short. If it were to include results from across all relevant social media it would be perfect. By focusing mainly on Google+ this makes the whole idea a whole lot less appealling to me. These guys have addressed that and created their own algorithm that would focus on results from all across the web, not just Google+ which shows some interesting, and very contrasting results.

However, all is not lost for Google+. Since launching Brand pages brands are becoming more involved in the network and ‘Hangouts’ have even become successful.  The most notable example of this is Barack Obama who is set to ‘hangout’ on the social network and answer questions that people can pose to him through Youtube. People are still clearly using the network and this is a good sign for Google. Maybe if we see it enough people will gradually start using it. Maybe.

1. Is your website mobile friendly?

For a site which isn’t optimised, the difference in conversion rates between desktop and mobile users can be huge. Some of our clients have seen a 50% drop when targeting mobile users with an ordinary website. To check out what your site looks like and if any changes are needed go to How To Go Mo, a Google website which will show you how it looks on a portable device and suggest whether changes need to be made.

2. Create a bespoke mobile PPC account

Copying an existing desktop account just won’t cut it. Users search differently on handheld devices, so mobile specific search terms must be researched to capture traffic which is more likely to convert. Ad-copy must be created which phone users will better respond to, with phrases such as “shop on your mobile” used to increase CTR. Also, carefully consider account settings such as the devices you are targeting and the time of day the ads will show. These will both be different for a mobile search campaign.

3. Track and optimise independently

Ensure that you are able distinguish between PC and mobile traffic within your tracking and reporting. Performance differences between devices mean that optimisation should be bespoke. For example an ad-copy change due to performance on desktops may not work across a tablet device and vice-versa. The key to getting good performance is to review the devices as individual accounts whilst still recognising the role each one plays in the conversion funnel.

All of the above steps are the key to getting good ROI and converting customers through m-commerce. If you need advice or strategy, Minute Steak offers bespoke mobile campaign management so please get in touch.

The SOPA and PIPA laws pertain to the USA only. Wikipedia’s blackout applies across the English-language parts of the site, in other words affecting countries outside of the US. Explaining its community-made decision, Wikipeda is hoping that the global blackout will highlight similar legislative concerns that are being considered in nations beyond the USA.

Wikipedia presents neutral articles, proudly championing an online community generated and verified encyclopaedia. The blackout is an important decision as there is risk of “seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position”. The idea behind Wikipedia, however, is to collect knowledge and allow people to access that around the world. So Wikipedia’s intention is to protect the freedom of information, ensuring that the educational material presented on the site is available to all.

So, the SOPA and PIPA debates continue!

We hope Father Christmas brings you everything you want!

The economy. Undoubtedly a time of uncertainty for the global economy, coupled with speculation around a breakdown of the Euro zone, this will be a focus on the outlook of 2012. The Advertising Association and Warc, earlier this month, downgraded UK adspend for 2012 to a 3.8% growth from a previous forecast of 4.7%.

That said, 2012 adspend as a whole will be £15.9bn, not something to be sniffed at. And while technology isn’t completely decoupled from the state of the global economy, it does stand in relative strength as an industry. The recent downgrades are most likely to reflect sharp downturns in print and supplements, particularly following closure of New of the World.

Google. No surprise here, but with the search giant owning 90% of the market globally and rolling out over 100 innovations in 2011 alone, we can expect its influence on trends in the next year to be huge.

More critically Google has 98% ownership of the mobile search market worldwide, over the likes of Yahoo! and Bing which have struggled to make even a dent on their competitor. “After years of false predictions, it looks like 2012 really will be the year of the mobile”, says Efficient Frontier CEO David Karnstedt, who’s recent study found mobile search in the US could account for 22% of online adspend next year, a significant increase from 6.5% currently.

Insights. Improved technologies such as Google Analytics and their widespread adoption have meant that consumer insight is easier to access than ever. Analysis of the search funnel, for example, will allow advertisers intelligent multichannel attribution. Minute Steak will ensure to invest in complete multichannel views of customer journeys for all channels. Using this advanced analysis of this data we can implement tailored strategies and improve overall marketing effectiveness.

More savvy users online now rely on social networks, customer reviews, video demonstrations, discount vouchers and apps to influence their purchase decisions. Today’s technologies now need to support a multi-touch presence to engage with and convert customers, providing the insight into behaviours allowing appropriate strategies to be executed.

Customisable Experience. IAB recently reported that over 50% of tablet usage took place between 7 – 12pm, making it the most widely used devise for accessing the internet in late evenings. Associate director of technology at YouGo, Russell Feldman also suggested that 24% of tablet users browse the interest from bed – supporting the IAB’s description of the devise as the ideal “downtime device”.

We’re already seeing newspaper and magazine publications focusing on tablet-specific versions, note the BBC homepage redesign back in September, now created to look and work more effectively from smartphones and tablet devices.

Only 4% of UK population actually own a tablet at the moment. Steve Koenig, director and industry analyst at the CEA describes how 2011 saw consistent growth in tablet sales reaching 207% growth. However forecasts of growth for 2012 have been cut to 59% and 22% for smartphones. Partly this is down to the “customisable experience”, whereby we’re using apps to personalise our devises, and therefore less inclined to make the upgrade. As a resilient market that saw sales drop only 8% worldwide in 2009 following the recession, the CEA still predicts the market to hit $1 trillion next year.

This Christmas however, the likes of social giants Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and the ever growing Pinterest are giving back, and what a treat we’re in for!

Facebook

Finally, after months of waiting, the infamous ‘Facebook Timeline’ is available to everyone. The tech savvy among us have been trialling the timeline since a developer version was released back in October, but yesterday, as an early Christmas present to the world, FB began to roll our Timeline implementation.

So… what does this mean for you? Well basically, ANYTHING you have ever done on Facebook has now been logged against time, right back to the day you signed up, and even back to the day you were born!

What was ‘pre-timeline’, hidden in the depths of your Facebook archives, is now brought back to the forefront of your profile, just a simple scroll away! This interface update makes the whole privacy settings debate a whole lot more interesting. A lot of forgotten about information (photos, pokes, likes) is now catapulted back into view for everyones amusement. For me, this is the best gift I could have gotten this Christmas, for many however, forgotten memories may not be so welcome!

Twitter

Following suit, Twitter has drasitcally updated users profile pages. This move, similarly to the likes of the Facebook Timeline and the new BBC homepage, looks to be more tablet then desktop focussed. With a more-or-less unlimited scrolling site design, this makes tracking tweets right back to the day you signed up much more intuitive.

Rather late on the Brand bandwagon, this month Twitter also released Brand Pages. This opens up more ‘official’ and ‘varified’ pages, so generally cleans up the spammy Twitter network, and consolidates Brands with more than one Twitter Account, into one varified profile.

Pinterest

Pinterest, is possibly the most unsung hero of the arsenal of Social sharing tools available. Having sprung into the forefront of social activity within the last year, Pinterest has difenately secured its place in my list of Christmas gifts for everyone!

For those of you that aren’t using Pinterest, it’s basically an online  scrapbook, or pinboard, onwhich you can effectively bookmark images from across the internet, and share them. Very useful if you’re making a christmas list!!!!

Still in it’s early phases, membership is by invite only, however I believe this will all change in 2012. Once available to the masses, Pinterest is going to be a neccessity for anyone working online!

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Don’t forget to thank Santa on the 26th: http://on.fb.me/f47h3rxm4s

This update produced a rejuvenated interest in Google + and its potential for businesses to engage in the social media landscape. Business pages can now appear in the natural listings on SERP’s where you can add them directly to your circles, assuming you are logged in to your Google account. Our very own Lucy Ingram would be delighted to show you the benefits of this for SEO, but why does this matter at all for paid search?

Well, as of last week Google announced the full release of Social Extensions in your Adwords account. Diving head first into the social media market and showing how much power it thinks the industry has on user behaviour. How will this work I hear you ask? Once you have set up your very own, shiny new brand page on Google + you will able to link it directly to your Adwords account, at a campaign level. This means that your paid search ads and Google + page now share +1’s, how lovely. The impact for your Google + page itself will not, in my opinion be that impressive. From my point of view the real winner in this relationship is your PPC ads. They will now not only benefit from the added authority of +1’s, but will also show a small selection of people who have +1’d your brand page. Your friends, your peers and all the other social media types will now be influencing your decisions on whether you click through paid search ads. The official Google AdWords blog claims that 71% of shoppers say that recommendations / reviews from friends and family have an influence on their purchasing decisions.

This is all rather good I would say and well worth doing, provided a number of things. One, your Google + page is managed well, produces original content and engages well with your consumer market and two, Google + isn’t another flop like its previous social ventures. Only time will tell. Oh and make sure you do a good job with your PPC activity too, that helps.

While the intention of these Acts is to “stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.” Opposition has likened the resulting censorship to that of Iran and the Chinese Great Firewall based on technologies that block domains. The broad approach of the bill would mean that all content, good and bad, would be censored. Additionally, any holder of Intellectual Property can demand payment providers and network operators to stop access to infringing sites within 5 days.

The sites affected are the likes of Facebook and Youtube, which in terms of advertising are still in their very early stages. The fear is that content and innovation will be quashed, as these sites could be deemed to be “dedicated to the theft of US property.  In other words, user-generated content will mean that these sites could be liable. If this is the case then the advertising opportunities here would be taken away. Not only is this a sizeable chunk of online spend, but also as the most recent area, it is one of the fastest growing.

Aside from the obvious arguments about freedom of speech and expression, another interesting one for advertisers will be in areas like the Google Display Network. I may wish to advertise a product alongside relevant content on a blog. If these bills are too vague there is a risk of interpretation that may mean my advertising is blocked. The consequences of this for the industry as a whole could lead to vast restrictions on how and where advertising is used.

The internet is still a young medium and the pace of technological change breeds strong creativity. Even if the extreme example becomes reality I think that the industry is dynamic enough to handle the change and produce other ways to make up for it. As the internet has grown, users have become accustomed to uploading content as they please. Taking that away from them does not mean that they will stop sharing content. There will merely be other channels that will become the means for content distribution, and the upside to this is that those new channels will become the new channels for advertisers too.

One of the key benefits to Google+ is that ‘Circles’ gives the user more control; they can decide how they share content and who they share it with.  The brand pages will work in the same way facilitating a relationship between fans, advocates and potential customers.

Brands can decide how to interact with their fans.  Users can be split into circles that target geographic locations, age groups, gender or a combination of all of these.  This will allow for tailored messaging.  However, the brand’s connectivity will be more limited than an individual’s page.  An individual must add the brand page to a circle, and the brand cannot initiate the link and so this puts the user in control of the relationship.

The pages themselves will allow the brands to share content with certain groups, make content unsharable when necessary, post text, photos, videos and links, there can also be live video hangouts.  Maps can be utilised for local businesses.  Affiliated companies and people can be acknowledged on the page, and users can interact with them separately.

The impact of social media on SEO has become increasingly important in recent years and it’s apparent that content (be it a product, a status update or anything in between) with a +1 can appear considerably higher in the search results than those without.  Consequently, it is now more important than ever that brands become early adopters and have a useful, comprehensive Google+ page in line with their digital or social media strategy. Google+ won’t replace existing social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook are here to stay, but it’s a further platform to engage consumers and improve SERP visibility.

It’s no secret now that analysis of your customers’ online journey will ensure your search campaigns are an appropriate fit for the users. Moneysupermarket is already seeing 10% of overall traffic from mobile and tablets. So mobile paid search ads for local businesses, with bid-to-call campaigns could have a significant impact on advertisers,where arguably a call is more value than a PPC click.

As J Thomson argues, the trend in Digital Marketing has been for Mobile to overtake laptop and desktop computers for “the last million years”. I’d suggest this move by Google will be an important catalyst for this trend and heighten the need for campaigns targeted at appropriate devices.

So while locally focused businesses can benefit from potential new leads via the phone, does this pose a threat where small businesses can’t justify costs associated with a call centre? This is where the conversion rate and basket value would have to be considered.

It’s also worth considering the limitations of the new feature, while Adwords will report on call volumes and charges against the call function, at this time it’s not able to report on conversion or revenue data, making cost justifications difficult. Using a phone number specifically for PPC traffic only will allow some insight into conversion rates, but again requires some manual support at the call centre or business which could add complications.

Although, at this stage, there are are no functionalities for keyword level reporting, meaning optimisations on the activity are not possible. This development is still going to be a big contender to existing phone tracking solutions, and only more so are the feature advances.