Blog request by @iantearle

Get your own algorithm

Bing (the Microsoft search engine) has this week been directly accused of copying Googles search algorithms, after suspicious Google set ‘traps’ for the search engine, queries like “hiybbraqag” and “delhipublicschool40 chdjob” and indexed ‘sting’ sites in the top position for these phrases, to see if Bing would indeed do the same.

Whoops (click to enlarge)

Oh dear. On that evidence it didn’t look good for Bing, both Google and Microsoft issued statements:

Google said:

“… some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation. At Google we strongly believe in innovation and are proud of our search quality. We’ve invested thousands of person-years into developing our search algorithms because we want our users to get the right answer every time they search, and that’s not easy. We look forward to competing with genuinely new search algorithms out there—algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results from a competitor. So to all the users out there looking for the most authentic, relevant search results, we encourage you to come directly to Google. And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we’d like for this practice to stop.”

Microsoft then said:

“To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.”

I found this interesting picture on how the ‘sting’ worked.

The main point here is, Bing have done nothing ‘illegal’ according to lawyers from Google and that actually, other than public ridicule, nothing can be done at this point.

I’ve seen a few articles for myself that defend both sides, it doesn’t look great and ‘no smoke without fire’ etc but also, nothing is sacred when it comes to search engine wars. (And we all use Google, right?!)

Adam’s verdict = We should all use Google

As ever I tend to be the last one to react to one of Adam’s ideas, but here is my attempt at summarising the last year, apologies if it begins to sound like an award acceptance speech that goes on far too long!

It was November 2009 when we decided that 140 Digital needed to be formed, initially just Adam and myself but later, in the summer of 2010, Mads joined us fresh from University. In Jan 2010 we officially launched and the 140 Digital story started.

For me starting anything new is always an exciting time, especially when it is a new business or brand. Starting 140 Digital represented a different challenge for me, this time I was accountable to my fellow directors at Free Rein, thank you to them for all their support. Adam deserves a great deal of credit for the significant role he has played in both the formation and establishment of 140, I suspect he already knows it (;-o), but without him it almost certainly would not have happened, nor would it have achieved the level of success it has in such a short period of time.

I tend to be a more behind the scenes person, trying my hardest to offer help, support and encouragement so that others may flourish – the first year of 140 Digital has been no different – I go about my daily work largely in the background, implementing, facilitating and delivering results across a wide range of campaigns, from SEO work (which has become my passion) to complex coding and research projects.

In terms of highlights, I am going to stand on the fence and say that the whole year has been a highlight, in terms of the results we have delivered, the knowledge I have gained, the laughs we have had, the challenges we have overcome and the effort which has been put in by everyone.

2011 promises to be an exciting year, with some great clients, exciting projects and a wealth of creative ideas bubbling under the surface just waiting to be unleashed on the next big thing.

Thanks for all your support.

Alz (@alexdover)

140 Digital = Online Media Agency = Cutting edge of marketing (real time!)

Joining 140 at such an early stage in it’s development has given me the opportunity to become a real part of a new and exciting business. I love working in the fast moving world of online marketing and in just a year our close team have created exciting initiatives that have really made a positive difference to our clients.

For me, personally, the high comes from when our own strategies and ideas actually influence a brand on a real, visible level – it’s amazing. When I see a logo for something I have been involved in it lights up my heart!

It’s been great to use my skills that I’ve gained at uni and put them to practical use in the ‘real’ marketing world. Working along side such creative minds has opened my eyes to how online marketing can be so much more than what you would expect, things like SEO and e-mail marketing.

Our campaigns have utilised all sorts of online platforms and really made us work together to get the best out of them for our clients. Before I joined 140 …. I had NO twitter account! (shocking I know). 2010 has been the year for me to get to grips with this platform and really understand how Twitter can be utilised and benefit our clients

Working with our diverse range of interesting clients has been great, no single client wants the same thing so we have really had to push the online marketing boundaries, and long may it continue.

Finally I’d just like to thank Al & Adam for bringing me on board and making me feel part of the team – it’s been great so far and I’m learning loads (even the occasional techie (and footie) thing)

Our industry is always changing and I look forward to see what 2011 brings to the forefront!

Happy birthday to 140 Digital.

One year in and it feels like we’ve been around for 10. (in a good way)

Before I ramble on into a post about agency life and some highlights from the year I’d like to thank everyone of our clients, partners, people we talked to during the year, people on Twitter, via email etc, also to @alexdover and @140mads for helping to facilitate our creative and challenging campaigns. Also a thank you to Free Rein for letting us borrow half the office

Thank you for a great year.

For me 2010 in agency life was about change, mainly in the way clients wanted and accepted their campaigns would be delivered, and a change in the approach taken when marketing all manners of different brands, products and services.

Our first year was all about providing a measured return on investment for our clients, all the time providing innovative and creative online marketing campaigns. (sorry if it sounds boring, it’s true)

We are fortunate enough to work with clients that trust us with their brands, and who allow us to really market them in new and different ways.

Facebook for me has been a key highlight of the year, I’ve always been more drawn to Twitter as the main platform for modern, instant marketing for business.  Working across a wide range of brands, all with very different target demographics is a challenge and an opportunity, It’s part of why we have such a well rounded knowledge of different platforms for different purposes.

Facebook provides us with a real time feedback platform, a product launch event, a sales tool and so much more.  This has been a great benefit to many of our clients.

Twitter for me personally and for our agency has been great, never before has a new agency been able to tune into what’s going on in the industry and keep up with fellow professionals and businesses they way that Twitter allows.

It also leads to business, I can comfortably say that Twitter has led to business for 140 Digital this year.

It’s something that is ingrained in the DNA of 140 Digital, that’s not likely to ever change.

I only follow around 40 users on Twitter, I’m trying to address this, in any case, a quick mention for some people I engage with (fairly regularly) on Twitter. (If i’ve missed you, comment below and I will address the error!)

@LilianLoveBug – @Jamesgiles – @woo_made – @SBD – @KoehlerBear – @StefanMusgrove – @Katbez_SEO – @HannahRampton – @jamieriddell – @batt_mann – @MarkOfford – @ames2uk – @wmavideo – @KingofShaves

Free Rein – @tonyaddison , @oxo1991 and @iantearle (@free_rein_potts never tweets, tut tut!)

Sharing and sometimes shouting, but mainly talking about what we are up to is something that comes naturally to us, I’m aware that a lot of agencies don’t really talk about what they are doing, but we are (amongst other things) a social media marketing agency – you do the math.

All of the things above, alongside shaping personal projects – Type Joy and Let’s buy MySpace help me to be constantly in tune with online marketing and fine tune ideas and practices, this all benefits our agency and our clients.

2011 is year two for us, it’s started with a bang, that’s for sure.  Look out for some great marketing pieces from us this year and keep engaging on Twitter, email and occasionally in person!

Much love

Adam

Alex

@alexdover

Best Campaign

For me it was a tough call between the Audi augmented reality calendar, which I wrote about back in August and the wonderful Arcade Fire experiment from Google. In the end I have plumped for the Arcade Fire experiment, it really showed what is possible with HTML5 and combined it with a great song too – you can check out my thoughts from August.

Tech Gadget

It has to the iPad, I remember before its release the talk was of a big iphone, what was the point, no multi tasking etc. Again Apple proved them all wrong and it really has been the breakthrough device they promised, a new version is expected soon and Apple has predicted sales in excess of 20 million units for 2011.

Adam

@140adam

Best Campaign

Lot’s of things have caught my attention in 2010, probably my favourite would have to be Old Spice man. I don’t really have a reason other than, taking a somewhat old fashioned brand, targeting a new audience and executing a very well received viral marketing piece. Hats of to the person / team that spawned the idea.

News

Facebook dominating the headlines this year has made me happy, happy for the industry. Other than Apple, which company did you hear the most about in 2010? Google, Microsoft? Nope… it was Mr Zuckerburg’s Facebook that went from strength to strength despite some dodgy security issues the now famous film ‘The Social Network’. Early 2011 saw Goldman Sachs buy $500m worth of Facebook at a $50billion dollar valuation. Wow.

Software

WordPress. 2010 was the year I really fell in love with WordPress as a CMS as well as a blogging platform. Aside from personal projects (Type Joy, Let’s buy MySpace) and some agency projects we’ve completed, I have developed a real appreciation for the platform and its many benefits.

It’s in no way perfect and still has failings, when for example, talking something like a big database driven website, but in general it is a great way to develop a marketing website, if done correctly.

Mads

@140mads

TV Advertising Campaigns

The VW Polo advert really stands out in my mind, it is so different and attention grabbing, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I find it amazing that VW have created a pan European advert that can appeal and hold the attention of so many different cultures – it’s a creative master piece.

One that I can’t miss out is the John Lewis Advert with the Fyfe Danger Field sounds track – personally it gives you goose bumps when I watch it. It was one of the most talked about TV campaign of 2010 and utter genius.

Social Media

I have to totally agree with Adam that the Old Spice Social Media campaigns has not only been one of the best in 2010 but one of the best in all time. The campaign changed the face of a brand and as a result doubled sales of the product, how can you top that? The videos were (and still are) a social media and viral phenomena.

When I am not shouting at the screen watching sport, I spend my days reviewing, optimising and generally trying to get the best out of our clients websites and campaigns, some call it SEO, I call it being a geek.

Before specialising in SEO, my background was as a web developer, for about 10 years (no trying to guess my age please!) so I naturally come at these tasks from a mathematical, technical angle.

Here are some of the tools, software and tips I wouldn’t be without.

SEO Moz

For a long time SEOMoz provided a number of great tools, which presented and analysed data in a really insightful way – but in the last 6 months they have upped their game even further with the introduction of the campaign tool.

Each week your site is crawled and the dashboard presents you with all the errors, warnings, keyword positions, advise and top level analytics data.

Google Analytics

For me, the best analytics package, and I used to be impressed with awstats! There is obviously a wealth of information in here, but one of the best things I have found is the ability to use simple regular expressions with the exclusions list. One of the best places I put this into practice is when filtering the keyword referrals, for example using the following will allow you to exclude patterns and multiple phrases:

start of phrase*|another*|something*

I use this a lot to filter out brand based phrases, to see how my work is performing. The same principle can be used when looking at URL’s, e.g.

/a-url*|/another-url*

Live HTTP Headers plugin for Firefox

Want to make sure that the correct codes are being sent from the server? You can see all the headers which are being sent to ensure that redirect includes a 301 or 302, whatever you are looking for by using this plugin – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829/. For a long time I used wget at the command line, but then I swapped from Ubuntu to Mac. Using wget will by default show you all the headers, but you can add -d to see even more, for example:

wget -v -d http://www.google.co.uk

Would produce

DEBUG output created by Wget 1.12 on linux-gnu.
 
--2010-12-08 09:19:13--  http://www.google.co.uk/
Resolving www.google.co.uk... 173.194.37.104
Caching www.google.co.uk => 173.194.37.104
Connecting to www.google.co.uk|173.194.37.104|:80... connected.
Created socket 3.
Releasing 0x08c58ff0 (new refcount 1).
 
---request begin---
GET / HTTP/1.0
User-Agent: Wget/1.12 (linux-gnu)
Accept: */*
Host: www.google.co.uk
Connection: Keep-Alive
 
---request end---
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
---response begin---
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:19:13 GMT
Expires: -1
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Set-Cookie: PREF=ID=bfc253b2d51f22d7:FF=0:TM=1291799953:LM=1291799953:S=tmzF6TMXOF43pgb1; expires=Fri, 07-Dec-2012 09:19:13 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.co.uk
Set-Cookie: NID=41=CHvowLwOxGDng1xnpCZcljhbZXxUfHl5PYTAeoLVPWXr2bxoxpER22I5RxY5Y5Ovx7AkFVStsf3ZODLW_VFa45BXVkHcbCkV4luTQMX1uz9vOsYIV5fFXF-EO4ORI9sW; expires=Thu, 09-Jun-2011 09:19:13 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.co.uk; HttpOnly
Server: gws
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
 
---response end---
200 OK
cdm: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Stored cookie google.co.uk -1 (ANY) / <permanent> <insecure> [expiry 2012-12-07 09:19:13] PREF ID=bfc253b2d51f22d7:FF=0:TM=1291799953:LM=1291799953:S=tmzF6TMXOF43pgb1
cdm: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Stored cookie google.co.uk -1 (ANY) / <permanent> <insecure> [expiry 2011-06-09 10:19:13] NID 41=CHvowLwOxGDng1xnpCZcljhbZXxUfHl5PYTAeoLVPWXr2bxoxpER22I5RxY5Y5Ovx7AkFVStsf3ZODLW_VFa45BXVkHcbCkV4luTQMX1uz9vOsYIV5fFXF-EO4ORI9sW
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: `index.html.1'
 
[ <=>                                                                                              ] 9,725       --.-K/s   in 0.08s
 
Closed fd 3
2010-12-08 09:19:13 (124 KB/s) - `index.html.1' saved [9725]

Komodo Edit

When it comes to changing code I have recently started to use Komodo Edit (http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit). For most of my life as a web developer I used an ancient tool called CodeWright, which was just like using a colourful text editor, over the last few months on the Mac I have started to get used to the code hints and auto tabbing and Komodo seems to be pretty slick.

Spotify + big cans

Not really a tool for SEO, but I wouldn’t be without it – when you head is buried deep in stats and keywords and big set of headphones ensure that nobody interrupts (if only!)

I am sure plenty of you will disagree, argue that other tools are better – but this is just my take and personal preference, hope it is of use to you.

Care to suggest alternatives or add to the list (or suggest a great Spotify play list)? Comments welcome below, or you can get me on Twitter @alexdover

Putting my love of life on social networks aside there is a newer feeling for me, The feeling is that of slight disillusion over what personal and social purpose both networks are serving and if one is now changing my willingness to use the other.

I’m wondering if there is a confusion between us as individuals on our Facebook and Twitter social network profiles, a confusion that raises the question about what is ‘social’ and what is ‘personal’ when it comes to an online network.

An extract from the Wikipedia definition of ‘Social Network’:

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of specified ties, such as friendship, between the nodes being studied. The nodes to which an individual is thus connected are the social contacts of that individual. The network can also be used to measure social capital – the value that an individual gets from the social network.

Or is it:

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of specified ties, such as friendship (FACEBOOK), between the nodes being studied. The nodes to which an individual is thus connected are the social contacts of that individual. The network can also be used to measure social capital – the value that an individual gets from the social network. (TWITTER)

I know several people that have a Facebook profile, a ‘work’ Twitter account and a ‘personal’ Twitter account, all the same person, similar bios but a clear separation of personality and the way they act and what they say on the various profiles, which leads me to question the purpose of each and if there is actually a very clear distinction between the two ‘social networks’.

I appreciate the difference that both offer functionality wise but my issue is around the personality portrayed.

I decided to put some of these thoughts into questions and surveyed people with a Twitter and a Facebook account, people more active on Twitter, people more active on Facebook.  Here are the results: (Graph of results, question asked, some quotes from answers given, summary)

Would you say you monitor what you say more on Twitter or Facebook?

“I monitor Twitter more mainly because more work related people and news are on there”

“Twitter – as it’s my work profile not my personal one – I am being judged as a professional and representing a company, not just myself – hopefully I’m seen as having professional integrity”

“Twitter as its less personal”

91% of respondents said they censored what they said on more on Twitter, this was in large down to the connections they have and open nature of their profile.

Do you feel your Twitter or Facebook account reflects the “real” you?

“Twitter yes – get an insight to me both in and out of work”

“My twitter reflects ‘me’”

“Twitter – It is more about the here and now, these are my thoughts and opinions as and when I would like to share them.”

Despite the vast majority saying they censor what they say more on the network more people say that Twitter represents the real them.

What % of Twitter followers/following are your Facebook friends?

Nobody asked currently had more than 20% for their following/followers from Twitter as Facebook friends.

What % of Twitter followers would you like to be your friend on Facebook?

A bit of a spread here, some wouldn’t want anyway, some very few but a fair proportion of the people asked would like their following/followers to be ‘friends’ with them on Facebook.

What is the % of your Facebook friends that you wouldn’t want to follow you on Twitter?

When reversed a different pattern appears, people are either very relaxed about their Facebook friends following them or very much against it.  I was surprised by a few of the comments:

“Embarrassing”

“Wouldn’t want them mixing with my Twitter friends”

“Facebook is mainly my past”

Do you publish the same status on Facebook and Twitter?

“My personal Facebook is for my mates only whereas Twitter is for mates and work”

“Some of my Twitter comments are opinions where facebook is more what you are doing”

“I tend to observe more in Facebook than actively update my status and interact with my friends”

Backing up the censorship issue but also bordering into not wanting to bore Facebook friends with things not of interest.

What platform do you prefer for social interaction?

“Twitter because it is more personal”

“Twitter, feel more comfortable to be myself”

“Twitter – It’s fast, I follow everyone for a legitimate reason (because they’re interesting/funny/informative) and Facebook’s mostly full of, well, crap.”

Again it’s interesting to see that people actually prefer Twitter for social interaction, Facebook seems to be seen as a bit of a dump for old information, a scrap book.

If you had to stop using one tomorrow what would it be and why?

”Facebook. Currently I use Twitter more”

“Facebook, because I only really use it to be noisy or send messages, which I could do via email instead.”

“Facebook – I don’t use it much as it is so wouldn’t really miss it. Can’t live without Twitter!”

Facebook by a massive majority is the network that people would leave if they could only choose one to stay on.

So what?

Well that’s up to you, make of it what you will, split personalities or just a work and play divide?

My theory is that ‘social’ and ‘personal’ networks are very different things, be who you want to be, hide who you are or how you have been known, separate those you know from those you’d like to know. ‘separation’ networks.

In the long term what would be the repercussions of just using one platform or maintaining perfect consistency between the uses on each profile? Clients offended? Friends bored of you? Perhaps. Is all this separation diluting the point of the ‘social’ network?

A filtered social presence is what we have and what I believe will become even more filtered as adopters of the networks change and the need to protect integrity and personal information grows alongside this.

Be social, be open? be honest? be you?

The market is more competitive and the competition is stronger. So what do you need to do to be on top of your game? How can you make your brand inspirational, while your competitors struggle?

Saatchi and Saatchi says – make your brand a ‘lovemark’. The concept is sound and surely there is no doubt which area of the axis we want our business to fall in to.

The ‘how to’ bit might be one for consideration though – although businesses want to be known for their warm, loving, caring qualities, we all know that businesses are set up to make money. It’s hard not to have this come across when stakeholders think about a brand. So what lengths need to be undertaken to avoid that?

Tesco, for example, try to counteract it by giving £5.4m (Tesco PLC, 2010) to charity every year in the UK alone. They also strive to stock their stores with a choice of local produce that prove that are supporting the local communities, however … would you call the Tesco brand a lovemark? Honestly? Probably not – they are much more seen as a profit making company.

And you’re right not to, according to Lovemarks.com they are not even in the top 200.

If giving to charity is not enough, what could be done to make a brand a lovemark?

Is digital marketing the answer?

Some may still think ‘no’ and argue that digital doesn’t have the credibility of adverts in newspapers or the traditional feel of a television campaign. Well it does seem, and quite rightly so, that this view is not only being contradicted but proved wrong time and time again.

Look at Starbucks, they went through a period for a while where individuals were starting to resent them and their rapid success, people saw a Starbucks on every corner of their local town and sneered.

This does not seem to be the case now, Starbucks are now in the top 40 lovemark ranking (Not just a list for products but public figures as well) and they are thanking their digital strategy for helping toward achieving that status amongst their consumers.

Starbucks realised they had to reach current and possible consumers in a way that makes them feel comfortable and in a way that would enable them to interact with the company on a personal level. With this thought in mind Starbucks saw the answer through online social mediums.

TV is great, but the person watching clearly knows they are being marketed ‘at’ and can also resent that method of companies getting their message out. Starbucks emphasised throughout their digital campaign the importance of ‘social being about relationships, not marketing’ (Alexandra Wheeler, Starbucks Digital Director, 2010)

This approach was integrated throughout their campaigns but importantly through the implementation of their online strategy, they were giving their consumers the chance to interact with them on a personal and emotional level, not pushing them to purchase more coffee or anything similar.

This strategy also gave consumers who, without social networks, would not have interacted with Starbucks at all. Using this channel to recongise loyal consumers makes them feel wanted and important, all helping to creating a true lovemark brand. Starbucks currently have over 11million fans on Facebook and rising.

It has to be recognised that all this hard work towards encouraging individuals to be very comfortable and trusting of the brand could have all been wiped away if Starbucks had used the wrong social channels to deliver these interactions. It is clearly very important for the site to have a loyal and trusting following of people, this feeling amongst the users should in turn rub off on the organisation using the site.

Their association with Facebook has been positive, it seems that for consumer brands just the fact that they have made the effort to reach people and communicate through a medium that is popular, widely used and trusted, amongst a whole range of consumers, has given them added credit and love for the brand.

Don’t be fooled though we’re not saying Facebook is right for every one and association is everything. Ask yourself … should a firm of lawyers interact with their clients using facebook or would that leave their integrity vulnerable?

So are lovemarks all their cracked up to be? Well … is Starbucks a product and service that inspires loyalty beyond reason? (Saatchi & Saatchi)

Ask yourself if there was an unbranded coffee shop and a Starbucks side by side which one would you go in, take a gamble or the reliable, trusted brand you are familiar with (or perhaps even love).

Using digital as a way to build a lovemark brand clearly it is not to be underestimated. Those using these sites for social networking clearly have trust in the site and trust in the the companies who also use the site. Surely a company that has a presence on Facebook (who now have 500 million users) is just proving that they can relate to that audience and are taking the time to form that personal relationship.

Obviously having this online presence does not mean you need to write off any other form of marketing as you will be excluding individuals if you do. Do be careful though, choose the right platform and choose the right messages, remember don’t market ‘at’ people when using social media and you might just be on your way to making your brand a lovemark.

Firstly a big apology for the long lay off! It’s been far too long. We are back in action!

Google

Ever changing at the moment and seemingly quicker than ever with one of this being a major change to the local business listings (Places) in SERPs. No longer can a business neglect their local business listing or for that matter can SEO’s.  The change brings about a shift in the way Google is prioritising regionalised search results.

Facebook

Since we’ve been away Facebook places launched to a bit of a whimper in all honesty, my timeline hasn’t been filled with people checking in and many people still are using Foursquare so at ground level there hasn’t been a major shift.

Total checkins are unknown but are lower than Facebook would have hoped.  I’m guessing they will be already looking for a major retail partner in the hope of stealing some of Foursquare’s voucher thunder.

Today Facebook will also make a joint announcement with MySpace.

(Image from Mashable.com)

Agency Life

Music to get you into that power mode is what I’ve been scraping around for in my Spotify universe, Rock and Roll is very much dish of the day and an album that’s been on play for a while is Bullet for my Valentine – Fever, filled with spine tingling riffs and power lyrics it’s a must for any metal head.

This week I gave my first official careers day talk in Suffolk to college students, the talk was on agency and industry life and kept very light, sold the dream and hopefully inspired a few to look at online marketing specifically as a career option after college.

An office radio has been an element of slight debate  since the introduction of it by fellow Neon Fudger @alexdover . I’ve always been a headphones guy so this won’t change but I think the radio for those that prefer not to ‘plugin’ is a nice option for some light background noise. What’s the music policy in your office?

Till next week.

Hear designer Elliot Jay Stocks talk about the use of CSS3.