Sitting down at the laptop on a fine Sunday morning to check up on how our lovely viral campaign is doing, I took a moment to procrastinate via social media (you know you do it) and logged into my Twitter account.
I follow a very diverse and wide-ranging cross section of society, from SEO gods like Dave Naylor, to stars of the silver screen such as Keira Knightley (cough*..um she was in Pirates of the Caribbean..cough*) some of them for their educational tweets and interesting links, others for the sheer stream of consciousness comedy that it affords me.
It is the latter statement that this next little tid-bit of information should be categorised into, as this morning I was lucky enough to read through the demise of Keira Knightley’s assistant Daniel via my Twitter account.
As you can see from the above, Daniels demise was quite a public one, and frankly I was surprised no one had picked up on it and syndicated it via the interwebs, so, being the kind-hearted soul I am, I thought it would be best to warn Keira of the possible online PR fiasco that could lead from such activity on a public Twitter account.
As you can see, I have already waited over 2 hours to write this blog post, two hours in which Ms. Knightley has been tweeting frequently, so I think it’s only fair that I now share the comedy and allow myself a little bit of link-bait.
But.. .and there is always a but.
This is a very precise example of online reputation management going awry, and one that we can all learn from. Nowadays with sites like Facebookfails and Failblog (just to mention a couple) our mistakes have the propensity to cause us real harm, whether “we” means a real world brand or a professional reputation, online PR and reputation management must be taken seriously when engaging in social media, something I have been stressing for quite some time in my professional life.
So, maybe this will lead Keira back to a view she expressed earlier this year:
Keira Knightley- “I hate the Internet. I find it dehumanizing to constantly check emails or social sites which have become so fashionable.” Source.
Or maybe she’ll do the right thing by social media and take control of her Twitter account and use it as a personal way of engaging on the Internet with fans, peers, reporters etc.
I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next tweet.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be in a meeting with some “offline” marketing bods and we started talking about which search engines to focus on when planning a client’s campaign strategy. I started to make some recommendations on how to make the most of tight PPC budgets by apportioning spend based on market share and demographic usage of search engines (the usual statistics) when I noticed their eyes slowly beginning to close and blackberrys starting to appear from trouser pockets.
Fearing an impending snooze fest I began to compare search engines to cars, football teams, and fast food chains which got their attention back to the point long enough for them to make a decision on how to steer their client, and slowly the discussion moved back to the wondrous “in-print” marketing strategy, at which point I then began to dose off.
Once I was sequestered back in the sanitized womb of my budget hotel room I kept comparing search engines to elements of pop culture (what else is there to do without digital television) and settled on a recurring theme which I am about to share with you, music.
Here for your reading (and listening) pleasure are the top five search engines of our time charted and accompanied by their very own soundtrack recommendation.
Ten years ago you might have been on here daily searching for everything from “books” to “chat rooms”, however since being bought and sold more times than anyone cares to remember this engine has definitely seen better days and sadly graces our number five slot in the search engine chart, its soundtrack….
Originally named after a P.G Woodehouse character this engine has wavered in and out of popularity since its inception in 1994, a recent rebrand and the much lauded return of our old friend Jeeves has seen a resurgence in users. Still not hitting hard enough to knock the heavy weights out of the top three but definitely showing promise, Ask Jeeves graces our number four slot in the search engine chart, its soundtrack….
One of the largest companies to survive the Dot-Com bust Yahoo has struggled to gain market share since 2004 and has focused on ancillary proucts specialising in travel and hotels etc. to maintain revenue, the recent merger with Microsoft search engine “Bing” will ensure longevity and expansion of their platform. My very first email address was on a Yahoo account so it is with a warm fuzzy feeling that I welcome Yahoo to the number three slot in the search engine chart, its soundtrack is….
Having had more names than Jordan, AKA “Katie Price”, AKA “Katie Andre-Price”, AKA….. oh you get the point, the recent relaunch of the Microsoft search platform has seen them claw back a decent chunk of market share and upon using the engine I can safely say that they are heaing in the right direction. This twinned with the recent Yahoo merger could see us “binging”…meh (it just doesn’t sound right) alot more in the future. It gives me pleasure to announce that Bing is our number two selection in the search engine chart, its soundtrack….
The undisputed champion of search engines since 2002, it is no surprise that Google is at our number one spot in the search engine chart, with recent releases such as CPA ads in search results and their debut of Google Wave, there just seems to be no stopping them. Lords, Ladies and Gentleman it is my pleasure to present you with the soundtrack for our number one search engine in the search engine chart….
I hope you’ve all had a chuckle with this post, see, search can be fun sometimes ;o)
As you all know my team and I manage Search and as a result of this we have to keep track of what people are doing online. You will no doubt have heard about the recent British Airways disputes over pay freezes, job losses, staff cuts and the rest of it either in the news or here on the inter-webs, we have been keeping a close eye on the developments too and genuinely feel for what their staff must be going through right now.
In an industry (an industry I am incredibly new to) where I have found staff to be intensley loyal to their employer, and really care about the service offered and how well customers are taken care of it must be unfathomably frustrating to be asked to make such extreme personal sacrifices such as taking three months paid leave, or freezing your salary for up to three years while still ensuring that you are doing your all to maintain genuine pride in your work and making sure your customers are taken care of as well as they always have been.
It is because of these reasons that I decided to write this post.
last week British Airways began offering summer sale prices on their website to generate as much revenue as possible during what is sure to be a couple of hard months for them.
I set about checking up on the British Airways offer and found something quite startling.
Try this search on Google (don’t be scared of the phantom mouse):
Now click on the sponsored link at the top (the British Airways one)
As you will now no doubt be aware of, British Airways are sending traffic through to an expired landing page, and have been doing so since the start of their sale.
In a genuine effort to save them money and improve their campaign I tweeted about this at www.twitter.com/callumadamson the day after I discovered it (British Airways follow me on Twitter) and gave them a day to realise their mistake and correct it. Well folks it has been three days since then and they still haven’t fixed it.
I can’t realisticly predict how much money they have spent on traffic to send customers to an expired landing page, but what I can say for sure is that if you are asking your staff to work for free, freeze their pay, or any other measure that will help them bring the company back into profitability, the least you can do is ensure that every penny spent is going towards revenue generation.
What can we learn from this?
When you launch a new PPC campaign check it by hand on live search engines – don’t trust the Google ad-preview tool, sure it will be laborious and slightly boring, but you’ll reap the rewards, and if it is a short run campaign (our summer offers end on the 14th July) then it is doubly important to ensure that your campaign is running at full speed from day 1.
I’m not saying that all of our campaigns are 100% unbelievably the most amazing bestest campaigns ever run (we still have a lot of work to do to get there) but we’re careful with our spends and targeting because we know that in this industry every penny counts at the moment, and we’re doing our best.
Love,
Callum
*Caveat
This post is an entirely personal viewpoint and in to way constitues the views, opinions or thoughts of my employer or anyone connected with me. It is merely an observation and is in no way slanderous in it’s intent.
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