Internet Marketing and Digital Media Strategy Sydney Australia

This is a Digital Media Strategy Beginners Article.

Local Search Results

One of the biggest failures of the web to date has been the generally poor results you get from a local search - particularly here in Australia where only around 30% of small businesses have a website.  The poor performance is understandable when it's only logical that if your business doesn't have a website, then it's hard for Google to know you exist and for people to link to your site.  

There have been many attempts over the years to address this gap, from the old, once dominant, Yellow Pages type paper advertising directories (which have finally migrated to online directories); Government and commercial initiatives like Google and MYOB (leading Australian Small Business accounting software); consumer comparison and ranking website portals; through to customer generated content - forums, bloggers; Facebook Places; Fourquare; Twitter; new Google+ and my new favourite service www.quora.com (founded last year by the ex CTO of Facebook).

From a business owners perspective it's a Catch 22 situation - if your immediate sales are not generated from the web then why as business do you need to invest the time, energy and money to develop new skills; keep information up to date; maintain the website; and also communicate through these online channels - "I sell coffee I'm not some computer nerd!" they cry.   

The answer to that question is very simple - depending on what report you're reading then 50-90% of new customers will search online before purchasing - Online Retailing's SOBO "Search Online Buy Offline". 

If you're not actively marketing and communicating online then there's a very high probability your competitors are or will be.

Opportunity and Competition Drives Innovation  

Ten months ago, I wrote about a new coffee shop which opened in the local neighbourhood "Foodies Deli Cafe" which brought a refreshing new competitor to the local coffee drinking marketplace - back then as a test I asked how long would it be before they commented on my blog post.

Today, that moment arrived, Matt - one of the owners told me they'd launched a website a couple of months ago; that it wasn't ranking in Google and if I could take a quick look (contra coffee).

Sensing a potential mutual win relationship (and also content for my blog) once back in the office the first thing I did was a test search in Google - 

As Matt said the website http://www.foodiesdelicafe.com.au/ doesn't rank at all, so we take a look at source code.  If you right-click on your website from your browser there is usually a "source code" option - it's gobbly gook stuff Google sees.  Without going into finer details the website is not search engine optimised (SEO) and in its current form I doubt it will never rank in the top three search results.  Yes, the web developers didn't mention that!

As mentioned there are many elements which influence search engine ranking but the most important is the "Search Engine Term" your potential customers will use.

Search Engine Term and Inbound Links

The key point to note is that most people will NOT search for the name of the coffee shop, they will search for "coffee shop Dolls Point" or "coffee shop Sans Souci" or maybe "best coffee shop in St George area".  The most important element to SEO is the title of any external websites inbound link to your site.  

The higher the Pagerank of the external website "referring" the more influence that will have on your page ranking and your subsequent search results listing. For example, A Sydney Morning Herald food guide review will have a greater link importance than my website blog (except when it is published in my Istrategy blog post).

Example - The top three results "Best Coffee Shop Sydney City" includes one of my favourites Vivo Cafe - Vivo has a SEO website plus Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare accounts - all roads lead to a destination. 

Social Media is the New Search 

We are increasingly using social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Youtube etc and applications like Trip Advisor to ask friends or other web users for their feedback.  On top of the social media layer, services like Google+; Linkedin Q&A (think corporate Facebook) and the previously mentioned http://www.quora.com/ are facilitating question and answer and developing expert status.

Google is already indexing this high quality content (except where it has very recently been precluded - ie Twitter real time results and public Facebook Status) and you are beginning to see this data influence rankings. 

Social Media Pureplay

Another local coffee shop I must mention is social media marketing pure play Montgomery St Cafe, headed up by the highly talented Internet Chef and Electrolux brand ambassador Bridget Davis and Twitterati Iconic88.  They did an exceptional job at building awareness prior to opening through Facebook status updates, #mostreet and regular Youtube videos.  

Increasing Competition

Last week another new local coffee shop opened - "Kiss the Barista" at Georges River 16ft Sailing Club; and another around the corner couple of weeks. 

There are now three new coffee shops that have opened within a short (less than 500m) distance within the last 10 months making a total six.

As you can see even at the local coffee shop level it's a highly competitive online marketing but you know the most important thing?  The customer experience they then share.

How do you rank on Google and what are your customers saying about you on social media?

Trouble reading this - view online http://www.maxys.com.au/20090804189/News/Latest/maxys-report-august-5th-2009.html

Maxys Report - August 2009

The A-List (or Aussie J List)

An Aussie online marketers dream list - Australian journalists Twitter list.

Last night a much more updated and comprehensive list of Australian journalists on Twitter appeared on the web - certainly more interesting and valuable then the content of the Governments website censor list.

What is interesting is how the relationship between your PR department (for most small businesses themselves) has now moved even more into cyberspace.

The Good Old Days of the Long Lunch

In the good old days you or your PR company would write a press release and then send it out to journalists you knew or wanted to know.

Better still you go out to lunch (still my much more preferred approach) or have a beer at the pubs around Surry Hills or Park St (if in Sydney).

Your Press Release would have a great header to get attention, the opening paragraph written to quickly summarise the key statement. The content all written in a way that would be easy to quickly cut and paste if your journo had an urgent deadline and needed 100, 200, 800 words to fill.

As you may know Twitter is limited to just 140 characters - not a lot you can say.

In the same breath - we are getting better at quickly shortening and filtering information.

Creating Brands Online

For a long time conventional media has been a long way behind online's speed of communication - there are a number of reasons - production values and media economics.

In digital marketing to create brand you'd focus at identifying early innovators and influencers who spread the word through to early adopters and so on.

Twitter, Facebook and other online social networking applications have been great tools for being able to rapidly communicate to your followers, create discussion and interest.

The idea being your readers then blog and share your product, news, video or article.

Eventually this groundswell of "interest" hopefully touches an investigative journalist from the mainstream media who then produces an article, a radio or television interview and broadcasts your story to the masses.

Remember, TV is still the 800 pound video guerrilla, radio feels more personal and the lines between online and offline newspapers and magazines are rapidly blurring.

So what happens when the mainstream media moves onto Twitter en masse - The Oprah's , a list of Australia's Top 100 journalists (below).

There have been a few lists of Australian journalists on Twitter (see end of post), but this one is a little different, and much larger.M, Australia’s top 100 Journalists and news media people on Twitter, Apr 2009

I suppose the first thing you do is follow them with the aim of the journalist following you back and the beginning of a relationship.

Stepping in the journos shoes I can imagine their email Twitter alerts as this list becomes popular. It'd be like walking into online equivalent of a high speed desperate and dateless dating service or the only "sheila" at a poorly organised B&S Ball.

Fact is - we are all already bombarded with emails and information. What makes you and your Tweet something that will get cut through and be of interest?

As always, its the first 12 seconds of attention that counts.

Entertain to Inform, get Creative, Personalise the Experience.

The Search for Australia's Top Bloggers and Influencers

It's hard enough for the tech savvy to keep up and stay in touch with the latest online trends and developments so you can imagine the challenges for most businesses and the general population.

I remember a conference I spoke at in June to about 100 new businesses and asked how many had email (95%) websites (50%) through to Facebook (20%) and Twitter (1%)

From an online marketing perspective a majority of new customers begin at Google Search. To rank highly you need to optimise your website for search engines. One of the most important elements of SEO is links coming into your site. The more people write about you the better your website ranking and so on. How do you increase market awareness on the web?

Case in hand - for the rollout of our CLIVEvideo Project I've been deeply interested in online social media as an online marketing channel - you know the stats - 1 in 6 minutes online now spent on social sites like Facebook.

This interest stems from my old pub days around customer service as a USP with customer word of mouth marketing - for the pub it took time but we ended up with high quality, loyal, repeat customers - a sales force of thousands.

From an online perspective the idea of targeting and developing relationships with Internet influencers and early adopters who then help spread the word.

In a lot of ways this approach of targeting influencers is not much different than the old PR and publicity days of a relationship with a journalist; reporter or politician but in the new online world of heavily fragmented media - influence is also heavily distributed.

The Search

The search for Australia's top 100 Australian Bloggers and influencers took me to Meg's Top 100 Aussie Bloggers list a month or so ago.

Funny, Meg, the author of the blog has a photo from Illawong looking back over the Woronora River to my childhood home at Como...but I digress.

I was keen to see who was blogging and what Australians were blogging about. Australia as a whole hasn't really embraced blogging from a social marketing perspective.

I subscribed to a few of the blogs I liked - either via RSS feed or simple daily email using technologies such as Feedburner.

For a month or more I then let it breathe - wanting to get a feel for the type of content being written and help understand a few of the writers.

One blog I'd been following was Gary Hayes, Director Australian Film, Television and Radio School and LAMPS

At some point you feel confident enough to comment on an article and dialogue begins - you move from a consumer of content to a commentator.

Forresters Research

Social Technographics Explained

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

Last Wednesday Gary featured CLIVE on his blog and was speaking at a conference I was going to the next day.

Creativity on the Web

Thursday night Chris (Creative Director RidgeFilms and CLIVEvideo project) and I headed into the Museum of Sydney for a debate on creativity and the web put together by old friend Rachel Slattery from Slattery IT.

Speakers included

• Martin Hosking, Chairman of building and construction collaboration provider Aconex [old BANGitUP and CADX competitor and who just raised $107m two days before the financial market collapse) and founder of art community Redbubble;
• Gary Hayes, Director, Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP);
• Angela Thomas, Lecturer, English Education, University of Sydney;
• Therese Fingleton, Project Manager, Australia Council;
• Jeff Cotter, CTO, SIMMERSION Holdings

The debate was whether the internet is helping unleash creativity. What opportunities are there for the creative on the internet? The enormous potential of user generated content, the new business models and whether the technology is driving or restraining creativity.

The debate was good and I was introduced to leading Aussie blogger Lauren Papworth and social media/ Twitter champion (Silkcharm)

Twitter

I'd been experimenting with Twitter for quiet a while - I have Ubiquity feeding into Twitter which then populates my Facebook status but never really delved into too deeply.

Could Twitter be the thought leaders I've been looking for? A search for Australias top Twitters

http://www.shiftedpixels.com.au/blog/2008/10/australias-top-50-twitter-influencers.html

I check each and look at their webpage and blogs, subscribe to a few and follow.

I was very impressed to see Malcolm Turnbull on Twitter.

Twitter can connects CEO's directly with their customers - hmm very powerful. I play around and download twirl, hmmm, Twitter is microblogging, like an online SMS broadcast.

Gawd, another communications system I have to incorporate

It will be interesting to watch this unfold.