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Archive for May, 2005

Tips & Tricks For Corporate Blogging

11 May 2005

Neville Hobson has posted a very interesting list of points on WebProNews about some excellent additional content in Business Week’s online edition that’s not in the print edition, and he highlights specific key points. These tips and tricks are intended for company owners, CEO’s and staff members.

1. Train Your Bloggers
Key point: Who’s on your communications team? It used to be a small group, but now everyone who blogs at the company is spreading the message. And it’s important that these people be trained. [...] If bloggers become part of a company’s communications effort, what does the old PR department do? Increasingly, it’ll train and coordinate the bloggers.

2. Be Careful with Fake Blogs
Key Point: Pseudo-blogs are risky because many of the most passionate bloggers view them as an affront to their community, and each one stands out like a billboard in Yosemite. When the blogosphere gets hold of a fake, it can turn it into a public roasting of the company. [...] The upshot: Your choice on fakes, but the risks are high. [This is also to do with so-called character blogs on which I've clearly stated my views (against), in this post as well as in recent editions of The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast.]

3. Track Blogs
Key point: This is the easiest and most important step. First, poke around online and find the most influential bloggers following your company. Read them every day. Then do automated tracking of discussions. Companies ranging from startup PubSub to tech giant IBM can help, since they offer services that comb through this mountain of data, turning it into market research for customers. [And see the bonus tip above.]

4. PR Truly Means Public Relations
Key point: Blogs knock down the barriers between a company and its customers. Businesses need to take that into account and adapt. [...] Netflix figured this lesson out after a rocky start. A fan named Mike Kaltschnee started a blog called Hacking Netflix that was full of news about online movie-rental company’s services. Kaltschnee asked for a closer relationship with Netflix, including access to executives and briefings on news releases. Netflix didn’t pay attention to him – until he wrote about his frustrations on his blog last June. The posting was picked up and spread madly through the blogosphere. Talk about bad PR.

5. Be Transparent
Key point: No hard and fast rules for navigating the worlds of blogging and marketing exist. Still, a few principles are emerging, including the importance of full disclosure. Being open about the kind of marketing you’re doing is critical. [...] In November, Marqui began paying some 20 bloggers $2,400 each to write about the company once a week for three months. Everything about Marqui’s blog program is up on its site, including the contract, a list of the bloggers working for Marqui, and background material Marqui sends to bloggers. The bloggers have total control over what they write. They can criticize the software or write at length about it. The only requirement was they have to mention Marqui once a week. [...] Marqui benefited from the buzz about the novelty of what it was attempting. The number of people who visited Marqui’s site rose from 2,000 in November to 150,000 in December. And the company decided to continue the program after the first three-month period ended. [What Marqui did could change the face of marketing and PR.]

6. Rethink Your Corporate Secrets
Key point: What’s the value of a locked up secret? In the world of blogs, you may find more value in sharing what you used to think of as secrets. Blogs are certain to make you rethink what should be squirreled away, because companies are increasingly sharing such information to win new partners and harvest fresh ideas. This doesn’t mean they don’t keep secrets or that you shouldn’t – only that you should reevaluate whether you can get more out of sharing information or keeping a lock on it.

WebProNews > Insider Reports > Marketing Insider > Article

Neville Hobson’s Blog – comment and opinion on business communication and technology.

Neville Hobson is a British business communicator based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

 
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Posted in Blogging, Blogs, Ethics, Marketing, Tips & Tricks

 

Tips For A Better Pay-Per-Click Campaign

10 May 2005

Although it is strongly recommended that you talk through your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) needs with a professional agency, some people want to find out about keyword-buying theirselves. To help out those who pursue the direct approach, here a some tips to optimize your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program.

  • Do not neglect the strategic phase in your planning. Perform a ‘keyword analysis’ to determine the most accurate ’searchwords’ for your business, website or activity. Keep in mind that there are different ways to use the adwords. You can use single words, but it’s also possible to use a combination of words and link the multiple adwords to the same advertisement. You should also decide, when using multiple adwords, if the engine should show your page only on the exact same input of the combination or if your ad should turn up with each of the included words individually too. Make sure to check the conditions with every engine you decide to contact for PPC.
  • The best ratio of click-throughs is generated through textual advertisements using a very direct sales and/or marketing approach. Ads with a clear and open content even rate up to 4 times better than ads that are formulated in a more descriptive way. A well-built text-ad contains the most important benefits for the surfer, and a very clear ‘call for action’.
  • The format of a PPC-ad is very tiny limited, compared to other advertisement possibilies as bannering etc. so it is important not to repeat words and make it a clear, brief and striking statement or message. It is very important that the ‘call for action’ is repeated on the landing page, and immediately is substantiated to ‘convince’ the visitor of your good intentions. Try to put a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of your product into the text. It’ll most certainly be rewarded when it comes to brand recognition and appointing values.
  • Try to avoid aggressive oneliners or pushing statements. Don’t be too generous with characters as the questionmark or the exclamation point. Most engines limit the entries of such textsigns anyway, but apart from that, it testifies of very poor language skills and looks very amateuristic. Surely this can’t be your objective in a communcation process with potential or existing customers. Don’t overdo it on the capitals. Internet etiquette (the netiquette) points out the use of capital letters equals shouting in real life (IRL). Be sure to check the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of advertising with every engine. Each engine has its own terms of use. Some content might be censored or some products just are not allowed to be advertised for, and that would be a waste of your time, money and efforts. Prevent it by informing you thoroughly.
  • Think over and re-think over the content and lay-out of the landing page. This is where surfers end up after clicking on one of your ads. Consider each word very carefully. One bad thing can make the surfer bail out. Verify that you indeed let the surfer experience that what you’ve offered in the ad has come through on this landing page. If you neglect this part of SEM, you could’ve just as good skipped the whole campaign.
  • Check for yourself what potential each investment has. Depending on the rate selected and the maximum budget per day you want to use (per day/per click), your ad will be visible on various locations. Higher investments bring it to the top of the list, fewer investing lets it drop down, showing it amongst many other sponsored search results. Possibly direct competition, so think it over very carefully.
  • Measuring equals knowledge. Check on your results on a very regular basis, also check the ones from your competition, you might learn things you can use to adjust your campaign some more. Don’t be afraid to interact with the program. It’s flexible, as you need to be. Calculate the degree of efficiency from every step in the PPC program. Try to anticipate, try to predict. Read as much about the techniques and mastering skills of SEM as you possibly can.

Read : The popularity and importance of Search Engines (PDF)
Read : Inside The Mind of The Searcher (Free Registration)
Read : The State of Search Engine Marketing

Getting Started :

Read : Google’s Guidelines
Read : Google’s ZeitGeist – which words are currently ‘top searched’ ?
Visit SearchEngineGuide
Visit SearchEngineWatch
Visit SEMPO Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization

This article contains fractions of the Whitepaper on Search by MSN, DigiMedia and Extenseo. The original paper was in Dutch and
contained 88 pages. I’ll try to locate an english version as soon as possible, for download.

 
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Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Tips & Tricks

 

Shaping The Future With Microsoft

10 May 2005

Maybe I’m tuning in to this site every time the server is rebooted or something, but I keep hitting the error page, multiple times per session. Oh well. This is an oustanding moment for any internet achitect to startsomethingpc at Microsoft right now. Perhaps if you turn in a model of a real and working website you’ll be instantly hired.

I’m trying not to be negative, still hoping this is somehow my fault, but with every visit something goes wrong. Sometimes you get in, you browse two pages and bam ! Error ! I’m pretty sur that’s not good for the marketing. But it doesn’t take away the fact you can earn 125.000 USD and the recognition of the entire industry if you hand in a design that happens to be the winning item.

Well not quite. It’s 125.000 USD, devided over three cathegories:

Competition Award Categories & Rewards

  • Judge’s Award – Prize $50,000 US
    Selected by a distinguished panel of IDSA-member judges from the International PC and industrial design community.
  • Chairman’s Award – Prize $50,000 US
    Selected by Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect, with the assistance of his advisory committee.
  • Public’s Choice Award – Prize $25,000 US
    Selected by the public from among all approved entries via the virtual showroom in mid- to late November.

… says the startsomethingpc.com site.

Winner is announced in january 2006, you can commence sending in your designs starting may 18th, through October 3, 2005, 5:00 pm EST.

So what is it you should be designing? Well, you should try to ‘rethink’ the entire concept of a Windows PC and try to integrate it as good as possible into ‘future life’. The future is more near than you think.
You actually have to try to link all the existing technology and customize it into something trendy, designish and practically useable. Whether you have flatscreens in the couch or a bluetooth robot cleaning your car, as long as it’s a Windows OS powering the creation, you’re in.

Some rules apply though :

Judging Criteria :
The Judge’s Award, Chairman’s Award, and Public’s Choice Award* judgments are based on the following five criteria:

  • Innovation: is the design new and unique?
  • User Experience/Interaction: does the design make the PC easier to use?
  • Aesthetics: does the appearance enhance the emotional appeal of the product?
  • Technical ability: is the design enhanced with new technologies?
  • Ecology: is the design environmentally responsible?

Consideration given to the challenges of manufacturability including thermal cooling and noise reduction may also be considered as a part of the general judging criteria. Peripheral component design concepts (e.g. Cell Phone, Digital Media Receiver, Printer, Portable Media Player, etc.) are not required, but may be included with concept designs to help aid in answering the challenge statement. So that’s it. I expected a lot more from this site. Really. I thought Microsoft would have some sort of showcase to inspire people. Some cool things they already have invented or modified that really make a difference. It’s a cool contest, I’m not saying it isn’t. I just kind of hoped to see nifty things and gadgets powered by a WinOS. I mean, they could’ve set the trend or somethingpc.com. It’s an empty site with a cool trailer. And a lot of errors, unfortunately. I hope this improves as the content grows.

Screenshot of the day :)

Error

http://www.startsomethingpc.com/LearnMore.aspx

 
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Posted in Campaigns, Corporate News, Marketing

 

Error SomethingPC.com

09 May 2005

A little while ago I’ve posted something on Microsoft’s big ad campaign that encourages designers or thinkers in general to do something with the WindowsMedia technology. Very promising as it started, I went back to take a peek. First the index bounced in firefox. As I hit it again with the almighty IE, I was redirected to an error page. They were kind enough to add a ‘Back’ button, so I could get back to my post easily to try again.

Third time I hit it, I got in. I saw the New Trailer, which is definitely worth checking out. It’s very ‘Zen’ very creative and I really like the style of animation added. This is heading for a very splendid direction.

So I wanted to ‘learn more about the competition’, and yet again, the error stroke. The back button to the site didn’t work anymore either, since it was supposed to go back to the Microsoft site. Hmm.

Startsomethingpc.Com needs to Fixsomethingpc.Com. Really.
I hope it’s a just a temporary thing.

More soon, when I’ve checked it out.

Error

UPDATE : It’s 2.15 AM and the site’s still offline. I’m going to call it a draw and tune in to this matter later. Screenshot 2.15 AM

The error page

The Startsomethingpc Website. You should check it when it’s back online..

http://www.startsomethingpc.com/LearnMore.aspx

 
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Posted in Campaigns, Corporate News, Marketing

 

AOL Explorer Now In Beta

08 May 2005

AOL used to have a reputation of releasing questionable software apps. Most of the time you would be getting a lot of advertisement and commercial action, and as for the software itself, most of the time it was bloated with stuff you didn’t really need, or things that didn’t seem to work at all. It’s a reputation. Things might easily have changed in the meanwhile, because I’m rather satisfied with the browser beta they’ve released. It seems to be very fine-tuned and has a really slick design.

Maybe this is what troubles me a bit. I’m just not used to AOL releasing decent products. I even chat AIM through Trillian. Still. I’m impressed. Really. The look and feel is a lot like Firefox’s, that probably comes from the tabbed browsing and the way the top toolbars are arranged. Except there’s just ‘more’ things you can do. On the left side of the window, there’s a search tab (in case Google crashes again).

*** This post has been interrupted by a computer crash ***

Here I was writing good stuff about this browser, heheh. I took a screenshot and wanted to open Photoshop, but it didn’t open anymore. The search panel in the browser locked up everything. Luckily I had already saved this post once. I’ll try to open the browser again, to take a screenshot about some good things.

I like it very much that there are small screenshots of your favorites. Once you have visited the page once in a session, hoovering a shortcut or tab shows an image of the webpage itself, plus the url. That’s cool. If you clean your footprints though, all images are gone again.

AOL 6

I’m very fond of the navigation buttons. Here’s a nice piece of modern integration, really. Especially the soft shadow work is attractive to the eye. The animated loader has moved from the bottom of the window to the top and is nicely blended with the address bar.

AOL 5 Looks smooth, easy to use as in IE, but with a more customized browsing feeling. AOL 4

Also handy if you need it : the autosuggest while typing an url in the address bar:

AOL 3

It loads all the pages fast enough, but there’s something funny about it.
In the bottom left corner of the window it says : TopSpeed Off. Apparently you can ‘accelerate’ your internet by logging in to your account.

Hmm. Something’s wrong here, quite as hard as with the Google Accelerator. If I were to log in on AOL, they would have my personal data, because I’m a registered member. Now they would be able to link this data to my surfing behaviour. I’m not into this. Really.
 

It’s not the same with explorer, because I don’t have to activate an accelerator yet and I’ve always thought my surfing power was high. Same goes for Firefox. I see no difference with the AOL browser in speed, yet still, all of the sudden my TopSpeed is Off. Hmm. AOL 2  

Other thing about this browser : The search panel incorporates a DesktopSearch. I’m also against desktopsearching. My windows search thingie has always worked splendid. I’ve never lost files that I didn’t delete myself. DesktopSearch makes you lazy. I know exactly where every download goes, where my temps are and where I keep what sort of files. That is called ‘order’. I’ve noticed with customers who’ve had for instance Google’s DesktopSearch installed that they lack the attention to follow what is happening. They don’t care what goes where, they’ll just type the filename and double click the result. That’s dangerous. God knows what horse comes crawling into your PC without you noticing. Except when you do a search for the virus’s filename of course ;)

  AOL 1 What I don’t like either is the memory capacity this whole browser operation is demanding. If I make the sum of all AOL apps that start running when I simply open my browser, I come to 59.920 Kb of memory use. That’s more than Macromedia’s Dreamweaver uses. It’s a bit too much, I think. Especially for a simple explorer.

I’m really not sure what to think. Seems my AIM client in Trillian isn’t functioning anymore. Trillian blocks *** rebooting Trillian ***
When I close my AOL explorer and reboot Trillian, it’s ok again.

So. In conclusion. I’m a little confused. Photoshop and Trillian have never crashed before since the reformat of my C: four months ago. Is it a coincidence it happens just now? Maybe.

Fact is : I’m going to throw it off again. It’s a really cool design, I like it a lot, but too much stuff isn’t right yet. Perhaps I’ll give it a try again when it comes out of the beta.

Find the beta @ http://beta.aol.com and pick the explorer to download

[via Nathan Weinberg]

 
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Posted in Reviews, Tools

 

Atom Smasher Error Generator

08 May 2005

The error generator for Atom Smasher is really a ridiculously funny toy. It’s a very simple script that really just does what you ask, on the spot. Smooth concept, but very basic in the lay-out. You can hire the guy who made the script, if you let him know what type of work you have for him. Sounds logical to me. Let’s skip that and have some fun with the generator thingie.

Here are some nifty creations that are posted in the gallery.

Error 4

Error 3

This one’s from me :) Hope it makes it to the gallery.

Error 2

And this one’s from Larz D., who’s sent me this link. Thanx man.

Error1

Make some errors yourself. Click here. Don’t forget to save the image.
Browse the ‘error message gallery’. Click here.

 
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Posted in Geek, Humor

 

Ambiguous Marketing in Primary Care

08 May 2005

Since 2000, a range of international lawsuits, boycotts and criticism is directed to Novartis, world leader in pharmaceuticals and consumer health. Are they using ‘medical prevention’ to promote their products or is this just a genuine marketing campaign with a secret agenda?

The company started a so-called “information campaign” through television advertisements, patient folders, etc stimulating patients with onychomycosis (fungus of the nail) to visit their general practitioner. Nice and expensive gesture for the ‘public health’.

In fact, it’s an inventive marketing strategy to bypass the law against drug-advertising, to sell it’s own product, called lamisil. With their misleading statement and the hideous monster of the TV-spot, they provoke mass-fear within the population to increase indirectly their sales. At the same time, GPs are pressured to prescribe lamisil and lamisil only by Novartis representatives. All other links with the company are carefully hidden.

All around Europe, courts decided that Novartis’s campaign did not violate laws prohibiting advertising of prescribed drugs, as neither Novartis nor terbinafine (molecule of lamisil) were specifically named. So the campaign is relaunched again and again, despite of the huge criticism of the GPs, consumer organizations and the state. And of course the taxpayer is affected again, while lamisil is partially reimbursed.

Their bypass solution has meanwhile been copied by other companies: in order to reach the consumer on a direct manner, just sell the disease!

Ye-hey it’s ‘happy hour’ again! Let’s all consume prescription drugs !


Read ‘Dutch GPs call for ban on Novartis products’ on BMJ Journals
Read more on BMJ Journals
Read the Medinet source
Read about it on SweetLove
Publication by the Belgian Senate about who’s resposible
Read more on EPO.Be

Research and writing by Talie Van Hecke. Talie is a medical representative in the field of dermatology and adivses products to GPs and dermatologists.

 
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Posted in Ethics, Legal

 

Advanced Reverse-Engineering

07 May 2005

There’s a cool contest going on for advanced photoshopping in which designers are asked to put current products in a vintage light. In other words: what you see around you now, technologically, with a touch of historical revising. The entries are very nifty, check out the one who’s runner up for the moment :

Worth 1000

Visit the Worth1000 website and find out who’s the number one at this time or even better : enter the competition !

[via BoingBoing]

 
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Posted in Design

 
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