1. Kept people informed, and ultimately safe
An easy one as social media, after all, is a communication channel. But in times or breaking news and events, it really comes into its own. It’s no surprise therefore that twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and numerous blogs became the main source of breaking news as rioting and looting spread throughout the country. But more importantly than just spreading news about the riots social media kept people safe. Updates on where rioting was taking place were made available and spread via social channels such as this Google Maps Mash Up. Granada Reports were the source on the street for real time updates in Manchester via their twitter account and Greater Manchester Police gave advice to the public via their account. All of this helped to keep people safe, knowing where they should, and shouldn’t go.

2. Controlled the rumour mill
As with the majority of breaking news stories, over the days the rioting took place, the rumour mill was out in force. News spread quickly of riots in areas where there were none and the extent of the rioting and looting was vastly exaggerated in some instances. But through a combination of passionate tweeter rubbishing false statements of rioting, and people publishing pictures and videos of the real events, on the whole, the rumours were controlled.

3. Boosted the clean-up effort
It wasn’t social media that made people don rubber gloves, pick up their brooms and join in the clean-up effort, but it helped spread the word. The community spirit and refusal to let the looters get the better that was shown by the clean-up volunteers was great to see, and I have no doubt they would have been willing to do the same with or without social media. But you can’t argue with the role social media played in spreading the word about the clean-up efforts and how it will have contributed to the numbers of people involved.

4. Gave people a voice
Social media is all about having a voice and in the case of the riots this was very evident. Regardless of your views on the cause of the rioting and looting, it gave people an outlet aside from conversations with friends and colleagues. Whether that was venting on Facebook through updates or groups or taking the time to blog their thoughts social media was, as it often is, an outlet for people to express their thoughts on the cause of the unrest, and the people involved.

5. Brought people to justice
And now the worst of the rioting and looting is hopefully over, social media could play its most important role of all. Bringing to justice those involved in mindless violence, destruction and robbery in the past few days. Catchalooter.tumblr.com aims to publish photos of those involved in the looting in an attempt to bring them to justice. Numerous YouTube videos are available aimed at catching looters and the Greater Manchester police are publishing CCTV stills of those wanted in connection with looting on flickr.

But do the colour of your hat, and the methods you undertake really matter?  Surely what is more important are the results you achieve.  Obviously both sides of the fence have their advantages and disadvantages but so long as you understand these and accept them in the methods you undertake, surely it then becomes irrelevant?

Yes, true white hat SEO techniques are the less risky (notice I didn’t say risk free) option, and more likely to produce the longer term, more sustainable results. But they are also more difficult, more labour intensive and potentially more costly from a man hour perspective.  For large brands with reputations to protect, and businesses potentially reliant on the search engines, this is the best path forward.  There is not point risking it all for a few quick wins and, as frustrating as it may be, patience and persistence are key.

But what if you are working with a site which needs quick results or which has a finite window of opportunity for a particular product or service.  Surely in this situation taking the white hat moral high ground is counterproductive and not in the best interest of the achieving your objectives?  And lets not forget, you can still end up on the wrong side of a penalty or algorithm change even if you didn’t consider your methods black hat. And, as a fellow ranter Paul Madden points out , what’s more ethical?  A transparent programme where everyone is aware of the risks, or a completely white hat programme where the client pays large fees for little reward?

The tactics employed on an SEO programme should, in my opinion, be based on the individual circumstances and the agreed success criteria.  It is pointless stubbornly sitting in either camp if that isn’t in the best interest of the business looking for results.  If you are working with large businesses you are more often than not going to have to consider the long term impact of tactics employed on behalf of their clients and so are going to end up promoting white hat tactics. But that does not mean you should be completely dismissive of the other tactics available that we may need to call upon when the time arrives.

The Lowdown

So what is Google Boost all about? Is it the answer to the SME prayers?
Google Boost ads are basically paid search listings linked to a Google Places with management automated and simplified. These ads appear, as normal paid search listings, on Google.com (and variations) and Google maps in the sponsored links sections.

Google Boost Example

The SME provides a description of their business, which is used as the ad copy, selects the category and sub category their business falls in to, picks a budget, and away they go! The business location is pulled from the Google Places information and Google takes care of the rest. Google selects the most appropriate keywords for your advert to appear on, manage your bid prices, your daily settings and the SME sits back and waits for the business to roll in.

What problem is this solving?

Google is making serious in roads into local search at present and Google Boost forms part of this attack. It appears from the outside that there is a clear focus on local search internally at Google, so to them, this provides the ideal solution for further monetising both local search, and Google Maps.

But what about the SME?

Google Boost is a stripped back, simplified version of Adwords with a local twist, so Google is obviously hoping its simplicity and local targeting will make it appeal to the SME.

Does this fit the SME need?

In my opinion, no. I’ve worked extensively in the SME search market in the UK and simplicity and leaving it all to somebody else, are on the whole, way down the list when it comes to priorities around paid search. Most SMEs want to know where and when their ads are going to be appearing, and are less than pleased if they can’t see them. With Google Boost they are reliant on software to choose their keywords and on Google for their ad-scheduling, a significant lack of control from the SME perspective.

They are also not going to get the support they need should something go wrong with Google Boost or if they just have a question. It is a core SME need to know they can pick up the phone, or send in an email, and they will receive response and support for the service they have purchased and with Google Boost they won’t get this.

So what is it good for?

I’ve no doubt that in the US, where local search is more prevalent, and Boost is currently in beta, they will get some level of take up. High ticket value services with local appeal such as solicitors, dentists and vets ill probably see quite high take up (solicitors is one of the key markets in US SME search) but it isn’t going to be any sort of magic bullet and will probably just take up some slack from their cancelled reseller programme. Many, more developed markets will see Boost as unnecessary and too basic for their needs. And in the UK (despite recent attempts to force maps into the results) local results are not as relevant and generally accurate enough to be useful. Where they are, the advertisers available will be limited to the point it won’t reach the penetration Google will need to keep it running.

So what next?

I predict Google Boost will make it out of beta n the US, with reasonable success, but fail to reach penetration in the UK and Europe without a major SERP shake up. Then Google will be back to the drawing board trying to find their next product to take over the SME world.

But there is one tactic which I strongly think should be avoided, yet people seem to do it, and that is pricing based on what you think people will be willing to pay.  This is generally done when you think there is an above average margin to be made, or your customers aren’t savvy enough to understand the cost of delivering the service.  But ultimately this approach leads to unsatisfied or disillusioned customers, and eventually you are going to have to reduce costs as competition increases or customer awareness brings more transparency.

I recently experienced this approach whilst on honeymoon in Bali.  We stayed in 2 different 5 star hotels on the island, both of them great in very different ways.  But what they both had in common was their ridiculous over charging for food and drinks.  I had a rough idea of the wages they were paying staff, and the general price of goods and services in the country and could not fathom how they were coming up with their prices.  It wasn’t even as if you had to go far for a comparison.  10 mins from each hotel was a local centre where you could buy meal and drinks, of a similar quality to which you could find in the hotel for around 40% of the price.  I am also pretty sure even these prices were a fair amount higher than other areas of Bali given the resorts and areas we were staying in.

The only reasoning I could come up with for the hotels pricing policies was the nature of the clientele.  The hotels were largely frequented by Europeans, Australians and Asians who are from more affluent markets than Bali.  It seemed clear to me therefore that  the hotel was simply pricing based on what they thought people would be willing to pay, and had the money to pay, rather than what they should charge based on their in costs and an acceptable margin level.

The outcome of this approach was damaging on two levels.  Firstly it left the restaurants and bars relatively empty most of the time as people quickly realised they got more for their money just down the road.  Secondly, it left customers such as myself feeling exploited when they did pay for food and drinks, and left a negative opinion of what were, in all other areas, excellent hotels.

I’m not saying you should cut your margins to unmanageable levels to please your customers.  Make sure your margins after in costs are enough to keep your business running and make sufficient profits, but don’t feel tempted to add additional margin where unnecessary.  Pricing in a more logical and fair way will lead to more customers (as your prices are less prohibitive) and will leave customers happier, leading to return business and recommendations.

In the case of the hotels above, if not for the pricing I would have been raving to anybody who listened about them.  But due to their pricing strategy there is always a bit “but” at the end of the description which makes the review less glowing.  I am also only likely to recommend the hotels to those with deep pockets or credit card limits thus reducing the word of mouth effect.

Your pricing has major impacts on your business and how well you can scale, whatever market you operate in.  So before you start to get greedy with your margins, think about how it might impact your ability to sell, and the message your customers will be putting into the market about you.

I put this shift down to a commoditisation of PPC in many areas of the market, alongside Google’s aggressive sales strategy, as well as a demystifying of SEO into something which is now a core part of any online marketing strategy.

It will be interesting for me to see how this progresses over the next year or so as back when I started out in PPC it was very much the mysterious beast that SEO is now, or has been in recent years.  But as it has become less of a mystery, and companies have become to understand it more, many services have become devalued and with agencies having to make sure they are at the cutting edge of the market to make sure they are adding sufficient value to their clients.  As SEO too, becomes a more widely covered topic will it go the same way?  Will the fees clients are willing to pay be driven down and more clients look to take their SEO in house?

If so, what will replace it?  You can see on the bottom of the trend graph Facebook advertising starting to creep into the picture as a trending keyword, maybe some terminology around social advertising is going to be the next boom topic in digital advertising.  It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.

There have been many confusing messages in the media about the success or failure of the Times paywall.  Competitor publications have predictably claimed it to be a huge failure; other figures suggest a drop off of two thirds readership from free to paid is a success against the 90% drop off the Times had expected.  Claims that the Times is now “an empty world” seem inconclusive with the publication themselves have declined to comment.

For me, whatever level the user base has dropped to, this is just phase 1 of the paywall process, and it will be the next 6-12 months that dictate the true success of the paywall as it begins to take shape and there are a number of key factors which will determine its true success.

Quality of content

If you are going to charge people for access to news articles and opinion, it’s going to have to be better than other articles available for free elsewhere.  The Times will have to ensure their editorial content is going to have to be of a higher quality than their competition to justify the charge and prove that the money is going to good use.

Advertising revenues

Just because the paywall is in place doesn’t mean the Times has written off advertising as a revenue channel, far from it.  In fact having registered users in a closed network opens up a host of additional options for targeted advertising.  Historically advertising in newspapers and on their online versions has been done based on readership and audience profiles.  The information required to sign up for the paywall will enable the Times to offer targeting options based on an individual user, rather than an aggregated version of the whole group.  This type of targeting general allows for more premium pricing and if they manage to do it intelligently could generate serious income.

Word of mouth

At the moment the Times are the bad guys for charging for content.  A small group have decided to stick with it and if the Times can prove the value to this group, then this group will become key to future growth.  When people find out that somebody pays for the Times content, they are bound to ask “why?”, and “whats it like?”, if the response is positive you have a potential new buyer, if its neutral or negative, then you don’t.  If the response is “awesome, great content, a great read and well worth the money” then word will spread.

The competition

The Times are the first to introduce a paywall in traditional press, but I doubt they will be the last.  Other online publications are going to have to find their own way to make sure revenues generated online cover the overheads of delivering the content.  Whilst the competition can sit back and suggest the paywall is a failure for now, there is going to come a point where they have to decide what the route forward for their own online strategy is.  And if it materialises that other follow down the paywall route, then the Times will be ahead of the game in terms of making it work.

It’s all about building momentum

All of these points will contribute to building momentum (or not).  If you present great editorial to current users, they will spread the word and your user base will grow.  Continue to add even more great content and value, and you build a snowball effect.  Similar with the advertising, if you build a solid advertising model and targeting options you might convince a few media buyers to give it a go, if it’s good, word will spread.  Obviously this requires the Times to get a few things right.  If the content isn’t good, or the advertising model is poor, then momentum won’t build and things might go into meltdown.  There’s a long road ahead, but it definitely can’t be deemed a success or failure just yet.

Whilst on the same day Affiliate Window formally merged with Zanox, a deal which originated last year but seems set to become something more formal from a public facing perspective.  With Zanox already owning Buy.at they now represent a large portion of the UK affiliate marketing space.  It could be suggested however that the merging of 3 companies in the same space indicates that one, or all, of them was also not in the healthiest of shapes.

Its a shame for DGM who were always the most supportive network for smaller merchants and for me, the most helpful towards agencies.  No doubt somebody is going to start blaming the management of the company, which is natural, but we mustn’t forget the current situation is hitting everyone pretty hard.  In fact, I was surprised how few companies fell during 2009, although what we may be seeing is a delayed impact.  With I-level going under recently and now DGM, two well established companies in their chosen field, could we now be seeing the true impact of the recession as companies can no longer hold on?  Many others may be experiencing similar difficulties and desperately hoping for the market to pick up.

Infographic by PPC Blog

Scatter plot graphic by SEOmoz

Pagerank and Linkjuice Infographic by Elliance

Each time a breaking news story occurs on the web, there is a flurry of activity as people search to find out the detail, the inside scoop, or the eye witness acount.  Twitter has benefitted from this phenomenon due to its real time nature and community base, and Google wants to do the same.  Whilst people are still using search eninges to find services and goods, theres are a massive amount of search for news and articles, and the more Google can ensure it is providing the freshest, most up to date content, the better the experience for these users.

For content providers this shouldntmean  any change in rankings or traffic, as mentioned above, it isnt an algorithm change, but it should mean that when you add new content, it appears in the SERPs quicker.  It does however strengthen the need for fresh new content.  Google already rewards fresh content in certain areas and with this rollout and more of a focus on “real time” this is bound to become more prominent.

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