Twitter as a Cross-Platform SEO Tool...

I’ve had some discussions within the media planning community about how Twitter can be seen as an extension of the search marketing discipline.

There’s still a lot of head scratching going on about the use of Twitter and it has yet to be embraced by SEM specialists as a search related practice. For obvious reasons, it took an abrupt landing into the social media landscape but looking closely, it’s got all the ingredients of an effective search media tactic.

Amidst the rising conflict about ghost writing and how the network seems to be rejecting the thought of using the platform as a feeding frenzy for publicity, there’s something to be said about moving in the right circles with the right messages. Hiring people to spam a large following of 10,000 plus with random messages is one way to do it. But there are more sophisticated ways of creating dialogue and connecting with the right targets using different writers.

I think it’s ok for one brand to show its range in voice. The tone that a brand x uses with males will be different than the tone used for women. Going a bit deeper, if brand x decides to work heavily on an environmental strategy; there’s a whole new rulebook of communication that needs to be followed. For this to be executed properly, brand x needs to consider setting up more than one @ handle.

It’s not as easy as AdSense in that you can select keywords and attach relevant messages. It’s more about finding groups or clusters in a more literal sense. Rather than focusing on the static ranking algorithms offered through Google, Twitter works more in the recency realm. Once a community is established, relevancy and recency create a potent media opportunity. For now, search results are available on engines like Twitter Search, Hashtags and OneRiot. Tomorrow, the distribution of search may multiply across the net.

Targeting on Twitter is fairly rudimentary right now. It takes some time to set up your broadcasts. As in any cultural situation, it’s important to spend some time observing before jumping in and assuming immediate acceptance. Pay attention to the varying target audiences; understand the topics of discussion and the tone of communication.

Varying strings of tweets across communities act in the same way as SEO campaigns do. Relevant content, frequent updates and link sharing all come into play. Twitter’s distribution across other platforms like Facebook give it an edge of Google because the links are directed straight from point a to point b but have the added benefit of pre-qualified intent for the context.

As long as brands continue to provide value to communities, it won’t be seen as the spam that seems to be surfacing today through mass tweeting into an abyss of followers that are in many cases, only following for the sake of belonging to a “mass tweeter followship”.

Oh, and it’s free…for now…

Funnel Bidding...Adnetik's Approach to Media Metrics & Pricing

I’ve been reflecting on a recent metrics presentation I saw at the IAB Mixx Canada Conference in March. I had a great discussion with Nathan Woodman, Global Managing Director of Adnetik, a Havas Digital company that is attempting to change the way we valuate online media.

I was curious after hearing his ultra logical methodology, why it’s so difficult to adopt change despite consensus that our current methodologies for media evaluation, pricing and inventory are archaic.

Nathan’s presentation outlined the short history of online media models. He walked through the initial bridge from traditional media (CPM) and eventually got to the performance-based models we are seeing now. I think the quantum leap was in jumping from a model that pays for a placement to one that pays for an individual that is in a specific consumer mind-set.

As marketers we must look to the purchase funnel to gain a deep understanding of the distance between awareness and purchase. Each business may have its own particular staging criteria for their respective sales cycle and Woodman was talking about applying a value associated to each of these stages so that the advertiser could bid accordingly.

Google search tells the automotive industry that the value of the “new car” keyword is ridiculously high due to competitive market bids but those dealers or manufacturers that have employed cross platform/media analytics know that they may be much wiser to invest in 3 exposures of the cherry red mini on a vertical site because that exposure is trending to be an indicator of further depth (yes, further than search) down the purchase funnel. All things measured (and bought) equally, the marketer should be able to reallocate funds to bid higher on the display ads.

Deep breath…”So as a marketer, I can start to allocate funds to various stages of the purchase funnel based on my internal intelligence of the likelihood of the prospects changing to customers”…Exhale.. Is that so complicated?

It has the flavour of behavioral targeting yes, but this is not invading privacy as much as it is employing common sense and technology that is available here and now to start buying according to real value. Analytics have become much broader in scope. Optimization is not just about pumping funds into keywords that are working or into display ads that are getting clicked on.

The logic is beautifully simple but the horror sets in when you try to explain the underpinnings of the system and how the values are calculated etc. I guess the answer to the original question is that change is difficult when it’s not easily explained. The more equations you show to prove validity, the more you lose the audience.

My opinion of this model is that it is fair and that it works in a network environment that can provide this volume of inventory. I think it will take a long time for publishers to jump on the band wagon unless there are some case studies produced that show equal or greater earnings potential to the respective properties. It’s interesting to think that inventory that was previously thought of as second tier, could once again be deemed premium (in a micro-transaction kind of way).

It’s all so deliciously complex. Nathan is on to something but I’m not sure the apple hit as many heads as it ought to yet…