Simple idea: Create an infographic. Make the content tabloid enough/interesting enough to get linked to and offer code for people to embed it on their site with of course a link back to the site with your golden key words.

Already we’re seeing website and blog owners being emailed and asked for links to these infographics and to use certain keywords with the links. Nefarious to say the least especially when there isn’t any thought on who might be interested in the content. “We thought you might like this health insurance graphic since you er blog about food and please link with the text: cheap health insurance Ireland”

Photo owned by PV KS (cc)

It’s common for a client and an agency to want a quick win. Good traffic and lots of links. That’s the goal, right? Social media/online marketing is simple to set up, free to do and so people seem to think that there’ll be instant success as a result. The case studies we show and are shown make it seem that way too. Organic growth by creating content, interacting, getting feedback and moving on again is much more stable. But traditionally the marketing industry bought volume. Buy an ad on the Late Late, stick something in every paper and you’ll reach everyone with your very bland ad.

Quantity is still the catnip for many. That’s why you see so many company blogs mentioning celebrities and trying to shoehorn their offerings into some scandal. Good luck with aligning nipple slips into recruitment news lads. There was an old Irish Politics blog that started getting into mentioning all kinds of celebrity sex drivel. Traffic exploded but so did respect for the blog’s political analysis. This here blog for Mulley Comms gets 1/10th of the traffic as my personal blog and something blogged over there will do very well in Google but talking online marketing or online PR here means it won’t get first position on Google. That’s ok though as the blog here is new enough and still finding the way.

You see it too with Facebook campaigns that push for people to become fans. Win an iPad or iPhone for anyone that’s a fan of your Facebook Page. How many of your new Facebook fans genuinely care about what you do and how many clicked Like to enter the iPad draw?

Now counter that with what Sabrina Dent highlights for newsletter list building. She talks about Ciara Crossan going to Wedding Fairs. That’s where Ciara’s constituents are. Those who subscribe to her newsletter are the right demographic, not any old sod joining to get to the prize. Good leads at targeted events. There would be plenty of ways for Ciara to get 1000s of randomers on her mailing list but how many will take the content seriously then? A polluted database costs you more in the end.

So as clients, consultants and agencies should we keep pushing for the slow and more intelligent game instead of cheap tactics like link rigging and begging friends and strangers to Like client status updates? Should part of a company’s social media policy to ban staff from clicking on that Like button and leaving comments? The same way for competitions staff, their families and suppliers are banned from taking part? Should you train your own thoughts into thinking longterm?

Brendan has a good post on generating leads from social media.

Lots of opportunities in using Google sets for research and insight.

Forrester tells marketers to stay away from the likes of Foursquare and other location services for now. Sure there’s only a few million highly influential people using it. Am sure the wait and see applied to the web in the early days too. It’s what you make of the medium that matters, be it 10, 1000 or a billion people on it.

Meanwhile PlacePop takes the location idea and applies it to vouchers.

I like this idea. Test drive a new Mazda via a Facebook game/app.

If you’re into PR then follow the PR Page from Facebook. Lots of tools and ideas for PR professionals.

How IBM does social media.

Clear concise guide from Facebook on running ads with them.

Two social media analytics tools to check out. Trendrr and Kurrently.

Nice Facebook app allowing you to create printed photo albums.

Good post on Online Reputation management.

Creative
There are only so many flash mobs, viral videos, blogger launches, hashtag polluting tweets and phototagging campaigns you can take and that can be cloned and redone again and again before people become sick of them and starting generating negative sentiment towards them. Do a Princess Bride night, do a Tweasure hunt.

Consistent
Update your Facebook Page on a regular occassion. Update your blog. Respond to questions and replies. Be around on Twitter and if you are interacting, answer questions even if they make you uncomfortable. Don’t selectively answer positive questions or broadcast out happy clappy stuff while people are tweeting you and having issues with your service.

Constructive
Add to a conversation. Earned media. If you know the answer to something, share it, share your experiences and insight. If you are worried about giving away knowledge and your IP, just how empty is your playbook? A few blog posts, tweets or Facebook updates shouldn’t make the smallest of impact on your body of earned knowledge. If it does, worry more about why, not about hiding it away.

Community-minded
Do stuff to make the overall community better. Do you necessarily need to wait to be asked? The more you partake, the more you are part of the community and the more you’re respected and loved.

Use case studies
Case studies are stories. We like stories. We put ourselves in stories, we make things up and wrap them around the words in the case studies. Telling a good story is important for any product/brand but having someone retell that story and add their own personal bit of magic to it is more powerful.

The above are a bit like the “Be” Tweet I sent out months ago on how to use Twitter well: Be useful , Be interesting, Be first , Be around, Be supportive

Social media people in Ireland on Twitter. At least according to their bios.

Google allowing businesses to post context sensitive promotions on Google search results. Lovely idea.

Nike iPhone App takes colours from your photos and then designs a shoe with them.

Duarte’s blog posts are always insightful. When given an excel file full of numbers, how do you present it? Here they show you.

Some links worth checking out:

A blog post from Drew gives some foundations on how another blog post of his with some interesting numbers got trending on Twitter.

Employers using social media to recruit. Sidestepping recruitment companies.

Facebook and local Governments. Some good examples.

A webcam and software and you can model anything in 3D.

A list of Social Media Agencies around the world. Rockstars there. Real genuine agencies. Be good to see more agencies out there like that.

Boingo working with local businesses with their hotspots. Free access in return for watching a video.

Photo owned by M. Burrows (cc)

This is a nice example of earned media: Bring photobloggers to your hotel, give them content (this time a view) and enable them to do what they like doing (taking photos). Lots and lots and lots of photos and good sentiment and blog posts circling around your hotel. When SEO and Google Ads start to fail or become more expensive than the cost of a room, you need to up a gear or do something different. Course if you have a speedboat that some photobloggers can hop on, even better!

We’re a while yet from the idea of earned media in Ireland as extolled by Graham Brown, Helge Tennø and others but we’re getting there.

So we’re busy, very very very busy and will be for the next 3 months at least. Please don’t be offended if we turn you down for work. If you have something really interesting though, sure one of us can sleep less so we won’t slam the door in your face.

Meanwhile, there are a small number of people we recommend to have a chat with if you are looking for help with your online communications/marketing/PR.

Keith Bohanna is an Internet Consultant. He was there when it started, not saying he’s old or anything like…

Nick McGivney is also someone very much worth chatting to in anything online marketing/pr related. He also scares the hell out of the advertising industry and sometimes doesn’t even charge them to do it.

Hopefully it’ll mean we can do more blog posts too!

Lots of people are now social media experts in Ireland. Twitter is overflowing with them. I got reminded of this by Fergal’s post. Are these social media experts all experts or are they jesters?

Photo owned by time4coffee (cc)

Some things to consider:

Are they a jester because they are now twitter consultants, yet are on it just three months? This tool is handy for finding that out.

Are they a jester because they tell companies to follow the influencers?
Be they on blogs, Facebook or Twitter. Social media means everyone is an influencer because everyone is connected to the rest of the world in a few steps. Gunning for people with good blog traffic, good blog subscribers and thousands of Twitter followers means you will miss the ones at the edge that start the trickle that start the flood. Go for quality, not quantity.

Are they a jester because three months ago they were Web 2.0 experts?
9 months ago they were business coaches, 18 months ago they were business strategists and two months time they are going to be cloud computing experts?

Are they a jester because they call Twitter users Tweeps and use all these new names?
Using made up words can sometimes be a sign that they can’t evangelise themselves in existing business segments. I’m not too comfortable myself even with social media, beats Web 2.0 though.

Are they jesters because they insist on “managing” your presence?
Why don’t they trust you to run your Facebook, Twitter or blog?

Are these social media ninjas jesters because they are afraid to offend in case they might lose a lead?
Standing your ground means some people won’t like you. Reputation management is not about making everyone like you.

Are they a jester because they are also a coach?
Aren’t coaches people that work in sports or those that tell politicians the best way to lie? A coach is someone who trains someone but never lets them out of their control, right? A coach works with zombies, no?

Are they a jester because they write bullshit posts like this?
Hiiiiiiiiiii!

Nike has attracted the largest community of runners ever assembled—more than 1.2 million runners who have collectively tracked more than 130 million miles and burned more than 13 billion calories.

And you can upload your jogging data to Twitter.

Top 5 PR sins.

How Edelman works with Mommy bloggers.

Looks like your Facebook status updates will now be world-public. Expect ads showing up in your profile based on them too.

Here’s how to get your Facebook username back.