Sorry for the delay with the competition, we had a few little troubles (all to do with linking to a page that solicits funds and getting tax-exempt status for it) but it’s running now and we have an update on progress.

And then there were four…

Brandishing a tool to gauge statistical significance of clickthrough rates, I cut a swathe through the unfortunate ads that were lagging behind in our Myanmar Cyclone PPC Competition. It was amazing to see the great quality creatives that didn’t cut the mustard. I really have to commend the writers, in spite of some low CTR’s, for some wonderful writing.

A variety of styles were employed; from lyrical, two line poetry through to punchy, bullet pointed jabs. Having worked in PPC for a while now, I know I couldn’t have predicted which adverts would succeed and which ones would have failed.

Isn’t that the fun of writing creatives for PPC though? You can write rhythmical, easy on the ear lines – flecked with keywords, bookended by catchy headlines and relevant display URLs, and topped off with a call to action phrase of breathtaking beauty…and have a clickthrough rate that pales in comparison to some ugly beast of a creative that is poor grammatically, with no real call to action and a headline that is generic in the extreme. Most of the time you would back the beauty to win but with PPC you can’t make those assumptions, you’ve got to just put them out there and let the public decide.

We just have to shrug and remember, that when it comes to taste and what the people are going to choose, the story is age old – “de gustibus non est disputandum” as the Romans put it, or “there’s no accounting for taste” as we would say.

In matters of principle, stand like a rock; In matters of taste, swim with the current. — Thomas Jefferson

Bad luck to the fallen advert writers, taste has spoken - four swimmers remain.

This post is about Twitter, so for the benefit of those are not yet addicted - here’s a brief overview of the service.

Although Twitter has been around for years, and has been growing steadily over that time, one feature they never really implemented was Search. If you wanted to find out who had mentioned a particular term recently, you had the choice of using a creative Google query, or one of a number of external sites that used Twitter’s comprehensive API.

That changed last week, when Twitter bought Summize - amongst the most popular search tools for the site, and rebranded it Twitter Search. (Naturally, many people asked why Twitter needed to buy Summize, and didn’t spend the $15 million on developing their own kick-ass search tool; discussion of that could fill another blog post.)

Back on the topic of this post: maybe because Twitter has reached a size where companies care what is said by its users, or maybe it’s because the Summize acquisition put their Search function in to the limelight, but there have been a number of companies/organisations using Twitter Search in creative ways recently.

Who’s talkin’ ’bout your reputation?

Since I spend a great proportion of my time looking after Reputation Monitoring for clients, it’s great that it’s now so easy to stick in their brand or product names, and see what people are saying about them.

Some companies are taking a proactive approach to dealing with the results they find. I noticed this last week, when a Twitter contact knew about a design competition site, but couldn’t remember the URL. I replied with details of the site, and then received a ‘thankyou’ message from the company.

Intrigued, I had a look at their feed, and it seems that they are not only replying to everyone who mentions the company name, but to anyone who mentions ‘web design’ , ‘logo’ or a number of other terms. Very clever, very easy, and I’d love to know if they’ve seen a good response and conversion rate from this.

This method of interaction is really well suited to a company which solves a problem that people are likely to complain about publicly - I could imagine a national cable internet provider monitoring for tweets that include terms like “slow broadband” or “lame internet” etc.

Equally, it could probably be cool for someone who can answer a specific question. If someone mentions that they were “wondering what DVD to rent tonight” - then Blockbuster should be down on them like a shot with a suggestion of a good movie and a link to the store locator.

The News in Brief

At the end of last week, I discovered a further example that’s on display. When I mentioned that I was working on a new Twitter tool, I noticed a reply from the Tw* Tool Tracker account. The account gave my tool a few mentions (which is great - they have 600 followers) but they do very well out of it too. As a niche news site, they have two million people all potentially generating leads for stories, or even scoops, that they can follow up.

For instance, traffic & travel services often differentiate themselves on the speed that they can pick up on and report hold ups. A quick look on Twitter Search gives an indication of any trouble that people are reporting.

Likewise, if you’re looking for attendees at an event or eyewitnesses to a breaking news story, you could find people on Twitter.

Of course, the power of extracting content from the site can be used for evil as well as good. LessAccounting have created an entire site that bashes their competitor using nothing but people’s Twitter updates.

As more people join Twitter (I’m certain this will happen) and more companies realise the potential for interaction (I expect this will happen) we should see some more creative uses for the search tool - maybe through crowdsourcing their news gathering, by identifying customers (existing and potential) to deal with, or in ways that we’ve not seen yet.

Do you know anyone else who’s doing clever things at the moment? Can you think or any companies that are missing a trick by not being involved?

There’s little that’s more exciting online at the moment than the viral hype surrounding The Dark Knight. It was pure luck that when Emily stuck a post-it on my desk today that said ‘working??’ as I watched the trailer for it, that I could (this time- ahem), reply with something along the lines of:

Beautiful. Except that’s not really what this post’s turned out to be (although there are similar elements). Instead, I’ve looked at the effectiveness of viral marketing for films such as The Dark Knight, and considered how this could be transferred to businesses operating online.

Engagment:

The Dark Knight is engaging its future audience on a whole new level. Other films, most notably Cloverfield, laid the groundwork for this process. A friend of mine was tuned into the Cloverfield phenomenon from the off, and blogged about how much more he got from the film because of the “little nods and winks to the internet frenzy throughout”. It’s more than feeling like you’re in the ‘in-crowd’ and superior to other viewers; it’s about feeling like you’re actually part of the conversation.

As demonstrated by Dell’s Ideastorm, this kind of engagment with the consumer from an actual, believable business perspective, really works.

Another example (that fits extraordinarily well) is Domino’s attempt to cash in on The Dark Knight’s online success. The idea was that fans had to have ordered a pizza online within the last 48 hours to be able to view the latest trailer. Engagement at its finest. And it would have been genius if only you couldn’t also watch the clip on YouTube.

Viral:

Above and beyond this ‘customer engagement’ however, what’s particularly clever about viral marketing for films is that it is, by definition, something that spreads infectiously. In terms of cost, it’s negligible compared to traditional forms of marketing and has the potential to bring in a huge, dedicated audience. The Dark Knight has all the ingredients to appeal to an online audience, and that includes me. Believe me when I say however, that my twin sister (the ‘control’ in this little experiment, if you will), is not part of that online audience. But when I started raving to her about The Dark Knight and its viral presence, not only did she get excited, she’d actually heard of it!

Is this a sign of things to come? Of our beloved niche social media finally spreading its wings and launching itself into the mainstream?

And what effect does it have for businesses online? It means that they can start appealing to social media sites for custom rather than just links. The recent live Honda ad is a perfect example of how well this could work. The skydiving advert appealed to traditional audiences by appearing on television first, but was also perfectly designed to grab the attention of online fans- YouTube alone amassed hundreds of thousands of views. And, just as with true online viral marketing, the cost involved (a reputed £500,000 including sandwiches for the crew) is nothing compared to “the PR column inches alone hyping the one-off event”. And then some. I wonder if any of those thousands of viewers will henceforth favour the Honda as a result.

Loyalty:

With The Dark Knight, fans who were loyal enough to spot the addresses, visit the bakery and eat the cake were rewarded with an almost godlike status within The Dark Knight buzz. Why is this technique so effective at generating attention online?

It’s a completely natural feeling to enjoy working for something in order to achieve a certain right or privilege. The idea of customer loyalty for businesses has been around offline for ages. For example, shop loyalty cards are ever more popular and, while the cost benefits they offer us are nothing compared to the value of the data they collect for the company’s market research team, there’s something very addictive about them. However, simply moving this online would not be the same as the idea of loyalty expressed above.

I think the secret lies in combining all three of these features- engagement, virality and loyalty.

I’m obviously not the first person to point out that online marketing has massive potential to build brand, attract new customers and improve relations with existing ones (particularly within the tech world, for obvious reasons). But there’s also the opportunity to make some money directly from these sites. Imagine if, for example, a chain such as Starbucks had a really really cool game online that was carefully designed to appeal to social media audiences and had discount coffees as a prize:

1. Engagement? Tick. Customers could be involved in any stage of the development, launch or participation of the game.
2. Viral? Tick. Fabulous content always has the potential to spread fabulously.
3. Loyalty? Tick. Your customers use their skill to earn a discount. They’ll/I’d love it.

The dangers:

There is, however, a fairly serious risk of alienating your online audience should your social media efforts fail. Like this.

Digg users, as a generic example, are notoriously fickle and have both the ability and the nature to destroy an online presence, particularly if there’s money involved. Is this a risk worth taking for your business? Absolutely.

I don’t normally get annoyed enough that I actually feel compelled into putting pen to paper, or fingers to keys to write about my experience, however Dabs have annoyed me so much over the last week that I simply have to rant.

I’m sure we will talk more about it over the coming weeks but on Monday we had someone new join Distilled. The previous Wednesday I placed an order with Dabs for a computer, extra graphics card and two monitors, paying via Google checkout. This was ordered with next day delivery.

Not long after I received an email asking me to send details verifying my address details (we have just moved office, again). I replied to the email and received a Dabs auto reply confirming they had my email.

The following day, no computer. To cut a very long (and I’ll admit, not particularly interesting) story short, I’ll skip the next couple of days where the only replies I got to email were stock answers saying they hadn’t received the information they asked for. I never did get a reply to the email where I forwarded my previous reply, along with the confirmation they sent me.. Funny that.

So fast forward to Monday, still no computer. I went to the dabs site and finally found the dabs live chat via the website (you have to click on one of the stock questions before you get a link).

I chatted with Derek 1017 for a while. He gave me a couple of stock answer basically saying he couldn’t help with any of my questions.

I pointed out no-one had replied to my email since Thursday, which lead to this interesting response:

They have advised us this morning that they are currently responding to emails from Thursday 3/7/08.

Nothing odd in that except that the website states the average email response time for the last 24 hours was 6 hours 11 minutes. Lies, lies, lies….

I’m happy to announce I cancelled the order, and there will have to be a very good reason for me to ever trust Dabs again. I can honestly say that was the worst customer service I have ever experienced. I don’t normally mind email only customer services, but 4 days to reply to email.. You are having a laugh.