Internet Trash

Here I am sitting in the office on a Sunday (sad I know) and I get a Twitter alert about New Zealand skiing, best I have a quick look … I have a watch on certain keywords via services such as TweetBeep.

So what do we get, a “blog post” about “family skiing in New Zealand”.  Or is it? Check it out, it’s spam in my opinion.

Well, let’s say that strictly speaking it’s not spam, but what this person is doing is optimising the page on these key words “(Family) skiing in New Zealand”) for the sole reason of getting people to the page, after which they might click a Google ad so he/she can make some money from the click.

Have a look at the article; family skiing, does it offer any value to anyone considering skiing in NZ, let alone family skiing. Categorically NO, and even some of the references are wrong, I think he means the “Cardrona Hotel”, not the Chalet Hotel.

The sole point of this article is to get traffic, in the hope that a small percentage will click an advertisement, and thus some ad revenue will be made.  It’s pointless and as you may guess, makes me mad!  The system is being abused, and no value is being derived for the hapless visitor to the site, they are being used.

You may argue that if Google lets this thing happen, then who’s to stop people doing this. True. We can’t stop people writing trashy articles like this, but we can ensure that we write great content for our sites and do a good job on SEO.

So here’s your challenge. Go to it!  Write some great content and articles articles for your site or others, optimise it ruthlessly (using our new SEO book), ensure people like this so called blogger don't get ranked, and most importantly, add value and offer a real benefit to visitors of your site.

Oh, and by the way, we do have some great articles on family skiing in New Zealand on our www.snowreports.co.nz site ;-)

SEOh!!

Wondering how to improve your search engine rankings? Cabbage Tree Creative has created an informational booklet as for your guide on improving your position online.

Who does this book benefit?

This is a beginner’s guide to help you to understand the basic principles of search engine optimisation and provide tips on how you can improve your rankings.

Some tips from the guide:

• Time allocation: search engine optimisation is a long term process which will need continual assessment and refinement. Don’t get frustrated – results do not happen overnight.
• Keywords: Selection of keywords is the most important part of the process. It is best to pick targeted keywords which are not broad. For example, if you are a hotel in Ashburton, it is better to focus on terms related to Ashburton accommodation than New Zealand wide.
• Structure: The way you website hierarchies are structured not only provides a good user experience, but let search engines know what the most important content on a site is.
• Content: Having relevant targeted content to keywords you are targeting is important to let users and search engines know what a web page is about.
• Coding: There are many important coding techniques in the background of a site which are important for SEO (naming imagery, using title tags, implementing headings, etc).
• Linking: Having external sites which link to your site is link a vote for the importance of your site. Building up relevant external links to your site over time will help will your rankings.
• Tools: Many tools exist to help you with your SEO strategy. Some suggestions for tools available:
• Google Analytics: a great free statistical tool to track your website’s performance
• Keyword search tools: Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery

Being found online is important for both your domestic and international visitors as they are able to book online.

Learn more about SEO from our booklet. Contact seo@cabbagetree.co.nz for more information on the booklet.

Google Sidewiki

Google Sidewiki is a tool which allows an individual to comment on any web page.  People make comments on what a site is about, their thoughts, reviews, and other things related to the content on a particular page of a site. 

What does this mean for your site?

Users are increasingly becoming more important for what they say on the internet.  Consumers have power and are going to be heard. 

How should you use Sidewiki on your site?

Google launched Sidewiki in September 2009, so it is a fairly new enhancement.  Not all websites will have Sidewiki posts to them, but large sites may have several posts.

Here is a guide on how to use Sidewiki to create an entry as a business owner for your site:

1. Download Google Sidewiki toolbar

2. To create a login as a business owner, you will need to verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools. Once you have done this, remember your login.

3. Login with the same email address and password you have used to verify your site within Google Webmaster Tools.

4. Tick the box “Write as the page owner.” Also select “Show this page owner entry on all pages of your site.”

5. Create a title of the entry and then a description. The description can be anything you like.

6. Click “publish” and your entry will be saved!

Above: An example of Cabbage Tree’s Sidewiki entry

All businesses should go and create an entry. It is also important that you monitor what people are saying while using Sidewiki as these entries are not able to be deleted by the business owner.

Write and upload your Sidewiki entry today!

Cyber-crime in New Zealand

Do you have a listing on Google local business results?  These results are seen when you search a business with a location.  Let’s say that I am searching for restaurants in Christchurch.  When I type the query “restaurants Christchurch” one of the results Google may return looks something like this:

How can you be sure that these listings are accurate if you have never listed them? Sometimes your listing will appear automatically within these listings from information Google has pulled from other sources such as the Yellow Pages and other third party sources.

A florist in Taradale was a victim of mal-intent from a competitor tampering with the details of a listing. Mrs Sefton-Zachan received phone calls from customers informing her that the phone number listed for her business, The Flower Barrow, was incorrect.  She went to go check her listing online to find that the phone number was incorrect and kept checking back. Incorrect information appeared for her phone, address, and website in a period of about 10 days. After a bit of investigation in the community, a rival florist was alleged with tampering with The Flower Barrow’s details to gain an advantage. This is a new case of cyber crime in New Zealand and is being examined further by the National Cyber Crime Centre (NC3).

What can you do to protect yourself? The best thing to do is to log on to Google Local Business Centre and claim your business listing. This way you are able to verify the results of the business and make sure that all the details are correctly listed. If you do suspect that a place seems inappropriate you can flag it and Google will investigate the place you have flagged if it violates the terms and conditions. Best solution – protect yourself by verifying your listing as the business owner.

YouTube bigger than Yahoo for search

Watch out Bing and Yahoo, YouTube is enjoying large search share holding a number two position for search. Google dominates the number one search engine position in the US and globally. ComScore’s expanded search query reported the Google search engine with August figures of 11.7 billion searches in the US. YouTube is not far behind with 2.6 billion searches. This places YouTube in the number two position ahead of Yahoo which had 2.4 billion searches for the same time period. As YouTube is a part of the Google network, this provides Google with a large share of the search market.

The power of social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are becoming increasingly important for where people are finding their news and information. Anyone can post information at the exact moment it happens and social media sites such as YouTube are able to provide relevant information in real time. This is where some people are finding their news and information as shared with others in their social networks.

Although YouTube is not officially a search engine like Google or Bing, people are increasingly turning to social media sites for news and information reported in real time. This year we saw the power of Twitter as the elections in Iran were instantly on Twitter with people reporting up-to-the-minute information. Social media is changing the search engine scene altogether.

How does this impact your business and search engine results? Social media will increasingly become more fully integrated into search engine results.

There have been many differences with Bing (comparatively to Google) and how to optimize for this search engine. It is interesting to see the differences when typing a search query into Google and then testing it for Bing, but the basic principles for SEO still apply for Bing.

Google will also be making changes to its search engine in the near future. Google will introduce Google Caffeine which will be faster, reporting up-to-the-minute news and information, introducing a whole new ball game for SEO with a different algorithm.

It will become increasingly competitive to rank for keyword phrases as this search engine market changes. This means that more time and thought will need to be put into search engine efforts. It also means that optimizing for social media sites will also become more important for SEO.

The internet and online marketplace is a constantly changing environment. The tremendous growth of social media sites has proven that marketing strategies need to be evaluated frequently with new technologies. There will always be something new the search engines and social media has changed this landscape dramatically.

New Google Analytics Features for mobile

What is your business doing to accommodate for an increasing usage of web based mobile devices? There is a great potential for generating sales and conducting business in an increasingly mobile environment. But how do you know where to best put your budget with this changing environment? After this year of hard economic downturn, it became even more apparent to organizations that advertising spend is the easiest to measure and often the most profitable online when compared to other forms/channels of traditional advertising. The online atmosphere is a constantly changing environment and the increasing usage of web based mobile devices will affect business decisions for spend on mobile sites and applications.

How are we to adapt our business plans and decisions to reflect this? Measurement and continual refinement of websites (both traditional and mobile) and mobile applications will affect how businesses will be successful in these platforms or not. The search engine giant, Google, announced on 21 October 2009 new tracking features in Google Analytics. All of them will provide better measurement for your website to be able to measure ROI and conversions. How will this impact your business decisions? It allows for the measuring of mobile site performance, application engagement and tracking conversions, sales, and leads from the mobile platform. These features indicate a changing environment where web based mobile devices is becoming more prominent and the user’s interactions on these web based devices could define the increasing importance for conducting business and making transactions. Let’s take a look at some of the features:

1. Mobile tracking Google Analytics feature

Mobile devices are only going to be more commonplace usage as people are able to check their bank accounts, shop and book online, and research information on the go. As with a website, the launch of a mobile site or application cannot be left and expected to continue working without tweaking and adjusting for improvements and performance. The recent feature announcement of mobile tracking in Google Analytics will be able to track usage statistics for users engaged with these devices. As mobile becomes more prominent and advertising increases through these devices, it will be easier to track how these mobile sites and applications perform in comparison to the traditional website. This will mean that testing the content and layouts on your mobile sites will be easier to see which will help give you a better conversion rate/ROI from your mobile site. With the launch of these tracking capabilities, it will also enable tracking of application engagement for iPhone and Android applications. Google will be rolling this new feature out progressively, and Thrive stats can be customized to support mobile for now.

2. Google Analytics Intelligence feature
The beta version of Google Analytics Intelligence will make it easier for users to view and understand what all the data and numbers mean. Reports can be set up for alerts of the most important data which you want access to so you are able to respond to quickly from the automatic and customizable alerts which report to you daily, weekly and monthly. As web continues to be a highly measurable approach for generate sales these alerts will help to make business decisions which will ultimately affect the bottom dollar.

3. Engagement goals Google Analytics feature
Goals have been used in Google Analytics to give an indication of performance of completing an action on a website (i.e. download a brochure). The announcement of the engagement goals (which as the name implies is able to better track engagement) will be able to measure URL destination, time on site, and pages/visit through goal configurement. The number of engagement goals has expanded to include the allowance to have more goals configured to a site.

Measurement and refinement will always be something that will need to be tested as the online atmosphere continually changes with new technology and tools available. Analyzing performance through all channels, especially mobile will become increasingly more important for your business decisions.

So it's Ok to Spam ...

These days we don’t have a great deal of personal space, especially in digital worlds. For example, many of us now just accept spam. It’s a part of life.

Many of us also however probably have spaces that are “ours” and which we don’t like invaded. For me, maybe surprisingly it’s my mobile phone.

So I was surprised when last week I got a message that said "HireQuip 3 days for 1 day price. Hire after 3pm Fri or B4 1pm Sat & retrn by 9am Tues. For equip 1.5 ton & below. Call 0800 727727. Reply no to unsubscribe.”

Despite the good deal, I was surprised because a. I have never heard from HireQup before and b. they interrupted some very personal space of mine, without my permission I believed.

I then did two things. I txted back a back to indicate my disapproval and I emailed HireQuip to see if they were complying with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act (UEMA).

Basically HireQuips position was that I had signed an equipment hire agreement months, if not years ago, had provided a mobile phone number and therefore had consented to messages. “The Hirer agrees that its personal information may be used by the Owner to advise the Hirer of the Owner’s other goods and services” I was told.

Note that this is not a voluntary agreement, it’s mandatory if you want to hire any equipment. Do you read a 1 – 2 page agreement when you hire a $20 post hole borer. No. Personally I often put my cell phone as it’s the easiest way to reach me. (Not now though)

Now, feeling a little disaffected by this “spam” from HireQuip, I decided to ask the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA - the Spam watchdogs) on their position. For me there were two key issues:

1. I never opted in, I simply signed an agreement to hire
2. I did however provide a mobile phone number, but I would not have consented to this being used for “marketing purposes”

The DIA’s response was interesting ... Under section 6 of the Act relating to consent, 6(b)(iv) gives permission for organisations like say banks, ISP's, power companies etc, where you sign an agreement for their goods and services, to receive information relevant to that good or service.

Furthermore , there was suggestion in a tourism context that “if it (the agreement) said that by providing your email address you will receive future emails, that would be ok, as long as the emails you received had the unsubscribe so you could unsubscribe at the first opportunity. By providing an email address, when it explains that they will email you, you are opting in.”

The person replying suggested “I often don’t provide an email address unless I really need to, or give them one I don’t use often so as not to block up my main email addresses then I unsubscribe straight away.“ Add to that in the case of HireQuip, your cell phone number.

So basically it appears, and this is very surprising to me, if in the “fine print” of your terms and conditions (T&Cs) you say that by providing their mobile phone and/or email, then you have their permission to market directly to them.

But here’s where I have a problem. The Act clearly discusses “opt in” and I find that a great concept. “I am willing and interested in receiving your marketing message.”

A businesses challenge is to provide information, deals and offers that meets that particular persons interests. Increasingly we’re seeing email marketing that is specifically targeted at me as an “individual“ and that’s great thing. It’s relevant and meaningful to me, and adds value. As a result I am likely to become an advocate and convert into a sale.

By contrast HireQuip elected to TXT me out of the blue, literally “some years” later. A few issues here:

1. I don’t believe I consented, despite any agreement I signed
2. It was the first time ever, several years probably since I hired, that I had heard from them. Therefore their offer had NO relevancy
3. They interrupted my personal space (which is why I reacted so poorly)
4. In my communication with them, they did unsubscribe me, but defended their position “I signed the agreement”.
5. This was in no way a relationship, it was an old school marketing effort. That’s an “F” for FAIL in my books.
6. I personally don’t believe a mandatory contract is an “opt in” mechanism. I’d like to see DIA correct that.

Clearly that’s not the way to do business now. So what can we learn from this?

1. Ensure you do gain the express permission of people, not just for the legal sake, but to ensure they really do want to hear from you.
2. If you do ask for customers email and/or mobile phone number make it VERY clear you may use this for marketing purposes i.e opt in
3. I don’t necessarily need a “relationship” but what I need is belief and relevancy in what in what you are providing me. A generic marketing message is simply unacceptable if you send it to my phone. Make sure you provide value.
4. Clearly the DIA have signed up to the “inferred” consent concept, so you’re now fully able to contact past customers. It appears there is a window of 6 months, but who knows ...
5. If an email address or phone is required for a contract and there is no opt out, provide a false one – maybe of the provider e.g 0 800 HIRE QUIP ;-)
6. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the law says, it’s what works for the customer. And this kind of marketing is old school. In fact it’s worse, it’s alienating.
7. If people do complain, engage with them, call them, find out truly why they are annoyed. HQ might have been able to mitigate the complaint if they had been able to handle my issue. Of course they couldn’t. They appear to be marketers from last century, not relationship builders from this one.

Finally, the Act clearly isn’t as draconian as what we all thought in 2007 so we can breathe a sigh of relief. It would appear as if opt in is now as simple enough as providing your email and/or phone number if your contract is worded appropriately.

But as usual, Act aside, market trends are ahead of the law. Spam me, and I will take offense and tell my social network about you. Then that really might start affecting your business. But the good news is that it won’t “cost you a penny” as far as the law is concerned.

Phew ;-)

(BTW, this article about customers influencing brands might have helped HireQuip)

Faster than a Speeding Bullet, maybe …

We’re probably all aware that the Government has pledged $1.5 billion to the UFB (Ultra-fast broadband) initiative. There’s also $300 million tagged for rural users. Essentially this is about delivery fibre infrastructure (instead of copper) to homes, business, schools and health services, ultimately providing 100 Mbps downloads and 50Mbps up. That’s pretty fast. This infrastructure will replace all existing technologies including copper lines and Telstras cable network in Wellington and Christchurch.

It’s an interesting initiative, especially from National, and it signals something that many of us have been aware of. The private sector can’t make investments of this sort, for several reasons. One is the cost, the other is the length of return and associated risk, and the third is basic economics. Why on earth would Telecom roll out fast internet when they can maximise profits from the existing and poor infrastructure. Private companies in monopoly like situations have little incentive to innovate, or invest.

So it’s all theoretically goods news, and it’s great to note that despite the media about “fibre to home”, the plans intention is to “Build to all main business, commercial centres, state institutions (including schools and hospitals) and other concentrations of demand”. Some of their key principles, available in this MED document, suggest the achievement of the government’s objective will be consistent with the following principles:

• making a significant contribution to economic growth;
• neither discouraging, nor substituting for, private sector investment;
• avoiding entrenching the position, or ‘lining the pockets’, of existing broadband network providers;
• avoiding excessive infrastructure duplication;
• focusing on building new infrastructure, and not unduly preserving the ‘legacy assets’ of the past; and
• ensuring affordable broadband services
• And there are more

But, and there’s always a but ...

1. The rollout will be complete in 2021. That’s 10+ years away and we’re already last in the OECD in terms of the ratio between dialup and broadband. We might get reclassified as 3rd world at this rate.
2. Coverage is based on 2021 project populations, covering 79% of the population. Is it OK to leave 20% of the country in the dark? Queenstown was left out of the initial proposal for example ...
3. Mobile is ignored. Stephen Joyce said last week that the plan would enable mobile companies to connect remote towers and offer fast internet. Do we really think that will happen, and at what sort of cost? Data costs remain criminally high in this country, and that’s if you can connect ...
4. So more on mobile, what does every electronic device have these days, wireless. Where’s the plan to connect us all? It seems there isn’t one.
5. Cost. I just don’t buy the principle of “ensuring affordable broadband services”. Affordable and broadband (let alone UFB) are mutually exclusive concepts at present. Add mobile to that and it’s a nice dream.

Let’s be honest, it is a great initiative and long overdue, but it’s going to take many many years, it’s probably not going to solve the cost issue we currently have, and it doesn’t appear to solve any mobile/wireless issues. Neither does it truly address rural areas, and guess where tourists and many tourism business are. And let’s not forget the farmers who live out there. Collectively between our industries we count for the majority of the nation’s current income, yet being the fringe 20% are not being suitably addressed.

So what can we do? Well we know tourists want this sort of connectivity, but the simple fact is that they aren’t going to get it for many years to come. But there is a solution!

Despite what we might think of our existing infrastructure, it mostly works and for a business it’s not cost prohibitive. It’s also very easy to add wireless to our businesses, an $80 access point will do it in many cases. The solution is for businesses, especially tourism ones, to take up the wireless challenge. For many it’s seen as a revenue centre currently. Let’s forget that notion and think about adding value to our visitors experience. If they are connected they are browsing and buying. They are also blogging, twittering and participating in social media and that is (hopefully) good for our country.

The government’s proposal is good, notwithstanding some issues, but as an industry we can solve this problem, much quicker. Rush out and get an access point, enable wireless, and give it away to your customers, for FREE. Your business will benefit from it, and so will the country. It’s your national duty.

Like at the Rockpool above, get your free wireless, at the bar. As well as a coffee, a beer, and some food. That’s good business.

Mobile Marketing & Distribution in Hospitality

It’s been a while since I have posted, too much time on Twitter!  But I saw a report from Hospitality eBusiness Strategies today that I thought was pretty important, as it’s very much in line with where we are going.

HeBS thinks the following mobile Internet services and applications will make the biggest impact in hospitality over the next few years. We’re already doing 1 for a number of clients, planning 2, and now thinking about the rest …

1. Mobile Hotel Websites: Hoteliers should offer a mobile website specially designed to provide an excellent user experience in a mobile environment.
2. Mobile Booking Functionality: Independent hotels and resorts can either use a mobile engine from their third-party booking engine vendor or, for the time being, use a simple reservation request form.
3. M-CRM and Customer Service: Custom-tailored services and offerings, based on knowing your customers, matching customer preferences, and predicting behavioral techniques are only part of personalizing the customer service in this space.
4. M-Lists: Opt-in Customer Mobile Text Link Creation: text messaging is huge and growing. Mobile text marketing has to overcome some serious obstacles, but it's a good idea to start creating and expanding the hotel's m-list.
5. Mobile Advertising: eMarketer projects that mobile advertising will rise from $648 million in 2008 to $3.3 billion in 2013.

Read the full report (as a PDF) here.

Why People Use Twitter

Yesterday at a conference I was speaking at, I was asked  “who uses Twitter?”.  I didn't have a definitive answer, although I would have today if I’d read eMarketers latest post.  Interestingly 41.6% percent of Internet users who used Twitter did so to keep in touch with their friends.

It’s worth a read.

New launch – snowreports.co.nz

After what seems a very long time, and a great deal of cost, we’ve finally re-launched our own site www.snowreports.co.nz.

It’s my pet project, being a keen skier, so I have been on a mission to build a site that is incredibly useful for skiers and boarders. Some would say it’s taken 3 years for me to get here …

In many respects it’s a showcase of our thinking and skills in concept and strategy, design, development and technology, search engine optimisation, user generated content, social media; all wrapped up in a single site. Here’s a few highlights:

1. New Design – more visual, and we think just the easiest way to view snow reports
2. New 6 day forecasts  that we are sourcing from another website, then reinterpreting the data to make it more easy to digest.
3. Road warnings and reports, sourced from both MetService and Transit in a “raw format” and then with some technical wizardry, applying directly to ski areas.
4. Twitter updates – ours, as well as an aggregation of all the ski area updates. The beauty of this is that our site content is now being directly updated by ski areas, in real time
5. Our rewritten iPhone app has just been released, with the first advertiser (Summit Ale) on board
6. A new mobile version of the site, suitable for those without iPhones, including searching for accommodation from your phone
7. More emphasis on advertising on the site and a new ad serving engine
8. More emphasis on online bookings, using our TourismData system, with newly redesigned listings
9. More focus on user generated content, including video and user images that we can feature on the home page.

In general, it appears (hopefully) as a relatively simple site in terms of navigation and viewing information. But therein lies the challenge, given the complexity of data and technology that the site deals with. Simplicity takes time, money and a great deal of thought in how best to achieve it.

The team has done a great job pushing a few boundaries. It’s going to be a great winter!

What the heck is Social Media

Here’s a brilliant presentation from Marta Kagan. Everything you wanted and needed to know about social media – it’s fantastic!

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Online versus Offline Destination Marketing

I came a cross this short video today where Joe Buhler, Senior Destination Marketing Analyst at PhoCusWright discusses online vs offline marketing.

Key points he makes are; a DMO site needs to be:

1. Inspirational
2. Official content should be augmented with User Generated Content – reviews, blogs etc
3. Younger audiences are not brand loyal, they seek authenticity
4. Online consumers don't expect perfection, they expect a few blemishes – beautifully staged sites may not be what people are looking for.

While it’s brief he makes some good points. In New Zealand I’d say most/all RTOs do a good job on the first point. the others are a bit tougher as they are almost the antithesis of what RTOs have traditionally been tasked to achieve. 

It’s historically been about the brand, and about appearing to be a perfect/attractive/desirable destination. Now it’s about being a “real” destination and replacing the marketing speak with real conversations.  An interesting shift.

Vodafone doing a Jetstar?

Is Vodafone doing a Jetstar, (re)launching and while trying hard, dropping the ball all over the place?

They have redesigned their website, and it looks good, the only problem is that key pages all over the site are broken, like this iPhone one  ...

Umm, not a good look and not something you’d expect from a reputable company. Maybe a small “do-it-yourself” gig from a developer based in a garage, but Vodafone?

Then also they are trying blogging and asking for comments.
Great idea, especially after such a great job on Twitter, but it seems the audience is a little different. Not the most positive of feedback.

This poses an interest dilemma, if we’re going to participate in social media we need to be able to take the good with the bad. Vodafone does this and responds brilliantly on Twitter. However at this rate I don’t see the blog lasting, or at least not with comments. There’s a risk of it spiralling into a customer whining session.

Hope they listen to it.

p.s You do have to admire their approach on Twitter, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That’s not like Jetstar, they’d be blaming Telecom  ;-)

Justice Prevails

The good news is that today NZSki.com sent a message to Twitter regarding yesterdays post. They felt somewhat aggrieved by someone using their name to profit, and rightly so.

Tonight the offenders are gone. How’s that for action!  I am amazed. Basically, the perpetrator, Snow Sports Online, contracted out the social media, and appears not to have monitored it.  Social media isn't some “set and forget” program and this is a classic example. It needs involvement and engagement. I hear he has now subsequently apologised.

I wonder though what those several thousand people think who were following Mt Hutt and Coronet tweets now that they are “out of business”. Hopefully they now look for the official tweets.

Although to be honest, there is a very good chance that many of the “followers” weren’t really interested in skiing anyway. There is an interesting game on Twitter at present that is all around numbers. The more the better. Of course it’s not though, it’s about people interested in what you have to say, and hopefully your product. Less is sometimes (often?) more.

So, if you do have a problem, the take home message is look for the “Law Enforcement” address on this page. It works.

The bad news of course is that someone will try it again. The good news is however is that you can monitor this. Twitter search is pretty good, but even better are alert services such as http://www.twilert.com or http://tweetbeep.com to keep a watch on your company name, brand names or keywords/subjects you are interested in. They are very effective, and free.

So, all this about Twitter? Is Twitter the centre of the universe?

Categorically NO! However it is flavour of the month currently and a good barometer of trends in social media. It can be very useful. But let’s not ignore what we should be doing on our website, in other social media such as Facebook, blogging, YouTube etc. In reality they are probably far more important and reach far more people.

Twitter however has an attraction once you get it. It feeds you information constantly, it is highly addictive (if you find the right people to follow) ... Download TweetDeck and have a play, and see if it makes sense to you.

I am compiling a guide for our clients at present, but there are loads of resources with a simple Google search.

Social Media – Is it Doomed to Fail?

The internet – it’s awesome isn’t it!

It empowered small business to compete with large. And they did, and still are, but it is changing ...

Social media then provided the next great hope. The people would speak. And they have, and will increasingly do so. But again, that is changing ...

“Business” is moving in, and “social media spam” is becoming an issue. Trip Advisor is the “world authority” on reviews of travel products. However The Times suggests it’s easily manipulated.

Several days ago I posted about a “Twitter imposter”. One of the companies involved approached them and the response was “We are not operating the twitter pages but we are paying per clicks to "twitter marketing" a third party operator. The contact there is ...”

The social media responsibility had been contracted out and a VERY poor job was being done. The company hadn’t checked, or chose to ignore, what was going on ... Sadly the situation has yet to be remedied.

So what does this mean? Is it that people like the former West Country hotelier or Snow Sports will abuse the system and ruin it for everyone – intentionally or otherwise? Or will commonsense, justice, and the ability of the average person to filter out the good from the bad prevail?

I don’t know. But I think social media is critically important and I seriously hope that those businesses that abuse it are treated accordingly by the market.

Liars eventually get found out, and people don’t like liars. So if you’re a company misrepresenting yourself in social media, I’d be preparing to fail.

Be yourself, be honest, be human. People like that ;-)

Who’s that Twittering?

Several posts ago I referenced an interesting eMarketer report on the potential for your brand to be damaged in social media.

Interestingly however, it’s not just your own staff that can damage your brand. It can easily be other people masquerading as you. Have a look at these tweets for example (click the image) – literally all in a row off the timeline. It appears as if a few ski areas and an online sports shop have all tweeted at the same time on the same subject?

Of course not, the logical assumption is that it’s the sports shop masquerading as the ski areas. I’d have to say that for the past few weeks I thought the tweets may have been from the ski areas, despite being slightly odd occasionally, but the penny finally dropped with all the tweets in a row and such a blatant message. Not a smart thing to do. Sure, the shop doesn’t explicitly state they are the ski areas, but are posting a lot of ”area updates” interspersed with sales messages. And they do link to the official site – it’s pretty deceptive I feel.

http://twitter.com/mthutt (genuine) vs http://twitter.com/skiMounthutt (imposter)

http://twitter.com/coronetpeak (genuine) vs http://twitter.com/skiCoronetPeak (imposter)

Note that the fake ski areas have on average 10 times more followers – and I bet most of them don’t know.

Pretty rude really I reckon. And not much NZSki can do about it sadly. The culprit if you haven’t guessed is http://www.snowsportsonline.com/

On a similar but different note, I also note a local organisation who appears to have contracted out their twittering. The quality of the information is pretty low grade and definitely affecting the organisations credibility.  Clearly they didn't vet, and maybe aren't monitoring, what these people are saying about them.

It’s critical that if you participate in social media you do it right. Get good help and advice (which we offer) and keep in your mind a classic quote from Michael Martine:

“If you’re on Twitter to market your business, the best thing you can do is shut up about your business and help people.”

Replace the word Twitter with “social media” for true effect.

Two Tweets. One good. One bad?

Two tweeting posts in one day – that must mean I have a Twitter obsession like most of the media. Do “real”people have this obsession? Not yet, but it’s growing ...

Anyway, the important point is that companies are trying to figure out how to deal with social media, and the fact is that many could be doing a much better job. They are applying “traditional marketing principles” to social media, and it just ain’t right.

I am not going to say who’s doing it right or wrong below. Here are two Twitter streams. One I think has a great deal of relevance to me. The other doesn’t. One I found more interesting. The other advertising.

One strengthens the brand value for me. And one doesn’t ... Which one works for you? Click to see a larger view.

 

Social Media - Is it Advertising?

The very simple and concise answer is. No.

Consider this …  Social media is about discussion. Discussion you have with friends.

Do we sell to our friends? No (unless you do Amway).

Do we talk about things that are going on in our life (business) and that we find interesting? Yes.

Do we repeat the same message over and over to our friends. No. You value and respect them as people.

Do we talk about what we like and don’t like (recommendations)? Yes.

Does our discussion always relate to us (or our business)? No.

Do we talk to about things we (and our friends) find interesting and useful. Yes.

Does this mean blatantly selling our offer to them. No.

Do companies get social media? Most don’t. They see it as an extension of their advertising and marketing. They are selling, rather than forming relationships. They are doing business the old way, not the new way.

I am pleased to say that we’re helping a few companies think differently. As you might do with friends.

So, if you are twittering or blogging, and every, or every second post, has an offer and/or your URL in it … them you’re probably really annoying your “friends”.

They soon won’t be friends. And you’ll be a spammer.

Two Tweets Too Many?

I have yet to write that post about Twitter, I keep getting distracted … often by too many people tweeting far too often.  Like today.

A new tourism site was launched today and aside for the usual PR, Twitter got bombarded with messages of self promotion and the same thing was said over and over. Yes, we heard you the first time!

Social media is a conversation with your “friends’. In real life would you say the same thing over and over, or tell everyone how wonderful you are? No. Should we do it online? No. It’s just going to annoy people and end up damaging your brand.

Last week on eMarketer there was an interesting survey on the impact of social media. Key stats were:

• 33% of executives said social media was part of their strategy – good
• 55% however did not have an official policy (and I presume strategy) – bad
• 75% agreed a brand is easy to damage in social media – wow!

Our observation is that typically someone says “Social Media – good idea” and the organisation jumps on the bandwagon, often with a younger more technically savvy person in control, but someone who isn't really too aware of the potential hazards. And there are many.

So good things to consider:

1. Go into social media with a strategy.
2. Ideally partner with a company (such as ours) who has demonstrated knowledge in the area (as opposed to saying they are experts)
3. Start by listening, and learning.
4. Develop a policy. This might include tone, frequency of posting, how you respond to negative feedback etc
5. Think about your messages, a lot.
6. Monitor how you are doing

I’ll post more on this later … My main plea – don't dive into social media like a bull in a china shop. You’ll end up paying a huge price.

News - Reporting or PR?

It’s not news to anyone that news organisation are in bit of trouble. Readership is down (or maybe up according to Time) but there’s general agreement that printed newspaper, or maybe even printed media in general is under threat.

To be honest, it’s not surprising. Take the new Stuff website; poor design (in my opinion) and really it’s just a regurgitation of articles syndicated from offshore – the level of local content is ever diminishing and less relevant. And newspapers … don’t you read news on your iPhone these days?

In contrast, the Herald has been doing a good job in my opinion, but that took a beating tonight. They reported an article today claiming “Cartier sues Apple, claiming trademark infringement”. Unfortunately however this is old news, and 2 days ago the lawsuit was retracted. Why would the Herald report this – laziness, ignorance .. who knows? And let’s not start on printing press releases word for word with no journalism/investigation involved.

I think this strengthens Times argument. Local news sources should be local.

So what do people do? Look at news sites offshore, subscribe to Google news, and check out real peoples blogs. The news might just be more relevant.

And for those without Internet access - sadly you’ll just have to put up with the fodder news organisations are feeding us. Time to get online and get the true stories.

Victoria’s Secret goes mobile

Mobile is another one of my real interests right now, alongside social networking, so I spend a lot of time looking at what’s happening in that space.

I’ve been working on a social strategy for a fashion client and spending some time on Victoria’s Secret researching (honest truth!), as they do a very good join in social media. They have over a million Facebook fans!

So it was interesting today after an office discussion about mobile (we’re launching a number of mobile sites in the next few weeks) that I came across this article about Victoria’s Secret going mobile. Here’s the link to the site - http://mobile.victoriassecret.com/

It’s great to see as they have gone way past just a simple information site, you can purchase online, and as they say “Get Sexy Anywhere”. What a tag line!  It will be great to see how it goes.

Mobile support is now built into Thrive and we’ll be announcing the new sites soon. If you think mobile could work for you, then drop us a line.

Social Media and PR

A lot of my life right now is consumed with social media. Researching it, experimenting with it, understanding it, consuming it, talking about it. In many respects it’s not hard; it’s common sense -  what would you do/say in a conversation with friends ...

The interesting thing though is that there are so many variables and ways companies and organisations are trying to use it. I wrote about Twitter in my column last month in Tourism Business Magazine, but have yet to write a dedicated blog post about it ... the reason, I am observing what companies are doing in NZ; some is good, a lot is bad – in my opinion.

If you follow the mainstream news, you’ll be aware that Auckland Museum and Sir Ed Hilary’s family are having a bit of a stoush over his estate. I have absolutely no idea as to who is right or wrong, but it’s interesting to note that Auckland Museum is using Twitter (this image) in its “PR Arsenal”.

Is this right or wrong? Again I am not sure, but it’s doesn’t quite feel right to me – regardless of who turns out to hold the moral high ground.

Links:

• Sir Ed's family sue over papers
• PM offers Hillarys and museum mediation
• Museum Press release

What’s Happening Online?

A large part of what I do these days is presentation work; talking to groups such as RTONZ (2 weeks ago in Wellington), Mount Ruapehus senior management team (next week), and today the NZTE Advanced Tourism Training Programme.

It’s part of my work I really enjoy for several reasons. Firstly, I have to make sure I truly know what's happening online. That’s my excuse for buying all the latest gadgets and signing up to every online service I can find!

Secondly it really helps me connect with people who run real tourism businesses. I hear the issues they face, discover how much/little they understand, and can better understand the needs of their business. Today for example,we had extensive discussion on blogging – both in what this means for their businesses from a travellers perceptive and the opportunities/threats. Also lots of other discussions about online advertising, analytics, and of course Twitter.

The interesting thing I find is that people come away inspired, despite not always understanding all what I said. They are inspired because at least they have now heard of, and can perhaps identity some of the opportunities. And that’s a great thing.

Many economic development agencies run events like this,and they are well worth attending in my opinion. If you learn one thing then it’s a worthwhile investment.

And if you are looking for someone to front a presentation run a workshop to help educate or upskill members or managers, then please do drop me a line.

Send. No stop!

We’ve all done it; written an email, addressed it, clicked send, then realised it was going to the wrong person.

Oh bugger! You just sent some sensitive personal, or business information to exactly the WRONG person.

You start sweating, you send a retraction. “I didn't mean to call you/that person a total …”

You start wondering how you could be so silly, how did I do that? Often the culprit is Outlooks “auto compete”. You start typing a persons name, it gives a list, you click a person, and then hit send. Only problem you clicked the wrong contact.

So how can you avoid this? Well, you could be more careful selecting contacts, but then we’re busy and in a rush.

The best solution?

Delay the send of your email by several minutes, in case you change your mind. It’s very easy to do and Microsoft have kindly provided some instructions if you use an Exchange server. Why isn't this a standard feature? Who knows, but it has the potential to save you from considerable embarrassment. I’d highly recommend you do it!

NZ’s Biggest Sexiest Ski Area?

… is how Mt Ruapehu is pitching themselves to Australians this winter, along with some rather provocative statements.

A collaborative effort with their Auckland agency River Communications resulted in a print/banner/micro-site campaign promoting the region. We took the concept, and sexed it up you might say …

It’s running in parallel to the South Island initiative.  I’m pretty pleased with what our team came up with and turned around in a terribly short timeframe, including both the micro-site and all the interactive ad banners.

The other cool thing, we’re IP filtering all Australian visitors and delivering them to the micro-site first, so if you’re from Australian, you can't miss Ruapehus message.

It’s hot, and big, and … sexy I guess.

Trade Me acquires Vianet

You heard it here second, or maybe third … 

Across on Motella it’s been reported that Trade Me has acquired the assets of Vianet International. This means that Trade Me will now run the entire booking operation for Travelbug and the Vianet retailer network.  It seems there are no real details of the deal yet as they are working through them.

What will this mean for reservations? Well, for the last XX years we’ve seen res engines come and go, and change. Vianet arrived with great fanfare once Trade Me bought in, Tourism Exchange has just ridden into town, backed by Air NZ no less. RoamFree – are they still here?  And then there are players like BookIt that have just been quietly plugging away.

So it’s anyone's guess what this means. What we all want is a full featured system that distributes information widely and with no bias. Tourism Exchange and others are offering and promising that. Vianet was, and hopefully still is, making that move. It’s a good direction.

Best Travel Site

Seems like this years Webby Awards sneaked up on us without us knowing. Well, Tourism NZ wasn't in the running this year, so I am not really surprised.

The winner in the Tourism category for 2009 was Tourism Montreal. It’s a nice site, but it has an awesome video. Wow, I love it. But can you imagine how much it cost.  My quick look around the rest if the site suggests it’s pretty  normal, nothing too earth shattering. So I am a little surprised.

I’ve always said that a travel site should inspire, inform, and then allow to you do the deal. Montreal appears to tick all thee boxes, but one thing it does very well is inspire. Maybe that’s why it won.

Applying this to NZ, do we have any earth shatteringly good travel sites? Not that I can see. We’re still very traditional, afraid to really break out and be different. Most businesses are spending money in the same old way. “We can’t take risks in a recession”.

Actually I entirely disagree, the web is not a risk. The risk right now is to keep doing the same old thing and NOT to spend money online. This is the time to be different. This is the time to make organisational change and entirely refocus our businesses. This is the time to show how great and innovative we really are.  This is the time to show leadership.

Please.

Cutting Thru the Noise

Now that most people (ok, many) have discovered social media, there’s a lolly scramble going on to “be part of the community”.

There’s also lots of discussion about how most commercial entities will fail in their quest to become members; they go into it with the wrong motivation. There’s also a tidal wave of “cool” video coming online that everyone things is going to be the next best viral video. Viral has been around for a long time, and we typically associate viral these days with try hard, often lame attempts at humour. We’ve all seen them and cringed.

These days being lame can hurt your brand a whole lot more than ever before, and conversely, being clever can do more for your business that ever before. So how do you manage to now cut through all that “noise”

I have blogged about this before, but I came across a video today which summed it up very nicely. Gary Vaynerchuk who started Wine Library TV also comments on many things about social media, he’s a pseudo expert given his success. He’s also very loud and talks very fast! It’s an interesting and brief watch, and has a very good message.

The way to cut thru the noise, says Gary, is to ..’

“ … Do good stuff ...

People who come up with good ideas, and execute, and know how to move the frigging needle …”

Yep, hard to disagree with that.

The Honda ad I posted yesterday is good stuff. Note it did another 50 000 views overnight.

And then check out the Baaa Studs – very good stuff.

“I’m going to let it Shine ...”

And let it shine ...

Found this new ad from Honda from a link off Twitter. It’s hosted on Vimeo but posted by Honda, and it’s a simply awesome ad promoting their new Hybrid, the Honda Insight.

So aside from all those headlights (and make sure you watch the making of it) what’s shining here. Well, a number of things.

1. Firstly, the play mode on Vimeo – isn’t that amazing. It’s not actually playing full screen, but somehow is. Very cool in my books.
2. Then, it’s had around 70 000 views in 4 days – that’s pretty good. Very viral I’d say
3. Then take a look at YouTube, Honda don’t actually have it on their own channel yet, but there are numerous other versions of it posted (virally)
4. The most significant is by CreativeReviewTV which has 227 000 views
5. And then think how a relatively boring company like Honda can make such a cool video, (I mean look at their website) and also figure out how to harness social networks.

So here’s a great example of a fairly boring company making a great ad, that is extremely innovative, isn't even on TV yet, but has had 300 000 plus views in 4 days, and likely to be millions in the next month or so. And this is posted in places that cost nothing to be there … amazing.

A shining example I’d say.

Web Awards

It’s that time of the year again, The NetGuide Web Awards ... So of course many sites are spamming you with “vote for us”.

Yes, I am an awards sceptic, and always have been. In the old days “awards” sites were simply ways of getting links and pseudo endorsements. Thank goodness we have (mostly) grown up and moved away from putting little gold shields on our site that announced were winners on some insignificant and slightly dubious site.

Not that I am suggesting NetGuide is one of those sites ... but, I do find it a little unusual that a previous winner currently “owns” all the advertising around the voting page, and much of the site actually. Click the thumbnail to see who ...

I also find it interesting that in the sports category of the “Best of the Web”, the content harks from 01 November 2006. Of course I was looking for a number 1 mention of our snow reports site.

2006 ... Frankly I think that is appalling and unfortunately in my mind adds more questions to the credibility of any awards they might deliver.

<Tongue in cheek> “I’d love to enter our snow reports site” but aside from any issues suggested, as voting is based entirely on online votes, only those sites with the greatest traffic, or the largest mailing lists are likely to win. Small, simply fantastic sites don’t have a chance I’d suggest .. .

And if you think I am being too much of a cynic, then please do tell me ;-)

Social Media Insights from TripAdvisor

Over on Search Engine Watch there’s a reasonably interesting interview with TripAdvisor CEO, Steve Kaufer. It’s interesting in that TripAdvisor is the granddaddy of travel user feedback.

I liked the point about users images being more popular that “professional beauty shots”. That's an interesting statement, I think both have their place, but you can understand why people are interested in other travellers (sometimes scrappy) photos. It shows the REAL place.

Here’s another interesting thing to consider.  He talks about operators being able to integrate review content onto their sites. I think it’s a great idea and a must have.

But, let’s say you are a travel portal, or an RTO, and operators are paying to be on your site. And then let’s say that the reviews for a particular operator are not fantastic; how tenable is it to be charging to belong or be on the site, and then associating bad reviews against that operator? Not very obviously; “you mean you are charging me to be on your site and putting those crappy reviews beside me”.

Interesting dilemma. The comments should be there, but the operator doesn't want them, and the site owner is less likely to want them if the operator pulls their advertising as a result …

The site is now less appealing, the user misses out; maybe only the shonky operator wins …  (making an assumption that the negative TripAdvisor comment was a valid one… – another debate)

Blogosphere the final frontier for tourism?

Last week I did at short presentation at a meeting in Wellington about technology within tourism, followed by a presentation from Tourism New Zealand about social media and their experience.

Social networking, social media marketing, whatever you like to call it is THE hot topic right now; but one of the most challenging to understand in terms of how it relates to your business and how do you use it. In the course of the presentations it was interesting to hear that TNZ and RTOs are hosting bloggers now, as opposed to just traditional media and journalists.  The big question is which bloggers, because every traveller is now a blogger …

So it was interesting today to see The Age reporting that Tourism Australia is inviting bloggers to visit their country.  As Nick Baker, Tourism Australia's marketing manager, said "It's about recognising the way in which consumers are changing their attitudes and (where) they gather information." These aren’t any bloggers, they are highly visible ones, with huge followings.

The headline for this article isn’t true at all in my opinion. Blogs are just the beginning, Twitter is here now, and there will be many more. We’re at the start of the curve for understanding social networks and their impact; the learning has just begun.

It’s also worth remembering that any traveller who writes their own blog is important. TNZ thought so with their ‘Have your Say” campaign – over 100 000 views so far, and one of the 10 most ingenious travel offers according to the Sunday Times in the UK.

So yes, do host globally significant bloggers, but let’s not forget there are millions of visitors to our country, many of whom will also be blogging and influencing future travellers.

Registering an Australian Domain Name

I had an enquiry this week from a client wanting to register an Australian domain name for their business. My understanding was that the registration regulations had been relaxed , but that’s clearly not the case. Here are the requirements to register an Australian domain name:

To be eligible for a com.au domain name, registrants must be:

1. an Australian registered company; or
2. trading under a registered business name in any Australian State or Territory; or
3. an Australian partnership or sole trader;
4. a foreign company licensed to trade in Australia; or
5. an owner of an Australian Registered Trade Mark; or
6. an applicant for an Australian Registered Trade Mark ; or
7. an association incorporated in any Australian State or Territory; or
8. an Australian commercial statutory body.

The domain names in the com.au space must:

1. exactly match, acronym or abbreviation of the registrant’s company or trading name, organisation or association name or trademark; or:
2. be otherwise closely and substantially connected to the registrant.

Additional Rules

1. .com.au domains be at least 2 characters long;
2. contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) and hyphens (-), or a combination of these;
3. start and end with a number or a letter, not a hyphen; and
4. not contain hyphens in the third and fourth position (eg. ab--cd.com.au).

So that looks pretty dire really …

It has been suggested to me, by an Australian Registrar, that the “best” way to get an Australian domain name is to register as a sole trader, which then allows you to get an ABN (Australian Business Number) which then allows you to register a domain name. There appears to be a complication with this, you appear to need a physical address in Australia.

Given that, it appears the next best options are to either:

1. Register a Trademark
2. Or become a foreign licensed company.

Let’s look at those 2 quickly.

Trademark Registrations
This appears reasonably straight forward and you can search and register Trademarks online. There’s one catch, 7 ½ months from start to finish, so it’s not a quick process, and it costs some money, but not outrageous. We have several clients who have gone through this process and successfully registered trademarks, and subsequently domain names.

Foreign Registered Companies
Basically it appears you would need an ABN, and non residents can be granted one, for example “when making supplies connected with Australia in the course of carrying on an enterprise”. I am not aware at this stage of any clients who have used this avenue, but it appears an option.

All this seems like a great deal of work, time and money, so why bother? That’s a good question and the common answer is that people probably are more inclined to deal with a “local” business, and often the domain name is an indicator of this. In reality, the Internet is a big place, and if you are concerned that Australians may be less willing to deal with a Kiwi company with a .co.nz domain name, then consider a dot com name. And then use some IP detection to ensure that all Australian requests are redirected to this domain. Easy ;-)

Key Links:

1. Australian Domain Name Registrar
2. Registering a Trademark
3. ABN registration for sole traders
4. Australian Business Registrar
5. Entitlement to an ABN

Statistics on your Desktop

Stats are, or should be, one of the most important components of your website. What is, or isn’t, happening; providing us vital information on what our present or future customers are seeking, and how we can be changing the site to meet their needs.

Analytics or Stats programs have changed a lot in the past few years, but these days there is a clear winner; Google Analytics. It’s free and extraordinarily powerful. But like all stats packages, typically you have to login to their site to view the information, which means you might forget to from time to time (but hopefully not!).

We’ll to help with all that, a new desktop tool called “Polaris” has been launched which brings Google Analytics to your computers desktop. It’s a small application that you install on your computer, and then it runs in the background constantly checking your sites statistics. I have to say, it’s fantastic and I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s not the full set of information, but it’s all the vital stuff you need.

So now you can check your stats all day every day, from the comfort of your desktop. Get it now!

BTW, Polaris is based on a technology from Adobe called AIR. As an Adobe partner we’ve got all the skills and tools to develop AIR applications, allowing you to take information from your website, and display it on users desktops. There are lots of good applications; news, snow reports, weather, events, timetables etc etc. Drop us a line if you can think of a use in your business.

Twitter

As you will see, I have really been struggling in the past month to blog; I’ve been on holiday, travelling for work etc etc. It’s time I got my priorities straight! So I promise, starting next week I’ll be back onto the straight and narrow.

Yesterday I was speaking at the RTONZ meeting in Wellington and there was discussion about Twitter, the darling of the media right now.

If you subscribe to Tourism Business Magazine, look for my article on Twitter in the coming issue. I’ll also be posting next week more information about Twitter, and who is tweeting in NZ. And yes, I’ll also start twittering myself, despite having an account for a few weeks now. You can follow me by signing up here- http://twitter.com/cabbagetree

Tweet, tweet (that’s the oldest and lamest joke in the Twitter book by the way). 

The Future Has Problems, it appears …

Or maybe just the future involving Telecom …

It seems Telecom has launched a campaign to promote its new “XT” mobile network and they are inviting you to become part of “the future”. Of course, that’s based on similar technology to what Vodafone has offered for the past few years ... it’s called 3G ;-)

There’s a couple of curious things about this small and simple promotional site, testdrive.co.nz. It’s all in Flash, of which I have no problem, but this includes the email signup form. Google's Autofill doesn’t work in Flash forms – so I have to type out my email address rather than click “AutoFill”. It’s a small thing, but inconvenient.

And also, you’d think they’d be trying to get some viral marketing going – like “share this very cool ad”. No such luck.

Although I see that someone has already ripped it off on their behalf ;-)

I think the site and campaign is quite clever really. It’s all about speed, and Hammond is going to prove to us that Telecom 3G is blazingly faster than Vodafones. Let’s hope he doesn't crash again, like the form did …

Welcome?

I have been having an online discussion  with a software developer in Australia regarding shopping carts and why on earth it’s necessary to ask people to register before they even buy anything. It’s all too common scenario in shopping cart world. My response to them was, “Well, in the real world people don’t ask for your details before you buy a product. They get your money first, and then see if you’d like to “join”. Why should online be any different?”

But anyway, the real topic of this post is mailing lists. I signed up to 3 discount “wine online” sites today (purely from a research perspective of course). Two of them never emailed me to thank me for signing up, and the other was a fairly generic plain text version of a message.

It’s one of my pet hobby horses at present. There I was as a potential customer signalling interest in their products and business. If I were them in this environment I’d be making a BIG effort to say thanks for joining. The message would look great, be well written, and would probably include an offer to tempt me to make that first purchase.

Instead it’s a drab message, or even no message in most cases, that does nothing to entice me back.

The problem is that the web is often viewed as a “technical problem” and that’s what displayed here. No copy writer was engaged, no designer even looked at the message, and there was certainly no online strategy about how to engage with and gain loyalty from potential customers. Oh yes, the other problem is that it would have cost money and generally 95% of any budget is spent offline. The web isn’t that important apparently.

I find it all quite interesting. So much opportunity still exists for people and businesses willing to break convention. But that is very hard to do it appears.

Internet Explorer 8

You may have noticed some press last week that Microsoft has released the latest version of its browser – Internet Explorer 8. It’s said to be “faster, easier, safer”, and of course it’s Microsoft trying to retain ownership of both your desktop and online browsing experience.

In my experience so far however, it’s the slowest, most likely to crash, and most uninspiring upgrade. It’s causing me no end of grief. Then from a web development perceptive it’s also a cause for headaches – Air NZ can’t get their site to render properly (you have to use IE 8s new compatibility mode) and if you are running 3rd party statics tools (like Google analytics) IE 8 by default will block those tools from working. Theoretically it is a better browser, but the jury is still trying to get their computer working properly …

I think I have finally found the reason to move to Firefox as my primary browser; only using IE to test sites, or when I want to ruin a perfectly good day ;-)

BTW, in comparison I am trialling Windows 7 (the next version of Windows that will replace Vista) on a machine at home at present, and that seems very good – I’ll keep you posted. It’s due for release later this year.

Social Media Experiment

Listening to Kiwi FM this morning I heard a guy taking about a social experiment he is running using Twitter, which is micro blogging service. Twitter has been getting heaps of press recently and many people have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. I’ll blog about Twitter soon.

Anyway, Paul Smith is a UK based independent journalist and early this year he decided to see how far he could travel in 30 days from his home in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, relying only on the goodwill of Twitterers.

His five (self-imposed) rules are:

1. He can only accept offers of travel and accommodation on Twitter, from users who are following @twitchhiker
2. He can’t make any plans further than three days in advance
3. He can only spend money on food, drink and anything that might fit in his suitcase
4. If there’s more than one offer on the table, he gets to choose which he takes. If there’s only one, he has to take it within 48 hours.
5. If he’s unable to find a way to move on from a location within 48 hours, the challenge is over and he goes home.

In 23 days he’s made it to NZ, and his ultimate (but possibly unlikely) goal is Campbell Island, given that it is the furthest most point from his home.

He has his own web site where you can track his progress. Look to see who sponsored his trip from the US to NZ – Air NZ. Yep, those people are smart – nearly 10 000 people following his twitter feed, and a great deal of press I’d imagine.

Is the experiment pointless? Maybe, this really is just a one off. Is it interesting? For sure, it’s amazing the ideas people come up with, and how technology can facilitate them.

Mobile: The Next Platform for Travel

For years “mobile” has been the “next big thing”. But for years that promise has never been delivered.

Who knows, we might still be some time away, but indicators are that it might soon be about to come true. Think about it, we all have mobiles phones, we all carry them around all the time, and many makers (like Apple) are making “smart phones” that connect to the Internet. This is when they become really useful – check your flight time, find your way on Google maps, find accommodation nearby – all from your phone. And yes, you can do all these things now.

Here’s a few random stats if you are interested:

• Nearly one fifth (18.9%) of U.S. mobile consumers are now carrying smartphones
• 49.2% are planning to purchase one in the next two years
• Nokia has around a 39% market share
• They sold 468 million devices in 2008
• Apple sold around 13.7 million units in 2008, they are the 3rd largest smart phone vendor
• Around 30 000 iPhones were sold in NZ in 2008
• 25 000 applications are available in the Apple store, many free, with 800 million downloads so far
• And did you know that Nokia is the worlds largest camera maker ...

Consider this... as a traveller you can carry a single device that you can use a phone, act as a calendar and organiser, store your itinerary, take photos and video, surf the web, and connect to wireless hotspots. Why wouldn’t you, especially when they are becoming so much cheaper and easy to use?

So as a website owner, why wouldn’t you be considering developing a mobile site for travellers ... Mobile is the next platform for travel, and it’s not far away. In fact for many it’s already here.

BTW, pictured here is the Palm Pre - said to be the next best thing to an iPhone, but I doubt it ;-)

Air NZ iPhone app most popular

It’s been reported by Air NZ (although not on their own web site – why not, who knows!) that their new iPhone mPass is officially the most downloaded free application in the travel category at the Apple iPhone App Store, reaching 1,500 downloads since it was launched late last month.

The mPass allows Air New Zealand passengers who own an Apple iPhone (like me) to download their boarding passes onto their phones, in the form of an electronic barcode displayed on the screen, and view up-to-date information on their flights. I downloaded it several weeks ago and it’s simply awesome with all my future flights showing once I have logged in.

To me it’s another example of how Air NZ really “gets” the web and how it can benefit customers and create loyalty, and thus benefit their business. Being brutally honest, most NZ businesses say the web is vitally important to their business, but don’t carry through and make the strategic or financial commitment.

Air NZ does, so full marks to them, again!

Blogging?

Hello, yes, I am still here, despite the lack of blogging going on … !

Hasn’t 2009 been mad so far? Business highs and lows, and such inconsistency. I noted in the recent Tourism Industry Monitor survey results that some businesses, especially smaller, have even seen an increase in demand, despite all the doom and gloom.

Anyway, for me personally that has meant a lot of time on the road, and less time blogging. But the good news is that this week I am in the office ALL week – the first time this year possibly ...

So, from tomorrow I’ll aim to start blogging again every day. Lots to talk about as I have been spending lots of time with clients, and sifting through statistics and research. Blogging does take time, and to do it seriously you need to allocate some of your day/week to it, so I’d better practice what I preach! But I do believe that in today’s environment it can be one of your most powerful tools, and it’s worth the effort.

And talking of effort, several of us from the office completed the Motatapu Challenge on Saturday. Jonathan beat me by 12 minutes, but there’s always next year!  However I beat Judes (where’s your profile) husband by around 10 minutes! Not bad for a “wily old bugger” as someone referred to me recently (although I dispute that vigorously as I’m sure I am still only 21)!

Are you Listening?

Driving to work this morning and listening to the radio, I heard a guest speaker promoting several cycling events in Christchurch in the new few weeks. It turned into quite a long spot, with 3 events being described, many sponsors, and a lot of repetition of the event dates, details, and of course sponsors. The announcer couldn’t get a word in sideways, as clearly the guest was there to push his message.

After the guest had signed off you could hear the announcer take a deep breath and his response was to the effect ...

• Whew, could you imagine having to work in PR ...
• Hope you guys didn’t mind that, it wasn’t much of a conversation
• I suppose the sponsors have to be pushed
• Etc

None of it was complementary and the announcer essentially apologised for what had just happened. It was a shame, there were 3 very good events being promoted to do with cycling and health.

The problem was that the guest only saw the mission of getting the word out, and this involved him squeezing as many “sound bites” into the interview as possible. Literally there was no conversation and the outcome was a cynical announcer, and no doubt a cynical audience that tuned out.

Web sites are similar. Are you just shouting at your customers how good you are and not offering a chance of conversation?  Social media is the current HOT thing, and as I seem to be saying a lot at present, and regardless of it being a fad or not, it’s is based on sound principles of two way communication, where you listen to customers and respond accordingly.

Marketing has traditionally been based around us saying how good we are, and not really listening. That’s all changed now. Best we start engaging in conversation with our customers, and listening, instead of shouting at them. 

So, does your web presence encourage conversation and listening?   If not you may be losing customers to your competitors who are.

Online Security

We’ve come a long way in the last few years online. In tourism there is now an expectation that businesses offer online reservations, and while many people have yet to embrace online media, some are now even actively involved in social media marketing. We saw a brilliant example yesterday, which I’ll email clients on shortly.

Anyway, I visited an online wine merchant today and while pleased that they offered online purchasing, I was incredibly surprised that it had no security. Basically they were asking their customers to enter their credit card details onto a page that wasn’t secured with a secure certificate. I thought that people stopped doing this years ago. And this is a boutique, yet well known winery.

Aside from the actual lack of security there are a few problems with this:

1. Their lack of understanding of online requirements, and worse, the fact that a web developer allowed them to do this
2. A lack of respect for customers security and privacy
3. Liability – they are basically breaking their merchant account agreement and become liable for all losses and damage as I understand

It’s interesting, I spend so much of my day thinking about the future and opportunities online, I had sort of forgotten that some people don’t even have the extreme basics sorted.

If they were in tourism we’d offer them a TourismSite; cheap, professional and full featured, and complete with secure online bookings!

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that they do say not to enter CC details on that page, but rather they are standard form fields and so I am sure people do. The company has also responded and said they are looking to resolve the issue, so full marks.

Leveraging Community Tools

I came across a good example today of a site that has integrated existing community tools and content - http://www.timberlinelodge.com/

There are a number of things I like about the site, but I was looking specifically at its community features:

1. A Flickr pool that people can upload their photos into - http://www.timberlinelodge.com/. Interestingly there are only 58 members with 293 photos, but more surprisingly, they aren’t engaging in conversation with the group – bad, bad, bad.
2. A Vimeo album, http://www.vimeo.com/timberline/, but it’s really not clear how you get videos included on the Timberline site. Do you tag them, if so with what? There are many videos with Timberline, or Timberline Lodge tags, but this doesn’t appear to correspond with what is on the site. Clear, concise instructions that make it easy for the community, i.e lowering the barrier for engagement, would be better ...
3. A Twitter feed for latest updates - http://twitter.com/timberlinelodge

So in principle this is all good stuff, but maybe not managed properly at this stage. Interestingly, instead of creating their own community, they are leveraging existing communities and community tools. In NZ for example, every Xtra customer has a free Flickr Pro account and theoretically all that needs to happen is that they upload images to Flickr, and then tag them with “your group name”. And then Flickr is of course the larges photo sharing site in the universe anyway ... So this makes sense.  Site owners might have concerns about losing control, but a group admin can remove any image from the pool.

There are a few things they could have done a little better; possibly a blog, an RSS feed on events, better instruction on how people can get their content onto the site, and most importantly, engaging with the community and entering the conversation.

So, they have done good things:

1. Used existing tools rather than reinventing the wheel
2. Leveraged existing communities and created the opportunity for people to interact with each other
3. Integrated them well into the site - http://www.timberlinelodge.com/explore/

It appears to me as if someone has said “you need to do these things”, and they did, but possibly they haven't made the organisational changes required to engage and converse more effectively with the community. Overall however a pretty reasonable effort, and a nice site.

TV ditched in favour of Online

Century 21 - one of the largest global real estate franchises has announced in the US that they will redirect investment in TV advertising to online marketing.

Locally there are many indicators that real estate companies are moving away from newspaper and print advertising. It just makes sense really – information is so easily accessed and searched online. You could say that this is a bold move for real estate by moving away from their traditional media outlets. In reality it is an essential move and one they had to make, the bottom line is that you need to take your product where the market is.

Does this apply to tourism? In my opinion absolutely. If there is another industry aside from Real Estate that the Internet was “made for” it would surely be tourism. In what other medium can you be inspired by great images or video, research destination information, peruse other travellers reviews and pictures, and then finally book your trip.

The problem is that while most tourism businesses recognise the benefits of the Internet, it is still regarded by many as a minor budget item. Anecdotally most tourism businesses spend around 5 – 10% of the marketing budget online, yet have expectations that it is a “major” component of their marketing.

In the current business environment the Internet allows you to extend your marketing dollar considerably further than traditional media. More importantly the Internet is where your customers are making purchase decisions so shouldn’t you be alongside them? But it requires a change in thinking and a refocusing of financial and human resources.

If a big global entity like Century 21 can, then surely our smaller customer focused Kiwi businesses can do even better ;-)

7 Predictions for Search Engine Marketing in 2009

I came across an interesting article today that has 7 Predictions for Search Engine Marketing in 2009.

We’ve been focusing on some of these points for the last few months; namely mobile, metrics and social media. I’d recommend you have a quick look through them all, there are some gems of information and a good outline as to why they are important.

If you don’t have time, here’s the 1 minute rundown of the predictions.

1. Apply time and money where Google give the most weight – link building, it's critical. They are suggesting that in 2009 Google will shift the algorithm to 90% link building and 10% on-site optimisation. Wow!
2. Mobile will be King! – It already is in Japan, travellers love mobile. So do I! Think about what content you can make available for mobiles.
3. Metrics will shift from traffic to conversions – yes, we’ve been saying this for ages. It's not about numbers, it's about sales. Quality vs quantity.
4. Universal Search will become dominant – With so much rich media available these days, it's logical to include other elements such images and  video, in search results.
5. Popularity of Local Search will cost – Google is always looking for ways to make money. More importantly, local search is now more popular than ever.
6. Social Media will become a major brand and link-building device – related to number 1, and what have I done here – I have linked to the blog. So yes, a critical tool.
7. Top SEO Companies will thrive based on Survival of the Fittest – like all business ...

Have a read, adopting or understanding some of these ideas will help your business online.

Shake that Salad

The Internet is probably one of the greatest time wasters on this planet. On TV you can channel surf, but if there’s nothing on, then switch off. However there needn’t be any reason to log off from the Net, there is always something to see.

Like tonight, I was reading The Herald online and then a few sites later ended up watching the Sniper Twins “Shake that Salad”. I really like the simplicity of the site, it’s just a music video.

But it’s not. Go ahead and watch another of their videos, “Stack the Memory” and read a little about them. These are music videos that are obviously sponsored by companies such as Seagate and Fresh Direct.

A few guys with a passion, some talent, great film making skills and some ideas. The Internet is great.

Yep, shake that salad or stack the memory, just get your idea online. Sure, the greatest time waster, but by far the greatest marketing tool.

Even Older People Book Online

Well my son thinks I am old, but a recent survey by sunshine.co.uk suggests that over 60% of retired people are now using the web to book holidays online.

Of the 142 people in the study, 62% booked online for the reasons of:

• Saving money
• Hassle free
• Can do it at home
• Feel less pressured

So basically it is cheaper, easier and more convenient. Great reasons really, and I am sure other user groups would add others, such as a wider choice and a greater ability to research destinations. As usual in these sorts of online surveys, it appears to be unpublished and there is no methodology provided, so its value is really as an indicator, as opposed to a definitive piece of research. But still useful nonetheless.

Yesterday we were brainstorming a new design and methodology for a client site and discussing different user groups and how the design needed to cater for them. We’d better add some silver surfers to the design mix now!