August 23rd, 2007
Okay, so it sounds like I’m in rant mood here, and I am. I’ve disabled comments for our blog - for every comment posted that was interesting and provocative (i.e. posted by an intelligent human), there were about 300 comments advertising the usual, and posted by a software program or a spammer with a lot of time on their hands.
Spam in blogs is a big issue - this Wikipedia article describes it better (and less lividly) than I ever could. Essentially, a spammer posts on your blog with links to their website.
Some of these spam comments are funny, but by and large they are hugely predictable, and make me do the angry dance. A (very) quick survey of the 10,510 comments awaiting moderation for the Clientwell blog shows that there are four specific categories of blog spam:
Blog Spam Category #1: Idiot Spam
This is where the spammer assumes that the comment posted on our blog will go live immediately, so they can put whatever they want in their. Depending on what the spammer is promoting, it’ll look something like: “dunlop goodrich kumho tires tyres”. Okay, usually it’ll be a lot more ’sexy’ (in a very literal sense). Every word will be linked to the spammer’s site. I’ll be expected to leave it as a comment on my blog. Ah bless.
Blog Spam Category #2: I like your site
This goes along the lines of “Very interesting post - check out praxis viagra mp3 etc etc etc”. The spammer tries to be ingratiating, but then gets down to the business of hawking their wares. Fair enough, you’re at least pretending that you read the article before you got down to the sales pitch, but you’re still not getting in.
Blog Spam Category #3: Tied to a news event
Borrowed from the PR industry, this blog comment will attempt to come across as a news article, with links to the spammer’s site. So, we’ve got a few articles that start like: “ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Felix rapidly strengthened into a dangerous Category 5 hurricane and churned through the Caribbean Sea on a path toward Central America…”. It’s a nice touch, but the lack of relevance to online marketing means it’s easily flagged.
Blog Spam Category #4: Bizarre, just…bizarre
The final category of blog spam is often the funniest of all. For example, on 7 September, at 9:39 AM, someone called Inispeple read one of our previous blog articles (presumably) and then decided to post: “The kisekae to indian of your picking problems could be invalid if you heckling up disheartening productiveness discount…” I tried to put in more of the text, but the copy and paste function on my laptop broke into laughter. Anyway, this punter was trying to hawk log homes in Alaska. Good luck to him.
So, just in case you wanted to leave an insightful comment on our blog and were thwarted, please accept my apologies. If you’d like to get in touch about any of these articles, you can email me at david@clientwell.com. That does assume that you’re not trying to sell me a log home in Alaska.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
March 27th, 2007
Today’s Guardian has an interesting article on blogs and blogging. Apparently, the blogging craze has peaked, and there are now over 200 million ‘abandoned’ blogs out there.
So it seems that the initial euphoria that ‘anyone can be a journalist’ has given way to the realisation that not everybody has an opinion, and some people would prefer to consume content than produce it. If you’re not passionate in your online ramblings, your enthusiasm will wane.
I find it hard keeping this blog up to date, but that’s a case of being busy than anything else. That and the fact that we get between 10-30 comments on our blog every day, and pretty much all of them are spam.
Grrrr!!!
Posted in Marketing, Social | No Comments »
March 15th, 2007
Google Analytics, one of the latest tools from Google, is a very effective way to find out how many people are coming to your website. It’s got several features that put it head and shoulders above the rest of the website visitor analysis packages:
1. Easy to set up and manage
2. Integrates well with Google AdWords
3. You can find out your conversion rates from different sources
4. It’s very easy to see where visitors are coming from geographically
5. Key data for marketers, webmasters and content publishers is easily accessible
6. It doesn’t cost anything. It’s free!
Setting up Analytics couldn’t be simpler. You register for a free account; Google gives you a piece of code to put on your pages, and you’re up and running.
When Analytics starts tracking your site, you’ll be able to access an interface that looks like this:
The first graph (top-left) gives a trend analysis of how many visitors are coming to your website, and how many pages they are viewing. By clicking on the calendar on the left-hand side of the page, you can check visitors by day, week, month and year. It’s very easy to see what days, weeks and months are busiest on your website with this information.
The top-right graph shows what percentage of visitors has been to the site before. This is interesting information, and gives you a good insight into visitor loyalty and frequency.
The map on the bottom-left shows where your visitors come from geographically. In the case of this website, Ireland and the UK provide most of the visitors, though you can see visitors coming from all over the Continent and the US. Note that Google can tell the county (and even the neighbourhood) that a visitor comes from, down to pinpointing a visitor to the Rathmines neighbourhood.
The bottom-right graph shows the source of the visitor. Did they come directly to the site, or did they visit from Google, Yahoo or MSN? Maybe they were referred by your email marketing campaign, or by a banner ad? Or maybe they clicked a link to visit your website. This graph is excellent for telling you how your search engine marketing is performing.
I’ll go into the simplicity and excellence of Google Analytics in further posts, but for the moment, let me just say that I highly recommend it. Of course, if you’d like to have Google Analytics on your website, we can help to implement it for you.
Posted in Analytics, Marketing | No Comments »
February 2nd, 2007
An interesting report on how buzz marketing went wrong in Boston reminded me of a really good article that was in this Tuesday’s Guardian (’Psst! Have you heard?‘), on how not to go about buzz/stealth/guerilla/word-of-mouth/viral marketing.
As consumers get more annoyed with advertising, and as there is so much more advertising around now, advertisers are turning to buzz marketing (catch-all definition: using unconventional methods to promote products with an aim of generating positive word-of-mouth publicity).
Some interesting points in this article:
- It is extremely easy to make a complete mess of a buzz campaign
- Some big companies (Pontiac, Sony, Budweiser) have messed up buzz campaigns
- We’re very close to a public backlash against buzz advertising campaigns
- After foolish stunts like the one in Boston, soon any buzz campaign will have to clearly show that it is advertising, thereby losing the ’shock’ value.
Here’s a good blog on buzz marketing, if you who want to know more.
Posted in Miscellaneous, Marketing, Social | 2 Comments »
January 29th, 2007
I’ve been trying out Second Life after reading about it on different blogs and Wikipedia. It’s very interesting indeed, and I can see why it’s become the latest internet phenomenon. Basically, it’s a virtual universe where you can interact with people, explore places, buy property and generally, well, live a second life. Second Life has gotten so popular now that it’s even got a full-scale backlash - Get A First Life encourages people to turn off their computers and get outside to experience the real world.
Anyway, I’ll be trialling Second Life over the next few weeks, and will keep you updated on the adventures of Daithi Malick (they didn’t have Mahon in the list of surnames I could use). In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of a meeting I had with someone in the Blarney Stone pub in Dublin:
Posted in Miscellaneous, Social | 4 Comments »
January 26th, 2007
If you haven’t seen Truth in Advertising yet, check the trailer out on YouTube. The full version is here, but you have to log in to see it. You need audio for it, and it’s got some coarse language, but it’s a hilarious send-up of the advertising campaign process.
Posted in Online Advertising, Miscellaneous, Marketing | 1 Comment »
January 12th, 2007
What is with all of these different statistics on broadband levels in Ireland? With ComReg, Eircom, IrelandOffLine, Electric News, Silicon Republic and many others offering different versions of bad news, do any of us know exactly how many people in Ireland use the Internet? And of those, how many actually have broadband?
Apparently, we are 14th out of the 15 pre-2004 EU countries in terms of broadband takeup. According to the CSO (as quoted in Silicon Republic), only 26% of households with internet access actually have broadband, as compared with an EU average of 62%.
IrelandOffline reported in September 2006 that Ireland’s broadband penetration rate stands at a paltry 8%, compared with 27% in the Netherlands, 19% in the UK, 12.6% in Portual and 10% in Slovenia. In terms of broadband, Scandinavia, Benelux, Germany and the UK lead the way. Ireland is an anomaly considering our geographic position, with broadband takeup rates comparable to the ex-Eastern Bloc countries.
Another IrelandOffline report stated that one-third of dialup users in Ireland could not get broadband, and that the digital divide between Dublin and the rest of Ireland is steadily widening.
While broadband takeup seems to be on the rise, with the CSO reporting 47% growth since Q2 2005, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Given the increasing role of the internet in business, entertainment, shopping and education, it’s a real shame that Ireland is such a laggard.
Posted in Miscellaneous | 4 Comments »
November 24th, 2006
Just a quick note to say thanks to all who attended the IIA Event yesterday (23rd November). I hope you found my presentation informative and of interest, and if you want a soft copy of the presentation send me an email.
Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »
November 20th, 2006
In a recently completed survey by Clientwell on 153 of Ireland’s top companies, we found that only 7% of them are using pay per click advertising on Google, MSN or Yahoo. This is a shocking statistic, given the adoption level in the US and UK.
In addition, only 47% of the companies surveyed have optimised their site for the search engines. Because of this, only one-third of these companies are achieving top 5 rankings on Google for keywords they should be targeting.
Given the almost universal acceptance of search engine marketing as the most effective means of driving sales and enquiries online, and the fact that publications as eminent as the Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and The Economist, it’s surprising that Irish companies aren’t cottoning on to search engines so much.
Posted in Online Advertising, Pay per Click | 4 Comments »
October 20th, 2006
If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that Google has purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. I know what you’re saying - “it’s dot-com madness all over again”. YouTube is one of the most popular websites around at the moment, and with good reason - it’s got some really cool videos, like Where the Hell is Matt?, the Dance Scene in Napoleon Dynamite, Ronaldinho’s skills, OK Go’s synchronised treadmilling (if that’s a word), the girl who took a photo of herself every day for three years, and many more.
YouTube gets about 20 million visitors every month, and over 100 million clips are watched every day on YouTube. For many people with high-speed connections and a nice big monitor, YouTube is replacing that traditional box in the corner. When you can skim from an Elvis Costello video to Tommy Tiernan to the famous De Niro scene in Taxi Driver, what need have you for television, with its neverending ad breaks and nights with absolutely nothing on?
The implications of YouTube are revolutionary, and this is why Google has splashed out so much. But the question remains as to how Google stands to make money. Here are the options:
1. Showing a little ‘commercial message’ in the bottom corner of each video. This is interesting, as the ads could be targeted to the content of the video. So, for example, if you’re watching the De Niro clip above, the ad could say, “Get Taxi Driver on DVD”.
2. Using Google AdWords on the YouTube site. I’m not sure if this, done alone, will re-coup the $1.65 billion anytime soon.
3. Charging users to watch videos. I can’t see this happening, there would be an outcry from the YouTube community, and visitor levels would dwindle very quickly.
It’s likely that advertising will find its way onto YouTube in some form or other - Google didn’t splash out that much money to keep such a good thing going - but already people are saying that it was a very smart move. Watch this space - developments here have the potential to affect everyone who works in marketing.
Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Miscellaneous, Marketing | 2 Comments »
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