Action packed IAB search task force meeting

We nearly had people standing at the back of the room at yesterdays IAB Search Taskforce meeting.

We kicked off with a good presentation from Google who introduced their mobile marketing plans and successes, very interesting and insightful, it turns out that Googles center for excellence for Mobile is London. Thanks guys.

Then we went over the final draft of the Search Marketing Charter, pleased to get that one out and with the support and help of the DMA and SEMPO.

We were also able to agree the first version of part two, a guide, as part of the Search Marketing Charter for affiliate marketing in search, real progress was made here and it was fun as always to hear the views of the Affiliate side of search.

Finally we were able to address the issues in advanced search marketing that I originally defined within Third generation search engine marketing(3GSEM.com) which is based on the firm belief and certain knowledge that in the early days of search we as an industry wanted to explain that search was simple to understand. I am not sure how successful we were in that mission, but certainly search is a mainstream activity nowadays, and this proves that search as a function is simple to use by the worlds populous. So now I think it is important that we identify the complexities that lie beneath in order to be able to explain that we can manage search as marketing tool and use it in a targeted fashion and xtreme marketing - the kind that pulls results - requires close co-ordination to real world scenarios and this is where geographic, behavioural, multivariate testing and the other activities that I have identified kick in.

It was great to see the take up on this subject by the other search marketing companies at the table enthusiastically opted in to supply content on each of the subjects, nothing new was added, so I guess 3GSEM nailed it straight off.

It must be said that the most memorable part of the meeting were the insights into mobile that Google provided - and hopefully you will see a VIP briefing on that very soon.

video with humour examples...

Following on the from the last post I was reminded again about video with humour, that no doubt underpins the success of youtube and a good number of brands that use humorous commercials...
Tony bows out and earlier on this station...
Great video from Microsoft

Social Media Optimisation

As always it seems a new development in Internet marketing gets a bad rap! It is not just a negative attitude of the british either - it is across the world. It seems that a storm has grown over the term social media optimisation... MyBlogLog Brands All Social Media Optimizers As Schmoes.

I have two opinions on this, a) it is a bit late in coming and had been much discussed within hallowed halls for many years and b) what is all the fuss about, as it is inevitable that people do things in new areas - as true pioneers, incorrectly... it is a classic!

The fuss is basically about people who post comments, or who use robots to post comments on other peoples blogs with links back to thier sites in them. If it is valid and reasonable then fine, if not and you want a link from a given site, then sponsor the site, show your support, demonstrate that it is worth having and acknowledge that you will derive value from it and pay for it. It is not that difficult to create content on your site that is genuinely worth while linking to... it just takes some thought.

Although as Jaap Favier of Forrester Research said just a few days ago (see the link?) contact is king, not content - and he is right. We still need to learn to engage and the passive watching of a video does not do that. As a result of what Jaap said to me, and to you if you watch his video, you will be seeing a site design change over at Weboptimiser soon. But no need to throw video out with the wash water...

There is more to this debate than meets the eye and well done for bringing it up again, it is something we should consider, as the whole concept of social media optimisation needs consideration, it needs to be worked out, it needs to be understood and nurtured. If it should be employed commercially, it should be used honestly and ethically.

The EPIC that was Interact 2007 is over...

At last I have finished the last in the series of 4 videos that recorded the IAB Interact in Brussels this month, and made a showcase of my newly found video skills. As a result I am not alone in our video making and have been lucky enough to have created a small team of enthusiasts who are busy making even more videos as we sleep...

To see the all the IAB Interact in Brussels videos, visit our Interact IAB Europe page and after watching the first video, watch the next one. Less than half an hour of video took more than 180 hours to make. 60 in the filming and double that in the making and interestingly 20Gb of hard disk space, geeky, but it is nice to know when you have more planned - got to make sure we have what we need when we need it you know.

One of the things that was interesting was that I was able to put together a story, a beginning, middle and an end, and I did so simply by explaining to every person what I was looking for. Only when I downloaded the video was I able to work out how to make it work, it is safe to say that it fell together on editing... There were hours of video that we simply did not use and from each person, apart from the keynotes, Danny and Alain, we only used a few seconds of what was said in perhaps 5 minutes. It was an interesting discovery. Of course the end result is still not perfect, but it does capture some of the enthusiasm, the purpose, content and key messages that the industry wants to be heard and now is enshrined forever into these videos.

Perhaps I should have strived to craft each element in a similar way, for there to be some programatical or visual consistency. But I think that short vignettes each crafted in a different way, reflects the different interview scenarios and makes the point of each stand out.

My primary hope is that viewers find them interesting, informative and viewable. It will be interesting to see if they stand the test of time, and indeed later to compare how often this type of video is viewed and again later reviewed. Naturally we shall optimise each and shortly the videos will be posted around the World and through our analytics we shall know more about the traffic that we receive in the future weeks, months and years.

Thanks especially to all those who gave their time and expressed their views and helped make each of the videos come alive with the joy, prospects and excitement of the industry. I look forward to doing it all again at the next leadership council and at the next interact.