Friday Roundup 19th February 2010

PR and the search for meaning: Web 3.0

I make no apologies for giving airtime this week to a post from my co-moderator Philip Sheldrake on the subject of Web 3.0 and the semantic web. As he says: "Web 3.0 is a majorly significant part of why PR is about to change again, and just as radically."

Web 3.0 (or the semantic web) will embed the concept of meaning at the heart of communication - and rather than fail to do justice to Phil's ideas in a short e-mail, I suggest you just go and read it.

Elsewhere this week, Stephen Waddington refers us to the use of Google Insight to predict company revenues. Savvy marketeers are increasingly using tools like this to help make better informed decisions about activity and spend - expect to see more this kind of thing in the coming months.

Finally, Brian Solis makes some good points in his piece regarding Social Media Optimisation: "As SEO helps increase the visibility of content in Google and Yahoo for example, SMO helps build the essential bridges between social objects and the individuals performing searches to find relevant content. "

The convergence of SMO and Web 3.0 may not be far off.

Have a great weekend.

Best regards, Andrew Bruce Smith and the MarCom Professional team.

Experiment: using Google Insight to predict company revenues

by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications

How good are your planning skills? Would you be prepared to put your money where you mouse is and buy shares in a company that you identified as a good investment prospect? I doubt that many people would. But this could be the outcome of a project driven by Google Insight. Wikinut founder Andy Walton posted a comment about his experiment after I blogged about the application of Google Insight to identify the likely success of a campaign.

Walton’s contention is that Google Insights can be used to link search volumes to product usage and revenue for brands that [are] unique enough to avoid cross over with unrelated searches. More...

Social Media Optimization: SMO is the New SEO – Part 2

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Originally published in the Shutterstock newsletter as a two-part series…Part I / Part II

In the last post, I discussed the importance of social objects (images, videos, blog posts, comments, status updates, wall posts, etc.) in a Social Media Optimization campaign. This month, I am going to explore the five major ways that these social objects can be contextualized: keywords, titles, descriptions, tags and/or links.

Keywords

Keywords are the terms that people use to find relevant information in searches. More...

Social Media Optimization: SMO is the New SEO – Part 1

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Originally published in the Shutterstock newsletter as a two-part series…Part I)

As a brand, publisher, designer, photographer, artist, or filmmaker, the social web is your new distribution channel as well as your portfolio for intellectual assets. Whether you’re in the business of creating, marketing, selling, or distributing media, the social Web is an incredible medium that can create a brand, establish visibility, and build demand, all without active promotion. It’s about letting your expertise or work market itself through the practice of a socialized form of inbound marketing that helps make content discoverable when people search. More...

What the iPad and Homeopathy Can Teach You About Using Hype in Your Copywriting

by Matt Ambrose of The Copywriter's Crucible

You often hear about how we’re imminently entering a new era of transparency and authenticity in marketing. Social networking is giving people the power to sidestep and slice through cynical marketing claims; you can’t just drench people in enough messages and hope something will stick. Based on these two examples, the new era of transparency might not be too far away and has serious implications for the claims you might be occasionally tempted to drop into your copywriting. More...

What’s in your Brand Bank Account?

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

When I spoke at the Marketing Pioneers event in Amsterdam, one presentation got me thinking.

Huib Van Bockel, marketing director for Red Bull in the Netherlands and who also coaches other Red Bull marketers throughout northern Europe, spoke about what he calls a Brand Bank Account.

While Huib’s presentation was in the Dutch language, I was able to speak with him several times before and after the presentation to learn more.

The concept is that each brand has a virtual bank account with items being deposited into the account and withdrawn from the account at all times. More...

PR and Web 3.0... a call to action

by Philip Sheldrake of Influence Crowd LLP

Four things struck me in 2009. They are part of a bigger picture that means that public relations practice is about to undergo another change that will be as great this coming decade as it experienced during the last decade...

1. Web 2.0 participation

I dislike the 90:9:1 ratio of passives:occasionals:enthusiasts with respect to the "write" part of readwriteweb. In other words, 90% of people online don't contribute anything, they remain passive consumers. 9% contibute content and interact now and then, and 1% are passionate bloggers, video makers, photo takers, wiki updaters etc. More...

You cannot take back a tweet

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

I sent a tweet this morning as a result of a pitch that I received though email from Mktgbuzz. The pitch offered 50% off a PRWeb press release for the first 500 people who filled out a form.

Very soon after I sent the tweet, PRWeb tweeted saying that the organization making the offer was not a PRWeb sanctioned partner. PRWeb does have several affiliate programs, but this organization was not part either PR Web Commission Junction or PRWeb Linkconnector.

Uh oh.

I wish that I had scrutinized the offer more carefully before tweeting. More...

The Issue of 'Control' Looms Large in Latest Twitter Kerfuffle

by Trevor Young PR Warrior of Parkyoung

It's been mildly interesting to follow the @westpac Twitter hullabaloo that emerged yesterday afteroon (hullaballoo is probably the right word - it's certainly far from being a debacle or fiasco).

I posted about it here - Westpac Deletes Quirky Tweet - Proves it Hasn't Got a Clue(train); included is an update to the story as it continued to unfold into the night.

I've had numerous discussions since with a range of people - in person, on Twitter and via comments on the blog post itself. More...