Media Week

It's been a long year, but a good one.

The economy may have taken a turn for the worst but, digitally speaking, our industry is proving its mettle and by all accounts we'll see growth in 2009.

Personally, I've had the best 12 months ever!

I ran the London Marathon and got engaged. I've travelled all over the world meeting fabulous people and learning loads from them.

Media is a very friendly industry. I see less and less schmoozing these days and more and more customer-focused accountability which can only be a good thing.

Social networks and media platforms have allowed us to connect and thrash out ideas like never before, and with the upturn coming in the next year (!?) we should see new ways to do business emerge, and new ways to show how that business was effective.

Thanks to everyone who's read DigiTales in 2008 and to all those who've contributed to all the vociferous debates and discussions.

There'll be much, much more in 2009 I can promise you!

Cheers and have a good one!

I'm in Seattle right now visiting the in-laws-to-be. There is a lot of snow on the ground and it's going to get worse................and yes those are icicles haning from the roof!

My mate Dixon Jones just Tweeted a Guardian post which shows just how far we have yet to go in educating consumers on how online advertising works.

FastHosts recently commissioned a survey called Online Search Matters asking 1636 UK adults questions around their online usage and perceptions.

A whopping 24% are not aware of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, and have no idea that search results can be influenced by website owners who embark on a robust and comprehensive content and linking strategy.

22% seem to think organic listings are paid for and 33% deem PPC or Sponsored Links as less “useful” or “worthy” than the main algorithmic results.

Now I love a challenge and when I meet someone who says, “I never click on the sponsored listings because they’re paid for!” I get a cheap thrill explaining just how relevant and timely they can be.

Consider the huge discounts being offered online right now. It could take days for organic results to show up a change in prices to reflect a quick two-day “50% Off Sale!”

But with PPC, a sale ad could be up and being clicked on in minutes.........and that doubter could be a lot better off wallet-wise.

We’re the experts though. We live and breathe this stuff and I remember how hard it was when I was learning to get my head around it.

Maybe consumers just don’t care?

Ignorance can breed defensiveness if challenged so how do we educate? Is it necessary to explain to consumers the intricacies of how the web works?

2009 will be a big year for SEO and site architecture optimisation as businesses get their “sites in order” so they capitalise and profit when we emerge from the downturn.

Will increased relevance in both organic and paid change how people think about search?

Only time will tell.... 

OK we didn’t exactly get engaged on Facebook!

I proposed to my girlfriend on top of a hill on Dartmoor on Sunday and thankfully she said yes!

After the rounds of phone calls and visits to close family and friends, we decided against using the text message to spread our good news, but giggled like kids as we updated and confirmed our FB statuses from “In A Relationship” to “Engaged”.

The response has been awesome. Friends and not-so-friends-more-colleagues have been commenting, poking and writing on our walls with such lovely messages of congratulations and joy that I’ve started taking screenshots and printing them off for posterity!

How mad is that?!

It just demonstrates social-networking’s reach and variety of touch-points. Some folks saw my status update, some the photos and some saw others commenting and dived in to see what the fuss was all about.

We thought about an announcement in The Times but what’s the point? Much cooler to do it online and hit the folks we know and don’t know so well.

Not all the changes in circumstances of people I know on FB have been so happy though.

I know of one friend who lives in New Zealand and eagerly told her social world of plans to get married, posting pictures of the day on the site and the ensuing and very passionate honeymoon. A few months later her status changed very suddenly to "single" and she warned the her female followers never to take back a cheater as they never change!

Ooooops!

Another friend from years back has just run off and left her husband taking the kids with her. For weeks her “wall” was daubed with messages from friends and family asking where she was and pleading her to call them. She’s now firmly ensconced with some new bloke and has almost disowned her past, freely blogging about her old life with damning references to her old friends.

Very, very sad!

So seeing as we’re said to be so British and reserved, what is it about this new outlet that allows us to so eagerly flaunt our innermost thoughts and private joys and jousts?

Do we see in social-networking the same steam-letting afforded by our culture of binge-drinking....but without the expense or hangover?

Or have we always been into being gossip as well as listening to it?

All I know is I have a wedding to plan in the middle of a recession........anyone know where my nearest Woolworths is?

Yesterday I got an amazing bargain! Looking for a digital SLR camera, I beat a sales guy in Jessops down and got it 10% cheaper than I could find it anywhere online, simply by walking into the shop and asking for a good deal.

The high street is booming with bargains - M&S is offering 20% off everything, Laura Ashley is knocking 25% off stock this weekend and I’m sure many more will follow.

Don’t forget the internet though!

Remember last year? The Telegraph reported that 3.5m of us would be shopping on Xmas day because of all the fabulous bargains.

Then the IMRG reported:

• 75.5% rise in online shopping
• £4.5B spent online in Jan 08
• 62% average growth in online shopping over 10 months to Jan 08
• 63% over the last 3 months was double the 25% it was in 2007

If Monday 1st December 2008 was the UK’s biggest online shopping day ever from a transactional point of view, are punters holding their nerve, waiting for retailers to slash prices even further before snapping up that long-desired item?

We maybe in the midst of an economic downturn but will consumers be able to resist such great deals?

What’s for certain is that keywords like “sales” will continue to be used by searchers foraging for bargains, so make sure you’re bidding on them and they’re in your ad copy and on your landing page if you're running PPC campaigns.

Last year, because the BBC and others reported retailers starting their online sales on Xmas day, that’s exactly what users typed into search engines!

In fact Hitwise reported the use of “sale” in search queries being up by 249%!

Nodding heads are normally a good sign when you’re speaking in public and there were quite a few at the Online Information Show yesterday when I was talking about how Microsoft uses social media to communicate with advertisers and gather feedback.

Kicking off with the Cost Per Monk story and the latest E-Consultancy research seemed to resonate with an audience keen to understand how online can enhance relationships with niche audiences.

One question that was raised was around the seriousness of Facebook as a business tool. One guy compared it unfavourably to LinkedIn, suggesting it a less professional channel to promote and chat to customers than the more corporate predecessor.

My response was that of my 500-odd Facebook friends only a fraction are personal chums that I might use the tool to organise a night out with. Most are industry contacts that I’ve built up over the last few years and who occasionally might contact me for work reasons if they don’t have my email or business card to hand. You won’t find too many personal pics of me up there either, just ones taken at conferences around the world where I may have been speaking or being interviewed.

I honestly use Facebook to post links to and create awareness about articles I’ve written and, more recently, to promote Microsoft adCenter Community via a Facebook Page.

Just because many people don’t use it for work doesn’t mean they’ll be less interested when they log in and see that you’ve written a new piece or want to tell the world about a new product or service.

That’s the holistic beauty of the beast!

The other question I got was from a student from Sheffield University was about using it as an educational tool. She said she just used it for uploading photos and snooping on her friends but I explained it has good “group” functionality and was being used by education and businesses to create awareness and connect like-minded individuals.

If you’re still in two minds, try and see past the negative headlines about time-wasting at work and get with the program because it’s here to stay!

Just watched an incredibly moving interview on BBC Breakfast with Mark Abell who was trapped for 40 hours on the 23rd floor of the Oberoi Hotel during the terrorist attacks that rocked India last week.

Other than the obvious horror of having the TV cut off, hearing explosions, people screaming and gun fire all around, and only having 2 small bottles of water and a shrivelled prune to live on, I was struck by his emphasis on his mobile devices saving his sanity and providing him with much needed comfort and contact with the outside world.

Barricaded in his room he had a Blackberry and a Nokia mobile phone – “You can survive for 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water but you can’t survive without people.”

He said he set up a network with 8-10 other guests using email and messaging and received over 2000 messages of support and advice while he was trapped up there.

Yes he’ll have disturbing memories for years to come, but his overriding take away from the experience was that “the world is full of really good people.”

Incredibly those connections came through tiny digital devices.

How on earth did we manage before mobile phones?