More BBC Journos Report With Social Media Tools

Ben Hammersley's coverage of the recent elections in Turkey isn't the only time that BBC News is using social media to report a story. 

Currently, José Baig and Carlos Ceresole are traveling across the southern USA without uttering a word in English.  ¿Hablas español? is their project to see what's it like to use only Spanish in the country.  Beyond a BBC hosted blog, they're using other social media tools like facebook, flickr, and Skype to connect with their audience.  So far, 325 people have joined their facebook group.

These projects should prove interesting.  Using these social media forums probably doesn't cost the BBC more than it is already spending to gather information.  While money isn't the issue — especially since the Beeb is generously funded in part by the British people, distributing content via social media is risky for a mainstream news organization, but the BBC has the enough good reputation to experiment. 

The Life Cycle of Social Media Hype

I’ve been reading with fascination a series of articles that have appeared lately that question the value of maintaining a presence in Second Life. To make a long story short, a year or so ago, when the Second Life hype was deafening, companies appeared in mass to construct their own virtual presences as a way to market their products. Now a year later, companies are rethinking their presences in Second Life for the simple reason that no one comes to their online stores.

NBA commissioner David Stern had this to say about his league’s presence, which went live in May of 2007:

I think we’ve had 1,200 visitors. People tell us that’s very, very good. But I can’t say we have very precise expectations. We just want to be there.

To put that figure in perspective, our modest blog here sometimes attracts 1,200 visitors in a given day. But I think Stern’s quote is instructive beyond the number he reveals. Like with so many companies/politicians/organizations, he has launched a social media campaign that has no real purpose.

To me there seem to be distinct phases to the life cycle of the hype around these social platforms as marketing tool.

(Phase 1) The real first movers start experimenting with marketing in places like YouTube, MySpace or Second Life. The Wall Street Journal or Business Week writes a story touting what they are doing.

(Phase 2) The “me too” crowd dives in head first in the hopes of getting some earned media and branding themselves as a company/organization that “gets it”. The campaigns are often sloppy and the commitment is shallow. Most of the campaigns end in failure.

(Phase 3) The hype is over. The “me too” crowd has moved on to the next thing and success/failure of campaigns are judged by the actual results that they produce as opposed to the hype they generate.

I think Second Life is in Phase 3. MySpace probably is too. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are in the middle of Phase 2.

So what’s my point? I don’t really have a big one. I’ve just seen some pretty awful videos on YouTube lately with no rationale beyond “me too-ism.” Before diving in head first, I’d encourage folks to truly think through what they are hoping to achieve and not do something just for the sake of doing it.

Not every company needs a Second Life island and not every politician needs a presence on 24 social networks.

Basic SEO: Site Visitors Know Best

While I am no search engine optimization guru, I know enough to see many SEO goofs that outsiders and neophytes make.  One of these mistakes is dismissing the importance of site visitor feedback and web analytics.

If you want to drive traffic to a site, pay attention to those who already visit it.  Sure, it sounds simple enough, but the other day I was reminded of how many sites don't follow this advice.

I'll focus on keywords.

The other day I was writing some content and wanted to see what keywords sites about the same topic were using.  After doing some quick keyword research in a search engine provided tool, I checked the other sites, and they didn't use words that people readily used to find sites like them.  Ugh!

Keyword research is just one way to find out which words people actually use.  I used an external tool, but a web analytics program should also provide such data.  When listing referring sites, most programs (even free ones) will reveal the keywords someone used if the source is a search engine.

Of course, this is much easier typed than done, but it seems strange to me how often sites ignore data that reveals how site visitors actually find a site and what lingo they use to find it. 

Just because a restaurant reckons that people will search for "Amsterdam eatery" doesn't mean that is what potential patrons will use to search for it.  What if they use "Amsterdam diner" instead?  An organization's internal lingo likely does not match that of its target audience. 

Granted, site visitors use different terms, but usually there are a few words that a significant amount of visitors use.  Thus, a site should not just target one or two, but if it does, it better at least target jargon that members of its target audience do use.

It is important to note that in some cases a site might justifiably target less popular terms.  In sectors where the popular terms are very competitive, a site may not have the ability to rank well with the most popular search keywords.  However, a site may do well by targeting less popular terms if it can rank well under searches for them.  That's where harnessing the long tail of search can kick in.

I'm not saying that keyword strategy is easy, but virtually ignoring research and analytics that reveal what site visitors actually use is just plain dumb. 

After my experience the other day, it seems that there are still many people who ignore this piece of advice.