Louis Halpern's View

As I read more and more of other people’s blogs there is more stuff I want to say.

As it takes me ages to put my thoughts down so I’m going to change the way I blog.

I’m going to record my posts from conversations I have with colleagues, clients and sometimes even just my thoughts.   I’m then going to convert them to text, review once and post them…

Scary.  Let’s see if it makes me do it more…

It is probably worth me starting by telling you that this isn’t a blog about guerilla marketing. I have recently started taking the morning meeting with my team and I have become somewhat paranoid. I am scared that I am turning into a Big Hairy Gorilla!!

As in all gatherings, the young apes gather with their offerings. Slowly the ape-folk congregate at the table. The sun slowly moves to a different point in the clear blue sky and then, the allotted time arrives. Inter – tribe flea picking and grooming commences and all is well in the camp until all of a sudden harmony is shattered: The Big Hairy Gorilla has arrived.  The chest thumping, stomping and growling makes it clear that he wants to prove his status as the head of the tribe. The tribe split into two distinct groups: the leaf pickers who are dominated by The Big Hairy Gorilla and the fruit pickers who aren’t. Standing their ground, the fruit pickers display the fruit in a clearly ordered way in nice piles with lots of fancy peel designs and The Big Hairy Gorilla reaches his comfort zone.

The fruit pickers then quickly realise that a slight submission coupled with some faux appreciation for the chest thumping and stomping is in order if the gathering is going to progress before the sun goes down. After his perception of dominance is restored The Big Hairy Gorilla smiles broadly, takes his place on his huge throne and lets the apes get back to work.  With everything agreed, The Big Hairy Gorilla is woken from his slumber by the apes performing the traditional good bye grooming ritual and as the day turns to night there is nothing left for The Hairy Gorilla to do but to swing back to his big house and regale his wife with tales of how important he is.

Please help me, I don’t want to be a Big Hairy Gorilla!!

The Internet is where good political intentions clash with harsh realities.

Dick Morris, the famous political strategist and former adviser to Bill Clinton, calls the internet “the fifth estate”. He believes the net will shape politics in the 21st century, end representative government and bring a return to “direct democracy”.

For Morris, this will end the corruption in political life: “If legislatures become beholden to big money and special interests, then democracy demands that citizens have the right to bypass the legislature.”

The British population feels politically disenfranchised. In 1910 86.8% of the voted. In 2001 only 59% turned out to elect the new government. The latest State of the Nation polls, 2001 and 2006, indicate that 2/3’s of the electorate feel they have no power over government policies.

In theory, the internet should be the ideal medium for political communication. The net is fast, inexpensive, flexible, personalised, interactive and inherently democratic. Time and space are in short supply in traditional media, but on the internet the political parties and candidates don’t have to cram their message into a sound bite or a party political broadcast. They can speak with no limits, they can differentiate themselves by letting people see their full policies and they can contact voters directly.

The internet is the place where politicians can form relationships, understand where people are coming from, demonstrate the benefits and get people involved. The web should be utilised to create an engaging platform for direct action and drive the new politics of participation. The tools to do this such as Instant messaging, online ballots and social networking are already becoming a regular part of the new political process.

The current reality is that political websites are universally dull and boring. MP’s own sites and blogs are no better, leaving out of date content and not-quite-now campaigns stagnating. Updating their online diaries is often the only current content. Worse still, the tendency is for the political sites to serve solely as dumps for content in huge information reservoirs, presenting only the archives of what political parties want us to see. They are currently disconnected from what the public may really be interested in knowing. Visitors to political websites are met with a barrage of unordered information; policy statements, campaign messages, press releases, television and radio clips, online and syndicated news feeds. Yes, they can sign up to receive all manner of email communications – guaranteeing an endless stream of sound-bite-rich press releases into their mailboxes. But they have no conviction, no underlying themes, they just get the information out there and damn what happens to it afterwards.

The reason is that the main parties want complete control over each and every element – much to the detriment of finding out what the users actually want. This is because of the threat of being hijacked by opponents, personal attack and the use of obscenities. This is acceptable for Parliament and politicians but not the general public because inviting the public on to party websites to argue and debate is all a bit too “real”, which is why the parties turn instead to stunts and gimmicks.

The most interesting political use of the internet has not come from the main parties but from non-government organisations, creative individuals and some governments [for example: the petitions on the number 10 downing street website] that are experimenting with interactivity the way that some parties appear to be unwilling to.

The main political parties could use the internet to attract new members and they could use it to encourage political participation and debate. But so far, they have squandered all of these opportunities.

A huge chunk of my life revolves round the Internet and its myriad of websites. And what’s fascinating is how you keep on learning about this online world, even when you think you are well informed. I’m into SEO, or search engine optimization, at the moment. It’s the process by which traffic to, and through, a site is increased without using direct advertising. And all brands need to know how to use it well.

It’s obvious that companies simply won’t advertise on sites which have a low number of page views. But these sites need help, desperately. So, how can they be helped? What they need is to be pushed up the pages of the search engines, so more people will visit them, and then, because they are at the top, hope this becomes self-fulfilling. That would be a win-win situation, and it is possible. But to get there, you need to use Search Engine Optimisation.

All brands trying to break into competitive markets and increase traffic to their sites should try to get their site listed on the top page of the search engines under their key search terms. Having your website on the top page puts you a mile ahead of the chasing pack.

It’s like the Premier League. Arsenal (and Manchester United, and more recently Chelsea) remain at (okay, or near) the top, season after season. This is partly because being there (and entering the Champion’s League, for example) increases their revenue. They can then keep investing more and so retain those high positions. The same applies to SEO. Those pages ranked at the top of the search engines gain higher amounts of traffic and that keeps them there.

This all sounds like common sense, and it is. But actually doing it – and doing it right – is crucial. Keywords need to be placed strategically on a website so that they are noticed by search engines – this is how they determine whether the website has genuinely relevant content focused around its key search term. For example, if you had a page about Arsenal Football club, then those three words “Arsenal”, “Football” and “Club” must be included within the content, page title and URL. This way search engines automatically pick them up and then know what your page is about.

But it’s not that simple. Every key search term has masses of competing terms on other websites all trying to reach the top too. To make your website stand out, you need to do more – and I believe that link building is absolutely essential.

Links are seen as ‘trust bands’ by search engines, and they use these to show that your site can be relied upon. Your website should be linked with highly ranked or ‘trusted’ sites because search engines will then assume that your site can be trusted too, and push it up the rankings. The more of these links you can build up, the better for your site, while if your website links to ‘unwholesome’ sites or sites which aren’t trusted by search engines, they won’t trust your site either.

It’s a bit like being at school: if the teachers trusted your group of friends, they trusted you too. But if they thought you hung out with a less appealing gang, they’d probably be less inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Here at Halpern Cowan, we have specialists working on SEO, and are using them to excellent effect. For example, eighty percent of Supernanny’s pages have improved their position on Google since we started our intensive SEO work. Over half of the site’s pages now appear in the top 40.

But while the results can be remarkable, I’m not recommending simply packing keywords in. For your site’s ranking to rise, keywords must be inserted strategically and with caution. Too many and your page will appear as spam. Too little and it will not be recognized. But get it just right and your website’s fortunes can be transformed.

I’m convinced that Social Technographics is the future when it comes to online marketing strategies. Not enough people understand what this is yet, but utilising it properly is essential if companies are to drive sales upwards in the Internet age. The best way to describe Social Technographics is as a methodology which looks not only at what determines participation on social networking websites, but also viral activity.

Here at Halpern Cowan, we have taken the Forrester Research methodology and applied it in a practical sense. Our aim has always been to improve online marketing strategies – allowing people to sell more from their websites – and our experiences show that Social Technographics can provide much added value to a brand. Naturally, this benefits our clients.

The Internet has taken power away from institutions and put it into communities. It has created an environment where people are comfortable with technology, using it both on a one-to-one basis, and also to communicate far more widely. Each month more and more people go online, reading – or creating – blogs, spending money, or visiting social networking sites.

Recent statistics reveal that 41% of youths visit a social network site daily, and that 92% of email users forward at least one web link every week. What a waste not to take advantage of all that activity!

But many organisations don’t take advantage. This may be because they don’t know how their customers use social technologies, or perhaps because they are inexperienced and don’t know what works, when or where. Some even have a more hidden fear – that just when they’ve mastered one technology, something new will come along and they’ll have to start again. They think, “why bother?” But they’re wrong, and missing out on opportunities.

Our strategy is first to profile the target audience for the product to be sold. Traditional marketing methods are not redundant, and should be used to find out who’s being sold to, and who’s buying. But after doing that, users should be grouped according to how they participate online, in social networks with user generated content, and normal websites. There is a whole world of online users out there – from what we call “creators” (who publish web pages or blogs) to spectators (who read them or listen to podcasts) and those in-between (like critics, who comment on blogs, but don’t generate them). All these people shouldn’t be ignored. In fact they should be specifically targeted and converted into customers and advocates of the product.

We work out how to target different types of Internet users, thinking about their online behaviour and buying lifecycle. We map out how users will participate – both now and in the future – finding out about their propensity to purchase, how they hear about things and how to get them interested. When we do this, we come up with a very effective way to generate online business.

But that’s not the end of it. It’s absolutely vital to understand what makes people want to move up to the next level of the Social Technographics ladder. We create a plan to keep the audience engaged, by using multiple participation points. These don’t need to be scary. First time “users” can be wheedled in by making it easy and fun – asking then when they first heard a popular song, for example – so they don’t even think about the fact that they’re taking part. Finding user generated content needs to be simple, and users should always be tempted to go to the website. That leaves you in control.

There’s a definite parallel between the new Social Technographics ladder and the traditional marketing lifecycle. Using them together gives you a very powerful tool.