Search Engine Marketing Blog | Tug

Rakuten to invest $50M in Pinterest

tinneny — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:08:22 +0000

Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten today announced it will invest upwards of $50 million in the next funding round for social bookmarking phenomenon Pinterest. The round should raise $100 million in total, with the remainder likely to come from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, along with several prominent Angel Investors.

Rakuten are one of the world’s largest internet service companies, currently operating in 17 markets and ranked amongst the top 10 with Google, Amazon, eBay etc. Among its many properties is Rakuten Ichiba, the largest e-commerce site in Japan, Play.com in the UK, Buy.com in the US and similar sites in Germany and Brazil.

Pinterest are hoping that by partnering with such an aggressive ecommerce powerhouse, they can finally monetise the site in a meaningful way, while fending off the countless imitation sites that have popped up all over the globe.

One of the more interesting sides to this deal which hasn’t been mentioned anywhere, is that Rakuten also own Linkshare, one of the world’s major affiliate networks. Affiliate links were an essential aspect to the site in its early days. Pinterest used a company called Skimlinks to modify users’ links to commerce sites. Any sales through these links returned commission to Pinterest, but it has never performed efficiently enough. A lot of content is shared from other sources such as Facebook and Tumblr, or the links are not commercial products to begin with, which limits the scope for development and growth.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on this and can’t wait to see what solutions they come up with to generate more revenue for the company. If it somehow involves an ingenious affiliate solution, all the better!

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The evolution of search – speed or serendipity, instant gratification or personal discovery?

Eoin — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:07:12 +0000

Now, you will have to forgive me for the use of rose-tinted spectacles here but I think I miss the way search engines used to be. In today’s world of instant results and instant gratification, have we all lost the ability to actually hunt for anything online?

Obviously if you want to find out what the longest river in the world is and you are sitting, hiding your Smartphone under the table at the pub quiz, you don’t want to have to wade through page after page of results to get your answer. So an instant result could mean the difference between winning that £50 prize or not. However ask yourself the last time you actually came across something unique and amazing online that hadn’t already been shared 1000 times on Facebook, or forwarded around multiple office emails, or already collated on a social bookmarking site?

Don’t get me wrong, the internet used to be awash with schizophrenic flash interfaces, spam and annoying animated gifs. Since then standardisation of interfaces and improvements in the elimination of spam results have provided an easier way to find information. However, search engines used to require some degree of persistence and actual research in order to unearth what you were looking for. Part of that process meant that you might unearth sites that were unique and different or content that was fresh and interesting.

Social bookmarking and viral emails quickly segued into social content sharing via Facebook or Twitter, and as results become more relevant people relied more and more heavily on social channels for content discovery. This bought with it a sense of sharing in a collective experience but also reduced the chances of individual discovery.

Personalised search and socially recommended search results are supposed to make the experience even more hyper-relevant to you. However, could this simply be creating a self-fulfilling loop of interest and content discovery? You show interest in one thing so you keep getting served the same type of content and results. You keep sharing the same things with your circle of friends so you keep the loop running.

Ultimately the algorithms were engineered to make results more relevant and that has meant that in most instances you get what you’re searching for more quickly. However the next online service that re-introduces the experience of personal discovery will surely help us all rediscover the skills of online research.

An interesting service that caught my eye and triggered these thoughts was a site that asks a similar question:

‘Imagine a search engine that simply removed the top 1 million most popular web sites from its index. What would you discover?’

Have a go and see if you do indeed discover the internet that I am eulogising about or do you just find a world that lacks the instant gratification you have grown to expect?

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A great example of an integrated Zombie campaign with Social KPIs

Nick — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:15:43 +0000

In British Columbia, Canada they are readying themselves for a Zombie invasion! The government’s emergency information team is giving tips on how to prepare for a potentially volatile undead situation in the province. The idea is that if you are prepared for a Zombie attack you are prepared for a more likely scenario such as a tornado or a tsunami. The campaign wanted to get cut through with a younger demographic that usually shuts off to emergency information messages. We think it is a great campaign and we really appreciate the client who said she had to have 3 meetings before being convinced of the zombie route – well done you taking a risk. An interesting aspect of this youth oriented campaign is that the initial KPIs are viral buzz and retweets on Twitter. This is a growing trend where a wider campaign might use Social Media Marketing KPIs to prove the worth of the overall campaign… interesting…

Read more about the Zombie invasion campaign

Read more about Tug’s Social Media services

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Greetings Cyberlings

Natalie — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:37:20 +0000

I’d like to take a rare moment in ”real time” to introduce myself as Tug’s new Social Media Sales Executive.

It’s an exciting opportunity to be part of this growing enterprise and I look forward to contributing to the agency’s advancement within S.E.M Strategy in the near future!

For any social media related enquiries (both corporate and independent parties welcome) please feel free to contact me via email:

email-natalie@tugsearch.co.uk

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Rock Pinterest for your brand – Episode 1

Carlo Pandian — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:05:54 +0000

Just 5 months ago I was been invited from one of my colleague’s to use Pinterest, a service that at first glance looked very similar to StumbleUpon, Reddit and Digg. Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections and/or ‘like’ photos. I started to create my own profile, with 5 different boards matching my eclectic interests: SEO, infographs, contemporary art, design and urban gardening. If people can use it to collect their favourite pictures, how can businesses represent themselves on Pinterest and how can they benefit mostly from this service?

Identify your boards by brainstorming ideas with your colleagues

Every brand has a set of values that must be mirrored in the boards and images chosen. When you are looking for categories, consider where your products are used, ideas related to them, social costumes, what your target audience like, your industry, type of images that are shared in your community, advice that can be provided with images, related icons and VIPs. The main risk when creating boards is to be too promotional and sales focused with boring images and with nothing your customer can relate to or be interested by.

See below how some major brands have set up their boards:

Boards:

Who wants dinner?!, Eat Your Veggies, How Does Your Garden Grow?, Super HOT Kitchens, Sweet Tooth ,We’re Used to Reusing!, Go Go Gadgets!, Edible Celebrations, Plant Based Diet Recipes, Delicious Art, Cheese is the Bee’s Knees, Strength, Whole Planet Foundation, Winter Entertainment,Thankful for Thanksgiving Dinner, The Fabulousness of Fall, Greens on the Table, Good Karma Products, Vegan, What building inspires you?, Great Garden Recipes, #DarkRye, #WhyAustin, Our Favorite Books, Keep Calm and, My dream wine, Strawberry Season, Earth Day, Food Tips and Tricks, Mom Rocks, Forkly Faves!, #LanguedocDay May 3^rd.

Boards:

Lindt Chocolate Recipes, Lindt Around the World, Fashionable Chocolate, #Pin4Autism, Your Creations, Tips, Ideas & More, For the Love of Chocolate, Lindt Love, View-Worthy Videos, Vintage, Swiss Pride, Celebrity Auction, Gifts, Lindt Gold Bunny Photo, Chocolate Brown All Around.

Boards:

Daily Escapes, Best Sandwich in America, Across America, Beaches, Trip Ideas, We’d Rather Be Here Than Work Right Now, Travel Bucket List, Hotels and Resorts, Street Food Around The World, Animals Around the World, Fall Foliage, Behind the Scenes: Off Limits, Europe, Family Travel, Cultures Around The World, Let’s Celebrate: Spring!, National Parks Revealed, Festivals and Events, Travel Style.

Brainstorming tips

Your brand is involved in a market with a specific type of customer; the following are two aspects to consider when you are thinking about creating a Pinterest profile:

- The competitors’ strategies
Try to differentiate from the others because your identity is unique. Think what you have that your competitor hasn’t that can be the difference between Red Bull being connected to sports and Fanta being connected with fun and enjoyment.

- The Audience
Check their boards to see which images you can upload that can be re-pinned by other uses. For example, an image, which can be included in the following boards – a personal wish list, design or funny photos etc.

Quality

Similar to other social bookmarking tools, Pinterest has loads of high quality images. Low quality stuff doesn’t get viral or benefit your brand.

As soon you have curated your visual profile, what it is needed is a strategy to engage with your audience, drive traffic to your website, increase brand awareness, improve customer satisfaction or research into your target behaviour. This is the most important part if you want that your social media marketing improve the quality of your brand and i will cover this in Episode 2.

Drop us a tweet @tugagency with your thoughs about Pintest and Ben, Tug social media director will help you with more insights and tips.

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Change your AdWords Editor to v9.7.1 before June 12, 2012

rainelda — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:18:17 +0000

As of June 12, 2012, AdWords Editor versions 9.0 and prior will be sunset. After this date, changes made via these versions will not be implemented in AdWords user accounts. Google advises to download the latest version (9.7.1.) at the earliest convenience, but no later than June 12, 2012.

Users can upgrade to version 9.7.1 through the auto-update prompt or download the latest version from the AdWords Editor website. After users install the new version, they’ll need to download their account again. To preserve user comments and unposted changes, select the ‘Backup then Upgrade’ option in the automatic upgrade prompt, then import the backup file after downloading the account.

For a complete list of version-specific changes, please see AdWords release notes. To see which version you’re using, go to the Help menu > About AdWords Editor.

Be careful and don’t lose anything in your Editor when upgrading.

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AdWords Limits New Ad Rotation to 30 Days

turan — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:11:52 +0000

Google has now changed the “rotation” feature in AdWords; the change limits ad rotation to 30 days. After the 30 days, AdWords will optimize and show the ads that are converting the best and getting the most clicks.

Currently AdWords offers three different variations for ad rotation: optimize for clicks, optimize for conversions, and rotate evenly.

The rotate setting is great for testing new creatives and seeing which ads are performing the best. But Google is finding that when running these ads indefinitely can hurt advertisers by driving less relevant ads to users.

So from now on each time a new ads goes into the mix it will reset the clock to 30 days to more evenly distribute the ads. After the 30 days it will auto-optimize your ads to show the most clickable ad.

Google feels that this will help show users more relevant ads, get you more clicks to your website, and improve overall AdWords account performance.

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Bing introduces social search features

Ben Romberg — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:37:43 +0000

Bing has announced a redesign to its search engine, adding a column from users social networks to its natural search listings as well as other features to improve the quality of its results. The new three column layout will include an interactive sidebar dedicated to social results from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Quora, LinkedIn, Google+ and Blogger (including competitor social results rather than Google’s approach of excluding them).

Microsoft’s search engine Bing outlines these changes in a blog post, writing that “social media and the ability to share in real time presents an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how search should work. Suddenly an index of documents [websites] that does not embrace these changes is insufficient.”

Bing says that most people use search in order to make a decision, but only a handful make the decision without consulting friends or experts beforehand. Instead of including social results in the core web results, they have been separated in a sidebar, to distinguish the results in two columns providing “information from the web to help you take action and interact with friends and experts without compromising the core search experience.”

Bing now allows for real-time interaction with social results, users can post questions to Facebook from the sidebar, and tag friends to elicit a response, with a key group of “best friends” asked to highlight what they ‘like’, the opportunity to “follow” key influencers via the search listings will be possible.

This screengrab gives an idea of how Bing’s new layout will appear. The web results (on the left hand column) remain unchanged, while a central column feature information, map listings, ratings etc. and a third column on the right brings in a social feed from all the users networks. This layout draws similarities to Tweetdeck in its layout and accommodates for a new way in which people use search engines.

Talk to Tug about Social Search, email: ben.romberg@tugsearch.co.uk

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Facebook tests “Highlight” pay to reach more friends

Ben Romberg — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:26:48 +0000

Facebook is testing a new way of promoting your status updates to friends called “Highlight” that allows you to reach more of the people you’ve befriended. On average, your status updates on Facebook reach 12% of your friends – using Highlight and paying a few dollars will allow you to reach many more who ordinarily don’t get your updates.

This is currently not available and a tiny percentile of the Facebook user population in New Zealand is currently testing this, but if it proves to be successful it could roll out across the whole network.

Highlight could show Facebook’s willingness to try more aggressive ways of making money, which should delight potential investors in the run up to its stock market floatation. But the service has always been free for users, and a feature such as this that allows promotional updates to feature in users feeds could be a huge turn off, especially to its younger and less financially equipped users who couldn’t afford this kind of narcissism.

Harmless “Highlight” updates showing a friends car for sale, or proud parents of a new born seem like one thing, but endless spam and referral codes are quite another which have the potential to ruin the user experience on the network.

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Digital Vertigo

Ben Romberg — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:58:38 +0000

Andrew Keen is an entrepreneur and author and gives an excellent TEDx Talk in Hungary about “Digital Vertigo” and what he sees as the “cult of social”.

Keen is known for his view that the Internet and Web 2.0 may be debasing culture as we know it.

Keen is especially concerned that the Internet undermines the authority of learned experts.

In 2006 in an essay in The Weekly Standard, Keen wrote that Web 2.0 is a “grand utopian movement” similar to “communist society” as described by Karl Marx.

He describes Free Culture proponent Lawrence Lessig as an “intellectual property communist”. His book The Cult of the Amateur, is critical of free, user-based Web sites such as Wikipedia that attempt to provide information.

Keen discusses often-overlooked problems with participatory technology and describes the Internet as a mirror of our culture. “We see irreverence, and vitality, and excitement. We see a youthfulness. But we also see, I think, many of the worst developments in modern cultural life, and, in particular, I think we see what I call digital narcissism, this embrace of the self.”

Very interesting talk, well worth a watch.

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