Category: Marketing

SEO for Product Information Management (PIM)

Marketing SEO No Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

I had not heard the expression “PIM” until today and it was in the SEO context. It’s a buzz word for what we might have called database driven websites in the past. They are used for product catalogue sites, such as hardware or clothing brands. They are increasingly cloud-based and are stepping up their marketing. I have not worked for a company that would need a PIM, so I had not noticed it before. Today I saw a YouTube video talking about SEO for PIM and the first thing I noticed was no attempt to explain the acronym. As you do, I Googled it and now I know.

What Is a PIM?

PIM is a Product Information Management system. It stores data about products and it might include a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. In other words, it contains product titles, descriptions, feature lists, images, variants, videos, prices – whatever attributes you can attach to a product. A PIM might offer these features:

Articles about SEO and PIM

I also looked for articles about PIM in an SEO context. Most of the content is lightweight – keywords, description etc. Look at these, for example:

I stopped looking at that point. No, that is fluff – much of it, anyway. From the PIM maker’s perspective, it is just a packaged database product with a fancy name. Telling the customer to use keywords in titles and descriptions isn’t good enough.

SEO Expectations of a PIM

Sorry, I expect more from a PIM, given all the trouble they have gone to package a database product. Here is what I would expect out of the box, as a minimum:

  • Schema.org (structured data) Tagging – A product page has so many opportunities to mark up different attributes.
  • Faceted Navigation Management – Products with many attributes have the potential of creating thin content and Google might choose not to index what it considers low-value content.
  • Digital Asset Management – No, I mean beyond storing file names and descriptions. Images, videos, PDFs etc can have many SEO optimisations.

How to get free ads in LinkedIn

Marketing 4 Comments
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Like the click-bait title above, I saw a very clever use of humour to get great visibility and engagement on LinkedIn. I noticed this curious “announcement” from someone who is not connected with me:

The funny announcement in LinkedIn
The post seen in LinkedIn

Why did I even see this? Notice the top of the image – “LinkedIn is curious about this”, which could be a result of an algorithm that promotes posts that show extraordinarily high engagement. Or it might be a manual decision. Either way, untold millions (?) of users will see it and will add their Likes or leave comments.

The Netflix logo got my attention. So I bothered to read it. What? I had to read it again and I got the joke. At the time of writing, the post had 71,807 Likes and 2,926 comments.

One of the comments.
A typical engagement

At regular intervals through the comment trail, the author was plugging a podcast, which was perhaps his main goal here. His tagline suggests that he is looking for an internship position and the language suggests somewhere in North America. The podcast has perhaps 72,000 potential eyeballs and perhaps some new listeners.

See? Advertising does not need to cost money. I wish him and the podcast well.

Postscript: Some others on LinkedIn pointed out that I had blogged about a copycat and pointed me to a post by Liam Fallen two weeks earlier, shown below:

A post by Liam Fallen
A LinkedIn post by Liam Fallen

That might well be the case, but there is a major difference. Hisham’s post managed to get over 85,000 Likes (as of today, a day after my post was first written) and was promoted for free by LinkedIn (the subject of this post). Hisham isn’t even a 3rd-degree contact of mine, while Liam is 2nd degree (being a fellow SEO). I am not sure I would have seen Liam’s post unless a mutual contact had commented on it and I happened to be looking at my news feed. What can we learn from this? Perhaps using the Netflix logo got the extra attention?

Grill’d by Nando’s – how a PR gaffe is a win:win for competitor

Marketing Social Media No Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutesGrill’d is a burger restaurant chain in Australia, where their recent marketing campaign consisted of an ad in a printed university newspaper. So far, so good. Then their fans spread the love by sharing this ad in electronic format:

Grill'd's ad in Uni TimesInstead of sizzling, the love fizzled. Grill’d customers who flocked to the restaurants with a printout of the scans were dismayed to be denied the buy-one-get-one-free offer because they didn’t bring the original newspaper. The Grill’d blog tried to explain:

Uni Times 2 for 1 Voucher Offer

We’ve been inundated recently with people trying to redeem a 2 for 1 burger offer that has been doing the rounds via email. The 2 for 1 burger offer originated from the current print edition of the Uni Times Magazine (a magazine for Victorian Uni Students) and we only ever expected for this voucher to be available for readers of the print publication, and not available online.

The Uni Times 2 for 1 offer was intended to be limited to the readership of the Uni Times publication – otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to offer it at all – All vouchers from the printed publication will be honoured. To get the real voucher just pickup a free copy of Uni Times from any of these locations. We hope all of our customers can appreciate the good faith in which the offer was released, and that neither Grill’d or its loyal customers will win in the long run if we allow digital copies or scans to be honoured for printed offers such as this. We know a lot of our loyal Grill’d fans have received electronic versions of the offer and we apologise for this, but we hope you understand that this was never our intention.

Logical, at best. All marketing campaigns need to have certain rules and players have to abide by them, so that both buyer and seller are happy. So far so good.

However, the scanned image I saw does not mention anything about digital copies being invalid. There was a storm of protests as comments below the blog post starting at 9:17 am on the 24th by Brendox, who said:

However legally, I believe you must honour the voucher as there is nothing indicating that print outs cannot be used.

That was followed by dozens of comments, with varying degrees of passion and colourful language. By 2:21 pm Nandos_FTW (either an employee or fan) commented:

“Nando’s honours Grill’d vouchers…” Go nandos! HAHA this is too funny! <http://www.nandos.com.au/article.php?newsid=94&newspage=0>

Not missing an opportunity, Urban Burger must have thought of the same thing at the same time, as the post by I Love UB went up a mere 40 seconds later:

I have just heard that Urban Burger will be honouring the Grill’d vouchers. Just take them into any store and you can get the 2 for 1 offer

Nando's offer to disgruntled Grill'd customers
Nando's offer to disgruntled Grill'd customers

By yesterday, the comment thread was deteriorating, with allegations of comments being deleted and even some Nigerian “419” type scam posts!

At some time after 4:19 pm on 25/2, Grill’d had enough grilling and they closed comments on the blog with this announcement:

Grill'd closes comments on its blog

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Grill’d marketing bunker this morning.

The lessons to be learnt from this case study are too obvious to list here, but I can see this incident being relived in hundreds of marketing presentations for some time to come. :lol:

Grill'd by Nando's – how a PR gaffe is a win:win for competitor

Marketing Social Media No Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutesGrill’d is a burger restaurant chain in Australia, where their recent marketing campaign consisted of an ad in a printed university newspaper. So far, so good. Then their fans spread the love by sharing this ad in electronic format:
Grill'd's ad in Uni TimesInstead of sizzling, the love fizzled. Grill’d customers who flocked to the restaurants with a printout of the scans were dismayed to be denied the buy-one-get-one-free offer because they didn’t bring the original newspaper. The Grill’d blog tried to explain:

Uni Times 2 for 1 Voucher Offer
We’ve been inundated recently with people trying to redeem a 2 for 1 burger offer that has been doing the rounds via email. The 2 for 1 burger offer originated from the current print edition of the Uni Times Magazine (a magazine for Victorian Uni Students) and we only ever expected for this voucher to be available for readers of the print publication, and not available online.
The Uni Times 2 for 1 offer was intended to be limited to the readership of the Uni Times publication – otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to offer it at all – All vouchers from the printed publication will be honoured. To get the real voucher just pickup a free copy of Uni Times from any of these locations. We hope all of our customers can appreciate the good faith in which the offer was released, and that neither Grill’d or its loyal customers will win in the long run if we allow digital copies or scans to be honoured for printed offers such as this. We know a lot of our loyal Grill’d fans have received electronic versions of the offer and we apologise for this, but we hope you understand that this was never our intention.

Logical, at best. All marketing campaigns need to have certain rules and players have to abide by them, so that both buyer and seller are happy. So far so good.
However, the scanned image I saw does not mention anything about digital copies being invalid. There was a storm of protests as comments below the blog post starting at 9:17 am on the 24th by Brendox, who said:

However legally, I believe you must honour the voucher as there is nothing indicating that print outs cannot be used.

That was followed by dozens of comments, with varying degrees of passion and colourful language. By 2:21 pm Nandos_FTW (either an employee or fan) commented:

“Nando’s honours Grill’d vouchers…” Go nandos! HAHA this is too funny! <http://www.nandos.com.au/article.php?newsid=94&newspage=0>

Not missing an opportunity, Urban Burger must have thought of the same thing at the same time, as the post by I Love UB went up a mere 40 seconds later:

I have just heard that Urban Burger will be honouring the Grill’d vouchers. Just take them into any store and you can get the 2 for 1 offer

Nando's offer to disgruntled Grill'd customers
Nando's offer to disgruntled Grill'd customers

By yesterday, the comment thread was deteriorating, with allegations of comments being deleted and even some Nigerian “419” type scam posts!
At some time after 4:19 pm on 25/2, Grill’d had enough grilling and they closed comments on the blog with this announcement:
Grill'd closes comments on its blog

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Grill’d marketing bunker this morning.

The lessons to be learnt from this case study are too obvious to list here, but I can see this incident being relived in hundreds of marketing presentations for some time to come. :lol:

Why do marketers still use the term “SEM” to refer to PPC?

Marketing PPC SEO 2 Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutesThis is a longish response to Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Advisor: SEO Q&A Out the Wazoo – Issue No. 273. The question was “… what the differences are between SEM and SEO”. See Jill’s reply in the link above (and subscribe to her excellent newsletter).

Great reply Jill, about this annoyance we hear so often in user land. Yahoo can take some of the blame for perpetrating this “SEM=PPC” mindset, as they use that expression a lot, particularly when they deliver local seminars. Example.

I work in the corporate SEO space where big-name ad agencies just love to use the “SEM” expression, so, naturally, a lot of corporate people also use it.

I wonder how many of such people will go to the SMX West 2010 In-House SEM Exchange session expecting to hear about paid search. They will be sorely disappointed. :smile:

I like to explain that SEM = SEO + SEA + SMO (this elicits a blank stare). They usually get SEO. I say that Search Engine Advertising (SEA) includes PPC, CPM, etc (every type of ad a search engine accepts). SMO includes all social media optimisation tactics you can use to send  signals to search engines, e.g. citations, nofollows, ratings & reviews etc.

I am still met with scepticism and some people continue to use the SEM expression after I have explained the difference. I have tried to illustrate with a Google.com site: operator search (filtering out Groups, Books, etc) to show that there are about *two* Google-employee-authored documents on the web where the writer treats SEM as synonymous with PPC. More tellingly, the Google AdWords glossary only mentions PPC but not SEM.

For anyone out there who is still unclear, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) covers any concept about marketing through search engines, not simply paid search. Ad agencies, please stop fooling your clients. You can still milk them by using the correct terminology.

41% of mobile internet users are looking for information on products and services

Marketing 1 Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minuteMy colleague Wayne Aspland has written a concise summary of the 34-page Sensis® e-Business Report, which was just released. Read his post, entitled Sensis® e-Business Report: Half of Australia’s young adults have used the mobile Internet.

Here are some insights from the report:

  • 97 per cent computer ownership level for small businesses and 98 per cent ownership for medium businesses
  • 63 percent of SMEs own notebooks
  • Over a quarter of all Australians over the age of 14 have now accessed the mobile internet.
  • 41% of mobile internet users are looking for information on products and services, making it the number one mobile activity. And number three, at 36%, is looking for suppliers of products or services.

The last point is very interesting for Yellow Pages® advertisers, particularly when you see the factoid in Wayne’s post that mobile usage almost tripled in one year.

2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report: AU and US Compared

Marketing Social Media 2 Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutesThanks to Tamar Weinberg for alerting us to an update by Peter Corbett about Facebook demographics for the US. The main learning there is that the number of 55+ year-old users has increased by 513% since the last check six months ago.

I don’t know if similar Australian stats have been published yet, but I just compiled them using the same Facebook source – compose a dummy ad, then you get the screen where you can view statistics by selecting or unselecting various parameters.

facebook statsI was unable to see the Interests data but I have placed Peter’s latest data to the right of the Australian figures. While Peter’s total count of the US user population is almost 72M, today I see just under 70M for the US. Did 2M close their accounts within the past five days?  Were they fake accounts that were cleaned up? Just in the past 30  minutes the US total has shot up by about 300,000 people. What gives?

Australians on Facebook

About 6M Aussies are on Facebook or at least have opened an account. The gender breakdown is almost identical to the US. The age distribution in the US steadily increases between 18 and 54, whereas Australia peaks in the 25 to 34 range.

The user distribution among the Australian cities follows roughly the population distribution patterns, but we have a large number of Unknowns (and/or country residents). When you look at the small size of the San Francisco user population you wonder if these locations are based on what the user selected (I believe this is the case), or Facebook knew which locations to group into the closest metropolis. In most social networks I enter “Melbourne” as my location, not my suburb; however, if I were entering my postal address (at some trusted site and I could see some point to it), then the stats would be more accurate. In Australia, few people live in the central business district, which bears the name of the city, so that may explain Australia’s large number of Unknown locations in FB.

We are either coy about our education or are less educated than the Americans. The spread between singles, marrieds and in a relationship is almost equal, but those currently engaged seem to have very little representation on Facebook.

Bear in mind the probability that some people enter bogus details at such sites, and some nations more so than others. So treat the analysis accordingly. In my limited experience of my own network, Facebook users interact largely with their real-world friends and are less likely to fake too much.

Check out Peter’s post for a detailed insight into the US figures.

Tr.im your brand

Marketing Social Media No Comments

Reading Time: < 1 minuteBy now you might be aware of name-checking services such as Knowem, Name Check or User Name Check, which will check whether your username/tag/brand has been taken at 120 or more sites. They can also, for a fee, register your tag/brand at those sites.

But have you considered the URL shortening sites that have become popular owing to Twitter? Have you checked your brand name there to see where it leads? Try the following (at your risk):

Companies that have grabbed their brand include:

So the message is clear. Go to all the URL shortening services and grab your brand name, even if it is very long. Point it to your home page or some permanent URL. I mentioned tr.im partly because it displays click stats for your URLs (hence worth getting a free account) and partly because it seems to have a few brand names available while the older URL-shortening sites don’t.

You can also grab keywords (don’t bother looking for “seo”) relevant to your business or your resume. I grabbed some for my resume, hoping I won’t need them in a hurry:

  • http://tr.im/seocv
  • http://bit.ly/seocv
  • http://tinyurl.com/seocv
  • http://snipurl.com/seocv

Some of these sites give you usage stats:

I didn’t list the sites that don’t offer an alias option. Is.gd has a workaround – you place a slash at the end of the short URL followed by your label, but it’s not pretty or memorable. Example:

CntrStg at CES 2009

Marketing No Comments

Reading Time: < 1 minuteCntrStg is a big improvement (at least in terms of location) over other blogger activities held in previous years. The venue during CES 2009 is the Wynn hotel, just a short walk from the LVCC. Check out the CntrStg site for details.

It’s a place where bloggers can blog (obviously) using a fast connection and meet others, including vendor reps. The companies presenting there have been requested by the attendees, so there will be a stong affiliation and a better outcome for both parties. Speaking of parties, there will be a few held at this location, but you must register in advance.

It’s the first CES I will miss, as I used to be sponsored by my user group or Microsoft over the years.

Clever HP campaign (and chance to win a prize)

Hardware Marketing No Comments

Reading Time: < 1 minuteCheck out Mauricio Freitas’ Geekzone.co.nz and look for the HP competition that he’s running along with a bunch of my other friends from the Windows Featured Communities gang.

The competition doesn’t require you to visit all “50 of the world’s top bloggers”, but you increase your chances of winning up to 50 prizes if you do.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNijmnfgg60[/youtube]

In fact, this competition has been running for a while, but I just found out about it, so some of those 50 sites have ended their competitions. My former work colleague at RingCentral (to whom I consulted remotely), Gina Hughes owns Techie Diva, which has a handy list of the closing dates.

This has been a great marketing win-win for both HP and the 50 sites that will get additional sign-ups.

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