It’s times like these I’m glad I’m not a budding social media strategist (FYI… I’m a web strategist… and yes there’s a difference… I advise on social media as an element of a total digital strategy… but I digress). You see, one of Australia’s highest profile specialist social media agencies – The Population – seems to have shut up shop earlier this week. In all honesty I can’t say I’m overly surprised by the revelation. Because while 2009 might have been the year Australian businesses began to consider social media implementation seriously, it certainly wasn’t the year they began (seriously) paying for it…

Working for a large digital agency, the pique in interest in social media from a client perspective has been evident this year. As little as 12 months ago, I rarely heard a client mention social media proactively, at least within our customer base. Yet fast forward a year and every man and his dog wants to meet to talk about their social media opportunities.

Which is all well and good, except that’s where it usually ended. With a lot of hot air.

There are probably a whole lot of reasons for client inactivity. Fear. Resourcing. Budget. Lack of senior level buy in. Preference for in-house management of the social program. The list could go on…

Whatever the reason, the outcome was typically the same. Nada.

And while that’s frustrating for me, I’m not going to sit here and trash brands for failing to jump in head first (although I know plenty would). The economic environment just isn’t privy to companies taking major risks with their marketing budget. And it won’t be for a little while yet.

The reality is that for now social media is an experimental marketing channel for most organisations. Businesses are seeking proof of concept before considering any major expenditure. The recent 5-way Toyota Yaris “pitch off” is the perfect example. While the aggregate $75,000 budget was relatively large within the small Australian market, the client felt the need to hedge their bets by splitting the budget across 5 different agency executions.

All of which makes the existence of a social media agency extremely volatile. The $15,000 pay cheque from Toyota probably didn’t even pay Julian Cole’s wage for the month (joking Jules!). And that’s meant to be the best social opportunity in the country…? It’s hard to see the cash flowing in from smaller clients when global behemoths are treading lightly. There’s no small degree of irony in the fact that the country’s highest profile social media agency folded just a week after participating in the most high profile social pitch ever seen on these shores.

So is there any real money in social media?

Not for niche agencies. At least not for now (without support, revenue & integration with other digital channels). The cash flow simply isn’t likely to be enough to sustain overheads. The Population was probably a few years ahead of its time, if in fact a specialist social media agency is a valid business model. But the way I see it, if specialist agencies can prosper in other digital niches such as SEO, there’s no reason a social agency can’t prosper once the market is ready.

The only problem is… that time isn’t now.

I’ve been working behind the scenes this week to expand the list of Australian brands on Twitter. I’ll continue to do so over time to make it the best possible resource. Since the time of publishing I’ve added Amnesty, Boardshop, CustomWare, EMI Music, Fairfax, Oxfam, Rio Tinto, STA Travel, Tourism NSW, Tourism Qld, Tourism WA, Vogue, WWF & Zuji. Check it out and follow them if you’re interested in monitoring their movements on Twitter. And if you know of any I’ve missed, leave me a comment in the original post.

Just a really short post today to give a shout out to an ambitious new Australian marketing blog – Mumbrella (with apologies to my international friends). The site takes a Tech Crunch/Tech Meme format, but is dedicated solely to the Australian media market (both online & offline). The content is first class and even a little controversial at times. Some of Australia’s most recognised bloggers are already beginning to congregate there, so if you’re an Aussie marketer get over there and support the project!

If you’ve followed my blog for the last few weeks, you’d be aware I’m on a grand mission to spread guest blogging love across the universe. Last week I spoke about how to use guest blogging to attract new readers to your blog. Today I’ll be discussing how guest posts can be used to enhance your organic search engine rankings.

Most bloggers recognise the importance of search engine rankings. Search engines deliver the highest quality/most qualified traffic on the web. And best of all… it’s free. Thus, establishing visibility within search engines for relevant keywords & phrases is a priority for most bloggers. Actually pulling rank however is another story altogether…

Without wanting to delve into search engine optimisation 101, let’s make one thing clear… inbound links matter. If you’re not aware of why, check out my bud Ken’s explanation on link theory. Every link you gain builds a little bit of authority for your site in the eyes of the search engines (unless it’s coming from a dodgy neighbourhood). So… if you want to establish search engine ranking & authority, you’d better start building some links!

While generally speaking… every link is beneficial (presuming of course it’s not from www.buy-viagra-porn-and-genital_enlargements.com), not all links are created equal. Google will attribute more value/weight to a link that comes from a site it already considers an authority, as opposed to a site with a PageRank of zero. Which is where guest blogging offers real SEO potential. Guest blogging presents two critical SEO benefits:

1. The opportunity to generate a link from an industry related site with an established authority level
2. The opportunity to control the anchor text attributed to that link

Let’s face it… getting links from authority sites isn’t easy. Here’s a few alternatives for achieving the same goal:

1. Send hundreds of link request/link exchange emails to established bloggers and hope that one honours your request. Likely success factor = very low
2. Write a linkbait piece, wait for it to get submitted to the social media circles and hope an authority site picks it up. Likely success factor = low (unless you’re Lyndon)
3. Submit your site to a few ‘authority’ directories… and while you’re at it, have a think about how you’re going to bribe the DMOZ editors. Likely success factor = medium… but the authority level of directory links is highly questionable

And of course, we haven’t even considered the ability to control the anchor text via any of these alternative tactics! That’s another story altogether. Sheesh… I’ll take guest blogging any day of the week for my authoritative link building. You…???

Now… in the first post of my guest blogging series I promised to reveal the practical benefits I’ve seen as a result of my guest blogging madness. So, let’s take a look at the effect the guest blogging world tour has had on my rankings.

Case Study – The impact of guest blogging on Online Marketing Banter’s search rankings

My personal guest blogging schedule targeted a handful of respected industry blogs with established search engine authority:

1. Huomah – PageRankof 4
2. Social Desire – PageRank of 5
3. TheVanBlog – PageRank unavailable due to a recent switch of domain, but TheVanBlog is well established, being in existence for over 2.5 years
4. SEO Scoop – PageRank of 5

Within each guest post, I included a short author bio. The bio included a little bit about me, with a link through to my blog. Each bio link used identical anchor text – ‘Australian digital marketing’. Obviously, I’m trying to target search phrases that include the words ‘Australian+digital+marketing’. And thanks to my guest posts, I now have 4 inbound links from established industry sites using that anchor text. Awesome! And the results… well… my humble little blog is now ranked fifth in Google Australia for the search term ‘digital marketing Australia’. Schweet!

And the traffic effect…? Search engine driven traffic has almost tripled. In May, search engines contributed just 2.31 % of the traffic to my blog:

By June however, it has jumped to 6.52% with the term ‘digital marketing Australia’ occupying the number one keyword (driving 29% of all search traffic).

In time, I’m hoping I can increase the rankings and traffic further with a little on-page SEO and additional guest blogging spots (with the same anchor text naturally). I also tend to think the value of each inbound link will grow in time as the individual posts age and begin to attain their own PageRank. If you ever see me at number one, we’ll declare the SEO benefits of guest blogging a great success (hat tip to Borat).

Keep an eye out for the third post in the guest blogging series. It explores the networking benefits of guest blogging. I’m hoping to publish it next week, although I do have to write another guest post before then…

Until then…

Ok… please excuse me for this incredibly self indulgent post. But I was a little excited when I read SEO Moz’s weekly roundup via my RSS reader this morning. My guest post on SEO Scoop was the sole recipient of a 5 star rating this week, which is a huge honour from one of the most credible sites in the industry.

Which just goes to show the value of guest blogging once again (I know… I sound like a broken record). It is highly unlikely the SEO Moz crew would ever have found the post on my blog. But donating it to Donna allowed my work to reach a far broader audience. And the benefit – a super piece of personal branding via the much loved SEO Moz crew. Money can’t buy that reference. Huzzah!

Let’s get one thing straight… I hate Twitter. I know it’s hard to hate something you’ve never used, but the concept just seems completely lame to me. Anyone who’s seen my blogging diary would know that my free time is very limited. So why on earth would I want to enter the Twitter-verse? Do I really need to endure constant interruptions of inane small talk…? Certainly not! Indeed, while Twitter mania reached a frenzy over the last 12 months, I have remained the epitome of an anti-micro blogger. That is, until now…

Ironically, it isn’t the adoption of Twitter that has me reconsidering my stance. I have spread my anti-Twitter message to just enough people that adoption would result in endless ridicule and torment. It is the emergence of Plurk, Twitter’s latest competitor that has me rethinking my attitude towards micro blogging. You see, despite my hardcore anti-Twitter sentiments, I couldn’t help but be curious as to what all the fuss was about. So when Plurk started to gain popularity, I saw the opportunity to check out this whole micro blogging craze for myself (minus the ridicule).

Now… I’m still far from a complete micro blogging advocate. I can see both positives and negatives to usage. But with all the Twitter & Plurk love-posts out there, I thought it’d be interesting to share the thoughts of a pessimist. And on that note, I’ll start with the negatives…

Micro Blogging Negatives

Karma

For some reason, Plurk has decided to allocate a ‘score’ to each user. This score is also known as karma, and is calculated based on a person’s usage of the service. The more a person Plurks, the higher their karma score. Undoubtedly, the objective is to keep people engaged with the service.

Karma sucks! It promotes pointless and inane usage in order to maintain or increase karma. It fosters endless discussion, not meaningful discussion. To Plurks credit, they’ve responded quickly to criticisms of the algorithm with more equitable improvements. But the fact is that as long as a karma score is maintained, people will abuse the system with the objective of reaching the ‘Top Plurkers’ list. Why exactly do we need to know who the top Plurkers are anyway…?

Clutter

The reason I hate karma is because it causes clutter. The majority of people I have befriended are digital marketing professionals. I have the utmost respect for all of them. Yet to my surprise, even some of them are getting caught up in the karma chasing shenanigans. Most of their Plurks remain semi-relevant, but there is still an element of pointless drivel to sort through…

Furtermore, Plurk’s timeline interface isn’t particularly user friendly or scalable, especially once you’ve got 70+ active friends. Clutter is a real issue. And for that reason I’m hesitant to continue to grow my friendship network. More friends means more clutter. And as I add friends I know less and less about, the likelihood of the drivel factor increasing is significant.

Time wasting

Plurk is addictive. Far more addictive than I ever imagined. Which means the site can be sticky. For some reason I find myself returning regularly to monitor conversations I’ve created or contributed to. I often wonder why… At 140 characters per response, how important or insightful can they be?

On a number of occasions I’ve visited Plurk with the intention of taking a quick look at the current conversations. Yet an hour later I’m still mucking around in there. Don’t get me wrong, Plurk offers some great networking potential (which I’ll talk about in the positives), but it should not suck up hours of your time. Of the time I’ve spent in Plurk I suspect about 40% has been productive and 60% has been pointless. And that is time that I could have spent working on my blog. Plurk is good in moderation, but usage must be controlled.

ROI for newbies

Ultimately, I believe micro blogging platforms offer the greatest potential to experienced bloggers with established audiences. Renowned bloggers can use Plurk to drive traffic, solicit immediate input and find new readers. But that potential is severely limited when you don’t have a sizable audience. If a newbie Plurks in the woods but nobody’s around… does it make a sound…? Probably not.

And while ongoing commitment to usage will be likely to leverage some benefits for newbies, there are far better ways to make your voice heard. Like writing great content for your own blog. Or if networking is your objective, start commenting on other industry blogs. Fellow bloggers are far more likely to take notice of someone that adds intelligent and insightful thoughts to their blog discussions than a Plurker leaving 140 characters of wisdom. Plurk should be part of your networking strategy, not your entire strategy.

Micro Blogging Positives

By now it probably seems like I’m a walking/talking contradiction… singing Plurk’s praises at the start of this article, only to rip into the negatives. But there have been a range of positives. Let’s have a look at what I’ve liked about Plurk:

Extending relationships

As I stated earlier, I don’t think Plurk is the best place to start your networking initiatives. I prefer a more targeted networking process. But I do believe Plurk is a great place to deepen established relationships. Once a connection has been created, Plurk can be the perfect place to learn more about a person. Most micro bloggers reveal more about themselves within this format than they would via their blog. Simply watching a person’s Plurks will often tell you what their interests are and what they do in their spare time. I’ve found myself chatting about sports, insomnia & other random topics with my Plurk friends. And I think it’s helped to deepen some friendships I’ve formed.

Research

I often find myself wondering whether the processes I implement in maintaining my blog are normal. I’ve always wondered how other bloggers manage their tasks/life. Plurk gives me the opportunity to throw random questions about blogging out there, and gather some insight into the topic. So far I’ve learned a little more about:

• How people deal with writer’s block
• How long people take to prepare and write a new post
• Which social media applications people use
• How people turn their brains off at night

With Plurk I no longer need to wonder what other people do. I simply ask…

Access to industry stars

To this point, Plurk has not reached critical mass in the way Twitter has. It’s still predominantly for the early adopters. As a result, the superstars of the world are have far fewer followers than in other mediums. Which means they’re far more accessible. I’ve never had any sort of contact with Maki from Dosh Dosh or Darren Rowse from Problogger, yet both have responded to questions I’ve thrown out into Plurk-overse. Which almost floored me when it happened! Indeed, one of the highlights of Plurk for me was trading Australian Rules footy banter with Darren (a fellow Melbournian). Undoubtedly, this level of accessibility won’t last forever, so now is a good time to get in early if you want to attempt to connect with some A listers.

The verdict

I’m a little hesitant to admit it after developing my strong anti micro-blogging stance, but I do think I’m going to continue to use Plurk regularly. The positives are outweighing the negatives for now and I can see real benefits in extending deeper relationships with fellow Sphinners in particular. The key will be to moderate my participation so that my time Plurking is productive.

So, if anyone has some humble pie baking, I’m willing to swallow my pride and eat a large slice. But I’m still not joining Twitter…