SASCon 2013 – after the storm

I loved this years SAScon. It’s not just a bunch of SEOs together – it’s search, analytics and social media under the same roof and I really don’t ‘get’ why more PR people don’t go.

I guess being based in Manchester is a double edged sword – it’s a long way from the south (I’m based in Reading, and the direct trains take just over three hours, the ones with a changeover slightly longer) but the payback is a city that has every bit as much to offer as London in a really friendly environment. To offer just one example, I couldn’t eat the lunch because of the ingredients. No rolled eyes or ‘cats bottom’ pursed lips. Not only were the staff at MMU (Manchester Metropolitan University) more than happy to go and check the contents, but offered immediately to make me a sandwich. There was plenty of salad, which they could just as easily have pointed me to, but they really went the extra mile. I like Manchester and the people there.

I digress. I was there on a discussion panel on ZMOT (Zero moment of truth), and to blog for State of Search (with colleague Jackie Hole and another couple of other State of Search bloggers). We were asked to blog  the five main points of each session. Sometimes we achieved it, sometimes we didn’t. The stand out one for me that I attended but didn’t blog was ‘Social Media meets PR meets SEO’, moderated by Judith Lewis, which was incredibly interactive and very well moderated, and being at the end of the day was hard to blog but easy to follow.  (For me the art of a good moderator is someone who’s done their homework, and these guys genuinely had.)

Here are the two roundups on SAScon at State of Search:

Day one: http://www.stateofsearch.com/day-1-of-sascon-2013/

Day two: http://www.stateofsearch.com/day-2-sascon-2013/

It’s on the #SAScon hashtag on Twitter.

The dust has settled and I have had time to think. Marketing is becoming more converged, but the specialisms are becoming more sophisticated: the challenge for the future will be understanding who does what (and it’s all very fuzzy around the edges), and managing across the disciplines. Whilst we can afford to be generalists right now, the level of understanding we may need to actually perform these tasks to a level of excellence is so in depth that maybe the time of convergence is passing, and the specialists will shine.The skills for the PR – and other digital disciplines – in future will include:

• understanding what other digital marketing disciplines do and how to measure them
• understanding the interface between online and offline
• learning how to manage and work with other specialist agencies
• networking with people in other specialisms so you know who to go to.

In terms of what we deliver, best practise has never been more important. We don’t know what’s around the corner, and sure as hell it will be something we haven’t yet conceived. Staying abreast of what’s happening is important. SAScon is a great and inexpensive way of helping yourself along that path.

WTF is ZMOT?

In an acronym laden World, what is ZMOT – the Zero Moment of Truth?

I had a fair idea what ‘ZMOT’ was until I started looking more deeply for a presentation I’m giving at SAScon tomorrow to kick off a panel discussion with Kevin Gibbons, Managing Director of  content marketing agency BlueGlass and the amazing Nick Garner of SearchWorks. And my view tilted slightly from being just another acronym for the way we buy to an important observation on what’s happening online.

The history of the term helps to understand it better.

In the early part of last decade – the earliest reference I’ve found is 2003 - Alan  ”A.G.” Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, coined the term ‘First Moment of Truth’ (FMOT) – broadly speaking, the moment that the consumer sees the product (P&G wasn’t, he asserted, working closely enough with retailers – the place where consumers first see the product on the shelf. That inevitably lead to the consumer’s experience at home: “The second moment of truth.”

The first is important to any online business – as any UX (user experience) specialist will attest.  We all know how important that second moment is. (if you’ve never been disappointed when you’ve come to use a product, I venture to suggest that you spend longer shopping than living, are terminally positive, or have never shopped!) So what about the zero moment of truth: ZMOT?

A cursory search for the first reference came up with little other than to suggest that Google adopted and ran with the term. (If you know better, do post a comment – my search was cursory. For the purpose of this article, it’s Google’s wholehearted adoption that matters.) It’s the cyclical nature of purchasing that the web has created – the period before we even arrive at the store. In a very broad nutshell, it’s the research people do, the wide and varied sources that people refer to before they make a purchase: social media, online articles and reviews, referrals – on line and offline.

Google defines ZMOT as:

“… that moment when you grab your laptop, mobile phone or some other wired device and start learning about a product or service (or potential boyfriend) you’re thinking about trying or buying. I’m sure you know what I mean — you probably do web searches like this every day.” (Jim Lecinski)

It’s very easy to describe. Others, like McKinsey, have framed it in other terms, including the feedback cycle and the consumer decision journey. Getting it right is harder. PR people should be thinking about it in everything they do. Search specialists have a stake in anything that Google finds important. For retailers it’s crucial.

So I’m very much looking forward to the panel debate at Sascon (if a little intimidated by being in the company of such great panellists – but don’t tell them that!)

Great references:

The Collaborative Marketing Future: How co-creation and  advocacy will drive winning companies”, free downloadable resource from Crowdtap

“The Consumer Decision Journey”, Slideshare presentation, McKinsey Quarterly

“What’s the Future of Business, Changing the way businesses create experiences,” Brian Solis, pub John Wiley & Sons (19 Mar 2013)

Social proof and the zero moment of truth, a write up of the B2B Huddle presentation by Nick Garner, by Adam Tinworth, One Man and His Blog.*Note – this is the Nick wjho’s speaking at SASCon

Concentrating Content for Lead Generation a write up of the B2B Huddle presentation by Katy Howell ,by Adam Tinworth, One Man and His Blog.

“Winning the First Moment of Truth” Jesper Wiegant, Marketing Director, Procter & Gamble. Speech transcript Summit 2006 (Kam City)

This month’s State of Search blogs

Ilya Segalovich, Yandex, at ISS

I don’t pretend to be an SEO professional – things move so fast that I don’t believe you can do it part time and stay abreast of the skills you need. But I do train SEO people in PR techniques (through SEO PR Training), and manage an SEO company for one of my clients. So being a blogger for State of Search helps me catch the Zeitgeist. On the occasions that I’ve heard supposed professionals giving out what I think is poor, dated or questionable advice, there are some great SEO professionals also blogging who I can check the information with before publishing. It’s sad that it happens, but…

This was my most recent ‘normal’ PR related post for State of Search: on aiming higher with media targets (for SEO people).

In May I also covered ISS – the International Search Summit  - in London.

I was accidentally sent to the wrong first session, which was a part of the SMX show, running simultaneously. As it was being covered by SoS bloggers, I blogged about it anyway: Targeting the Mindset of the Customer.

I loved the Yandex interview with Ilya Segalovich – it was a throwback to those early, heady, exciting days of the Internet when the World was going to be a much better place thanks to everything being connected.

Understanding and implementing geotargetting is a write up on what matters for international search, a session given by Andy Atkins Kruger of Webcertain.

Interesting to me, hidden in the depths, was an initiative mentioned by Ilya Segalovich. Yandex is calling on Google and other engines to release user data. Segalovich thinks that search engines to work together to allow users to ‘own’ – and be able to edit – their own search results data.

Yandex already allows people collect all of their data in a single zip file. Segalovich is calling for other search engines to do the same, and allow people to port this information across search engines – perhaps at a browser level. The searcher he claims, should own their own data.

This  would make sense to everyone: we all know how inappropriate ads and content appear in search and beyond when someone else has used our browser, or we’ve made a one off search for a specific reason  - or a purchase for a third party. Being able to exclude things would improve search and targeted advertising hugely – and maybe stop me from getting FIFA 13 adverts when my children have used my PC. Sounds like a worthwhile initiative to me, and one which could play well for those concerned about privacy IF done properly.

Fellow bloggers Jackie Hole and Louis Venter also blogged at the conference – if you visit State of Search and use the #ISS hashtag, you’ll see further writeups.
 

Tube Insight

Video with slider for ranking parts of the video

Jim Anning, Alan Bradburne and Matt Mower  are technology enthusiasts.  In the spirit of playing with things that could prove useful, they have ‘hacked’ in their terms – ‘created’ in mine – Tube Insights.

It offers insights into how YouTube videos are being viewed and, importantly, offers feedback on it at exactly the right point.

They envisage TubeInsight being used for feedback to help improve something like a musical performance (“Hit a rough note on the third bar…”) or feedback on the video itself . Personally I can see myself using it for media training.

People watching the video move a slider up and down to indicate how much they like – or dislike – what’s being shown as the video plays. (You can play with the slider to see how it works: here.) TubeInsight records and aggregates the feedback from everyone who has responded  in real-time. TubeInsight can then play the video back with a graphic overlay showing feedback.

The developers note that it’s a rough prototype and are inviting feedback – they would love you to try it out….