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Will Search Shift the Social Battlefield Between Facebook and Google?

by ~ July 27th, 2011

The Clash of the Digital Titans has finally arrived. There’s Google, from its lofty perch as the search giant, and there’s Facebook, which from its social throne, has taken the mantle of display inventory kings. These two industry titans now find themselves face-to-face in no small part due to Google+’s launch.

For years, Google has tried to establish itself in the social space. Likewise, with every million new users the scale of the Facebook ad network has grown. With +Circles, Hangouts, and the rest, Google seems to have hit upon something of worth. People inside the industry and, more importantly, outside Madison Avenue and the Valley are intrigued. That said, the launch clearly caught the attention of the Social Network. Last week, Facebook responded to one of the most intriguing features of Google+, Hangouts (a group video chat application), by announcing its own solution – a partnership with Skype. Skype is the newest acquisition of Microsoft, another Google foe and one-time digital king.

But, for all the social gamesmanship that comes from this response, it’s likely to do little to halt someone from trying out or shifting over to Google+, if they are so inclined. What would it take for Facebook to evolve into an area that would keep consumers engaging and on site more than they already do? Perhaps the answer is all about the field upon which the battle is being fought. Google has clearly come onto Facebook’s turf, but it’s been attempting to do so for several years, so this is no sneak attack. However, if Facebook suddenly appeared on the search scene, well, I think it would be far most interesting.

In GroupM Search research published earlier this year, we found that consumers form a virtuous circle between the channels. While most start with search, they evolve and move into social when they feel the information available has capped and they want to find other data or get the opinions of others. Google +1, launched a few months back, was designed to be the continuation of Google’s effort (following its now ceased Twitter deal) to bring social into search and compete with Microsoft bringing Facebook into Microsoft’s index.

People don’t want to search. They want to go through a discovery phase, which is about deep and rich data. I suspect Facebook would have little interest in this and could be quite content to fully source this to Bing or just leave it outside the social walls altogether. Searchers also want to reach a destination, and that’s the play Facebook could somewhat easily make.

Imagine you seek to buy a new car, specifically a family SUV. Today, the pattern we have found suggests you use Google or Bing to identify a few candidates and then turn to your peer set to ask their opinions. In that process you may find that a few friends have liked Ford or Honda, but is that level of insight enough? Probably not. You may have to ask questions. Once you get their perspectives, you will then head back into the research loop of search.

Now imagine that instead of this, when you asked the first question inside Facebook, “Does anyone have a recommendation on a great SUV to buy?” the response is a blend of your graph and brand/third-party data. So, Facebook shows you the “likes” of brand pages, ideally with people liking specific models, not just the brand. But it also pulls in data to enable you to see which of those brands and products may be worth further consideration. This deeper search ability does two things. It connects your graph research with your extended research, but, more importantly for Facebook, it keeps you out of Google.

Brands continue to evaluate the worth of a Facebook fan and how they should buy vs. earn exposure. One way to attract brands is to give them connection points. Google built its business through the relevant intersection of content and intent. Using consumer questions in its graph and a better measure of intent could enable Facebook to not only enhance its ad properties, but also re-position the fight with a chief rival.

Regardless, the experience we have seen with Google since Bing started to gain market share suggests that innovation is most likely to be experienced when competition is present. Google+ represents the closest thing to that for Facebook since the late days of the MySpace reign. And whether or not Facebook decides to come to search, competition is present. Search and social will continue to deliver value for consumers in their experiences.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and was  published in ClickZ, July 19, 2011.  Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss.

Filed under: Emerging Trends & Tech, Social Media | No Comments >>

Google's Unhealthy Obsession With Speed

by ~ June 30th, 2011

At the recent Google Inside Search event, the online advertising and search giant introduced several new features specific to mobile and desktop search. Google product events always have a curious cadence and this event was no different. Between raucous employees in the crowd and the painstaking effort to explain the smart technology behind the innovation, Google events can often obscure the real potential of the new features. One brief and obscure event element was Google’s definition of search. Bing has positioned itself as a decision engine and Google has stepped forward and proclaimed that search is about removing barriers from what you seek, preventing your train of thought from being derailed.

One newly announced feature designed to do just that is Google Instant Pages. Instant Pages takes the Google Instant feature (launched last year) and moves the concept forward by anticipating the most popular searches and producing cached entry points with no page load delay. Not since Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards proclaimed their undying need for speed in “Top Gun” has a duo seemed so singularly focused as Larry Page and Sergey Brin are with improving the speed of searching on Google.

Google Instant pages is the latest advancement designed to shorten the amount of time an individual user spends on a single query. There are billions of queries every month on Google, so the idea that a vast majority could be impacted for the faster is a compelling feature for Google and a technological advancement worth trumpeting. The problem is that Google is inexplicably obsessed with the immediate gratification moment of the individual search rather than viewing the lifecycle of a search journey.

Apparently, the way Google feels it can best assist in this manner is to speed up the search process for a user. That is helpful if what I am seeking is of a nature that one query or even one session is enough. But what happens when I need multiple data points from different sources to further my decision? Or when the realities of life, work, family, etc. interfere with my ability to drill into a topic. As I’ve said before, search is an output that comes from a personal desire to either discover new information or to reach a destination in our decision-making process. Either way, search is often a process or journey, and three seconds saved here and there are nothing to dismiss, but it is not what people ultimately will reward with future behavior and usage.

What people want is a search service that enables them to store and accumulate knowledge as they progress through the process. When conducting our latest Search and Social in the Purchase Pathway research, we found that consumers say they use search for pricing and product research. We also found that the average purchase in high consideration categories such as consumer electronics and cellphones had nine to 11 touchpoints between search and social media. This suggests that consumers will repeatedly search and use the channel for refinement as they become more educated.

Our findings also revealed that in the abovementioned categories, it was taking on average two months to reach a final purchase. And that data point is the one that suggests what Google is trying to do with Instant and now Instant Pages are short-term responses when consumers need long-term solutions. What users of search engines need is the ability to catalog their knowledge as they accumulate it. As people move from search to search over the course of weeks, not seconds, the ability to reference what they have found previously and what they clicked on can enable a more fluid and positive experience.

Google Instant Pages further enhance the destination phase of a searching pattern. I want to know the weather or events taking place in London next week and it will help me. But, the discovery phase that exists in an overwhelming majority of searches is still being underserved. Google states that it wants to help avoid the derailing of your train of thought, but it is building the track for the set with a short attention span and need for instant gratification. Enabling the track with a run long enough to serve this multi-step, multi-session journey consumers are taking to a conversion decision would be a truly ground-breaking effort worth speeding up development on for the market.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in Instant Insights on ClickZ, Tuesday, June 21, 2011. Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss.

Filed under: Emerging Trends & Tech, Organic Search, Paid Search, Social Media | No Comments >>

Building A Likable Partnership

by ~ June 9th, 2011

Facebook has launched its first effort in an emerging focus area of developing deeper relationships with advertising agencies. The Facebook Studio concept is designed to showcase the creative and diverse experiences that are facilitated on the social platform. The program is a nice first attempt at bridging the gap which typically exists between media and publisher. It’s also a safe step because it gives creative agencies and social content developers an opportunity to put their best work on display in a Facebook-sanctioned environment. These are all positives for Facebook and a safe play to move into this territory.

What comes next will be the true measure of the Facebook/agency relationship. Over the last decade, I’ve served on virtually every agency council run by a search engine and have seen the myriad of attempts engines have tried to make to connect with both stand-alone agencies and search units inside traditional media and creative shops. Every council or agency relationship has a stated mission of improving the working partnership to provide better opportunities. These are opportunities for agencies and clients to voice their wishes and discuss new innovations that would be meaningful, and opportunities for the platform to incorporate that feedback and create new models for revenue generation or enhance existing products.

Well, that’s the stated goal. The reality is they are often as fulfilling as bi-partisan politics. Why? Because every council is driven by the sales arm of the organization with a guest appearance role by product engineering. Ultimately, the powers that drive these platforms, be it Google, Microsoft or now Facebook, reside inside the engineering community that shapes innovation. And those individuals are either only included at random intervals, non-incentivized to incorporate this level of insight, or they simply hold “sales and agencies” in such disdain that the mere suggestion of collaboration draws a sneer and terse interaction. That leaves a sales team offering up the olive branch of peace and prosperity, and left to navigate into uncharted territory inside their own organization only to be met with an outcome that shows the council/partnership to be nothing more than a glorified sales effort with no real impact on bigger thought.

So, Facebook has made a fine first effort but it’s an easy effort and will ultimately mean little for future development. What they do now in structuring true agency teams will reveal if they have an appetite for input and collaboration or if they are putting lipstick on the pig and passing it off for something more than what it is – just another sales tactic. If Facebook wants agencies to be “Fans,” then they’d be well-served by making product engineering an empowered and key component of this agency structure.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in Instant Insights on ClickZ, Tuesday, May 24, 2011. Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss

Filed under: Social Media | No Comments >>

1.3 Billion People Say They Don’t Want to Search Anymore – Now What?

by ~ May 5th, 2011

Thirty-thousand feet above the western United States and staring out another airplane window, it hit me. No one wants a search engine. Last month there were 1.3 billion people worldwide who used search, with comScore reporting 12.1 billion* searches done on Google in the United States alone. The problem with these statistics is they make us think everyone who searched wanted to spend that time searching. We’ve been conditioned by the sheer growth of searching to believe that it was something people desired. In the U.S. alone more than 15 million root canals are performed each year. Useful as the procedure may be, the number of elective procedures was somewhere close to zero.

People can be summed up based on their natural reaction to the following statement: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

Read that statement to 10 people and you’ll likely get seven people who nod and wax poetic about the journeys they have taken. Then you’ll get three hearty souls that call shenanigans and boldly proclaim that you can keep your journeys, they’ll enjoy more destinations and outcomes.

And that’s the problem with search – it is neither a good journey nor a satisfactory destination.

In recently-released research from GroupM Search, we identified that in key verticals the average duration for a consumer from initial engagement with search, social media, or a brand site to purchase is close to two months. Over that time people have roughly 10 engagements with those three types of sites before converting. If search is supposed to be making our lives better, it has an odd way of doing it if it means decisions come over a period of 60 days and need close to a dozen interactions.

And that’s the problem with a search engine. It is not a destination engine and it is not a discovery engine.

The problem with Bing, the decision engine, is that it is a decision engine for the masses. Facebook inclusion and broader data sets to analyze from the Yahoo alliance can be considered differentiations in today’s market place, but they fall short. Right now, the data we have shows Bing is at best a second opinion engine for many who are Google first users. The reason is that Bing, at the end of the day, is not doing anything that different with the experience. If Bing, or anyone else, wanted to be a destination engine they would create a truly one-to-one engine that uses your signal base to serve up an Apple Genius experience inside your search. Just because a user expressed explicit intent doesn’t mean that it is being matched in the results. The problem is advertisers are spreading their investments around to the potential of the masses versus the singularity of the person. What’s failing consumers at present is not the advertiser match of content but the ability to operate on a platform that facilitates a bidding scenario based of the expectation that a single connection is going to happen and nothing more will be needed.

In this environment consumers spend exponentially more time inside Bing or another engine versus off-site with the constant click and return to search again behavior. The trade-offs for brands are greater investment and depth of exposure happening off-site in exchange for being hyper targeted with an ability to minimize the touch points. If Microsoft were to take the name of another project, Looking Glass, and use the concept of going down the rabbit hole on site with a heavy dose of personal attention, we might truly have a destination engine for brands and consumers alike.

The counter to a destination mindset is that of the journey and its exploration and discovery. If Malcolm Gladwell is right and it takes 1,000 repetitions to become proficient in your craft, then we need engines that encourage better behavior to allow for an appreciation of the experience of the journey.

The behavior being taught today is one where users learn to search, click, return, and repeat. There’s no feedback loop coming back into the engine in a natural way as to the worth a user found from the previous query and/or click.

Today we see more snippets of rich data being included that is designed to help inform the first click but means nothing to us upon return. An engine that would allow curation and evolve based on our behaviors is what more people want than the current model, I believe. This is about the buying process. We know search is used to find products, prices, deals, and opinions. Yet, to go from start to finish is about forcing an individual to select what looks best after an engine has ranked the sites and then requires personal memory to retain the key elements.

Dream with me of an engine that provides the ability to notate your findings, register the most appealing elements, and further refines itself upon that data – not the standard set of generic content that it believes the masses want to see. If people want to discover and explore, then facilitating that is only as meaningful as the ability to let that information reside beyond their individual brains and use it for a greater good. A true discovery engine takes the implicit (I want to go on vacation) and turns it, via discovery, into an explicit (Le Meridien Paris). The role engines play in getting from A to B can be powerful and helpful because it has the ability to iterate the process so that searching becomes discovering and implicit becomes explicit.

For advertisers, the worth of a word becomes measured by the worth of the person along the path and the models that evolve. Nothing is simple when it comes to discovery and destination, but the alternative that exists today is something people don’t want.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and was  published in ClickZ, April 26, 2011.  Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss.

Filed under: Emerging Trends & Tech, Organic Search | No Comments >>

Um, No, Search Is Not The ‘Worst’ Form of Advertising

by ~ April 29th, 2011

GroupM Search Chief Says Branded Search Plays A Bigger Role In Purchase Decisions Than You Think

I don’t know Josh Shatkin-Margolis (author of “Search is the Worst Form of Advertising,” AdAge, 4/26/11), but I know his argument. The sales pitch is simple: search is not real advertising, and in his mind, is a small and over-credited piece of the purchase process when compared to a channel of real influence and persuasion, display. Keep in mind Mr. Shatkin-Margolis apparently works at a display media retargeting firm—a business built on the foundation of search and consumer intent. So I’m surprised he’d use such a tired argument to denigrate search to prove his point.

In his article, Mr. Shatkin-Margolis contends search lacks persuasion and is wasted on convincing consumers that they are making the right decision. He also suggests an awkward analogy that you would never credit a checkout clerk for persuading someone to buy Coke over Pepsi.

Yet there are copious amounts of data available proving the role search plays in influencing a purchase decisions. Branded search is more closely associated with in-store product placement than the checkout clerk; and yes, brands often examine sales impact in their overall marketing efforts. And that ignores the impact of generic search and SEO which apparently did not warrant consideration.

In recent research published by GroupM Search, titled The Virtuous Circle – The Role of Search and Social Media in the Purchase Pathway, we found that 86 percent of all consumers found search to be somewhat or very important in their purchase pathway. The research which was designed to explore the impact of two channels together, not push one at the expense of another, also found that more than one-third of all buyers said search helped them decide what brands to buy.

That suggests a decision had to be made by the consumer and search played a role in a significant numbers of instances. Not bad for a channel where Mr. Shatkin-Margolis contends people only spend two percent of their time and do not have the advantage of pretty pictures in the form of graphical ads. Anyone paying attention to the evolution of Rich Ad formats in search could argue the search experience is more robust than ever before.

What bothers me the most is why this is even the basis for an argument in 2011. Mary Meeker, while at Morgan Stanley before moving to Kleiner Perkins, estimated that $50 billion had yet to transition from traditional advertising to digital. Rather than building a case for extending the proven performance of search with retargeting that takes some of the better characteristics into the display environment, Mr. Shatkin-Margolis wants to discuss credit. It is an argument that cross-channel attribution advocates tout – search gets too much credit and display plays a larger role than is recognized.

As a guy who has spent his career squarely in search, I’ve heard this argument time and again. There is no doubt that search is the beneficiary of being the touchdown maker. Likewise, there is absolutely no dispute from this perspective that when aligned with TV, display and every other media type, search works better and the dollars work smarter. Ironically I have never seen a TV buyer suggest search was taking from their pocket and not properly attributing credit back. Yet it is an all too frequent display and search occurrence. And if you think that’s something, wait until we start to see discussion around Facebook/display/search attribution modeling and who really is doing the lifting.

It fascinates me – whenever the display versus search argument is made, it rarely has anything to do with true attribution and shared impact for better performance. Instead, it is a thinly-veiled money grab from what should be the desired partner, not the enemy.

The mentality that to in order advance one sector you have to put down another is not helping the digital industry. Many businesses are being built that use consumer intent and signals combined with data and buying algorithms. Those businesses will truly elevate all sectors of digital without suggesting any one area is so deficient it should be decried to the masses. Every search advertiser should be engaged in search retargeting, just as they should be exploring how to leverage real time auctions, audience based buying and where social media is going to take them.

If you want to make a case for a sound communications strategy built with proper mix models and allocations that complement and maximize investments to reach a more productive ROI, then I’m in. If you want to take your shot at search as a channel in an effort to elevate display advertising as if search is not truly advertising, then you need more data and conviction than this old argument.

To quote Omar Little from HBO’s ‘The Wire,’ “If you come at the King, you better not miss.” Distinguishing your line of business by denigrating search is a bullet fired far from the mark.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and was  published in AdAge, Monday, April 29, 2011.  Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss.

Filed under: Digital Advertising, Organic Search, Paid Search | No Comments >>

How Google +1 Could Impact Your SEO

by ~ April 1st, 2011

This article offers perspective from GroupM Search on the SEO implications of Google’s +1 feature. It is a follow up to a POV published by GroupM Search on 3/31/2011 about the strategic implications of +1 and its meaning for brands and the digital marketplace.

Google +1 buttonGoogle’s “+1” (pronounced, “plus one”) is a type of social media sharing and recommendation feature released this week by Google to help them improve their website ranking system and improve the relevancy of their search engine results. This is a positive system for highlighting websites that you, as a consumer, think are good or deserve special consideration by your network.  There is no “-1” in this system, although, Google does already have a ‘negative’ endorsement tool in their “Block all domain.com results” function.

Google’s launch of +1 is being broadly compared with the Facebook “Like” button, and it appears to be a similar system.  Indeed, we would suggest that Google is piggy-backing on the simplicity and success of the “Like” button that so many web users are familiar and comfortable with.  The other side of “+1” that is still under development is their website button – a widget, which, as with Facebook’s Like button, can soon be embedded into any page on a website and will allow users to pass their approval – through Google – to others in their Google +1 Network.  Don’t underestimate the value of this part of the equation – if there is one thing that most websites want, it is the #1 rank in Google. If this button can help elevate your website to number one (at least for those in the networks of those who have “+1’d” it), then adoption of the widget is a no-brainer.  This does not negate the need for search engine optimization (SEO) – there is still a baseline that Google (and Bing) need to take to let their algorithms do their work, so an optimized website is always going to help you rank for key terms. But if this widget makes the difference between #5 and #1, then expect to see broad adoption, and quickly.

Why Is Google Doing this?

This move is a fairly natural extension from Google’s existing social search product that has been around for the last couple of years.  It is also designed to help improve search result quality, which has recently been called into question.  Last year, Microsoft’s Bing search engine beat Google to the punch in signing a deal with Facebook to provide them with access to data from Facebook’s ubiquitous social network.  Access to this data meant that Bing was able to – when users were signed in to Facebook – deliver recommendations based on the data from their network that Continue reading >>

Filed under: Organic Search, Paid Search, Social Media | 4 Comments >>

Google +1: The Strategy Behind the Latest Search Innovation

by ~ March 31st, 2011

On Wednesday, March 29, Google rolled out a new search product innovation called “+1.” +1 is designed to allow users an opportunity to recommend ads and pages they have found to be useful. Doing this will enable other Google users to see pages and ads that have been “+1’d” (Google’s newest attempt at verb creation).

The Wall Street Journal has an extensive write-up on the specifics of the topic in an article titled “Google Wants To Be More Social,” as does the official Google blog.

Google +1 Examples

In launching +1, Google appears to be making a direct challenge to the well-established “Like” functionality of Facebook. The move continues a recent shift in the way Google approaches its own algorithm and rankings, which have come under substantial scrutiny in the past three to four months.

Google product manager Christian Oestlien acknowledged, “Recommendations play a vital role in our decision-making process.” Google supported this with additional statistics that suggest 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, while 71% say reviews from family members or friends influence purchase decisions. These figures align with recent research published by GroupM Search which indicates that more than 50% of all consumers had their perceptions changed about brands based on social influences.

At present, there seems to be three central questions to consider about the broader plan behind such a move by Google. There is also the discussion of what opportunity this presents to marketers. Continue reading >>

Filed under: Organic Search, Paid Search, Social Media | No Comments >>

+1 – Google’s Answer to Facebook’s Like Button

by ~ March 30th, 2011

Today we received the announcement from Google about the release of “+1”.  At the tail end of 2010, I wrote a post highlighting the inclusion of social data into the search mix, in which I stated that Google, while behind Bing in terms of true social search integration, would not be far away from (yet another) attempt to build their own social data set.  And here it is.

Google has made various forays into the social world with some more successful (in Brazil anyway) than others.  However, it is clear that through their Profiles pages, and their less invasive tactics like the Google Places pages, that gathering social data from its users is high on Google’s list of things to do.

Enter the +1.  Nicely non-invasive and with the ability to help guide search results both from a direct (on the SERP) and indirect (on the website) point of view.  It’s simple, in tradition with Facebook’s “Like” button; and for now, it’s positive — there is no “-1” button…yet. But but the choice of a number makes this nicely scalable for Google, should they Continue reading >>

Filed under: Organic Search, Paid Search | No Comments >>

Good Links, Bad Links – Where Is The Line?

by ~ March 29th, 2011

Before we get into the value of a good link or bad link, what is a link? Loosely defined, a link is a reference from one site to another.  More practically defined, in order for Site A to link to Site B, Site A must have a page with a link that takes users to the linked page on Site B.  An underlying premise behind a link is that Sites A and B have valuable and related content, and the webmaster for Site A believes that Site B offers content that Site A’s users will find helpful.

While it’s certainly nice to pick up the traffic boost from another site’s link, there is an added bonus.  Search engines use links as a signal when trying to rank websites.  Links are treated as votes, and the more powerful and relevant the linking site is, the more value passed to your website. The theory being that the more relevant and popular links a website acquires, the better resource the site is likely to be.  That being said, sites with the most links don’t always rank first. Quality is very important, as well as the anchor text (the words used in the link). Links from powerful websites, with anchor text that contain targeted keywords, can be extremely helpful when trying to rank for those keywords in a search engine. These links occur naturally if content is compelling and interesting, but some site owners engage in questionable tactics to encourage other websites to link to them – such as buying links – in an attempt to build their link profile.

In the wake of some large, well-known brands being given penalties due to manipulative link building techniques, many website owners have been left wondering the appropriate method to acquire links in the eyes of the search engines. The search engines are vague in how they define link schemes, and are even less clear and inconsistent as to how they penalize sites for undesirable linking behavior.  For example, links acquired to manipulate page rank within Google’s ranking system are against Google’s terms of service and may cause a penalty. Continue reading >>

Filed under: Organic Search | 1 Comment >>

The Me-Ification Of Search And Social

by ~ March 16th, 2011

Chris Copeland wants to be #1. Correction: Chris Copeland knows that Chris Copeland is already an expert, a search and social marketing guru, but he wants Google to know that he is all of that and for Google to give him the self-glorifying satisfaction that comes with one thing: Chris Copeland ranking #1 in the Googgle search results for the term Chris Copeland.

 I am personally excited because I have my sights set on not just being #1 for me, Chris Copeland, in the engines, but am now turning my focus toward the self-gratification that comes with having the most Twitter followers that hang on my every self-serving and validating 140 burst of brilliance from my @SearchBoss handle. 

Actually, the paragraphs above have almost not a word of truth in them, but they do make a point – one that seems to have been lost in the gold rush surrounding the latest digital trend. You see, if you asked me to describe my personal philosophy, it would be more “Act like you have been there” than “I’m a Golden God.” But, apparently somewhere in the last few years, that philosophy came to mean that I wasn’t old-school, just old — at least in our industry.

My job is not about building the brand of Me first. If the adage is true that you can’t take it with you, I have to believe that goes beyond the material possessions to the immaterial of the social sphere. I only need a retweet from St. Peter at the pearly gates when the time comes — not from 1,000 of spambots before I leave this world. 

I’m not a rocket scientist or doing brain surgery every day, but what we do in advertising does have a purpose and a meaning. If you care about this business, then you approach your job with a hearty desire to impact the masses – not with your self-fulfilling messages, but rather by connecting consumers with brand and being relevant. It’s not Don Draper sexy 99.44% of the time, but it has its moments.

People in the business of search and social have confused promotion of ideas and material performance with promotion of self. They are measuring their impact by follower counts and printed and spoken self-references. Let’s be clear that this problem is not an epidemic, but more prevalent than ever before.

Some people have “the goods,” and earn respect by the way they handle their business and their unflinching willingness to do the right thing to ensure success. And then there are so-called experts who now advise others on how to construct programs to maximize follower counts and enhance rankings through the superficial and timely with a kind of excess that would make a Kardashian weep with jealousy. 

Years ago, I used to joke that people would attend a search conference for four days and suddenly become qualified to hang out a shingle and go into business as a consultant. The acceleration of technology has been such, that in the social media space you can seemingly skip the conference, hit a couple of websites, gorge your Twitter account with meaningless followers chasing keyword-laden tweets, and bypass doing any work. 

If Chris Copeland ends up #1 on Google or Bing as a result of an article that celebrates Chris Copeland, written by Chris Copeland, then so be it. That’s the way the game is played today, and I can handle that. But, while others are worried about being experts in self, the Zen of Me, the tao of I, I’m worried about next. And next isn’t about me; it’s about a platform in a garage or dorm room — and it’s certainly not being developed by someone tweeting how friggin’ cool it’s going to be when finished.

Look at the great digital successes of the past decade, and you see companies that have reached the top by doing the work first — not by talking about it. Someday Chris Copeland will walk away from advertising – and, like a majority of the folks in this industry, there will be no highlight reel on the work I did for me. The people, the work, the recognition from others will speak for me far better than anything I can say about me, Chris Copeland.

This article was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and was published in MediaPost, March 9th, 2011.  Follow Chris on Twitter – @SearchBoss.

 

Filed under: Digital Advertising, Social Media | No Comments >>