This type of shit won’t hit the top ten
But we won’t bend – we won’t switch off, pretend
Rebel MC, lyrics to ‘The Governments Fail’, 1992

I love this couplet, which guarantees the outcome it describes. Acknowledging that his revolutionary stance and street-tuff sounds will never find a broad audience, the Rebel defiantly turns his music’s marginality into a virtue. ‘Those who have ears to hear, let them hear,’ is the implicit message.

It's like Public Enemy, but with dreads. And not quite as good

By quoting these words, I’ve taken a similar approach. My peoples will see them as confirmation of my edgy, urban flow. Playa hatas, on the other hand, will probably regard the mild profanity as uncalled-for, gauche and a little embarrassing. Either way, the tactic will probably get a reaction. It is, quite literally, divisive – drawing a line between those who are drawn to my tone and message and those who aren’t.

Who cares?

This kind of tone is all about knowing who cares about your message, and who doesn’t, and targeting your tone of voice accordingly.

The corollary is that you have to be able to define these two groups with reasonable accuracy. For some products, that’s easy. For example, consider the slogan used by children’s medicine Calpol:

If you’ve got kids, you’ll understand

Cosily alluding to a tacitly shared experience for parents, it’s unbearably smug and mimsy for everyone else. But that doesn’t matter, because the product has zero appeal to anyone but fretful mums and dads.

Similarly, check out this slogan from Konectbus, one of our local bus operators:

Sunday is a day of rest shopping

I think this must be borderline offensive to committed Christians, since it essentially rubbishes one of the Ten Commandments. (Imagine a similar tactic with Allahu Akbar: ‘God is great – and so are our travelcards!’) But since the faithful won’t be heading for Chapelfield for a pair of Levi’s and a flat white on a Sunday, Konect has obviously decided they’re not worth fretting over. (However, these Venn circles aren’t completely separate – Christians might be keen shoppers on other days.)

Finally, UK readers may recall the infamous slogan used for Pot Noodle:

The slag of all snacks

The TV spots using this phrase were banned in 2002 when 310 complaints were received by the ITC. Even though the number represented a tiny minority of viewers, the ad still got pulled, and had to be reworked with the far weaker phrase ‘sounds dirty, and it is’. This inspired slogan, which surely got a big smile and strong recollection from anyone likely to buy the product, was too divisive for its own good.

All these slogans focus on converting their most likely prospects, which is always a good idea. There’s really no point targeting people who will never be interested, regardless of what you tell them. So don’t kid yourself (or let your client kid themselves) that you can magically expand the product’s appeal with your words.

Diluting the message

In other product categories, where absolutely anyone could be a target, the message has to have a more universal appeal – which is how we end up with slogans like ‘I’m lovin’ it’, where the meaning has been spread so thin that it has absolutely no depth.

However, catering to an audience segment that isn’t actually that important to your brand can quickly drawn you into deep water. In the online arena, the most embarrassing manifestation of this was Gap’s self-abasement in response to the reception for its new logo, which I documented in this post. Hypnotised by social-media flaming like a rabbit in the headlights, Gap completely forgot who its customers were, and where it actually sold its products, leading the firm to bottle its carefully considered strategy to refresh a tired high-street brand.

Trenchant Tweeters

Social media is another area where a highly idiosyncratic tone of voice can reap dividends. On Twitter, for example, you’ll find a host of marketers putting out a bland, me-too stream of news items and retweets from their peers, casting the net wide in the hope of attracting a broad audience.

But the ‘please like me’ tactic is self-defeating, because it offers no differentiation. Often, it’s those Twitter personalities who offer trenchant opinion, industrial-strength language and combative interaction who attract big, loyal followings.

Grumpy old trolls

On blogs, too, you’ll often find writers stirring up strong opinion in order to position themselves as leaders rather than followers – often becoming ludicrously grumpy or confrontational in the process. Sometimes, this is the expression of a genuinely held opinion, aimed at a sympathetic audience who will understand. At other times it’s pure trolling, throwing the content cat into the commenting pigeons with the aim of maximum impact (and SEO benefit).

Opinionated writers can also boost exposure by appearing as ‘fish out of water’ guests, offering a sharp contrast with the prevailing tone of the host site or publication. For example, have a look at Christopher Montgomery’s pieces for the Guardian. For readers weaned on well-meaning but interminable liberal hand-wringing, his mix of perfidious Cameron-bashing and unrepentant Thatcherism feels excitingly spicy and forbidden – repulsive and compulsive all at the same time. Putting his opinions on the Guardian is like putting Mentos into Diet Coke – a sure-fire recipe for frothing indignation.

Value over appeal

Unless you’re actively seeking a contrary reaction, choosing the right tone of voice is all about generating maximum value – as opposed to maximum appeal. You’re looking to cultivate interest and loyalty from a specific group, which usually means being yourself without going out of your way to offend. At the same time, though, it’s always worth bearing in mind that your target audience may prefer to hear things in a way that others really don’t like. Get the balance right and you can make lots of friends by making a few enemies.

‘I’m too much with myself.
I wanna be someone else.’
Lyrics to ‘My Drug Buddy’, by Evan Dando

Have you heard about the site about.me? Have you signed up? It’s a brilliantly basic idea – put together a simple, nicely designed page all about yourself, with links to your various online presences (Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr etc). You can see my page (a work in progress) here.

About.me appeals to your inner narcissist. The format of your page invites (indeed, requires) you to use a whopping ‘hero’ image of yourself as a background. (You really need a professional shot for best results.) As the name suggests, it really is all about you. A shrine to the self.

For people in or around digital media, particularly freelances and consultants, this sort of rampant self-promotion seems to have become the norm. Investing significant time and money into your online branding, which still seems faintly self-indulgent to me, is completely natural to younger generations. It’s become part of ‘marketing yourself’ and ‘developing a personal brand’.

Remake yourself

When I arrived at university, a fellow fresher confidently proclaimed that ‘everyone’ called him Cinderella, or Cinders for short. (He was into heavy rock and had a Brian May hairstyle.) A few weeks later, his brother visited. Turned out he’d never heard the nickname before. Cinders, whose real name was Phil or Alan or something, had realised that different contexts offer the perfect chance to refresh your personal brand.

About.me had yet to be invented, so Narcissus made do with his garden pond

The digital world is just the same. It lets you define or refine your own character, creating a sort of semi-fictionalised version of yourself for public consumption.

Better than reality

When I hook up with people I’ve met on Twitter, I’m sometimes struck by the differences between their social-media persona and their actual character. Specifically, it seems that some people downplay their melancholic or cynical sides on Twitter, much as you would at a party or social gathering. Others seem to go out of their way to be more in-your-face than they really are, perhaps as means of self-protection.

I asked my Twitter followers if there were any differences between their online and offline personae, and received a range of answers (not all of them serious, naturally):

@regtubby many years of difference but beginning to see convergence. I doubt they’ll ever be the same. The real me rarely appears online.

@AndyDBryant Try to keep it the same, although that’s contradictory given I willingly hide behind a cartoon character profile pic :/

@wordetc I think before I tweet. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for when I speak!

@timcaynes my online personality gets out more

@eph_bee it used to be, especially as a teen… the advent of twitter changed that a lot – much more similar now.

@shakirah_dawud I keep certain things back as a professional. No more than I would in office, tho, so I guess I’m about the same all round.

@norwichmag We definitely swear less when tweeting, which is a good habit to get into.

@NexusWords Not different, just narrowed. Filtering ensures all is business-friendly, but I think keeping my humour (albeit PG) is important!

@Mr603 Not discernibly. I’m snarky, sarcastic and faux-authoritative offline too. Although I spend less time courting potential links

Papering over the cracks

Can online persona compensate for character flaws?

It’s certainly possible to build a business even if you lack confidence in some areas – witness my own well-documented aversion to networking. I’ve been amazed by the insecurities held by some of my clients, even after they’ve made millions. Online presences afford the opportunity to paper over such cracks and present a flawless personal image to the world.

Leading copywriter Mike Reed (@reedwords) shared sentiments very close to my own:

After 17 years in the business I’m just starting to get to grips with the idea of introducing myself to people at events.

I’m naturally a shy person, although I’ve grown out of the absolutely painful shyness I had as a youngster/teenager. But I am good with words, given the time to think them through.

This is why I love email – unlike the phone, one can organise and refine one’s thoughts before communicating them. Likewise, online I can come across as far more confident/nonchalant/snappy than I ever am in person, because I have a facility for written language.

I’m likely to be a bit mouthier online than I am in person, because I’m not faced with a real human being who I’m concerned about offending.

People sometimes bring up things I’ve written online, and I almost cringe at how bold I was… But this is good – it pushes me into being more confident in the flesh, into having the courage of my convictions and speaking up.

Mike paints a picture of a medium with very different rules from face-to-face interaction – but one that opens up some new opportunities and ways of being. Which can only be good.

A little Tweet infamy

Film-maker and marketing pro Matthew Carrozo (@carrozo), who I think could fairly be described as a ‘Twitter personality’, also sent me some interesting perspectives.

[My Twitter persona] is very much an extension of who I am, but far more of a personal caricature than who I “really” am.

I can tell stories, rise above my station and be very verbose or very cutting.  It’s a desire to share what I’m already thinking… with a greater digital hive mind… It’s also a desire to gain attention and adulation from strangers. That’s the artist in me.

Twitter in particular is a stage for performance… Some post under pseudonyms to say all sorts of ludicrous, libellous and lame things, like a comedian doing an act “in character”, which gives all sorts of freedoms… Others are obsessed with “personal branding” and struggle to gain headway with happy-go-lucky, sycophantic and self-censored content in attempt to please everyone, which of course appeals to no one.

All the people I admire and respect in the public eye step out of line to make comments that go against the status quo… fascinating people say weird, wonderful and offensive things that make us think a little differently about long-held assumptions. To stand out, to be counted in the age of the individual, you do have to say things that stand out.

Matthew’s view of Twitter is a forum where bland, me-too content won’t deliver any outcomes – perhaps not even the humble ambition to be liked. To succeed, at whatever level, we have to amp it up a bit.

I can certainly relate to what he’s saying. Since I began using Twitter, I’ve started to look at a lot of my experience through the lens of 140-character updates – asking myself, in very many situations, ‘could I tweet about this?’ But I only do so if I can make the event funny or memorable somehow – that is, if I can make it worthy of my online self.

Pointless inflation

I haven’t deliberately set out to create a false online persona. But it’s kind of happened anyway. Because I enjoy writing, blogging and coding, I’ve developed this site way beyond what’s really required for a sole trader. It’s become a monster. (The only possible justification is SEO.)

Before Christmas I was contacted by a major – and I do mean major – multinational brand, seeking tone of voice training. Unfortunately, I’ve never really done any genuine tone of voice work – all I’ve done is write a few blog posts about my ideas on tone of voice. And that wasn’t a one-off – I’m often contacted by people who think ABC is a 50-person company.

The reality, as my real-world acquaintances know, is rather more humble: one rather tired guy, pushing 40, receding hair, typing away in a spare room. With a green carpet. With a hole in it. (Sorry for spoiling your mental image of me as a thrusting, dynamic young webpreneur.)

It’s flattering that people think I’m bigger and better than I am, but it isn’t really a whole lot of use. I’ll never be able to convert big-name prospects – not for a few years yet, anyway. In strict business terms, dealing with such enquiries is a complete waste of time, and rather depressing to boot. So is there really any point in inflating your online brand if it makes you look ‘too good’, or better than reality?

Me, myself and I

It seems there are lots of reasons why people make their online personae different from their real selves. For some, it’s just about professional courtesy and a ‘work’ tone of voice. For others, it’s about being someone online that they perhaps can’t be in person. And some feel that an exaggerated or provocative stance is essential to cut through the noise.

For my part, I’m becoming a little uneasy about the way the ‘online me’ is developing. Sometimes I think he might be hogging too much of my attention; soaking up precious cognitive resource. Sometimes I worry that he’s too self-regarding, too mercenary, too cynical.  Sometimes I despair that he’s just not funny, creative or popular enough. And some days, I just don’t like him that much. Perhaps we need a little time apart…

For sole traders like me, it’s a chance to muddle up our brands and our personalities even further. For multinationals, it’s another playground where they can deploy colossal marketing spend to bolster their already formidable advantage.

And for some of those in between, it’s all a bit perplexing. What is this exactly? Why are we doing it? And who are we talking to? But peer pressure is a powerful thing, so they gamely get with the programme and Twitter up. I just wonder what they’re really thinking…

For me, the key criterion was quality of output – not speed, website design or even cost. In this post, I’d like to revisit the concept of quality copywriting and explain why the whole scope of the Nublue test was so misguided – and what it tells us about the way people see blogging and online content generally.

True value

The key problem with the Nublue survey was that it only reflected the perspective of the client, not the target audience.

So, you think your new blog post is a cracker. It was easy to order, it arrived quickly and it was cheap. That’s great! I’m really happy for you. But the true test of quality is how your content fares out there on the web, and what benefit it brings you as a result. Only when it’s realised business benefit can you truly say it was quality content. Otherwise, your assessment of quality is just a personal judgement.

It may be going cheap, but will it ever bring you golden eggs?

The quality of a blog post has three dimensions.

• Commercial. What value will your post offer to customers? Will it help them make or research a purchase? Can it function as a landing page, guiding first-time visitors to the ‘business end’ of your site? And, whether they buy or not, will they form a positive impression?
• Reputation. Is this post truly unique? Is it going to build up your authority, credibility or standing in your niche? Does it differentiate you from competitors? Is it something you’d want prospective employees, partners or investors to read – and judge you on?
• Search and social. Is the post going to be commented, liked, tweeted and linked to? Is it going to be something you can push to social networks again and again, perhaps for many months? Is it going to get links and responses on other, reputable blogs?

If your posts aren’t valuable in these ways, why are you putting time, effort and cash into something that won’t bring you any benefit? Even if the content itself only costs a tenner, you still have to plan it, commission it, publish it, host it. Is it really worth it?

What’s the point?

‘Write me a post about IE9.’

‘Write me ten web pages about Irish whiskey.’

‘Rework this competitor’s content and make it unique so I can use it on my site.’

I get a lot of requests along these lines, and I always want to ask the same question: ‘Why?’

If it’s a blog post, what benefit will you really get from hastily written, internet-scraped, inaccurate or downright boring content? As noted above, no one will link to it, or like it, or comment on it, or (in all probability) even read it. It will just sit there, unloved and disregarded, making your blog look like a digital backwater. What’s more, there are hundreds of sites out there doing much the same thing; you’re aligning yourself with your competitors rather than differentiating. So what’s the point?

For SEO, the logic of cheap content is dubious at best. Even supposing you can get a ranking with your blatant spam (which gets harder by the day anyway), why should visitors stay on a site with average content? What impression will they form? How can such a site hope to convert traffic into sales?

For corporate web pages, the whole philosophy of ‘filling up’ the site with content as quickly or cheaply as possible is utterly misguided. As when buying a suit, a car or a meal, it’s about spending as much as you can afford to get the best possible result – scrimping and saving is just selling yourself short. And when you start thinking about hard performance factors like conversion rate, the idea of ‘cheap and cheerful’ makes even less sense.

The time factor is important too. While you spend months building a pointlessly derivative blog, or spamming the article sites with uninformative rubbish, your competitors are taking the quality route – building up such an advantage in terms of content, backlinks and SEO profile that you’ll simply never be able to overtake them. When success takes time, it’s best to start doing the right things right now.

Aim above adequacy

The depressing pursuit of ‘adequate content at best cost’, perfectly encapsulated by the Nublue exercise, misses the whole point of blogging – and online content creation in general.

Your aim should not be to create ‘me too’ content that achieves a passable standard of quality, but to make an exceptional and lasting mark on the internet with something that brings genuine, new value to the table.

But how do you get this wonderful stuff?

Choose better titles

Well, the first step is to stop posting dull, sheepishly topical briefs like ‘Review Internet Explorer 9’ to content mills and expecting anything good to come of it. A blog post can only be as good as the idea behind it.

Instead, try striking up a relationship with a copywriter who can come up with ideas that thousands of other people haven’t already covered. (Do I need to add that such a relationship can’t really be conducted via the web interface of a content mill?)

When you work with a professional writer regularly, they come to know your business very well. That puts them in the ideal position to consider how the expertise, knowledge and opinion you already have within your organisation could be turned into killer blog content.

What’s more, as you work together, you’ll become more alert and attuned to the blog ideas floating across your desk every day. Believe me, they’re there – but you won’t perceive them until you break free of the ‘get it done, get it cheap’ mindset.

Get better content

Having got a nice title together, make sure you honour it with some decent writing. Again, I don’t recommend going to a content mill, since you’ve got no control over who takes on your assignment, nor can you enter into a dialogue with them, nor is there any real mechanism for having your content revised or improved – which is the only path to quality.

Moreover, since they’re paid by the word, content-mill writers have zero incentive to add something extra in terms of research, snappy phrasing, humour, original opinion, different perspectives or anything else that might lift your post above the sea of mediocrity. So even the best writer, should you be lucky enough to get one, has no motivation to do the very things you want done.

It’s a crucial point, and one that content mills would rather their clients didn’t think about too deeply about. But there’s no way round it. The more time and effort goes into your post, the more likely it is to deliver lasting value to your business. There are no short cuts, no discounts, no quick and easy way. However, it does get easier the more you do it – provided you do it the right way in the first place.

Put quality over quantity

Finally, learn to put quality over quantity. Carefully considered content beats cheapo spam every time.

Some content mills crow over the fact that the typical freelance copywriter costs ‘ten times as much’ as their service, while glossing over the quality implications. For me, it’s very simple: while your cost per word is higher with a ‘real’ copywriter, your content is going to deliver far more benefit, however you measure it (backlinks, reputation, readership). Proper copywriters deliver far more bang for your buck.

Do they deliver ten times as much benefit, to justify their price? Well, as I’ve argued above, derivative and low-quality blog posts deliver little or no benefit at all, when you take all the factors into account. So a good blog post could be infinitely superior to a poor one.

To put it in the language of accounting, working with a copywriter makes content into an asset that delivers a return, rather than an overhead to be resented and minimised. Seen in this light, it’s easy to see why investing in it is worthwhile.

Start making sense

‘Best price’ offers, like the poor, will always be with us. In every sector, in every professional discipline, there will always be suppliers who opt for a value proposition based on the lowest price. And there will always be customers for them, too – people who see price as the overriding factor in every purchase, as well as those who lack the time or insight to analyse costs and benefits in a more balanced, reasoned way.

But when it comes to copywriting, there’s no getting away from it – the benefits from content-mill writing are small, and shrinking fast. That cheap content you’re buying could turn out to be very expensive indeed.

The egotist

The egotist holds forth interminably on his favourite topic, himself. He’s oblivious to the bored sighs of those around him, failing to notice them backing away towards the vol-au-vents.

Marketing moral: focus on the customer, not yourself.

The counsellor

The counsellor is full of unwelcome ‘why don’t you’ advice for everyone she meets – she’s the answer to a question nobody asked. Sadly, her ideas aren’t always that useful.

Marketing moral: expertise is becoming devalued in some fields (notably social media). Cultivating strong personal connections may work better than positioning yourself as an expert.

The geek

It's not a party if there aren't any vol-au-vents

The geek batters you into submission with an enthusiastic but crashingly dull monologue about his phone, computer or other gadget.

Marketing moral: don’t confuse technical features with customer benefits. Unless you’re targeting early adopters or gadget fiends, new technology does not sell itself.

The wiseguy

The wiseguy keeps the jokes coming even if they’re not appreciated, appropriate or even funny.

Marketing moral: humour doesn’t travel well and should be used with great care – are you sure you’ll get the reaction you’re hoping for?

The wallflower

The wallflower stands shyly on the sidelines even though her best friend could be introducing her to plenty of guests if asked.

Marketing moral: proactively cultivate and request referrals and testimonials; join the conversation in social media and see where it takes you.

The skinflint

The skinflint brings Liebfraumilch but drinks Moët.

Marketing moral: reciprocity is everything in modern marketing, particularly social media. You have to give something (of yourself) before you receive.

The butterfly

The butterfly is always looking around the room for someone more interesting to talk to.

Marketing moral: don’t neglect here-and-now customer needs in the quest for new connections or business, however exciting it might feel. It’s far easier to get an order from an existing customer than from a ‘cold’ lead.

The nervous hostess

The nervous hostess flits between conversations, asking everyone if they’re enjoying themselves (and the vol-au-vents).

Marketing moral: don’t over-regulate the social media conversation about your brand or content. Allowing criticism shows strength and confirms authenticity. Allow time and space for others to answer on your behalf; it will be more powerful.

The gatecrasher

The gatecrasher shouldn’t even be here at all but he never misses the chance to party, even if he doesn’t know anyone.

Marketing moral: don’t waste marketing spend on making a big splash when you really need focused exposure. Only relevant attention can be converted to sales.

The chatterbox

The chatterbox just won’t shut up!

Marketing moral: We can’t talk and listen at the same time; make time for learning and sharing as well as pushing out content. No one wants to work with a consultant or service provider who can’t listen.

So much for my list. Can you suggest more?

When I’m comparing my unique visitor stats to the number of leads I get through the site, this thought gives me pause. Are visitors put off by my Twitter content, or perhaps even this blog? And more broadly, does social media – even when done exactly as the gurus suggest – invariably enhance reputation?

Talking to strangers

Everyone understands that different online media require different tones (I’ve covered it in this post). For most businesses, Tweeting in the same voice as you use on your corporate site would be absolutely deadly, resulting in a desperately dry, po-faced and self-centred feed. While competitors were asking their customers what they did on Friday night, you’d be Tweeting about your dull-as-ditchwater product launch. You’d have no followers, no profile and no ROI.

Does careless talk cost reputation?

However, what works for friends and followers might look strange to newcomers. A prospect clicking through to my Twitter profile will see my last Tweet prominently displayed in 28pt type. If that Tweet is frivolous, or even offensive (a subjective judgement, after all), it surely won’t make a good impression. At the very least, the positive ‘he has a personality’ points could easily be offset by a ‘not very professional’ penalty.

I serve clients from all over the world. What would a visitor from Russia or El Salvador make of a conversation about liking cheesy biscuits, on Monday morning, from someone who presents themselves as a professional? In fact, what would a UK visitor who just didn’t know much about Twitter think of it?

For me, casual Tweets are the online equivalent of having the radio on in the background when you answer the phone. Some people just aren’t going to like it. That’s why, when I remember, I’ll try and make sure that I leave the feed with something relatively sensible or useful at the top, like a retweet from @econsultancy. Sure, it’s inauthentic, but it feels safer.

Unseen damage

I often point out to clients that a poor website can do serious harm to their reputation without them necessarily being aware of it. A site riddled with ancient content, inconsistent formatting and spelling errors won’t have the phone ringing off the hook with complaints. Instead, visitors will come, form a negative impression and leave – almost certainly without comment. If they judge by appearances – and why shouldn’t they? – you’ll simply never hear from them.

When I view some firms’ websites, I’m astonished at the substandard content they leave online for years on end, apparently oblivious to the impression it’s giving. If I work with such firms, it often transpires that they are aware of the problem, and plan to sort it out. But with no negative feedback from the prospects that got away, there’s no sense of a ‘burning platform’ to force them to act.

Reputation bomb

With that in mind, consider a Twitter feed that’s easily accessible from the home page, or actually visible on it (as it should be, according to the received wisdom). It could easily be a reputation bomb primed to explode.

If you’re an active Tweeter who combines business and pleasure in one account (as most sole traders and SMEs do), you’re Tweeting stuff you’d never dream of publishing at your main site (humour, politics, personal life etc) on an hourly basis. And if you don’t mix in some personal stuff, your feed will be too dry. Who’s to say a fantastic prospect might not click into your feed at a time when it shows something catastrophically trivial?

I’m relatively paranoid about Twitter. I aim for friendliness, humour and relevancy and set myself strict rules: no politics, no swearing, no arguing, no boasting about work, no chat about clients. (The one evening I did Tweet about politics, I lost a follower for every Tweet I posted.) But many Tweeters don’t police themselves in this way, giving their language, feelings and reactions free rein. I respect that – after all, I’ve argued before that we should market honestly and be ourselves in social media. But some Tweets are so pointed that they elicit a sharp intake of breath as you read them. Does the author really want those words online?

Broadcasting trivia

We’ve all seen the alarmist, ill-informed articles in mainstream media about the perils of Facebook, when in fact it’s easy enough to restrict access to your page (or at least it was, until the privacy options started to look like this). Twitter, as most people choose to use it, exposes your posted content far more widely.

Each Tweet lives forever at its own URL, and Google now searches Twitter in real time, more efficiently than ever before. And it might not index the Tweets you want it to. For example, my highest-ranking Tweet on a search for my name (mercifully on page 2) is this effort (presumably because of its keyword density for ‘Tom’):

Not offensive, but hardly inspiring, and undeniably trivial. On balance, probably not a URL I’d want a prospective client to see. And it could have been worse.

But it doesn’t end there. You can opt to have your Tweets syndicated to third-party sites. One such is LinkedIn, surely the most pin-striped and buttoned-down of all the networking sites. It’s a place where serious job-hunting and reputation-building is the order of the day (along, it seems, with an ever-increasing volume of discussion spam). But depending on when a potential client or employer visits, your carefully edited CV could be gatecrashed by the most hasty, drunken, offensive Tweet you’ve ever Tweeted. That’s why I haven’t, er, linked in my Twitter profile to the site.

Imaginary walls

In my experience, although most people’s Twitter accounts are unprotected, in practice they still Tweet as if their accounts were somehow private – everything is ‘between friends’ in terms of both content and tone. Others go further, treating Twitter like a confessional, or even a diary – despite having thousands of followers. Certainly, many Tweets clearly originate with the urge to unburden rather than the need to communicate.

You might regard your Twitter account as more ‘personal’ than your business content, with a clear division between the corporate and social worlds, but in reality the distinction may be largely in your head (and not in your client’s).

This can apply to other types of social-media content as well. Many of my blog posts, for example, are primarily of interest to other copywriters, marketers or media professionals, and not really aimed at general business readers (i.e. my potential customers). Sometimes, the resulting comment discussion will stray into areas, such as pricing, where an honest response isn’t something I’d really want my clients to read. So, as with Twitter, I have to think carefully about everyone who might be reading, rather than imagining there’s some kind of invisible wall between my main site and the blog. It’s important to remember that anyone could be reading anything, at any time.

What do you think? Should we worry about the reputational risk of social media, or have we entered a new, more relaxed age where saying something online is no different from saying it in the pub?

• Thanks to Sarah Turner of Turner Ink for the conversation that inspired this post.

The elephant in the room

Thank heavens we fitted that laminate flooring

An ‘elephant in the room’ is an inconvenient but hugely significant truth that no one wants to acknowledge. For SEO right now, that elephant is the unsustainability of current search-marketing practices.

The truth is that the long-term viability of the whole search paradigm (site publishes, user searches, user finds) simply isn’t served by the things many search marketers do: article marketing, online PR and ‘SEO fodder’.

While the music plays, we’re still dancing

All these tactics do is soak up resources to deliver a temporary advantage that a competitor can easily reverse by pursuing exactly the same strategy (even using almost identical content). On the downside, they clog up the internet with spam, degrade the internet experience and make it ever harder for the ‘proper’ search experience to take place. It’s a classic case of the tragedy of the commons.

The parallels with the financial crisis are striking. Far from ‘sleepwalking into disaster’, many senior financiers were fully aware that their business practices would be damaging over the long term – but the short-term profits were just too attractive to ignore. ‘When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated,’ said Chuck Prince, Citibank CEO, in 2007. ‘But as long as the music is playing, you got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.’

Indefinite articles

Search marketers would certainly leave the dancefloor quick smart if Google’s search algorithm reduced the weight attached to content published at article and online PR sites.

It’s been a long time since Google respected paid links. Yet a link from Ezine Articles or another article site is effectively a paid link – but purchased with content rather than cash. You give Ezine some content, you get a backlink. It’s a transaction. For PR sites, submission fees for the sites that can deliver the most backlinks make the nature of the deal even more explicit.

Online directories with submission fees are doing a similar thing. But the nature of the relationship between client and site is much clearer – plus you can only have one backlink from each directory, not keep plugging away indefinitely.

Since Google respects article and PR links, it’s simply a case of putting in the hours to create adequate content and ‘spinning’ it across as many sites as you dare.

Yes, there are quality standards, but they’re not particularly exacting. The sanity check is ‘value for users’. Give me ten minutes and I’ll find you ten articles – on almost any subject – that add no value because they are corporate puff, embarrassingly basic or near-duplicates of other articles.

The other main way of ‘gaming’ Google is by creating banks of SEO fodder: big chunks of content that is nominally relevant but actually not that valuable to users. Since Google can’t gauge the human value of content (yet), it sees this as worthy content and often ranks it quite highly.

The cynicism of all this is well known by anyone with the slightest acquaintance with search marketing. Yet we’re still recommending it to our clients – because as long as Google works as it does, it gets results.

But that could change. We’re unlikely to see existing article links deprecated, but it seems inevitable that new links will be gradually downgraded until they’re weighted appropriately. SEO fodder represents a tougher challenge for Google.

Dark satanic mills

To sate the voracious content appetites of article, PR and SEO marketers, we’re now seeing the advent and growth of so-called ‘content mills’ or ‘word factories’, which offer a highly cost-effective way to obtain large quantities of (allegedly) optimised text. Clients pay by the word, and obtain ready-made web content that they can use for their SEO campaigns. I’ve covered the drawbacks for clients here so I won’t repeat myself.

This AdWeek article argues that content mills are one of the key growth areas in digital marketing for 2010. Maybe so, but it’s going to be a case of making hay while the sun shines. Competition will force low prices even lower, while a game-changing new Google algorithm that reduces the efficacy of content spam will result either in fewer customers (why bother?) or lower prices again (why overpay for weak links?).

Eating sawdust

As a result of all this, the internet is filling up with unreadable rubbish, damaging the searching and browsing experience for us all, as this post vividly argues. Even the AdWeek article referenced above acknowledges the point:

‘The question for 2010 is whether this automation and data-driven approach will lead to a flowering of useful information or more detritus clogging search results with low-grade, ad-heavy Web pages.’

That is indeed the question for 2010. And my money’s on the detritus, because web publishers do not presently see any value or profit in providing truly useful information – and search marketers are doing little to persuade them otherwise. 

Some observers (such as Carson Brackney in this post) argue that there’s a place for lower-quality writing, and that web users aren’t as fussy or demanding as self-regarding copywriters would like them to be. Often, a food analogy is used: sometimes you like steak, but other times a burger will do.

For me, this is disingenuous. SEO pages are created purely for search purposes, with no thought of providing any value to the reader. SEO content differs from ‘proper’ web content not by degree, but by nature: it’s not a cut-price equivalent, but a completely different animal. Again, honest search marketers will admit this.

Reading SEO spam is more like eating sawdust than munching a burger: it will fill you up, but there is literally no enjoyment or nutrition to be gained from it – because it was never intended for human consumption.

Who could argue, with a straight face, that anyone is going to get anything out of an article like this? And more to the point, do the search benefits for the firm involved really outweigh the reputational damage of having this sort of rubbish associated with their brand?

Semantic search

So the webwaves are choked with SEO flotsam and jetsam. Somehow, search has to get more sophisticated, to filter out the rubbish – or users will lose faith. And Google, though a mighty corporation, ultimately depends on users’ faith in the accuracy and usefulness of its results.

One option is a form of semantic search, where Google actually comprehends the meaning of content rather than simply analysing it with metrics such as keyword density. This could be applied to website content or backlinking pages. However, at present, it’s a long way off.

There are tools (such as this one for Twitter) that attempt to bring a basic level of semantic search to social media. However, as you’ll quickly discover if you give it a go, there’s more to analysing the emotions of a piece of writing than categorising particular trigger words into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. We have a long way to go before machines understand that ‘good riddance’ is a negative sentiment and ‘killer post’ a positive one.

Social search

Another option for improving search is some kind of link-up with social media – seemingly a ready-made source of user opinion that could be used to shape search results. All Google has to do is find a way of mining the goodwill being expressed at SM sites every day. Instead of viewing backlinks as ‘votes’ on the quality of online content, it can use SM sentiment as a measure of what people think of a site or page.

Retweets are a good example of a ‘goodwill meter’. Although they could theoretically be paid for, RTs are one of the purest online votes of confidence there is. If my article gets tweeted, a human being thinks it’s valuable. Google already uses Digg links as a measure of popularity, so this seems like a natural next step.

Efficient refinery

One way of proactively digging out better results is by refining your search criteria, narrowing your focus down to filter out some of the rubbish. At present, it’s incumbent on the user themselves to try and refine their search by adding additional keywords or trying new ones.

Google knows that it has to guide users towards finer searches one way or another, but the lack of prominence it gives to its ‘related searches’ and ‘wonder wheel’ suggests that it only half-believes in them. It might have to do more in the future to develop tools that allow rapid, intuitive refining of results, including (perhaps) one-click filters to eliminate blog, article and PR postings.

Wait and see

Whatever the future brings, it’s going to be fascinating. Google’s success depends on providing useful, unspammy search results, so we can be sure that some sort of change will come. And whatever it is, it’s surely going to change the face of search marketing completely over the next five years.

Let me qualify that. I’m not talking about quotes or ratings presented in a manner of your own choosing. Quotes included on your website or in your brochure are clearly open to editing, manipulation or even fabrication. And obviously, they’re selected too – you don’t seek or publish quotes from clients who weren’t 100% happy.

However, reviews submitted at third-party sites can be completely beyond your control. Every time I invite a client to review me at FreeIndex, I’m making myself a hostage to fortune. Of course, I choose the ones I think are happy, but for all I know they’ve been holding back on a reservation about the timescale or the price. In fact, anyone can review me at FreeIndex, whether I invite them or not. And the pages rank highly.

In fact, it’s arguably far too easy to post negative reviews. Have a look at this profile for a copywriter on Touch Local. She’s rated one star on the strength of one anonymous, invisible review, submitted via a one-page form (you can see it further down the page). Who did that? A customer? A competitor? A drunk teenager?

Assuming it’s not genuine, presumably, the onus is on her to notice the rating, approach the site and attempt to have it rescinded – or, failing that, gather enough positive reviews to bring her average up.

Even if it is a genuine rating, it seems like a raw deal – particularly since she’s contributed to the viability of the directory by submitting her details and may even be paying for priority listing. All that marketing effort and/or outlay has ended up harming her prospects instead of enhancing them.

What do you think? Has democracy gone too far?

The principle of authority states that people defer to experts, and are more likely to accept a suggestion if it is backed up by authority.

Once upon a time, adverts could get away with making big, bold claims about their products and have them accepted at face value. Slogans such as ‘Guinness is good for you’ and ‘Guinness for strength’ (illustrated) just came right out and stated a (perhaps contentious) benefit based on the advertiser’s own authority. In a slight variation on the theme, washing-powder adverts used an off-screen ‘voice of God’ to the on-screen housewife, putting her right about her choice of Daz vs Persil.

Guinness makes a bold claim in the days before the ASA

Over time, people grew more savvy and wouldn’t accept advertisers’ own words as gospel. So they had to bring in third-party ‘experts’ to back up their claims. This is still going strong today, with ads for toothpaste, shampoo and cosmetics presenting ostensibly impartial scientists, stylists and make-up artists to endorse the product. The underlying message is ‘do what the experts say’.

Sometimes, the authority isn’t a ‘real’ authority, just someone who’s likely to be regarded as authoritative – as in Carol Vorderman marketing Benecol in the late 1990s. She wasn’t a nutritionist, but in the public mind she was clever, wholesome and trustworthy.

So, invoking authority has a long and distinguished history. Does that mean it won’t work today? Absolutely not. As long as you use an authority that the audience actually respects, you can still persuade the audience very effectively. Some examples of authorities you could use (with potential products/services in brackets) include:

• Scientists
• Industry bodies
• Newspapers or trade journals
• Government studies
• Reports, surveys and statistics
• News items

Basically, you’re looking for any material produced by an impartial authority that will back up your sales message. For example, it’s easy to see how eConsultancy’s trends and innovation reports could be used by online marketing firms to push their own service portfolios to potential clients.

Of course, if your audience is modern and tech-savvy, they may not take your word as gospel – or even the word of of a third party. Instead, they’ll go online to get the unfiltered, unvarnished truth, in the form of what other people are saying about you. For example, the typical Amazon user will probably glance at the official review and a third-party (e.g. newspaper) review, before focusing most of their attention on other users’ views. B2B service providers can collect and use customer testimonials in their marketing, as well as inviting reviews on various networking and directory sites.

Gradually, these shared user opinions have moved from the margins to centre stage. Their credibility has grown to the point where it’s eclipsing traditional authorities. Journalists have begun to establish the credibility of a ‘backlash’, ‘movement’ or ‘trend’ by pointing to the number of Tweets or Facebook groups about it, or including quotes from forums or blogs in their reports.

In an attempt to capitalise on the trend, cutting-edge initiatives like first direct live provide a snapshot of the social-media buzz (both positive and negative) about a brand. The idea is to appear open and honest, while also allowing the authority of real opinion to do the selling for you.

This approach can work, but it’s important to consider some key questions:

• Does your audience know and understand social media?
• Will they attach any weight to social-media coverage?
• Does the user-created content about your brand have sufficient depth and detail to sell your product or service?
• Is the balance of opinion reasonably likely to be positive?

If you’re happy with the answers, it could be worth invoking ‘social authority’ by incorporating social-media content into your marketing efforts.