It started with an innocent twitter entry. Now this twitter episode has lead to in interesting (and a little embarrassing) story that has now down the rounds within the SMX conference so I figure why not just blog it before someone else does. It relates to a trip I made a few weeks ago……..

“sinotechian:  Matt is in transit in Singapore… watched the debate on YouTube.. you got to love technology”.
So following my little twit, I got a response from my SEO buddy, David Temple (semscholar ) in Singapore who sent me a twitter message back. “lets catch up”.

Cool I thought. We have not seen each other and be great to meet.
The following day I posted “sinotechian   heading to the pool… laptop in hand and needing to do my slides for the Singapore SMX event next week…”
We then used twitter a number of times to agree on a Sunday meeting at 6.30pm for dinner. All seemed so 21st Centry.
On the Sunday, David wrote “semscholar   waiting in lobby at grand hyatt   from mobile web”
I rushed to the Hyatt to get there for our meeting time of 6.30pm
Unfortunately, neither of us took each other’s mobile numbers. We both waited in the Hyatt Hotel lobby for about 45 mins. I was a little surprised not to see David in the lobby and that he was late however, after a long wait I finally gave up the sitting around and felt he must have got held up. I head back to my hotel room and read my twits

“semscholar   not in bali sorry i thought you were in Singapore”
I replied.
sinotechian   :O sorry throught you were in Bali… lets see each next week in Singapore…

So two of the great minds of Digital Marketing (and active users of social media tools) have managed to successful set up a meeting at the Hyatt. It was just a shame that we waited at the Hyatt in different countries.

Dr Mathew McDougall from SinoTech Group (www.sinotechgroup.com.cn) was speaking at the SMX about Search Marketing in China. At the event, the talk was focused on the positive growth in Internet users in China. Collectively, the speakers were promoting that it is now right for marketers to take the plunge and launch digital campaigns in China (search, social etc) The various speakers outlined  positives and negatives for search marketers in China. These positives and negitives were nicely consolidated by Chris Sherman in his post on Search Engine Land. (Listed below for convienience).

Positives:

• China is of the largest markets in the world, with the most online users of any country (~250 million and counting)
• Increasing use of search engines by Chinese internet users
• Comparatively inexpensive options for search marketers in relation to other markets in the world
• Relative lack of sophisticated competition; relative ease of capturing top positions in both organic and paid search result listings

Negatives:

• Relative complexity of Chinese language (and multiple dialects) requires sophisticated knowledge and/or strong partnership with local marketing experts
• Lack of transparency on the part of market leader Baidu requires good relationships with company reps or agencies with good connections
• Lack of maturity in E-commerce poses challenges for direct-response or retail oriented search marketers

In the presentation by Dr McDougall, he spoke about companies now establishing search marketing campaigns in China and increasing looking to expand their budgets and the number of keywords being managed. He used a case study to highlight how one consumer electronics brand is now doing campaigns that have tens of thousands of keywords and there for needs tools and technologies to establish, bid, manage and monitor results/campaigns.

Overall, a great indication that search marketing is alive and well in China. If anyone else was at the event then would be interested in your views and comments.

Search marketing certification in the West is well documented and supported by most search marketing organizations. However, in China the search marketing industry is still embryonic, so the need for a certification program to establish a skills level and professional competence is the first steps in promoting skills, knowledge and confidence for employers and clients.

In the past month SinoTech has validated through this certification program more than 100 people (outside the SinoTech group). The multi-choice exams are conducted online in Chinese and the exam is time limited to 30 minutes. This exam leads to a Chinese search marketing certification and the questions are specifically aimed at the search engines in China. You can read more about our certification program by visiting http://www.sinotechgroup.com.cn/certification/certification1.html

The rise of blogs, customer reviews, photo- and video-sharing sites, and other online social media have empowered consumers/competitor and partners with a new power.

Further, with search being able to index all the blogs and comments into one organic list it can result in either a positive branding exposure or a negative one…a very negative one….. So, it depending on the sentiment of those writing, reviewing and comments on company and their brands that really control the brand experiences in today’s search engine results.

There is much written about how to build positive brand using Search Marketing but this blog will outline what to do when you get negative attacks on your company and brands

Over the past 6 months a relatively new area in Search Marketing has emerged- that of Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM). In order to combat a negative campaign we must consider more than just SEO. The company (or the search marketing company doing the work) needs to quickly neutralize all offending content. The quickest way to do this is to use sophisticated SEM techniques. This strategy is singularly the most important area necessary to produce the desired result promptly.

Firstly, data mining processes need to be employed to monitor (in real-time) large numbers of search behaviors and search trends. Once the search technology has identified trends or patterns in keyword searches that highlight negativity campaigns, a reputation protocol must be rapidly adopted to start combating this. It is important to note that offending content is often found on keywords used by shoppers earlier in the buying cycle than those found on a branded search. Complaints can sour customers before they even discover your brand has a desired offering.

Once the keywords have been identified, bid maximizing tools should be used to monitor, report and purchase pay-per-click (PPC) search ads in an automated fashion. PPC ads change by time of day. Some keywords disappear as budgets expire. PPC ads from your competitors or trademark infringers tend to disappear on weekends or evenings, and reappear during business hours. The purpose of using technology in a reputation management strategy is to ensure that timeliness and effectiveness are central to this strategy; also ROI can be easily determined.

Search reputation management involves three primary components:

? Prompt identification of negativity trends and pattern in keyword searches.

? The use of SEO to try and displace information found in organic search results.

? An immediate action to counter offending content by using SEM to display positive information or to drive traffic to sites (micro) that counter the negative messages.

Remember, finding the negative campaigns is only part of the solution, using sophisticated searchmarketing techniques is a core component in combating this increasingly frequent problem. For more information you can read -

http://www.sinotechsearch.com.cn/en/reputation_management/