Christmas 2009 saw a change to the usual, predictable nature of the pop charts. Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ managed to beat the X-Factor competition to claim this year’s Christmas No1 spot in the charts thanks to 975,000 fans of a Facebook group.

Most would say it was a victory against commercial dominance within the pop charts. But I supported this for another reason, it was for this reason I bought a copy myself.

I think this event is a testament to the power that social websites can have when a group of inspired people combine for a common aim and actually follow it through, as far as I know this is the first time a basic Facebook group managed to do something this extraordinary – we see groups for every cause and ideal there is but let’s be honest, all that happens is that they get left to gather dust, and eventually forgotten.

But this group has managed to get mentions and stories from every mainstream news channel. It has used its influence to change pop history with the first track every to get to No1 on downloads alone as well as raise nearly £95,000 for charity. You got to wonder how on earth how the group’s creator, Jon Morter, did it. The idea itself was great as it is a hotly contested point of view but you need more than that to gain a real following. And I think we can learn a few things by his example.

From my experiences with the group, Jon and his fellow administrators on the page did very well in the most important (and often forgotten) part of social media – interaction – by frequently updating the members with news and viewpoints and encouraging them to spread the word and give their own opinions. When the critical period of asking supporters to download the track arrived they supplied news on what download sources to use, Jon contacted the chart authority itself for advice on the danger of overbuying and commented to fans accordingly. And they updated fans constantly on copies sold.

They never ignored critical, insulting or pro X-Factor comments either, they would reply and disagree without being immature or insulting. They made a point of reminding people not to insult or spam rival pages or points of view.

The mass media coverage of the group has been great, with every mainstream channel at least mentioning it. In this respect even the critical stories that painted the group in a negative manner didn’t harm it – if fact I believe that it did the opposite. The band themselves even supported the UK rock masses in its efforts, to the degree that they promised to donate their earnings to charity as well as celebrate the victory with a free concert sometime in 2010 (fingers crossed).

So there you go, by keeping people interested and involved you can spread the word on any point of view as long as you keep at it. Already there is another similar campaign underway, this time to get the Sex Pistols ‘God Save The Queen’ to number one in time for Her Majesty’s birthday – if they receive similar success she may get a birthday to remember too.

The world of social media is in constant evolution and there are no hard fast rules on how to interact with users. Whilst most companies learn by trial and error, a few have learned the hard way that responding to a social media PR crisis can prove very difficult in a world which holds freedom of expression as its underlying concept.

Information published on fan pages or via Twitter can be replicated instantly and there is no end to the amount of users who can be reached using the ever expanding social networking platforms available.  So what do you do when something goes wrong? How do you react when a crisis snowballs? First of all it’s useful to look at a recent crisis affecting a pet charity which illustrates how it can all go wrong very quickly.

After a story broke in the media on the treatment of some animals in the charity’s care, their Facebook fan page was literally high jacked by outraged fans criticising the charity’s actions. Moderators responded by deleting many of the negative comments and banning their authors from the page, whilst limiting the charity’s response to a cold, official statement issued from its press office. The situation quickly escalated, with users protesting about censorship and a petition being created online, as well as many users withdrawing their financial support.

So how could this situation have been avoided? First off - respond quickly. After leaving the site without a moderator during the bank holiday weekend, comments multiplied, with no staff on hand to react to the blast. Having a presence on social media requires considerable time to be invested - social networking sites can’t be left unsupervised. Constant monitoring will ensure no situation escalates to such a level.

Secondly, deleting comments makes users feel censored and the damage to your organisation could be measurable. So should negative posts be removed? As a rule, no. A polite answer, a subtle apology for any distress caused and a link to your organisation’s complaint department will usually diffuse the situation and ensure fans have the option to take things further should they wish to. However, in exceptional situations where the language used or comments made are unacceptable, posts can be removed.

Thirdly, don’t just delete comments. If this proves necessary due to the nature of the post, you should issue a short statement explaining why it has been removed. Contacting the user personally also ensures they are aware of your guidelines and are given the chance to express themselves should they still wish to, without inappropriate language.

Finally, personalisation is also a major part of a successful response. A web link to an official statement issued by company is insufficient. Distressed or disillusioned users should be acknowledged on a personal level and a customised answer provided. In any case, a sincere apology for the inconvenience cause will usually warm users.  Whilst having a presence on any social media platform might be daunting, the clear advantage is the self-policing aspect of the community.

Social media allows users to express their personal affiliations to a particular brand, company, product or person. Fans, followers and digital users opt-in to follow your world. It is a way for them to interact with their favourite brands and find a community which shares their taste. As long as your response has been transparent and well-handled, negative comments will soon be drowned with responses from your loyal fans. So ride the storm, monitor your online world and respond as you would like to be responded to.

The Increasing Role of Advertising in Natural Search

eConsultancy’s analysis did include a comparison of “brand” metrics, but it omitted the greatest unifying factor of the websites benefiting from the update, marketing spend. Although online advertising has previously held an indirect bearing upon rankings because of its effect upon traffic and brand searches, it now appears to be a direct factor in the equation.

Is Google now feeding Adwords data straight into the natural search algorithm?

My own experiences of the last few months certainly suggest so. Since the update I have witnessed several sudden jumps in rankings accompanying sharp increases in online advertising, particularly hikes in Adwords spend. Of course investing in paid search does not guarantee high natural rankings, but in highly competitive markets such as finance, it might be enough to be the differentiator.

Why would Google do this?

The move creates a double boon for Adwords investment. It rewards Google’s biggest spending customers with an increase in both natural and paid search traffic. At the same time it promotes new investment by companies that invest relatively small budgets in paid search as well as those who have suffered drops in rankings looking to regain market share.

Conclusion

There have long been rumours of a secret link between SEO and PPC optimisation, but it appears that there is now sufficient evidence to prove a connection. Are we are now in a situation where PPC and SEO algorithms have converged? With this update and the recent changes to paid search, such as the inclusion of deep links in PPC listings, the lines between paid and natural search in Google appear to be increasingly blurred.

Quality Score Change 1: The effect of ad position upon CTR will now be taken into account

The top showing ads typically have the highest CTR regardless of their relevance. Google will now be comparing CTRs of ads with the average for the position in which they appear. This means it will now be impossible to “buy” a high quality score by following an aggressive bidding strategy if ads lack relevance.

Quality Score Change 2: It is now possible to leapfrog higher ranking ads with low quality scores into the position above the natural search results

Previously competitors with superior ad rank (bid x quality score) but a quality score below the threshold to appear in the top spots would have barred any lower ranking ads with high enough quality scores from doing so. This will result in ppc ads appearing above the natural search listings more regularly.

New Ad Formats

These changes follow closely in the wake of the release of sitelink ads which offer the potential to display up to four additional links below the standard ppc ads. From conversations with Adwords representatives, it has been gleaned that a 10% CTR and quality score of 10 must be attained in order to be eligible to run this ad format.

Product listing ads which display images in search results were rolled out in the US. Advertisers will be charged on a cost per action (CPA) basis and will not control when these are displayed, it will be at the discretion of Google who are effectively taking on the role of affiliate for merchants.

Impact of Changes

Google has combined a move to increase relevancy and frequency of top appearing ads with an aggressive land-grab of screen real estate. Together they are sure to result in a significant increase in the overall CTR of ppc ads.

Effects Upon SEO

This is a zero sum game. An increase in CTRs on paid search ads will be achieved by a decrease in clicks on natural search ads. Searches that trigger Google map results now result in a dramatic demotion of the organic search results, so that in some cases only 2 natural search results appear above the fold.

What this reveals about Google’s Strategy

Google are going for a volume versus margin strategy. They would not be making this move unless they had done their sums and discovered they would make more by increasing the volume of ppc ad clicks even if it decreases their average CPC slightly.

Impact upon Search Advertisers

Ad copy is now more important than ever. The beneficial effects of attaining a high CTR have been magnified both in the potential benefit it could bring to quality score and increased exposure gained by occupying the top positions.

In recent years, as Google’s search market share has risen above 80% in the UK and 65% US, many internet marketers have come to rely exclusively upon Google’s Adwords platform for running their internet marketing campaigns. During this period Google has also established its Content Network as the largest online display advertising network and cemented this position by a string of acquisitions including DoubleClick (the world’s largest ad trafficking platform) and YouTube (also the second largest search engine on the web).

However, there are signs that the days of Google’s advertising hegemony may be over.

With the high CPCs common in many niches on Google, marketers are starting to look at alternative channels and many are choosing Facebook. Although Google can usually boast higher conversion rates stemming from the intent of users to purchase the products they search for, Facebook’s enormous reach can now potentially offer higher sales volumes. Add in the value of the brand exposure gained, something which can now be quantified with multi-variate tracking solutions such as Digital Brain:Search, and Facebook DR campaigns often a compelling rate of return. Indeed, at CheezeDMG, Facebook DR is now a core channel for many clients, successfully building both a brand presence and driving sales for companies such as Canterbury of NZ.

In addition, Facebook has been investing heavily in its self service Direct Response (’DR’) platform, which offers reach and targeting on a par with Google’s offering, but until recently only a fraction of the functionality of the Adwords platform. Bulk advert uploading is now being trialled which will enable advertisers to execute much larger and more targeted campaigns. In addition, a host of companies are developing bid management systems to plug into the new API, which is also under limited release.

Conclusion

Facebook has taken its time to build a viable self service advertising platform, but now it is seriously adopting the formula that has worked so well for Google, it is beginning to make up ground in market share. Although Facebook still has a way to go before it can match the net revenues recorded by Google (£1.64BN in their recently announced Q3 2009 results), Facebook’s huge inventory and low CPCs have already tempted many marketers to begin shifting budgets.

Is widespread advertiser adoption of its DR platform what Facebook have been waiting for before entering into a much anticipated IPO? Only time will tell, but having won the war of the social networks Facebook now appears to be readying itself for a final showdown with the search giants.