In essence, Prizes.org allows you to create a contest for tasks on nearly any topic you choose – not just graphic design jobs but anything from tips for hassle-free plane journeys with kids, help naming a company, new running route suggestions and so on.

Google Prizes.org homepage screenshot

The team responsible for the creation of this crowd sourcing site is a largely autonomous team that Google acquired last year called Slide. Before you create a contest you must purchase credits (1 credit costs $1 USD). At the moment the platform is in Beta and is only open to contest creators that have a “credit history” meaning they have to have participated in or created contests in the past, but this restriction will likely be lifted eventually.

The great social element of the site comes through the fact that competition entrants can receive votes from other users to aid contest creators when they come to select a winner. Social networks are likely to play a big part in encouraging others to participate and spread the news about the platform itself due to the fact you must sign up to the site using Facebook Connect or your Twitter account (strangely, no Google+ integration as yet).

Google Prizes.org activities screenshot

So how can YOU use social crowd sourcing for your business?

At the time of writing, the contest for helping to name a screen printing company in Cleveland has received 131 entries and 73 votes. Good going for day 1 of the site going live.

Google Prizes contest status

[If you're feeling generous, you can vote for my entry in the competition here: http://prizes.org/p/qBBMXit2DOhl ]

Granted, many of these people will be testing the platform and wanting to take part in a bid to gain an early invite to become a contest creator. But this also goes to show just how small the barrier to entry is for people to sign up and contribute to business ideas.

Imagine this:

• What if your company had a repository for innovative ideas or a solutions pool for suggested problems to solve?
• What if you incentivised contributions to this in a similar way and got everyone involved with voting?

Incentives needn’t be monetary, you could have another fun prize such as vouchers, free coffee from a local cafe for a week, or even team incentives in the form of a cupcake delivery to the winning team in the office! Who doesn’t like cupcakes?

Happy Fourth of July!

Have you used social networks or crowd sourcing to help encourage innovation or solve tasks within your company? Which schemes would you consider and which ones would you trash?

 

No related posts.

How to create Fourth of July fireworks in the office with the help of Google’s newly launched Prizes.org is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

SES London is one of the largest search engine marketing conferences in Europe and is taking place between the 21^nd and 25^th of February at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre, in Westminster. Over 1,500 search marketers will descend on London for three days of SEO, SEM, and social media marketing strategies and tips from a variety of industry experts. We are pleased to announce the conference networking party, supported by SES and Incisive media will be something a little different thanks to our venue sponsor, Raven SEO Tools.

The essential SES London 2011 networking party details are as follows:

• DATE: Wednesday 23^rd February
• VENUE: HMS President, Kings Reach, Victoria Embankment, City of London, EC4Y 0HJ [Google Map]
• TIME: 7.00pm – 11.30pm
• ENTRY: To conference attendees only and you must show your conference pass at the door
• CAPACITY: 350 is the maximum capacity, therefore you must arrive early to be sure to be admitted

Thanks to the generosity of our two sponsors, Raven and Linkdex SEO Tools, the evening will start with a free bar, though given we search marketers are a sociable bunch it would be best to get to the venue as early as possible to take advantage of this.

This party has been brought to you thanks to the awesome Nichola Stott of theMediaFlow and Lisa Myers of Verve Search who have done a fantastic job helping to organise the event and details.

One final message of thanks…

Of course I can’t finish this blog post without a huge thanks to SEO Chicks for holding a competition to win a free SES London conference pass – the winner needed to have the worst Christmas gift and I’m proud to say that was me with my clothes pegs! Thanks to all who voted for me!

So if you’re heading to SES London, make sure you get yourself over to the networking party on the Wednesday evening and you never know, you might just spot a cameo appearance by my winning Christmas clothes pegs!

Related posts:

1. I’m Speaking at A4UExpo London 2009
2. I’m Speaking at Think Visibility
3. My SEO Workshop Slides from the Chartered Institute of Marketing Conference

SES London 2011 Networking Party: Wednesday 23rd February is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

• The negatives
• The positives
• Google’s positives
• Mobile Buzzing
• A summary

My “oh Buzz off” moments: 

1. Connected sites
   Google decided to connect PicasaWeb and my Flickr account automatically. I disconnected both twice, but they resurfaced each time. So far I’m winning. Watch this space.
   Google also appears to have ‘found’ my YouTube page. Naturally as they own YouTube, this isn’t a massive surprise, just not expected. My YouTube channel does not have the same name as my Gmail account, however… Some clues can be found on my Google Profile page where Google has clearly done some sniffing around to find the following sites. Note however, I have NOT used my Gmail account to sign up to any of these sites. I can only assume Google has been reading my email:
   
2. Followers
   I was automatically following one person and already being followed by another. Both seemingly random choices of people since there are others who I email/tweet/converse with more frequently. Interestingly, the following day, I got a notification saying that “1 more person is following me”. Actually it was that person who was already following me in the first place… Hmm.
   
   On using the “Find people” option to select people to follow, I learned of people’s multiple Gmail accounts. I could follow all of them if I wanted. People like to have separate Gmail accounts for many reasons – we email different people, we have different websites that require different profiles for services such as Analytics or AdWords. We keep them separate for a reason…
3. Email address
   My advertised email address is now my Gmail account one. This is not how I want it to be. I use Gmail to collect my website’s email so it sort of serves as a backup for my email and is easier to use on my iPhone. But I’d rather my primary website email address was advertised. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do that…
4. Contact groups
   It’s great that you can separate contacts out into Friends, Family, Colleagues and Contacts so that you can pick and choose which updates are shared with who. That’s OK… if you’re a Billy No Mates. Otherwise, that’s most of an afternoon’s-worth of sorting out your hundreds or thousands of contacts into groups. Don’t forget to keep the groups up to date…
   
5. Syncing contacts
   Were you one of those people who synced your contacts between your iPhone and your Gmail account? Yep, all those contacts are now connected via Gmail to Buzz. I have taxi numbers as contacts in Buzz now, along with my Gran and my Doctor. Some contacts don’t even have an email address, let alone be bothered to know what Google Buzz is. But my point is that some groups of people you just don’t need “to Buzz”.
6. Confusing follower/following counts across Google Properties:
   Here’s a screenshot of my follower/following count on Google Reader:
   
   And here’s a screenshot of Google Buzz at time of writing:
   
   I just “Shared” a post from my Google Reader. I’m a little confused as to who is going to see that post. I’m guessing 61, but there is almost definitely going to be some crossover here. Not fantastic for tracking reach.
7. There is now a new tab on my public Google profile showing all my updates on Buzz:
   
   That’s ok. I guess. I can see some people not realising this and posting public updates to their page. As this is higher profile this should be on people’s online reputation management radars.

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However, the positives, as promised: 

1. I like the simple interface, the ability to Like or Comment is very easy. Very Facebook and FriendFeed-esque, but let’s let that slide. These are good features.
2. I like that I can select which sites to connect and that other people’s updates clearly state the source, i.e. Google Reader.
3. I like the simple drop down menu. Very intuitive:
   
4. I like the stacked appearance of updates to give you a chance to read less active users’ updates:
   
5. I like the fact the page refreshes itself using Ajax so I can see comments etc. as they come in. They are easy to identify as well with the aid of a yellow line and fade-out highlighting of the whole post/comment:
   
6. You DO actually have the option to turn Buzz off, but it’s on by default:
   
7. Adding a comment to a shared item in Google Reader is great. This is why we like the OLD retweet feature of Twitter rather than the new one. Adding our own spin:
   
   Here’s one I wrote earlier:
   
8. Posting a link: USE A URL SHORTENER!
   As you can see below, Google still follows the redirects, retrieves the page title, snippet, images etc:
   
   But the link itself is kept as your shortened version. This is essential for tracking your social media efforts:
   

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Mobile on-the-hoof Buzzing 

1. My location wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t work out how to create a new location for my office or link to any existing one. I thought it might link up to Google Local Business Centre listings, but a search for my company proved fruitless.
   
2. Using the page http://buzz.google.com/ on an iPhone is basically a similar experience to an iPhone app. BUT it’s not an app! Google gets around publishing an app in the App Store by encouraging you to add a Home Screen Shortcut to your phone, like you can with any website, as follows:
   

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Pluses from Google’s point of view: 

1. Money! Advertising on Gmail is now more noticeable as they appear above all updates like so:
   
   From a paid search perspective, I’d be interested to know if you could control where your ads appear on Google accounts. You might prefer more informal ad copy here to blend with the social conversations that follow it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ad section was enhanced further.
2. One giant step for Google…
   Google is going to rock the boats of many other social networks out there with this move. Especially FriendFeed and Facebook. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Twitter too, although I suspect the superfluously simple interface to prevail.

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To summarise 

I’m a little unnerved by how much Google really knows about people. I sort of suspected they knew all that information already or had the ability to find out, but this proves it. This proves that they have tremendous power. Check their list of properties if you want to see what could potentially be linked in the future: Calendar, Docs, Earth, Finance, Books, Talk… and even Translate. Don’t forget they’re a domain registrar and have an affiliate network too.

While this IS basically another platform and since writing it I have proved myself wrong in several ways, this is a little like my Search Cowboys post where I talked about leaving the platform behind and the is the potential to bridge the gap – socially – between different language speakers too.

Its prospects? Google has a massive, pre-existing user base with Gmail. There will no doubt be more uptake of Buzz than there was with Wave due to the immediate integration with Gmail. However, there are some privacy issues, as articulated by @wilks below:

My honest opinion? I think it will stay. As much as I hate the whole Google as “Big Brother” concept, and it is yet another social network to keep checking and updating, it does have a few cool features. And they are kinda fun to use. Occasionally

No related posts.

Google Buzz Features Review: what’s all this Buzz about then? is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

Talks from the other keynotes were fantastic; Sahar Hashemi, founder of Coffee Republic, was particularly inspirational in her talk about being an entrepreneur, Professor Malcolm McDonald‘s gave a great talk about the truth about marketing with some very funny quotes, some of which I had to list here:

• “The good thing about being mediocre is that you’re always at your best”
• “An increase of 100% on nothing, is still nothing”
• “You don’t analyse the ROI (return on investment) of the wings on an aircraft”

Helen Jeremiah, Head of Marketing for Boots, also gave a great talk explaining the history of Boots and their aims and philosophies behind their current marketing strategies.

If you’re interested in web analytics, come and see me speak in London at A4U Expo on the 14th October – you can use my special offer code SEOCHOC10 for 10% off!

Related posts:

1. I’m Speaking at A4UExpo London 2009
2. Online Marketing and Me: 2008 to 2009
3. 5 Online Marketing Motivators

My SEO Workshop Slides from the Chartered Institute of Marketing Conference is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

The talk was truely fascinating, and by no means just a simple run down of how the Internet was born. I left feeling Sir Tim Berners-Lee was a true genius, and so genuine. The talk was actually filmed by BBC Click and as I was on one of the front rows you are guaranteed to see me in the background mesmerised by his talk and tweeting updates!

Below is a mini write-up including answers to your questions tonight:

• Your questions for Sir Tim Berners-Lee
• My write up and review of Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s talk at the Science Museum

Your Questions for Sir Tim Berners-Lee 

1. @Walkerama asked: Can you have a word with Microsoft about IE6?
   Not covered in the talk specifically, but he did say that information on the Internet should be available independent of the platforms or browsers, and that includes being accessible to people with disabilities
2. @DavidWilcock asked: The Internet has brought porn to the masses, do you feel this makes you one of THE great social pioneers?
   Again, not answered specifically (!), but Sir Tim did say that “the web is a reflection of humanity”, good and bad.
3. @wallglamour asked: you could ask him if the Grid really does exist or are we doomed just to have 24mb download speed.
   I don’t think he believed any of the internet was static; download speeds, just like the technology it relies on, will continue to improve.
4. Anon asked: What kind of idiot decided that mixing semantic tags (quotes etc) with visual styles (colors, sizes etc) was a good design choice for HTML?
   HTML was actually made to resemble the existing CERN documents as closely as possible to encourage people to adopt it quickly.
5. @nsdesign asked: “do you regret not charging a royalty to every web user ?”
   Sir Tim Berners-Lee absolutely believes in royalty-free data and information. Keeping it that way means more people adopt it, therefore more people collaborate on it and consequently a much more invaluable invention.
6. @_elj asked: What’s your favourite recent web innovation?
   Sir Tim Berners-Lee loved the social web, connecting people. He also loved mash-ups where people had used raw data to produce new information such as the Google Maps mash up with traffic black spots. He praised companies that released raw data WITHOUT creating excuses in delaying making it freely available.
7. Audience member (and I) asked: You clearly believe in data and information being made freely available, but where do you stand on newspapers charging for access to their articles online?
   Sir Tim Berners-Lee said there was a need for high qualilty, professional and reliable content online. He compared that with the abundance of untrustworthy blogs online now with questionable sources.
8. Audience member: At what age do you think children should allowed online; not from an online content point of view, but one whereby some people believe the Internet can hinder a child’s development?
   While stating that he was not qualified enough to answer this question, he concluded that early adoption of the Internet by children can either promote great multitasking skills (that older members of the audience may not have) or it could be their road to ruin!

My write up and review of Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s talk at the Science Museum 

Sir Tim Berners-Lee also made the following points:

• The WebFoundation.org will be launching later in 2009
• The Internet should be independent of the platforms and technology used to access it including disabilities. It should act like a collaborative knowledge bank that anyone can access.
• Documents therefore need to be decentralised; the Internet needs to be independent. An example of this would be social networks where you need to re-find your friends due to them being siloed.
• The Internet should work independent of size like water, which is a scale-free system with parts that overlap seamlessly.
• As the Internet is about sharing data between people the social side of it is intrinsic and should always be included in the process of web science.

If you want to read more about Sir Tim Berners-Lee you can find his biography online, his previous presentations, and also his Wikipedia page.

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2. Google Buzz Features Review: what’s all this Buzz about then?

Review of Centenary Talk by Internet Inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

Together with Lisa Myers from Verve Search and Will Critchlow from Distilled, we’ll be covering analytics for affiliate conversion, identifying and breaking down the obstacles preventing visitors from converting.

And, especially for you guys, I’ve got a special discount code giving you 10% off places at A4U Expo London! The discount code is SEOCHOC10, so if you haven’t already, make sure you register your place now as it’s already shaping up to be a terrific event, jam packed full of invaluable sessions.

I’m Also Speaking at the CIM Power of Marketing Event

While I’m on the topic of events, I’m also speaking at an annual Chartered Institute of Marketing all day event in Nottingham called the Power of Marketing.

In the morning of the 2nd of October I’ll be taking an interactive workshop on search engine optimisation, then later in the day delegates can catch author and professor, Malcolm McDonald, Boots Marketing Director, Elizabeth Fagan and co-founder of Coffee Republic, Sahar Hashemi. There’s an early bird discount that runs until the 11th of September, so make sure you book your place before it’s too late!

If you’re attending either of these events, don’t be afraid to come and say hello!

Related posts:

1. My SEO Workshop Slides from the Chartered Institute of Marketing Conference
2. SES London 2011 Networking Party: Wednesday 23rd February
3. Bigger and Better: Have You Booked Your Think Visibility Tickets?

I’m Speaking at A4UExpo London 2009 is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

It brings me to say this: get offline! I (probably like many of you reading this) spend a lot of time reading news websites and blogs, using social media to connect to people and brushing up on my skills online. But nothing substitutes actually meeting other professionals in the flesh and sharing your experiences. Unique and exciting opportunities arise from relationships forged in person.

Never networked before? Don’t panic! Most events such as Nott Tuesday have a really relaxed atmosphere – just be yourself! As a first networking event I highly recommend going down to your local Twestival charity meet tomorrow night (events in 175+ cities worldwide, I am helping organise the Nottingham Twestival). Why? It’s about as informal and fun as a networking events get PLUS it’s for charity! If you use Twitter now, it’ll be like meeting your friends for a drink after work. Except better because you may meet a potential new business partner, employer, colleague or friend!

Networking is also a great way to air new business or career ideas too – so many great minds in one room; it’s the perfect forum.

Here’s a handful of other organisations with networking events to try:
(These are UK based – if you can recommend events outside the UK, feel free leave a comment!)

• The Chartered Institute of Marketing: marketing-centric seminars, workshops and networking events held nationwide.
• Business Link: seminars and events for businesses on anything from starting up to tax to IT and eCommerce.
• eBusiness Clubs: nationwide events on a wide range of topics including marketing, business, legal issues and business advice.

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1. Online Marketing and Me: 2008 to 2009
2. My SEO Workshop Slides from the Chartered Institute of Marketing Conference

Online Marketeers and Technology Professionals: Get Offline! is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

If you have a pay-per-click campaign: take the best performing ad from each ad group and make a slight variation of it. It only takes a minute but could improve the click through rate of your campaign even further.

Start or join a discussion on online marketing: use your blog, Twitter or even FriendFeed. Interacting with other online marketers can be very rewarding and motivating and it’s a great way to learn something new.

Set up an A/B test: use Google Website Optimiser to test a change on your website and find out which version produces the best results. Get higher conversion rates with little effort involved.

Find out 3 new things about your website’s visitors. Use (or install) the analytics software on your website and use the information to improve the targeting of your campaigns. Some ideas:

• Which websites are referring the most visitors?
  • Exactly which web pages?
  • What anchor text?
• What time of day does your website get the most visitors?
  • Is there a pattern?
  • What does this say about your visitors?
• Which pages do visitors spend the most time on, and which pages give the highest exit rate?
  

If you use Google Analytics, take some time out to explore your website with the Site Overlay feature. (In the left navigation bar, this can be found under ‘Content’). Learn about navigation paths through your website by seeing which links are most popular on each page.

And just for fun: take a look at the humourous SEO Motivators on Wiep.net.

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2. My SEO Workshop Slides from the Chartered Institute of Marketing Conference
3. Website Referrals: Who’s Linking to You?

5 Online Marketing Motivators is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

Twitter can be used as an online marketing tool, not only to promote services or products, but also aid online PR and customer relationship management. Below are my top ten fundamentals Twitter business users can’t afford to ignore:

1. Businesses: follow your followers.

Customers can only use the direct messaging system on Twitter if you are following them, so be available for them to contact you. Also, by following your customers you can read their tweets (including replies to you) and therefore understand what concerns they currently have. This may open up new marketing opportunities, but most importantly, it means you can respond to queries or complaints positively and publicly, thus enhancing your online PR. Twitter is a fantastic opportunity for online customer service and relationship management.

2. Twitter is a ‘pull’ medium. What’s in it for your followers?

Twitter users select to follow you, not the other way around. If a customer of your’s has chosen to follow you make sure you reward them for doing so. Twitip has an excellent article on adding value to your Tweets. Give your followers a reason to follow you, enhance their lives and reward them for their interest. Some ideas are providing summaries and links to your news or blog articles, or giving positive helpful tips relating to your products or services.

3. Use your full name or business name

As Ryan Carson from Carsonified tweeted, use your real name on Twitter so people can connect and relate to you. A nickname or online name, unless it’s a well established brand, isn’t as easy to trust.

4. Be honest

Businesses using Twitter will reap the most rewards if they are honest with their customers. That includes admitting problems such as service down times. Naturally you will want to keep your tweets positive to promote yourself, but Twitter works best when you are honest rather than pretentious.

5. Keep (mostly) on-topic

Your followers will expect you to post tweets that are mostly related to you or your products or services. However, occasionally it might be appropriate to lighten the mood and break from the routine. For example, sharing a link to a humourous website (related to your sector if possible), or seasonal greetings. Adding a personal touch and character to tweets can make you appear more approachable. Be careful not to over do it though, you want to remain professional.

6. Make use of the Twitter Search

It may take a while before you attract many followers, so visit the Twitter Search page frequently to learn about your customers and what people are saying about you. Try a search for your business name, website address or even related services to see what the latest buzz is for competitors.

7. Thank your followers

Frequently overlooked, thanking someone for following you or when someone ‘retweets’ what you have said can go a long way. Remember to keep all your messages personalised. A generic automatic reply could have a negative effect.

8. Provide unique insight from your perspective

You have unique views, experiences and knowledge. Share that with your followers and distinguish yourself from the crowd.

9. Back to basics: good grammar please!

It should go without saying that all your tweets should be checked for spelling or grammatical errors. Some shortening of words due to the 140 character limit of tweets is acceptable, but should be last resort.

10. Update

Update regularly to keep the conversation alive. Now you’ve got followers, don’t let them forget about you. Twitter is yet another way to enhance your online presence and build your brand, so make sure you take advantage of it.

Related posts:

1. Online Marketing and Me: 2008 to 2009
2. Online Marketeers and Technology Professionals: Get Offline!

10 Twitter Fundamentals for Businesses is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate