Via Media Communications

Facebook today announced the long awaited overhaul to its internal search feature, ‘Graph Search’.

Unlike traditional Search however, that trawls through an entire index of the web, the new Graph Search allows you to mine the vast archives of data that Facebook has about YOU and YOUR friends with tremendous depth and accuracy. It might not seem that exciting at first, but in reality, the concept of Search just got a whole lot more personal and a whole lot more relevant!

Say you want to find restaurants your friends visit frequently in your area, want to see all of the photos you are tagged in before 2008 or are newly single and want to find all the single girls your friends know with an interest in Tennis that don’t have children, that power will soon be at your fingertips; And Facebook say they are only just scraping the surface.

There will of course be the usual backlash about privacy settings and what not, but Facebook says Graph Search will only be mining the data that you choose or have chosen to share, and as such is only making already available information that much easier to find.

Not to be forgotten amidst all this excitement of course, is the advertising potential that comes with the launch of Graph Search for Facebook.With the introduction of Sponsored Posts late last year, Facebook already has an ad unit ready to use on the platform, and undoubtedly more will follow. One might think that with Sheryl Sandberg, the brains behind Google AdWords, in senior management and the developers of Graph Search being senior ex Google Search developers, all the pieces for a winning ad delivery platform could finally be falling into place.

But the good news doesn’t just stop there. Facebook have just breathed life back into the ‘What is the value of a Like’ debate, making it more important than ever to ensure your brand is as connected with the right people across the Social Graph. And undoubtedly from this will come new industries, such as that of ‘Graph Search Optimisation’, a term that was coined the minute I arrived at work this morning and was already being bandied around the web with domains being registered, blogs being posted and services being offered.

Facebook Graph Search isn’t yet available publicly, but will reportedly be rolled out slowly and steadily across the globe over the coming months.  In the meantime, we will keep you posted on the latest updates and offerings we have that relate to all these exciting changes.

For any questions you have on how your current efforts may be impacted or how you may need to change your current strategy to capitalise on these new changes, don’t hesitate to give us a call at Via Media on 08 7225 2688 or email enquiries@viamedia.com.au.

It’s been a few months since some words were penned for the Via blog and there have been more than a few things happening worthy of mention here on Tynte St.

To start the ball rolling, the all new Adelaide Metro website has gone live to the public after over 14 months in development and testing. Key new features include a Journey Planner, Route Searches, a Mobile version and personalised accounts designated the title of My Metro. You can visit the site and plan your next trip at www.adelaidemetro.com.au.

Whilst on the topic of travel, we’ve also recently launched the new Bunnik Tours website. Bunnik Tours are a well established Australian brand, known for delivering holiday tours across the globe. The new Bunnik website encapsulates all that they have to offer and makes the experience of finding and planning your next overseas tour that much easier and enjoyable. Check it out at www.bunniktours.com.au.

Website launches aside, we’re pleased to announce that as a result of our hard yards and demonstrated expertise in the world of Search, Performance Display and Analytics, Google some months ago made us an official Google AdWords Certified Partner. This is an exciting achievement and one that few of our peers currently hold, further solidifying our position as a leader in this space.

We have also been behind some fairly exciting campaigns, both active and just passed. The Carousel of Dreams campaign for the Adelaide Casino allowed us to demonstrate our skills across a wide range of mediums and channels including Design, Email Marketing, Performance Display and Mobile.

We’ve also recently formed a relationship with a newly launched Australian Holiday Park Search Engine named Turu (turu.com.au), who have commissioned us to execute two exciting consumer promotions centred around reviewing holiday parks and retelling favourite vacation stories. Check them out at review.turu.com.au and tell.turu.com.au respectively for your chance to win some great prizes.

There’s plenty more happening here at Via that we’ll get to soon, but until then check out the sites above and if we can be of any assistance with your last minute pre christmas digital or direct campaigns, don’t hesitate to give us a call on (08) 7225 2688.

Wednesday saw us take to the stage at the SATIC eTourism Convention 2012 at the Adelaide Hilton. We were invited to talk to local business and government about Marketing Automation and how Email Marketing is still the killer app. Our presentation can be found on slideshare here.

The turnout for the day was excellent, with a good cross section of businesses from across South Australia’s tourism industry, and the presentations covered a range of important areas including Social Media, Search, eCommerce and of course Email Marketing. A big thanks must go to SATIC for allowing us to be a part of the days events, we hope everyone enjoyed our presentation as much as we enjoyed giving it.

Hello again. Interesting article I found the other day that states Australia users are more engaged online than that of International users. I have shared the link below.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/049720-australians-more-engaged-online-than-international-users-new-survey-reveals.html

“A person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service”

User Experience or UX for short – it’s THE buzz word of the moment in the digital world. So if you are going to read one article about what is BEST UX for your product, site or app then read this.

http://uxmag.com/articles/the-psychologists-view-of-ux-design?utm_tone=au

Its been long rumoured and today Google has started rolling out what is without question the biggest change to its search engine …… ever! The Google Knowledge Graph, or Semantic Search, as it is more commonly known, completely reshapes the way Google Search functions, with the promise of returning more relevant results, more often, by fitting Google with a level of intelligence that allows it to actually understand what it is you are searching for. To say this is a massive change for search is an understatement, and the impact of these changes for our clients will be better understood as it rolls out across the web in the coming weeks. For those interested in learning more, the follow article gives some further insight into what to expect.

http://mashable.com/2012/05/16/google-knowledge-graph/

Google’s latest update, dubbed ‘Penguin’, has just rolled out. When asked for details, Google’s Matt Cutts had the following to say. “While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics”.

However, we have managed to uncover some articles from around the web that provide more insight.

http://www.webpronews.com/google-penguin-update-dont-forget-about-duplicate-content-2012-05

If you wish to talk to us further about what the latest update might mean for your site and how to prepare for the impact of its changes, feel free to give us a call on 08 7225 2688, visit www.viamedia.com.au or email enquiries@viamedia.com.au to talk to us further.

2012 is without a doubt, the year of mobile. With Australia having the second highest smartphone adoption rate in the world, and nearly 1/3 of all website visits already coming from mobile devices, a number that is increasing rapidly, your business simply cannot afford to ignore mobile  any longer.

In an effort to raise awareness for businesses and brands, Google has launched a comprehensive mobile education resource, The Mobile Playbook, which is not only informative but also kind of fun. We highly recommend taking a moment and giving it a read.

Whether you are just thinking about mobile, or already active within the space but feel like you could be doing more, at Via Media we would love to be a part of your future success. Please do not hesitate to give us a call on 08 7225 2688, visit www.viamedia.com.au or email enquiries@viamedia.com.au to talk to us further.

We came across this outstanding example of a truly integrated, global, cross platform marketing campaign, from who else but Coke. The idea behind the campaign is to re imagine the ‘Buy the world a Coke’ campaign made 40 odd years ago for the modern age. The result is something quite unique. Watch the video below and let us know your thoughts.

Buy the world a Coke

In an effort to move the industry beyond click-through’s and impressions, Google has proposed a range of new metrics for online advertising measurement. Dubbed ‘Brand Activate’, the first two units are to be known as ‘Active View’ and ‘Active GRP’. The following article details this more.

http://mashable.com/2012/04/18/google-new-online-ad-metrics/

It’s always exciting when a player such as Google or Facebook starts making serious moves in this space. It will be quite interesting to see whether this new take is adopted more widely as Google hopes and if so, how it impacts the industry as a whole in the not too distant future.

What are your thoughts on these new metrics ? Do they sound like a step in the right direction or are you happy with the standards we already have in place ?