Our Thoughts

Young & Shand is a Digital Marketing Agency based in Auckland, New Zealand. Founded by Ben Young & Duncan Shand we create and deliver remarkable marketing campaigns. With a word of mouth focus, we digitally leverage your marketing strategy to deliver customer engagement and business growth. Everything starts with a story so read ours.

This Week In Digital Marketing 12-16 Dec: StumbleUpon Redesign, Long Tail Keywords SEO Influence And Google Analytics Adding Social Reporting

December 16, 2011 by Sean Lewis

This week in digital marketing StumbleUpon have redesigned their assets to improve the user experience, Google Analytics to get social reporting features, a study from Conductor shows long tail keywords can have a significant impact on search engine rankings and Google’s preference for new content.

StumbleUpon Redesigns Their Logo, Toolbar And More

StumbleUpon have had a complete redesign of their assets, with a new logo, toolbar and website the key changes. The stumble toolbar has been reskinned to look more sleek, with a simplistic black design. Brands and personalities now have the ability to create a YouTube like channel in which followers can see what webpages the brands have liked. It does seem as though these brands may just use this to promote their own interests sending users to pages they themselves own, but we will have to wait and see. Read more on the changes at Marketing Land here.

Long-tail Keywords Increase Rankings

A study released by New York SEO & SaaS agency Conductor, has highlighted the importance of optimising your page for long tail keywords, with the results showing that on page optimisation of long tail keywords can improve your search engine optimisation more than head keywords. Long-tail optimised pages moved on average 6 places more in the rankings than head keyword optimised pages. The study also reviewed the conversion rates of head vs. long tail keywords,long tail keywords converted 26% of the time while head keywords converted 10% of the time, unsurprisingly, long tail keywords far outperformed the head keywords. Search Engine Watch has the report here.

Google Analytics to Get Social Reporting

Google Analytics is to add reporting for social metrics. This means Analytics would track the following web properties Google social products like Google+, Blogger, and Google Groups. There are a number od other services that are also working with Google to provide support. such Delicious, Digg, ReadItLater, Reddit and TypePad. There doesn’t seem to be any word yet on whether Facebook or Twitter will be implemented, and these are the two giants of the social media world we’ll be waiting on. Find out more information here.

Google’s Preference For New Content

This article from SEOMoz takes a look at the importance of keeping content fresh. The age of content is a ranking factor for search terms that require highly relevant or topical results usually based on recent events, hot topics and frequent updates. Webpages are given a freshness rank that decreases over time and negatively affects the pages ranking, this ranking can be partially ‘refreshed’ by posting new content.

On A Lighter Note…

This hilarious video takes a surprisingly accurate look at ‘Shit Girls Say’.

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Sean Lewis

Sean is a Digital Account Executive at Young & Shand.

Mobile: 021 029 35410 Email: sean.lewis@youngshand.com

Digital Marketer Interview: Amber Naslund of Radian6

December 13, 2011 by Marian Schembari

We may or may not have done a little ~~dance for joy~~ sophisticated and nonchalant tip of the hat when brilliant marketer Amber Naslund agreed to be interviewed here on the blog. As the VP Social Strategy for popular social monitoring tool Radian6, author of The NOW Revolution and blogger extraordinaire at Brass Tack Thinking, Naslund’s brain is easily the one we’ve been desperate to pick.

What digital changes this year have you really loved?

I’m most excited about the step back some companies are taking around digital and social. There was an article that came out about Fortune 500 companies retreating a bit from their social investments, and I’m convinced that’s a reaction to the “hurry up just because” syndrome we’ve seen in the last few years. Suddenly, we’re recognizing that a shift to this next era of business takes investment: of time, people, capital, and culture shaping. If businesses are taking stock of all of that, I think that’s a sure sign of maturity.

What new tools do you think won’t catch on?

Anything that looks like a rerun of something we already have or an experience we can already get elsewhere. Things that are overly contrived or complex. It’s not enough anymore to just replicate something that’s been done. You have to do it better in a significant way.

What’s the biggest challenge for people (both consumers and agencies) to embrace digital marketing?

Believable intent and relevance (I guess that’s two). We’re a skeptical bunch these days and trust is a rare currency. We don’t believe half of what we hear and we put faith in even less of the noise that reaches our ears and desks every day. The paradox of having so much fast moving information is that it’s much easier to ignore in a big, massive blur. Being relevant isn’t about being loud, it’s about being incisive and incredibly thoughtful about how we capture people’s attention and how we use it when we have it.

In English, I suppose this is really about investing the time to create something truly new and interesting instead of just treating everything as though it’s a reflection of the things we’ve already done.

What’s your favorite digital campaign at the moment and why do you think it’s a success?

Ah, but see my favorite digital campaigns aren’t campaigns. They’re continued streams of thought and interaction from brands that really care about meaning something for a long time, not just until the media buy or the coupon promo runs out. I love how Crayola talks endlessly about sparking creativity, and that throughline runs through everything they do. I love how ThinkGeek is a small company that knows its customer inside and out because they live and breathe it. I love that Ford and GM continue to inform, explore, listen, and invigorate the auto industry. I love that the Red Cross integrates social and mobility into disaster relief initiatives. I love that companies like Citrix are talking to the profile of their customer – the remote worker – and opening up dialogue about their opportunities and challenges. And how much do I love that so many branches of the Armed Forces are embracing social at a level that we’d be challenged to get many businesses to do?

I suppose it should be telling that I’m hard pressed to think of a “campaign” I love, but that there are instant warm fuzzies around a few brands and organizations that are just gently and constantly present, clear about their values and enthusiastic about what they do online and off. There’s something to that that transcends any “campaign”.

To connect with Amber, find her on Twitter and her blog.

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Marian Schembari

Marian is a Digital Account Manager at Young & Shand.

Mobile: 022 063 3996 Email: marian.schembari@youngshand.com

This Week In Digital Marketing 5 – 9 Dec: Facebook’s New Design Change, 21 Types of Social Content to Boost SEO, Google Controls 44% of Online Advertising

December 9, 2011 by Ben Young

This week in digital marketing Facebook unveils it’s overhaul of user profiles released first in New Zealand. Search Engine Land show us 21 Types of Social Content to help you boost your SEO. Google controls 44% of online advertising, a 10% increase since 2006. Finally, have a look at a cool new gadget from BERG studios coming in 2012.

Facebook’s Latest Design Change – Timeline

The latest design change from Facebook was released on Wednesday night, initially in New Zealand and continuing to be rolled out across the globe. This change is a complete overhaul of Facebook profiles, allowing users personalisation, privacy options and a more omnivident view of their profile. Developers have had access to the timeline since it was announced a few months ago, but for regular Facebook users this will be the first time they see it.

21 Types Of Social Content to Boost Your SEO

Social content is a strong SEO strategy but it doesn’t always work. You need to provide valuable content that people in your niche want to read and share with their friends, unfortunately, this is usually not as easy as it sounds. Some examples of successful content that you can replicate are provided in the article, my favourites are: the Controversy, essentially writing a piece that your niche will create controversy, anger and follows and shares will follow. This is essentially trolling your niche, and it is very effective against passionate people. Another popular social content piece are Top X lists, these are effective because people will discuss why #1 didn’t deserve the spot or why Z wasn’t included. Read the article here.

Tips to Get Your Site Ranking Well In Local Search

This article from HubSpot provides useful tips and ideas to get your site ranking well in local search results. Local search results usually imply that a place name has been searched for such as ‘Drycleaners in Auckland’. One interesting statistic is that ‘20% of searches are for local information.’ that alone should tell you that local search should be a priority. Some of the better tips for local search include keyword optimising the 5 crucial on-page SEO elements, which are the page title, URL, header tags. If you haven’t got a Google Places page for your business, create one now. Google loves to feature these on the front page of local search results.

Google Now Controls 44 Percent of Global Online Advertising Market

Data released by advertising and communications firm ZenithOptimedia, shows that Google now controls 44% of the global online advertising market. A rise of over 10% since 2006, which shows the increasing dominance of the search giant. Facebook had impressive gains with an increase from 0.2% in 2006 to 3.1% in 2010. An estimated 58% of new ad dollars is expected to come from developing economies, such as the BRIC group of countries and parts of Asia.

On A Lighter Note…

This cool printer from BERG Studios pairs with an iPhone app to create a customised print out. BERG have teamed up with The Guardian, Google, Nike, Foursquare and ARUP, to provide content for the printer, which will be released in early 2012.