C’est parfois incroyable de constater comme tout le monde connaît Cossette.

Il ne se passe pas une semaine sans qu’on me demande si j’ai un quelconque lien de parenté avec la compagnie. Vous devriez même voir la déception de certains qui, lors d’événements de réseautage (du genre ou l’on se promène avec un tag ‘my name is’ dans le cou) m’abordent en pensant entamer une discussion avec un employé de la plus grande boîte de com au pays. Hé non, à part de partager le même nom de famille et de venir de Québec, il n’y a pas grand chose qui me lie avec le monde de Cossette, du moins pas au premier coup d’oeil.

J’écris ‘au premier coup d’oeil’ car dans un passé lointain (du genre en 1997) j’aspirais déjà à une brillante carrière en publicité - bien qu’à ce moment je ne connaissais pratiquement rien du métier sinon qu’il existait une boîte partageant le même nom que celui de mon père. C’est finalement suite à des études en Sciences, Lettres et Arts et puis en administration des affaires (marketing) que je choisis un parcours plus près des ventes et du marketing que de la publicité et des communications.

Ce que je trouve aujourd’hui intéressant avec Cossette c’est que la société représente désormais le symbole d’une industrie. De fait, s’élevant désormais au rang de one of the largest marketing communications company in the world (), la boîte fait figure de géant qui comme le note , traverse, comme beaucoup d’agences, une zone de turbulences et qui à Montréal, a perdu au cours des derniers mois plusieurs gros comptes: une partie du mandat de Bell, celui de Molson, celui du Groupe Pages Jaunes. Sans compter que GM, un de leurs principaux clients, ne va pas particulièrement bien…

Dans un même ordre d’idées, ajoute que depuis qu’il a touché un sommet de 13,39$ en juin 2007, le titre de Cossette dégringole à la Bourse de Toronto. Il ne valait plus que 2,78$ le 20 mai dernier. Or, la récession, qui est sans pitié pour les contrats de publicité (pensez à General Motors), n’explique pas tout. Cossette a perdu d’importants mandats, notamment son contrat exclusif avec Bell Canada, qu’elle partage avec trois autres agences.

Ayant moi-même récemment travaillé avec Molson et McDonald’s toujours dans le cadre de mandats n’étant pas octroyé à Cossette, je suis à même de constater que l’entreprise semble avoir du mal à saisir plusieurs opportunités notamment celles liées à l’interactif et au Web. Il sera donc particulièrement intéressant de suivre de la compagnie.

À mon humble avis, l’industrie de la communication-marketing québécoise, tout droit issu impunément d’une relation inscestueuse, de par le nombre d’ex-Cossette travaillant maintenant chez la compétion ou encore chez le client, devrait se trouver d’une part vivement concernée par les événements et d’une autre part concertée par ce qui arrive à leur symbole, jadis fort et puissant.

Acquisio Bid Management Software
A lot of the meat of the PPC job is bid management, making sure you’re spending your money on the keywords you should be spending on (and not the others). Acquisio’s tool not only helps you identify strengths and weaknesses, but helps you make decisions. You can know, for example, what you need to change in one parameter to bring about the desired change in another parameter, given another parameter that is fixed. Nice little .
Site:

Keyword Combination Tool
Looking to build combinations of keywords without a messing with concatenation and massive and error-filled find-and-replace jobs? This quick tool lets you dump in keyword components to build all combinations of phrases, with a short list of changeable parameters to let you use it as you need it. Nothing mind blowing, but it’s quick, easy, and useful (and better than Excel).
Site:

Yahoo! Search Engine
Yahoo!’s actual search engine itself can sometimes be handy to find related keyword verticals that are somewhat tangential to the list you’re working on. While some keyword tools are handy more for depth or breadth within a vertical, it’s nice sometimes to get a looser semantic sense and see what kind of other areas you might be forgetting, that might be worth targeting.
Site:

Demographics Prediction Tool
Not an essential tool, but we’re talking nifty, right? This tool lets you pop in a keyword and get some quick rough demographic expectations. While this tool can be useful beyond pay-per-click, it’s handy to know for whom to target your ad text, and offers valuable information in deciding whether to bid on a particular keyword or not.
Site:

Ad Split Testing Tool
If you’re looking to test and compare two different PPC ads, this tool can help you understand what’s going well and what’s not, as far as click through rate, what’s needed for conversions, and more. It even lets you know once you’ve reached a minimum test sample size, and lets you calibrate your results based on the confidence you need in their accuracy.
Site:

I’ll be in Toronto for the Conference & Expo on June 8th and 9th. Please feel free to connect with me if you are also attending the show.

Getting the best of Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2009
Since SES is the biggest Canadian show in our industry, we (NVI) are looking to grow our presence in order to position NVI as a leading Canadian internet marketing company. In addition to our CEO’s () presentation on Canada-specific SEO + PPC Issues, (NVI’s SEO Team Lead) will also be part of a panel covering site performance tuning and SEO. On the top of that, NVI is also as well as into the sponsorship of the . I’m looking forward to be in Toronto, hopefully I’ll meet you there, see you at the show!

L’annonce : mardi soir prochain aura lieu le lancement de la seconde saison de 3e mardi | 3rd Tuesday Montreal. Au programme, nous aurons le plaisir de recevoir qui (pour ce que je connais d’elle) se fera un malin plaisir à haranguer échanger sur un sujet d’actualité, soit les moyens privilégiés afin de sauver les journaux publications confinés à vivre avec les nombreux bouleversements qu’amène l’avènement des nouveaux médias.

Quelques pistes de réflexion afin d’optimiser le rendement des journaux
Dans ce même ordre d’idées, nous avons récemment collaboré chez NVI à une série d’article proposant des moyens et des réflexions pour l’industrie des journaux. Deux de nos articles, écrit par et rédigé par , ont notamment été publié dans le Hollywood Today. On y souligne notamment l’opportunité pour les médias de profiter de leur version papier afin de promouvoir la version en ligne, et vice versa, l’article cite en exemple qui s’acquitte avec brio de cette tâche paraissant pourtant si simple. Il est également question de ne pas négliger le référencement organique lors de la sélection et du déploiement d’une plate-forme de gestion de contenus pour un site de nouvelles ainsi que de la possibilité de produire et publier du contenu sur mesure pour des verticaux niches prédéterminées par les intérêts du lectorat. Il devient ainsi possible de développer une communauté basée sur les préférences de nos visiteurs et par le fait même d’augmenter le niveau d’engagement de notre public.

Déjà un an pour 3e mardi | 3rd Tuesday Montreal
Hé oui, il y a déjà un an que présentions notre premier événement! C’est quand je pense à ces nombreuses soirées à se réunir afin de discuter de médias sociaux et de nouveaux médias que je considère vraiment ce que mon implication avec 3e mardi m’a apporté. De fait, bien plus qu’un moyen de rester au courant des nouvelles tendances dans l’applications des médias sociaux dans le domaine des communications, je retire avant tout d’agréables rencontres faites avec plusieurs personnes fortement impliquées dans l’industrie. Parmi ces rencontres, j’ai notamment grandement apprécié pouvoir discuté avec lors de son passage en novembre. Bien que d’avoir tenu cette rencontre de novembre le même soir que Yulbiz et que quelques autres importants 5 à 7 ne fut probablement la plus judicieuse décision que notre comité ait prise, ceci permit néanmoins à moins d’une douzaine de chanceux de pouvoir obtenir un entretien exclusif avec l’un de ceux que . Je garde également d’excellents souvenirs de ma rencontre avec pour lequel j’ai profité d’une courte balade en auto afin de lui faire visiter brièvement notre merveilleuse ville. J’ai finalement particulièrement aimé la soirée où (Voir) et (Montreal Gazette) partagèrent avec l’audiance des points de vues tout à fait différent dans l’utilisation qu’ils font de certains outils sociaux dans leur travail de journaliste.

En somme, de nombreux bons souvernirs et autant de belles rencontres. Sur ce, on se voit mardi soir prochain! Un merci également à nos commanditaires: , , et .

I’ve just decided to leave Facebook.

Starting as of today I will delete a contact a day. I used to have 318 friends, I’m now at 317 and by the end of 2009 I should have cancelled all my connexions.

Update (June 3rd): Not that easy to do so, since everyone that I’m deleting is sending me a friend request to connect with them… Anyway I’m currently at 259 friends.

Miguel Diaz chez NEWAD m’envoit cette offre d’emploi que je publie ici

Poste permanent basé à Montréal. Vous possédez un baccalauréat en marketing ou en communication. Vous avez 3 à 5 ans d’expérience en marketing interactif (Web) ainsi qu’une expérience en gestion d’équipe. Parfaitement bilingue autant à l’oral qu’à l’écrit, vous êtes un bon communicateur et un fin diplomate. Vous avez beaucoup d’initiative et votre talent en idéation vous amène souvent à être reconnu comme un précurseur. Mordu d’internet, vous êtes à l’affut des courants et tendances de l’heure et savez les exploiter de manière à les rendre profitables. Vous êtes également habiles à mettre en place des outils de marketing et de communication (B2C et B2B). Côté technique, vous maîtrisez les outils de monitoring statistique et de performance. (.)

Are Paid Social Media Events Still Profitable? That’s exactly what I’m wondering when I realize that the two last paid social media conferences booked in Montreal were cancelled because they’ve failed to sell enough tickets. I cannot say that I’m not concerned because each social media event, paid or not, helps the local social media marketing industry which I’m part of. So is there a market for these conferences in Montreal?

Conférence sur les médias sociaux de l’Institut Canadien (cancelled)
In past September, there were two social media events scheduled in the same week. was free and very successful while the other one, the was charging few hundred dollards to attend a 2-days conference and got cancelled at the last minute. Is there any explanation why orgnanizers have been doing such conference but have failed when trying to do the same in Montreal? What’s wrong with Montrealers and paid social media events?

Journée Infopresse sur les médias sociaux (cancelled)
Another big player in the organization of conferences in Montreal is . They plan dozens of one day event through the year. Past winter that had a first and more recently they had scheduled another event on social media ( but content has been removed) that was cancelled too. Last time I’ve spoken to Infopresse organization, they told me that they’ll probalbly reschedule that social media day but yesterday, via , I’ve noticed that their contains no sign of any social media day. Since they neither plan any SEO, SEM or SMO related event, I see that as a great opportunity for any group or company to take the lead and organize such an event in Montreal.

BTW, I’ve been interviewed in the latest edition of Infopresse magazine, go grab your copy it’s December issue and it’s a digital communication special edition. They have interesting articles about the future of Web agencies, online reputation management, corporate blogging, online PR with bloggers and more. You will also be able to find all the information related to the latest Boomerang Awards and a full directory of all digital companies in the city.

The 18-to-24-year-old set is famously media-drenched, with high Internet and mobile phone usage. However, these young adults are not solidly opposed to brands themselves, and are willing to spread the word about the ones they like. That is one of the findings Synovate made in June and July of 2008 in its “Young Adults Revealed” study, released this month.

When asked about their online brand engagement in the past month, 28% of respondents had talked about a brand on a discussion forum, 23% had put brand-related content on their instant messaging (IM) profile, and 19% had added branded content to their homepage or social networking site.

Nearly one-half said they had clicked on online ads, and 18% had accessed brand and product information through a portal. Nearly one-quarter had uploaded ads to social networks and online video sites in the past month. -

Online branding
As Harvard Business School’s John Quelch mentions in , Obama picked up where Howard Dean left off. He leveraged his website, the blogosphere, and even user-generated content. But what if someone else was offering the same? Yeah I know he was the only one… In other words, did America elected Obama for what he has to offer or mainly because he was the only one coming up with ideas that were matching Americans hopes dreams.

It quickly becomes very interesting to consider that according to some, That we’ve been conditioned by search not to be brand loyal. We may check out Amazon.com for the MP3 Player, but we have no qualms about buying it elsewhere. So as far as branding indicates trust, we might sometimes overrate companies, products or services that show up first in popular search engines rankings. In fact, because of Google’s reliability history, we probably now value more a company regarding their rankings positions rather than their offline reputation. And while it might seem obvious to some… we now mainly rely on search engines to get the right information on brands.

So with all this information, am I the only one wondering why marketers are still waiting to bring their brands into the social media space? How long before the industry even consider SEO, SEM and SMO as effective marketing strategies? As for Obama, he already had proved that investing into internet marketing and online branding can definitely drive to results.

Taking advantage of the pre-electoral climate, Quebec business bloggers write an open letter to Prime Minister Jean Charest to request an action plan in favor of supporting the digital economy.

The initiative started when internet marketing strategist wrote the open letter and published the piece on her professional blog on October 28th. In less then 24 hours, the letter was found in more then 30 other blogs from Quebec and a was created for the cause. The letter already signed by many leaders of the Quebec e-business industry such as Adviso’s , former Montreal Marketing Association’s president , well known e marketing consultant and many more, states interesting statistics showing that if Quebecers buy for 3.5 billions online, the third of these sales are made out of the province. Some others statistics reveal that only 52% of small to medium enterprises do have their own website.

There are the four main requested actions identified in the letter:

1- Give full access to all Quebecers to networks and digital services while eliminating barriers related to online transactions.
2- Increase and diversify the use of Internet into enterprises, particularly into small to medium businesses.
3- Make sure to provide training in the use of information technologies for younger.
4-Create a digital governance.

I think that it will be very interesting to see if any of the provincial partys will react to this letter because not only they send this letter to the Prime Minister Charest but they’ve put a special attention to deliver this to all members of our Parliament.

[]

I’ll be one of the next on November 12th. Here is the description of my session:

How to measure the impacts of SMO with 10 business cases made in Quebec
Because marketers sometimes find it difficult to have a fair measure of their ROI when it comes to the social media space, the conference aim to share results from a study on more than 10 SMO business case made in Quebec.

Over the last 12 months, NVI has collected data of more than 125 stories that were brainstormed, written, submitted and pushed to the top 6 news social site (digg/reddit/mixx/propeller/stumbleupon/yahoo buzz!) for medium to large Canadian brands. Let’s take a look at what SMO brought to these companies.

Even if the topic is already chosen, I’m still in the process of building the presentation. So, if there is anything that you would like me to cover during that 55 minutes speach, please let me know. For your information, I mainly plan to focus on social media optimization through social news sites but also want to bring as much as possible concrete examples made in Quebec. I’ll add more information on my conference in the following days/weeks within this post.

update 10.14.2008
Webcom was yesterday and everything went well. It’s always a pleasure to meet everyone from the industry. And as for my conference, i received good feedback, some told me that I was a bit nervous but that the content was really good. I mainly gave examples of concrete applications of the use of social medias to support your SEO efforts and to help creating a buzz by doing online PR. There are the business cases that I’ve mention during my talk:
-Canpages.ca [, , a ]
-Tourimsme Alma []
-Bounty Fishing [, ]
-Pros du Party (Molson Dry) []
-Légendes urbaines (Canal D) [, ]
-
-: interesting tool to check where your username is still available