Startup Fundraising in Latam - Venture Capital Conference 15 Apr 2016 1:58 PM (8 years ago)

Last March 31st I had the opportunity to speak at the first Venture Capital Conference for the Pacific Alliance, held in Lima Peru. It was an amazing event organized by COFIDE and ALTA El Dorado Emprendimiento with all the main players from the entrepreneurhisp ecosystem in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile. It was amazing to see and get to meet people like Dave McClure, Paul Alhstrom, Piero Ghezzi (Peruvian Minister of Production and Innovation) and Gastón Acurio.

I was asked by the organizers to talk a little bit about my experience fundraising for Latin American Internet Startups, mainly in my currnent and previous statups: Mi Media Manzana and AdondeVivir. In this presentation I talk about what it means to raise funds from Latam, why is it necesary, the advantages and disadvantages of fundraising and the main differences between raising money in LATAM vs. fundraising for your startup in USA.

Venture Capital Conference March 2016 from Pedro Ferrand

Top ten things to know for an entrepreneur the first time you come to Silicon Valley 2 Aug 2014 8:11 AM (10 years ago)

Some weeks ago me and my team we were sitting at the Mi Media Manzana offices in Lima-Peru, working as usual... when a long awaited email arrived into my inbox. The subject read: "Congratulations !..." . I knew exactly what that meant, I've been waiting for this e-mail to arrive for several months... this meant that we were going to Silicon Valley, we had been selected to participate in the BlackBox Connect program. In their own words (better than mine) this program is a "unique opportunity for non-US startups to access resources and scale globally during a two-week immersion program".

The two weeks at Blackbox were amazing. Learned a lot from the program, from Fadi Bishara and from the other entrepreneurs from all over the world that were part of it.

*If you want to know about their incredible Starups, here they are.

Picture taken by the awesome photographer Marta Tomczyc

I stayed for an additional week after the program ended, meeting a lot of interesting people. It's really a unique place on earth for an entrepreneur. I'm leaving the Valley today and wanted to summarize the main takeaways from this three weeks at Silicon Valley. Basically, if you're an entrepreneur, have a startup and you're thinking about moving here, this is what you should know:

1.- If you want to raise money here, you have to move to Silicon Valley

2.- People don't have time. Be short, really short. Say what you do in 7 words.

3.- There are millions of Startups competing here. There are several VC's investing here. The odds to raise money are low, but usually higher than anywhere else.

4.- VC's are in a position of power. Someone told me during these weeks "In the end... everybody in Silicon Valley dreams to start their own fund and become a VC. Business Angels want to become VC's. Entrepreneurs want to exit, and then become VC's. VC's want to become bigger VC's"

5.- You'll never raise money in the first meeting with a VC, neither in the second. If the Startup is within their scope, they invest only when they see an upward trend over time in the entrepreneur.

6.- Valuations are higher in Silicon Valley than anywhere else. Here's an interesting article on early stage startup valuations in Silicon Valley.

7.- This is the place where the most talented people in Technology from all over the world come to work. The best of the best come here, period.

8.- Competition for talent is harsh. The best are here but that doesn't mean they'll work for you. There are millions of interesting startups and yes, on hiring you also compete against Facebook, Google, Intel, etc. Equity is a must, but usually not enough to hire someone. Gets an inspiring/persuasive leader on an extremely interesting project to get someone working with you.

9.- Pay it forward. This is real. People will help you without asking anything in return. Is hard to understand an ecosystem so fiercely competitive as this one, but at the same time has this strange coexistence with an uninterested and real belief that is good to help others... Capitalism should be like this everywhere not just here don't you think? :)

10.- Networking is really everything. This is how you meet new people that could eventually be on your team, how you learn from other entrepreneurs, how you meet your future investors, how journalists get to know you, how you meet your future cofounders, etc. Your network and therefore your reputation is really your biggest asset by far in Silicon Valley. The topic is so relevant here that I'll dig deeper on Networking on Silicon Valley on a later post.

BONUS

11.- Don't ask for favors to people who don't know you, people will get pissed off. It takes a while to understand, but it's a mix of getting right points 9 and 10. The order is important. First you meet people, get to an initial relation. Second you offer help. Third, if the person you know wants to and trusts you, they'll offer help to you. That's more or less how it works, don't go asking people you don't know for favors.

I'm sure there's much more to learn from this place and it's people... and this is the reason I'll keep coming back to Silicon Valley.

My 4ht StartUp - Hello Online Dating, Hello "Mi Media Manzana" 17 Feb 2014 1:59 PM (11 years ago)

Around the beginning of 2013, I realized that I'm a serial Internet StarUp Entrepreneur. I became very aware of it and knew this is what I'll be doing the rest of my life. I love the chaos, the ups and downs, the ever changing tech environment, the speed and the growth, and the impact that the work of an individual person can have and the value one can create in early stage ventures.

In July of 2013 I initiated what is now my 4th Internet StartUp. "Mi Media Manzana" is the first company to bring the Online Matchmaking business model to the Andean Region and aims to position itself as the leading Online Dating company in LatinAmerica in the next few years. We focus on serious, long-term relationships for non-married people over 30 years in the LATAM region.

My experience as a CEO in my past three StartUps has been a complete rollercoaster. Here a post (in Spanish) on my view on How's the life of a StarUp entrepreneur in Latin America: Trabajar en una Internet StartUp. My first attempt to build an Internet company from scratch was in Barcelona, Spain. I got together with an amazing guy with a lot of experience in the printing industry that had a revolutionary idea: bundle several orders in the same Offset plate before you print, and you could save up to 70% in costs. Basically the idea of "Low Cost" Airlines applied to Offset Printing but using a website to get the needed volume of similar orders. This is how "ImprimaOnline" was created.

I managed to raise money and launch the website in a year. I was the CEO and managed this company until it got close to break even around 2009. Then when the crisis hit Spain very hard, I decided to move to Peru for my next venture. In this first experience I learned the basics of Online Marketing (SEM, SEO) and also two important takeaways:

Always raise more money than what your Business Plan says
Learn to launch the first version of your web FAST ! (one year to launch in retrospective is crazy ! Too much !)

Later I went to Peru for my 2nd StartUp: a B2B Marketplace for LatinAmerican companies, kind of Alibaba for South America. This venture failed pretty fast. After 6 months we quit because we realized that It would require enourmous amounts of capital to sustain a business like this one and we wouldn't be able to compete against players like Alibaba. This was my first failure (financial failure). but not in terms of learning. I learned:

3. Fail FAST ! If your gut is telling you it won't work, cut your losses and do it fast. Not only you save your investor a lot of money, but also you save your precious time and also you gain credibility.

4. How to build a team. Learned the capital importance to have small but high performing team. It's impossible to build a company with nothing short of the best talent available. Given the difficulty of the task, you'll need it very soon...

5. The technology in the end, is irrelevant. Sounds awkward to work in Internet StartUps for a living and say that the technology is irrelevant but it's mostly true. It doesn't matter how good is your website, It'll always be easy for a competitor to copy in a short time. The competences you develop and how fast can you adapt to change on the other hand, cannot be easily copied.

6. I also learned how to step in front of an investor and tell him that he just lost all the money he had invested. You have to be mentally ready to do this if you work in Internet StartUps.

My third venture, the most interesting so far was AdondeVivir. Right after the failure of the B2B Marketplace, I got together the team that I had assembled for this venture, the same Business Angel (incredibly he decided to invest again in us after the first project) and we created a Real Estate Classifieds portal.

It was an amazing ride. In 5 years AdondeVivir became the market leader in Peru and was acquired by a venture capital firm from the US for 7 figures valuation. We became the first ever peruvian StartUp to appear on nationwide TV (on a daily basis) and also the first ever to raise money from a VC fund from the US. Here's my goodbye post on my experience in AdondeVivir.

My main learning takeaways from this experience were:

7. Learn to raise money ! We were on the edge of bankruptcy several times. I was lucky enough to raise money shortly before we ran out of it. To raise money is one of the single most important traits an entrepreneur has to learn. What you need to raise money is a "bullet proof" Business Plan, a good reputation and you have to have the ability to be persuasive. The takeaway is this one: If your business idea is not good enough so other people want to put money on it... maybe it's not such a good idea after all...

8. Don't sleep until you reach break-even. Seriously... don't. You have to start thinking on revenue and monetization, from the start of the company, even if it's not the main goal at the beggining. Don't delay it. Don't procrastinate it. Don't say "We'll build traffic first and monetize later". Either you're Twitter or Instagram that can build huge valuations without really selling anything... or you're like 99.9% of the other StartUps: If you don't generate revenue before you run out of cash, you're dead. Don't sleep until you reach break even, and when you do... if you do it... throw a huge party to celebrate this incredibly difficult achievement.

9. If you're the CEO, be careful to lose control of the company. Once you sell a big enough chunk of your equity, you wont be making the calls, you won't make the important decisions anymore. Are you ready to do this? Is it worth the money you're raising? Is it really necessary? It Can be or not, but think really carefully when doing it. I lost control, and even though I think it was the right decision... my job stopped being fun after that point... I lost all interest.

Now I'm just starting my 4th venture, Mi Media Manzana. I realized, after carefully researching data and figures, that the Online Dating market in Latin America was completely disregarded. eHarmony retired from Brazil, Match.com has almost no presence in the Andean countries and no one is looking to this region. It has the right demographics and enough Internet penetration to bet on it. The challenge is big because right now there's no market, we have to create one from scratch. To create a market that doesn't exist like Online Dating, in a conservative and very religious society like the LatinAmerican one, means to be able to change a social behavior, to change the way people think when they think about meeting a potential partner. To change all the prejudice around security, to explain how it works and make people believe on it, to be able to monetize and to change the social stigma, etc, are all big challenges we'll have to overcome if we want to succeed. It's a very big challenge that will take some years to do... To have that challenge as a job and create hundreds of thousands of happy couples in the process... That's a fun job to have :)

Adios AdondeVivir ! 28 Jun 2013 11:39 AM (11 years ago)

WoW… qué viaje. Hoy es mi último día de trabajo en e-Holding (AdondeVivir), empresa que fundé, de la que he sido Gerente General desde Agosto de 2009 y a la que en Abril de 2013 decidí renunciar. Aquí algunas de las cosas que se me vienen a la cabeza en el cierre de esta etapa.

Hace algunas semanas me llamaron para hacer una breve presentación en la Universidad del Pacífico en la que me pedían que describa un poco cómo ha sido mi experiencia al trabajar en una Start-Up y tuve el espacio para poder reflexionar un poco sobre mi paso por e-Holding. Pensé en estos cuatro años y lo primero que se me vino a la cabeza fue una Montaña Rusa.* Creo que es la descripción más adecuada para el tipo de trabajo vivido en estos cuatro últimos años en e-Holding. Nos ha pasado de todo: hemos estado a punto de quebrar varias veces, hemos competido contra empresas que tenían 10 veces más presupuesto de Marketing que nosotros, nos han tratado de “jalar” a nuestra gente de otras empresas, logramos levantamos capital de un Venture Capital de USA, ganamos un premio a la mejor web del año, me llamaron clientes a felicitarme y también me llamaron prácticamente a insultarme, cambiamos nuestra web 3 veces, se nos cayó la web N veces, pasamos de un modelo gratuito a uno pagado, hicimos la 1era Campaña de Marketing Social en Redes Sociales con Somos Techo y hasta acabamos saliendo en televisión !. De “Montaña Rusa” este trabajo lo tiene todo: Emociones extremadamente fuertes, subidas y bajadas muy rápidas, mucha velocidad, la impresión de que te vas a morir (“quebrar”) pero sobre todo… el trabajo más divertido del mundo. Ser manager de una Internet StartUp es tan divertido que cuando empieza a dejar de serlo… cuando el tamaño, los procesos, la falta de autonomía** o la falta de retos profesionales te hacen ir a una velocidad más lenta, simplemente acabas por aburrirte.

Nuestra empresa pasó todas las etapas de una StartUp clásica, desde el inicio literalmente en un garage en Barranco con Willy, Rubén, Pedro, Christian y Horacio, pasando por la capitalización de Business Angels con Hans para luego recibir fondos de un Venture Capital de USA.*** Luego de este último hito la empresa pasó a formar parte de NAVENT, con lo que nos enfocamos de lleno en AdondeVivir.com, nuestro portal inmobiliario. Con NAVENT aprendimos a enfocarnos mucho más en la parte comercial, haciendo la transición de ser una empresa “Techy” enfocada en la producción de tecnología a ser una pequeña “Maquinaria de Ventas” enfocada a la generación de ingresos. Personalmente logré aprender muchísimo con el ingreso de NAVENT. Nunca hubiese imaginado que en tan poco tiempo pudiese aprender tanto en el campo que me apasiona que es el del Management de empresas de Internet. La capacidad que tienen para hacer crecer un negocio y multiplicar sus ingresos varias veces en poco tiempo; medir todo pero enfocar a todo el negocio solo en los indicadores clave; discernir entre ingresos relevantes y los que no forman parte del Core Business; ver los gastos hasta el último centavo; rapidez en la toma de decisiones difíciles... entre otras cosas, son algunas de las cosas que he podido aprender en este tiempo del equipo de NAVENT y en particular de su CEO Nicolás Tejerina. No tengo sino palabras de agradecimiento para ellos.

La parte más difícil de tomar la decisión de dejar e-Holding fue la de dejar un excelente ambiente de trabajo, con un equipo de gente increíble, algo que nos costó mucho tiempo construir. Sin embargo, me voy satisfecho de dejar la empresa en un muy buen momento: con un equipo estable de gente excelente, con buenos números de tráfico, listings, clientes, una plataforma tecnológica muy buena y sobre todo lo más importante y difícil de lograr: una empresa rentable.

¿Qué queda ahora?

… lógicamente

… empezar todo de nuevo !

Ver aquí presentación sobre “Montaña Rusa StartUp”)
Excelente Post cómo influye la Autonomía en la Motivación Laboral (y cómo se pierde ante la falta de esta) aquí: The Secret to Feeling Energized at Work? Autonomy
e-Holding fue el 1er caso de una Internet Start-Up peruana en recibir fondos de un Venture Capital Fund de USA.

Trabajar en una Internet StartUp 22 May 2013 4:27 PM (11 years ago)

Luego de terminar mi MBA en 2006, he dedicado toda mi carrera a trabajar en StartUps de Internet. Inicié mi aprendizaje trabajando en ImprimaOnline en Barcelona, España por 3 años. Luego tuve un emprendimiento en el cual aprendi la importancia de poder fracasar pronto y rápido, esta fue mi 2da StartUp. Hace 4 años inicié mi tercera StartUp, la empresa en la que actualmente sigo trabajando como CEO, llamada e-Holding. Hoy se dedica principalmente a operar el portal inmobiliario líder del Perú www.adondevivir.com. Aquí comparto un breve resumen del aprendizaje de estos últimos 4 años, presentado en la Universidad del Pacífico en el evento "Digitalks", 15 de Mayo de 2013, en el que lo que más llamó la atención fue la comparación entre el símil entre trabajar en una StartUp y una montaña rusa.

Algunos posts relacionados:
- Advice for First Time Online StartUp Managers
- Reasons for an MBA to go to the Internet Industry

Gracias AdondeVivir.com 1.0 6 Dec 2012 2:40 PM (12 years ago)

OBITUARIO A NUESTRA QUERIDA WEB ADONDEVIVIR.COM V1.0 Lima, 06 de Diciembre de 2012 Luego 4 años, 3 meses y 6 días de vida, nuestra querida Web www.adondevivir.com desarrollada en Ruby on Rails dejará de existir. A partir del sábado, contaremos con una web completamente nueva, rehecha desde cero en PHP.

En esto 4 años, la web inicialmente creada por Horacio Faudella, Pedro Neira Molina, Hans Ostlund, Ruben Alexis Davila Santos, William Wong Garay y Christian Montenegro nos trajo muchísimos éxitos y alegrías. A solo año y medio de su lanzamiento nos logramos convertir en líderes indiscutibles de mercado contando con un presupuesto de marketing nulo, únicamente con el conocimiento que teníamos en posicionamiento en buscadores (SEO). En 2010 ganamos el premio más importante de la industria digital, a la mejor web peruana, el premio "DIGI a la Innovación en Medios" otorgado por el IAB Perú. A inicios de 2011 gracias a esta web, E-Holding Peru se convirtió en la 1era empresa peruana en recibir capital de un Fondo de Inversión de riesgo de Nueva York, USA, algo que nunca antes se había conseguido en la industria local. Ingresan también en 2011 al equipo tecnológico José Planas como CTO, Alex Aparicio, Peter Baker y Jheny Gaspar quienes condujeron el crecimiento de AdondeVivir.com desde entonces hasta el día de hoy. Nuestro crecimiento explosivo en tráfico llevó a que a inicios de 2012 empezaran los "problemas de salud". Empezamos a ver algunas caídas, la web no había sido creada para manejar un volumen de tráfico y usuarios tan alto como el que empezamos a tener: más de 500,000 visitas cada mes. Empezaron los parches, las mejoras en servidores y algunas actualizaciones y mejoras en programación... pero los problemas no se lograron solucionar. Solo había una opción: rehacer la web completamente de cero. En Agosto de 2012 se toma esta decisión y desde esa fecha se viene programando la NUEVA AdondeVIvir.com, lógicamente corrigiendo todos los errores que aprendimos en el camino. Hoy a las 11:59pm, nuestra actual web dejará de existir. GRACIAS por todo lo que nos diste en este tiempo !! R.I.P Adondevivir.com Versión 1.0 01/09/2008 - 06/12/2012

¿Existe o no una burbuja inmobiliaria en el Perú? (a Agosto de 2012) 14 Aug 2012 4:06 PM (12 years ago)

Durante los últimos años, los precios de los inmuebles en el Perú se han venido incrementando a tasas considerablemente altas (10%-20% anual). Data del portal inmobiliario AdondeVivir.com muestra que en varios distritos de Lima los precios por m2 se han duplicado en los últimos 4-5 años con lo que muchos analistas se empiezan a preguntar si es que se está viviendo o no actualmente (a Agosto de 2012) un burbuja inmobiliaria en el Perú. En la siguiente entrevista realizada en el noticiero matutino del Canal 7, en el segmento de "Valor Agregado" de Luis Alexis Sanchez analizo algunas de las cifras al respecto y tratamos de evaluar cuál es el estado actual del mercado inmobiliario en el país.

Marketing Online para Agentes Inmobiliarios 2 Apr 2012 3:39 PM (13 years ago)

El jueves 29 de Marzo de 2012 en el Swissotel, San Isidro, Lima-Perú se llevó a cabo el 1er Workshop para Agentes Inmobiliarios organizado por el portal inmobiliario AdondeVivir.com. El workshop estuvo organizado en tres módulos: "Marco Legal para el Agente Inmobiliario", "Aspectos del Sistema Tributario aplicables a la Gestión Inmobiliaria" y el módulo final que me tocó exponer a mí, "Herramientas de Marketing Online para Agentes Inmobiliarios".

En esta presentación hago un repaso inicial con algunas cifras que demuestran la necesidad que existe para los Agentes Inmobiliarios en actualizarse en el uso de herramientas online, básicamente porque los compradores de inmuebles (sus clientes) ya se encuentran de manera masiva en Internet. Aquellos Agentes Inmobiliarios que más rápido y mejor aprovechen estas herramientas y capten la demanda que ya está en Internet, lograrán mayores ventas y una ventaja sobre su competencia que aún utiliza únicamente canales de marketing tradicionales. Luego de ver por qué un agente necesita definitivamente utilizar el medio online, hago un repaso rápido de las herramientas que podría utilizar para su trabajo diario. Las herramientas presentadas están divididas en herramientas gratuitas (Facebook, blogs, portales generalistas, directorios y portales inmobiliarios) y herramientas pagadas (buscadores e-mailing, Facebook, Páginas Web y portales inmobiliarios.

Aquí les dejo la presentación, espero les pueda ser útil.

1er Workshop para Agentes Inmobiliarios - Pedro Neira - Herramientas de MKT online para el Agente Inmobiliario

View more PowerPoint from AdondeVivir

Mercado Inmobiliario Online crece en Peru 21 Mar 2012 9:43 AM (13 years ago)

En el Perú en 2012 se realizan más de 4 millones de búsquedas al mes en Google de temas relacionados con el sector inmobiliario. Los portales inmobiliarios a enero de 2012 suman más de 1.5 millones de visitas mensuales. El mercado inmobiliario está migrando hacia el medio online de forma muy acelerada. Aquí comparto la última entrevista al respecto, llevada a cabo el 16 de marzo de 2012, que tuve en el diario "La República".

Cantidad vs Calidad de trafico 18 Jan 2012 5:21 AM (13 years ago)

Es muy común escuchar sobre empresas online y bloggers que festejan al conseguir una gran cantidad de tráfico (número de visitas en su página web) como si su meta fuese simplemente recibir más y más visitas. Definitivamente el tráfico es un indicador importante (de muchos), sin embargo, ¿Cómo saber si esas visitas son de calidad? ¿Sirve o no sirve el tráfico que estoy captando? Primero deberíamos empezar por definir que es la CALIDAD del tráfico. Un tráfico de alta CALIDAD, es aquél que cumple con los objetivos de marketing de la empresa. Se sobreentiende aquí que si el área de marketing no define explícitamente qué objetivos busca de su página web, no podrá medirse la calidad del tráfico que se capte. Por ejemplo, para una tienda online, un tráfico de alta calidad será aquél que tiene un mayor ratio de compras por visita. Para un portal de noticias que no vende nada online, un tráfico de alta calidad será aquel que se queda más minutos y navega por más páginas en la web. Para todos los casos, un tráfico de mala calidad, será aquel que tiene una alta tasa de rebote, es decir, usuarios que llegan a una web y cierran el navegador o se van en la misma página en la que llegaron. Cuando explico este concepto en clases en la universidad, siempre utilizo el siguiente ejemplo. Hace muchos años, el centro comercial más importante del país tenía muchísimos visitantes. Sin embargo, muchos de los arrendatarios de los locales comerciales cerraban a los pocos meses de abrir porque no les era rentable. Sucede que la mayoría de esta gente no compraba nada, solo iban a ver las vitrinas y a pasear. El centro comercial había logrado incrementar mucho su tráfico… pero captaba tráfico de baja calidad porque sus tiendas no vendían más productos con el tráfico que iba “de paseo”. En su web sucede lo mismo. Si soy dueño de una tienda online ¿Me sirve incrementar el tráfico de mi web en 100% si mis ventas suben en 5%? Si soy una página web corporativa ¿Me sirve aumentar el tráfico en 50% si la mitad de estas visitas nuevas no permanecen en mi web más de 30 segundos? La respuesta es que obviamente no. Aumentar las visitas de una web por el solo hecho de aumentarlas no agrega ningún valor. El reto es aumentar el tráfico a la vez que se consiguen los objetivos de marketing deseados. Es muy importante que las empresas, sea cual sea su rubro y la razón por la que tienen una página web, empiecen a medir la CALIDAD del tráfico que captan. Solo así lograrán mejorar la eficiencia de su inversión en marketing.

Aquí la versión de este artículo publicada en el diario Gestion el día 18 de Enero de 2012

Marketing Social en Facebook - Somos Techo 13 Dec 2011 2:58 PM (13 years ago)

A mediados de 2011 se lanzó la campaña Somos Techo, la primera iniciativa de marketing social en Facebook realizadal Perú.

El portal inmobiliario AdondeVivir.com donaría y construiría con su propio personal 4 viviendas a familias necesitadas junto a la organización Un Techo para mi País. La mecánica del la aplicación Somos Techo era que se donaría 1 vivienda por cada 250,000 voluntpoints que acumulasen jugando en Facebook, entre todos los participantes.

Pasaron menos de 3 meses para que nuestros más de 10,000 fans lograsen el objetivo de alcanzar más de 1'000,000 de puntos !! Con lo que se cumplió el objetivo de donar las 4 viviendas a 4 familias necesitadas del Asentamiento Humano Mayobamba en San Juan de Lurigancho.

Puedes ver el resumen de la campaña y sus resultados aquí:

Dado el éxito obtenido en 2011, sin duda replicaremos "Somos Techo" en 2012 y esperamos lograr, con la colaboración de muchos más usuarios de Facebook, la donación de más viviendas para gente que hoy no tiene un lugar adonde vivir.

Mercado Inmobiliario en Internet 24 Oct 2011 7:48 AM (13 years ago)

En los últimos meses, el mercado inmobiliario ha venido migrando de forma acelerada al mundo online. En Países como USA, los ingresos de los diarios provenientes de anuncios clasificados inmobiliarios han caído un 92% en los últimos 10 años. Esta tendencia, actualmente una realidad en muchos países del mundo, también viene dándose en países como Perú, en donde los clásicos anuncios clasificados impresos, dan paso a portales inmobiliarios como AdondeVivir.com. Aquí un extracto de la entrevista que tuve al respecto el 20/10/2011 en WillaxTV.

La entrevista completa en el siguiente link: entrevista Pedro Neira

Somos Techo: 1era Campaña de Marketing Social en Redes Sociales 25 Jul 2011 9:32 AM (13 years ago)

"Somos Techo" es la 1era iniciativa de Marketing Social en Redes Sociales que se lleva a cabo en el Perú. Creada por el portal Inmobiliario AdondeVivir.com y la ONG Un Techo Para mi País.
En esencia, la campaña consiste en una aplicación desarrollada en Facebook (la pueden encontrar aquí SomosTecho) mediante la cual los usuarios van acumulando puntos. El objetivo es que los usuarios acumulen la mayor cantidad de puntos para que AdondeVivir.com done viviendas a aquellos peruanos que no tienen un lugar a donde vivir.
Mediante esta campaña se busca, aparte del objetivo tangible de la donación de 4 viviendas para gente que no las tiene, sensibilizar al púlbico en general acerca de la labor que realiza la ONG Un Techo para Mi País y darles una oportunidad de hacer algo al respecto mediante esta aplicación.
Aquí una presentación con el detalle yla explicación de la campaña.

Conferencia somos techo marketing social (v3)

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Redes Sociales en las Elecciones Peru 2011 23 Jun 2011 6:04 AM (13 years ago)

En esta presentación se hace un breve análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo del uso que dieron los candidatos a las redes sociales en las elecciones presidenciales en Perú 2011, sobre la base de información pública en cuanto a fans y followers de cada uno de los principales 5 candidatos presidenciales: Keiko Fujimori, Luis Castañeda, Ollanta Humala, Alejandro Toledo y Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky PPK. Como conclusión general, los candidatos presidenciales estuvieron de espaldas a lo que sucedía en las redes en estas elecciones, y no aprovecharon la enorme oportunidad que tenían en ellas, como medio de comunicación efectivo, bidireccional y altamente segmentable para transmitir sus ideas políticas. "Uso de las Redes Sociales en las elecciones presidenciales peruanas 2011" Se detalla con cifras concretas el uso de las redes sociales (Facebook y Twitter) por parte de cada uno de los principales partidos políticos y los hechos más relevantes que sucedieron en las redes sociales durante la campaña electoral como el movimiento "Anti" y el gran nivel de polarización que se vivió. Aqui la presentación:

Uso de Redes Sociales en las elecciones presidenciales Peru 2011

View more presentations from Pedro Ferrand

Si les interesó esta presentación, es posible que también les interesen los siguientes artículos:

Marketing Politico en Buscadores: Elecciones Peru 2011

Marketing Electoral Online: Elecciones Presidenciales Peru 2011

* Esta presentación fue elaborada con la valiosa colaboración de Cesar Hoshi

Entrevista en Mundo Empresarial - Canal N 15 May 2011 11:03 AM (13 years ago)

Aquí la entrevista que me hiciera Bruno Giuffra, conductor del programa "Mundo Empresarial" de Canal N. Tuvimos la oportunidad de conversar sobre las principales cifras de e-Holding, los logros en estos 2 años y medio de gestión y el mercado de la publicida digital en el Perú. Hablamos en mayor detalle sobre el mercado de clasificados inmobiliarios online (en el cual somos líderes de mercado con AdondeVivir) y clasificados de compra y venta de autos (en el cual estamos en el tercer lugar de mercado con Peruautos).

Aquí la entrevista:

Copyright by MBA Internet Marketing Manager

Marketing politico en buscadores: Elecciones Peru 2011 26 Apr 2011 6:00 AM (13 years ago)

Más de 3 millones de oportunidades al mes Pierden los Candidatos al No Mostrar sus Anuncios en buscadores

Mensualmente se producen más de 3 millones de búsquedas de temas relacionados a la presente campaña electoral. Ej: “Elecciones Perú” , “Candidatos presidenciales”, "ONPE", etc

Si bien las actuales campañas políticas de casi todos los candidatos están enfocadas primordialmente a publicidad tradicional, los miles de carteles, pancartas y afiches que decoran la ciudad han agotado visualmente al espectador. Por lo tanto, espacios como Internet se mantienen casi vírgenes; inexplorados por la gran mayoría de candidatos, a pesar que el peruano promedio pasa más de la quinta parte del tiempo que dedica al consumo de medios (el 22%) en Internet. Claramente, el formato de publicidad exterior está sobresaturado y ha perdido mucha efectividad. Hay enormes oportunidades en medios con menor saturación como los medios digitales.

Existe una gran oportunidad desaprovechada en este ámbito. En contraste con las campañas de marketing político nacional, la campaña del presidente Obama invirtió aproximadamente el 50% de su presupuesto a publicidad online y un 47% de esa inversión fue destinada a la publicidad en buscadores, en su gran mayoría a la herramienta de marketing en buscadores más popular del mundo: Google AdWords.

Sin embargo, la publicidad en buscadores, y en concreto a la publicidad en Google, el buscador más grande del mundo y el más usado en el Perú, tiene una característica muy particular y diferente a cualquier medio offline: la publicidad se muestra únicamente ante la búsqueda activa de un usuario sobre un tema específico. Por tal motivo, la publicidad se hace relevante y útil para la persona que realiza la búsqueda y por ende el mensaje publicitario se transmite con una mayor efectividad. Asimismo, la publicidad por este medio es de bajo costo y medible.

Estamos hablando de casi 3 millones de veces al mes en las que un candidato habría podido mostrar su anuncio, con cualquiera que fuese su mensaje político, y no lo está haciendo. En otras palabras: 3 millones de oportunidades desaprovechadas. Durante toda la presente investigación previa a la prmera vuelta, no encontramos 1 solo anuncio de ningún político relacionado a los términos de búsqueda de la presente muestra, más que por parte de un par de candidatos pocos días antes de la votación.

Ahora veamos: ¿Cuánto tendría que haber invertido un partido político para tener un impacto al menos significativo? Veamos qué habrian podido lograr con una inversión mínima de entre S/. 3,000 y S/. 15,000 al mes (entre US$ 1,000 y US$ 5,000). Tomemos los siguientes supuestos.

• Asumamos que de cada 100 personas que ve un anuncio en Google, 1 hace clic en él, es decir, una tasa de clic del 1% (más o menos un promedio de mercado conservador).
• Asumamos que el Costo por cada uno de esos Clics que habrá de pagar el anunciante a Google (más conocido como CPC) será de S/. 0.20 (Veinte céntimos de sol por clic, nuevamente un promedio de mercado conservador).

Con estos supuestos más que razonables, tendríamos que si un partido político hubiese invertido, digamos unos S/. 12,000 soles al mes (lo que le cuesta un panel publicitario en una avenida importante), habría obtenido los siguientes resultados:

Esto quiere decir que con una inversión de S/. 12,000, los estrategas de las campañas políticas habrían podido lograr que su anuncio se viese 6 millones de veces y que 60,000 personas hubiesen hecho clic para ver información en mayor detalle. Estas 60,000 personas estarían frente a su computadora con tiempo para ver en detalle sus propuestas políticas, plan de gobierno y mensajes de campaña. ¿Realmente no les parece ésta una mejor inversión que mostrar una foto + un símbolo en la calle al lado de 25 paneles más?

Ahora en segunda vuelta, los candidatos vuelven a dejar desaprovechado este nicho, ningún anuncio se muestra actualmente. Este medio se vuelve mucho más importante aún en esta etapa, ya que tanto Ollanta Humala como Keiko Fujimori tienen su fuerte en los sectores D/E y C/D respectivamente, y ambos tienen que convencer a los sectores A/B, en los cuales Internet constituye tal vez el principal medio de información y que votaron mayoritariamente por los tres candidatos que no pasaron a segunda vuelta.

Un indeciso no se convence con un panel publicitario en Javier Prado, se convence con información detallada y argumentos, algo que permite hacer Internet. La publicidad en buscadores es una forma efectiva de captar lectores a bajo costo.

Quedan algo más de 30 días de campaña para la segunda vuelta... ¿Habrá algún candidato que se dé cuenta de la oportunidad que está desaprovechando en publicidad en buscadores?

Si te interesó este artículo, tal vez te interese también un análisis del marketing politico en redes sociales que se hizo en una entrevista de Cecilia Valenzuela en Willax TV.

Sobre el Autor

Pedro Neira, gerente general de e-Holding, empresa dedicada a la operación y administración de diversos portales como http://www.adondevivir.com/ y http://www.peruautos.com/, y profesor de los Diplomados de Marketing Digital de la Universidad del Pacífico y la Universidad de Piura.

Copyright MBA Internet Marketing Manager

Marketing Electoral Online: Elecciones Presidenciales Peru 2011 10 Mar 2011 5:05 AM (14 years ago)

Elecciones presidenciales en Perú 2011 ¿Qué están haciendo los candidatos presidenciales en Facebook al 1 de Marzo de 2011? Aquí la entrevista que me realizó Cecilia Valenzuela en WillaxTV acerca del uso de las redes sociales en la campaña presidencial y en general, el marketing electoral online en el Perú. En general se puede ver con algunas cifras cómo los políticos han desaprovechado las oportunidades que ofrecen las redes sociales para el marketing político, incluso habiendo otros medios que ya están sobresaturados como la publicidad exterior.

Si te interesó este artículo, tal vez también te interese mi artículo sobre Marketing Político en Buscadores, y las oportunidades desaprovechadas por los políticos en la segunda vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales en Perú 2011

Internet Statistics Latin America 2 Feb 2011 1:57 PM (14 years ago)

Here you can find tha latest relevant stats of every country in Latin America. You'll be able to find the most important metrics related to the Internet Industry in Latin America for any country: broadband penetration, Credit Card penetration, number of PC's, population, GDP per capita, etc.

YOu can download the excel file here: Internet Stats Latin America

This is an extract of the Full Stydy conducted by America Economía for VISA in Excel File so you can use the data as you like. You can fin the complete study in PDF format here: e-Readines Latin America

Hope its useful for you

The Radio industry and Online Radio - Part 2 16 Jul 2010 1:29 PM (14 years ago)

In the previous article (The Future of the Radio Industry) we mentioned that the radio industry, with the arrival of the Internet will go through a process of Amazonization, and as a matter of fact, this process has already started but… What needs to happen to the radio industry so that Online radio completely takes over terrestrial radio and changes the game for good?

My simple answer is: Widespread broadband Internet Connection on cars

Internet Radio already has overtaken much of terrestrial radio market in offices and houses. According to eMarketer, the trend is clear:

Sure you can buy an Radio with Internet connection, but the reality is that we use a PC or a Lap Top to connect to Internet, and where we have a computer available we’ll have Internet Radio available. But what about your car? You usually don’t have a computer running on your car, and if you had it, you can’t use it while driving. So far, there’s no widespread technology that connects cars to Internet, either through a device that comes with the car or through a cell phone, plugin antenna, etc.

The answer is until cars come with standard equipment to connect its traditional radio to Internet, and this hasn’t happened yet. In urban areas of developed countries, nobody listens to radio at home anymore; the only place where it still holds is on cars.

Of course, Car audio equipment with Internet connection will be as common in 5 – 10 years as GPS’s are today. When this happens, that’s the moment that the radio industry will be changed for good. That’s the moment when a little town radio station will compete against the next “Amazon’s” of radio, online radios that will only exist to continually learn from your music taste and give YOU exactly what you want to hear.

The Future of the Radio industry and Online Radio 6 Jun 2010 9:53 AM (14 years ago)

Everybody knows what happened to the Newspaper industry all over the world, and the trend seems more or less clear… but What about radio? How the local/regional radios will be affected by the Internet? Will it be a positive or a negative effect?

Let’s start by taking a look back at what has happened to the Newspaper Industry, which is a vivid example of what’s gonna happen with Radio. The effect of the Internet on the Newspaper industry came from many directions:

1. Lower costs of content distribution

2. Lower prices (or free) to access content

3. Increased competition from smaller players. Nowadays everybody is a content/news generator (Social News Sites, Bloggers, Independent Journalists, etc)

4. Consumers demand more “Multi-media” (Text, Audio, Video) content... that obviously this can’t be delivered by the print edition

My take is that something very similar will start to happen in the near future (5-10 years) in the Radio Industry. Let’s take a look at theses aspects one by one.

Cost of Distribution

Traditional or terrestrial radios have had to invest considerable amounts of money in infrastructure, mainly lots of big and costly antennas spread geographically so your signal can reach the maximum number of listeners. With an Internet Radio the only infrastructure cost is a Server. Server capacity is usually scalable with demand, and now with cloud computing it’s even consumed on demand. On the other hand, the cost of running a server to reach a worldwide audience is negligible compared even with the cost of running a small local radio FM Network. What this means is a change of the game in the radio industry. 20 years ago, if you wanted to compete with a local radio, you had to physically invest in local infrastructure. Now that’s not the case anymore. A local radio Jazz Specialized radio will have to compete with Jazz Radios from all over the world.

Lower prices (or free) access to content

Radio content has always been free to the end user, so this is a big difference regarding content consumption between Radio and Newspaper. In this sense, the radio industry will not have to make such a big adjustment and won’t suffer the trauma that the newspaper is suffering now. Access to content (from the user’s perspective) is free in both traditional and online radio. One less thing to worry for Radio Broadcasters…

Increased competition from smaller players

Think of this in a similar way to what happened to Broadcast TV vs. Cable TV. 30 years ago, if you wanted to see a program related to “Fishing”, probably you had to wait until Saturdays at 6:00am when there was a one hour program on the subject. With Cable TV, all of a sudden you have a “Fishing Channel” running 24/7. With radio, it’s happening more or less the same. Traditional radios have a 2 hour weekly program on 80’s rock, a Jazz Special on Sundays, classical music on Saturdays, etc. Now with online radio your possibilities just got infinite. You can find a French Radio specialized in Classical Music, playing only Mozart 24/7, or a Chicago Blues Radio, a Salsa Radio, Music from Brazil… you name it. The big change is that local terrestrial radios, instead of having a couple of small local competitors, will have thousands of competitors of different sizes spread globally. How will I (Small Local Radio) attract listeners to my Saturday Jazz Special if my audience can get thousand of specialized Jazz radios from all over the world, any day at any time?

As tastes become more specialized, local radios will be unable to compete against global players with more resources and better technology. There will be a huge opportunity for Ad Networks (such as AdSense and the likes) to localize and segment radio advertising in this new setting. The Radio industry will go through a process of “Amazonization”, meaning long process of personalization, recommendations, custom made suggestions, etc. As a matter of fact, although still incipient, this trend of “Amazonization” of the radio industry has already started with online radios such as Pandora.com and Last.fm.

But… isn’t that already happening? Aren’t already online radios where you can personalize your tastes according to the kind of music you like (Jazz, Trance, Salsa, etc), the mood you’re in a particular moment (melancholic, excited, relaxed, etc) even music according to the colors you prefer or what your friends listen? Yes, all of that exists today but the big advertising budgets haven’t moved here yet. Local traditional radio broadcasters with their traditional business model still exist… The question is until when? …

Which will be the triggers for this change? More or less when will it happen? I’ll try to answer these and other questions in Part Two of The future of the Radio Industry.

Easy steps to find great keywords without Keyword Tools 28 Apr 2010 6:42 AM (14 years ago)

Most people use a keyword suggestion tool when they try to find new keywords for their campaigns. While keyword suggestion tools are good, they should not be the first step in your keyword research activities.

Before you use a keyword suggestion tool, ask yourself the following questions:

What problems can your product or your service solve?
Which questions do potential customers ask?
Can you offer unusual solutions?
Which products and services do you offer?

As you can see, the products and services that you offer are the least important. A person with a headache might not now that the Shiatsu that you offer will help them. They even might now know what Shiatsu is and if they know it, they might not be able to spell it properly. The same applies to all other services and industries.

For that reason, it is important that you focus on the first three points before using your products or services in the keywords.

1. What problems can your product or service solve?

In this example, the problem that your product or service can solve is a headache. Create a list of words that describe the problem:

headache, racking headache, migraine, vicious headache, splitting headache, megrim, constant headache, etc.

2. Which questions do potential customers ask?

People type different things in Google's search box when they try to find a solution to their problem. Here are some real queries that have been done on Google (use IBP's keyword suggestion tool to find keywords that are searched by real web surfers):

why does my head hurt
why does my head hurt when I cough
how to get rid of migraines without medication
how to get rid of migraines when pregnant
why can't i concentrate on anything
why am i so tired
etc.

The problem that your product solves creates certain circumstances (fatigue, temper, concentration problems). Address these circumstances in your keyword phrases.

The problem can also be connected to another factor (for example migraine and pregnancy). Create keyword phrases that are related to these factors.

3. Can you offer unusual solutions?

Most people will take a pill when they have a headache. In this example, you offer a solution that many people don't know about (Shiatsu). The following phrases would work for you:

get rid of migraines without medication
get rid of headache without pills

The unusual solutions that you offer can also be used in your AdWords ad copy and on your web pages. For example, you might create web pages around the following topics:

How to get rid of headaches without using Aspirin
An unusual way of healing migraine without medication
etc.

4. Which products or services do you offer?

Of course, you should also use the names of the products and services that you offer in your ads and SEO campaigns. In this example, this would be:

shiatsu, shiatsu massage, etc.

When you try to find new keywords, tell a short story that describes the problem and the solution: "A person has a racking headache. The person cannot concentrate because of that headache and the person is tired. Instead of taking a pill, there can be other solutions. That solution is my Shiatsu service."

By doing this, you'll find many keywords around which you can create new web pages and PPC ads. Of course, you can also combine this method with keyword suggestion tools.

"Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software"

MBA Internet Marketing Manager

Viral Marketing Key Success Factors 8 Mar 2010 3:42 PM (15 years ago)

Viral Marketing Key Success Factors

(This article is the third part of a series of posts dedicated to Viral Marketing. You can find the previous two post here:

From Mass Marketing to Viral Marketing and The Viral Marketing Mindset)

After having a clear idea of where Viral Marketing stands today my main concern was to try to answer the following questions:

What elements are needed to create a succesfull Viral Marketing Campaign ?
What do we need to take into account when trying to make Viral Marketing Hit?

Before getting into detail, let’s analyze a bit what are the characteristics that differentiate Viral Marketing from other forms of Marketing.

Like Word of Mouth Marketing (one type of Viral Marketing), Viral Marketing campaigns are:

1. Very difficult to control: The outcome is less certain and controllable than with regular mass media campaigns. For example, if you launch a Radio campaign, you control in which radio shows you want to put your ad on; you know the size of the audience of each show and you have historical data on average responses to radio advertising. More or less the only uncertainty is how good will the Ad itself be and how the audience will react to it, but the marketer is in control of all the other variables. In Viral Marketing you don’t control the size of the audience you want to reach, the channels where it’ll be transmitted nor the message itself.

2. Cheaper (…If successful). That’s a big “If”… but if you manage to get a Hit, your cost per reaching your potential market, compared to what it would have cost you to reach the same amount of people by traditional means will be much much lower.

3. The message will be distorted along the way: Since you relay on others to spread your message, there’s a high risk that the original message will mutate and be transformed along the way. This is the price you have to pay for not being the one directly transmitting the marketing message.

Now that we have a clear picture of Viral Marketing, let’s go straight to the point and answer What elements are needed to create a successful Viral Marketing campaign? What do we need to take into account when trying to make Viral Marketing Hit? …

In my opinion, if you’re considering to invest in a Viral Marketing campaign this is what you should take into account to increase your chances of success

Incentive system: Take your time to carefully design the incentive system of the campaign. This is where you have to invest more planning time. The simple question you have to answer Why on earth will someone pass my marketing message to someone else? And the answer should be 100% convincing. If the incentive it’s just fun, your message better be hilarious, otherwise people won’t pass it on considering the tons of messages a person receives a day. If your incentive is a sample, a lottery, discount or money, better be very clear on the procedures and as simple as possible.
Choose carefully your channel: Nowadays the most probable outcome is that if you want to viralize a marketing message, it’ll be done through multiple channels. People choose their own channels and they can choose Twitter, Blogs, Social Bookms, Social Networks, e-mailing, YouTube, etc. Nevertheless, you get to choose the original or preferred channel according to your marketing objectives. It’s not the same to base your campaign on an e-mail than on Twitter. Another important point is that your channel has to be closely linked with the incentive system you put in place. Example: If you have a Viral Campaign based on a YouTube video… How will you incentivize people for watching the video? How will you motivate people to share your video with their friends?
Opinion leaders: If the incentive system is what determines the total audience you might reach, Opinion Leaders determine the Speed at which your message will be spread. You can use Celebrities, influential blogger/twitterers, reputed journalist, or opinion leaders in your target segment to spread your message much faster than if you spread it only through regular people.
Monitor and take action along the way: We mentioned above that one of the key characteristics of Viral Marketing is very difficult to control. Most people interpret this as if you had no control at all over your campaign and can’t do nothing once your campaign is launched. That’s completely wrong. The risk of your campaign going the wrong way is high and that’s exactly the reason why you should monitor closely what’s going on. This will give you time to correct things before they get out of control, clarify points of your message that are confusing, respond directly to your market or… if it’s needed cutting off the campaign.

I’m sure there might be many more other important factors for a successful Viral Marketing campaing… I’d love to hear them. Comments are open !

The Viral Marketing Mindset 23 Feb 2010 8:47 AM (15 years ago)

(You can find the introduction to this article, in my
previous post From Mass Marketing to Viral Marketing)

Coming from more than 60 years of Mass Marketing, the mindset of a marketer has to make a big change from…

Designing ONE marketing message that, through mass media, will reach directly as many target customers as possible (and lot’s of non targets as well…), trying to convince them of buying or doing something. Most of the times, these messages were intrusive and not relevant; they got in the middle of a content you were interested and you were somehow “forced” to see it.

…to something completely different that is…

Design one marketing message addressed directly to few people. Create an incentive system for the message to be passed on to other people (it can be that the message it’s just very funny, very interesting content, it can be money, etc). Design a message that can mutate and be changed by the users in the process of recommendation. And finally the most difficult part of all: The message will have to be extremely relevant for its audience, otherwise people won’t see it and won’t recommend it.

The change in the mindset of a marketeer is the first step required to make the leap from mass marketing to viral marketing, but it's not the only thing needed. If we get into a campaign level, there are some tactical issues that need to be taken into account. All this analysis and the realization that the way marketing is done has changed for good, led me to the following questions:

What elements are needed to create a successful Viral Marketing campaign?
What do we need to take into account when trying to make Viral Marketing Hit?

I’ll discuss in part three of this series of posts dedicated to Viral Marketing: Viral Marketing Key Success Factors.

From Mass Marketing to Viral Marketing 31 Jan 2010 8:38 AM (15 years ago)

From Mass Marketing to Viral Marketing

The digital age has given us the tools to change the way we market products. But although the Internet and the huge growth of digital devices has been around now for 10-15 years, most marketers haven’t really began to understand its full potential. Why?...

50-100 years of mass marketing inertia is the answer.

Let’s take a closer look…

Viral marketing has been with us for more than 90 years. In the 20’s, although it later became illegal, the Ponzi Scheme was one of the first amazing examples of how successful a Viral Marketing campaign can get. With the arrival of mass media advertising (Radio in the 20’s – 30’s and TV in the 50’s – 60’s), viral marketing was left aside for a few decades but now in the digital era it has come again strongly. Internet and mobile devices speed up and facilitate enormously communications between people, creating a fertile ecosystem where the “Virus” of an intelligently designed marketing campaign can spread like never before. To get an idea of how fertile the terrain is for Viral Marketing campaigns, let’s take a look at some findings of an eMarketer Study on Viral Marketing:

89% of US adults share content by e-mail
25% share content daily
Only 5% of respondants would refuse to share content that contains a clear brand message

… And these data is from 2006 !! Before Twitter, Facebook and Social Media became popular !!

What this data is showing is that never before in the recent history of marketing, users were so eager to spread a marketing message, had so many tools available and at such low cost. This poses a great challenge to today’s marketers. We’re just starting to see the tip of the iceberg regarding Viral Marketing in the digital era. Even though online advertising has grown at consistently high rates (see how Online Advertising has overtaken TV advertising in UK) most of it is still mass marketing. Most marketers only shift budgets from TV or Radio to massive online advertising campaigns but don’t really take advantage of all the new features and possibilities this new media has. After many decades of marketers specialized in mass media channels (Newspapers, TV, Radio, etc), it’s gonna take some time, and probably require a generational change until we see Top Brands with regular viral campaigns, big budgets assigned to Viral Marketing and really specialized professionals in this field.

This is the first of a series of three posts dedicated to Viral Marketing. In the next post, we’ll take look at the Viral Marketing Mindset.

Google's statement: how Google ranks tweets 21 Jan 2010 3:04 PM (15 years ago)

Last month, Google started to display real-time results in addition to the regular top 10 pages on their search result pages. The real-time results are meant to offer web searchers access to brand new news items as fast as possible.

The main element of Google's real-time results are tweets. Tweets are the real-time messages that Twitter users post on Twitter.com. Google's Amit Singhal, who led the development of Google's real-time search, recently revealed how Google ranks tweets in the real-time results.

There's some kind of PageRank just for tweets

Google's PageRank algorithm looks at the link structure of a web page. The more websites link to a website and the more websites link to the linking websites the more relevant is the linked website.

Tweets are not about links but about followers. On Twitter.com, people "follow" the comments of other Twitter users. The more followers a Twitter user has, the more reputable are the tweets of that user. If Twitter users that have many followers follow another Twitter user then these users will have a larger impact on the reputation of that user.

"It is more than a popularity contest", said Google's Amit Singhal. "One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation.

As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."

There are additional filters and algorithms

The follower reputation rank is only one of Google's methods to rank tweets:

Hashtags

Twitter users often use "hashtags" in their comments. Hashtags are symbols that start with a # followed by a popular topic, for example #earthquake.

If such a hashtag is included in a tweet, the tweet will show up in the real-time results when other Twitter users click the hashtag's topic word elsewhere on the site.

Spam

While hashtags can be useful to maximize the exposure of a tweet, they are also often abused for spamming. The wrong hashtags can serve as a red flag that triggers Google's spam filters.

Amit Singhal didn't go into the details but he said that Google modeled the hashtagging behavior in ways that tend to reduce the exposure of low-quality tweets.

The signal in the noise

There can be thousands of tweets that contain a very popular word such as "Obama". To find the relevant tweets, Google looks for "signals in the noise". Such a signal can be an increasing number of tweets that mention other words near mentions of "Obama", for example "Cambridge police". The tweets with the signals will be chosen for the real-time results.

The problem with Google's real-time results is that they don't last. The time and efforts that you have to invest in getting listed in Google's real-time results is better spent on optimization for Google's regular results.

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