Legal Internet Marketing Blog

Internet marketing professionals are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Bing, Microsoft Corporation’s recently released search engine. The company is reportedly spending $100 million on marketing for their new search engine in an effort to gain market share for Internet searches as well as the lucrative advertising revenue that a larger market share would provide. For many years Microsoft’s Live Search was the company’s search engine and, while it was the third-most popular search engine in a fairly crowded field, the company steadily lost market share to industry heavyweight Google. But now the company has thrown its considerable resources behind Bing in the hopes that the new search engine will attract more users and advertising revenue.

“They've added a few nice things, and I think the shopping comparison stuff with reviews is pretty compelling,” said Rich Dettmer, director-digital strategy at b-to-b agency Slack Barshinger, Chicago. “As far as paid search is concerned, we're going to be on it. Our clients will use it. But, of course, I will tell you that the lion's share of the budget still has to go where the lion's share of the searches are, and that means Google.”

Before Bing launched, Microsoft’s Live Search came in third behind Google and Yahoo for market share for total searches. But with only 8 percent of search market share, a percentage which gradually and continually eroded and lost users to Google, it became a source of embarrassment (and far more important, lost revenue) to Microsoft. According to the latest available search engine statistics, Google logged 64.2% of all search queries in the U.S. in April 2009, with Yahoo at 20.4% and Live Search, Bing's predecessor, at 8.2%.

But some Internet marketing professionals are keeping a close eye on Bing’s market share, how it presents relevant search results to users and how Bing might fit into the Internet marketing strategies they craft for clients.

Microsoft has unsuccessfully tried to reinvent its search engine several times in the years since it launched MSN Search in 1998. As Internet marketing and advertising have grown in popularity and relevance since then, MSN Search has morphed into Microsoft Search, then Windows Live Search, then Live Search with each iteration failing to attract the desired number of users.

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Around twenty years ago, a Cornell graduate student wrote a simple software program that was intended to be a harmless prank. He wanted it to be a trivial bit of digital graffiti, but a programming error allowed the program to move from one computer on the network to another with unexpected speed, which brought the precursor to today’s Internet to a halt.

Since that prank occurred, the security of the Internet has grown much dicier. This point is reinforced and illustrated by the amount of anti-malware software that is sold each year around the world and the amount of computers and networks that are infected with viruses and other malware every day. Security on the Internet has deteriorated to the point that many engineers and security specialists now believe that the only way to fix it is to start over.

What the new Internet might resemble is still fiercely debated, but one proposed model would resemble a gated community of sorts where users trade anonymity and some freedoms in exchange for network safety. This model already exists for many users who access the ‘Net while working for some governmental and corporate entities with restricted access. As this newer and more secure Internet emerged, the network that is such a big part of many peoples’ lives might resemble a rough neighborhood where users enter at their own risk.

“Unless we’re willing to rethink today’s Internet,” says Nick McKeown, a Stanford engineer involved in building a new Internet, “we’re just waiting for a series of public catastrophes.”

The validity of this assertion is reinforced each time a new virus emerges and infects computers and networks around the world. The latest piece of malware, called Conficker, is an especially pernicious program which has infected more than 12 million computers and derailed the computer networks of the French military, a surgical ward in England and countless others. Unlike other viruses that require a user to click on an executable file of some type, Conficker can install itself via banner advertising while a user views the content on a favorite site. Most versions masquerade as a form of anti-virus software with pop-ups warning users to provide credit card numbers and other contact information to buy the ‘upgraded version’ that will remove the malware.

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Microsoft is sparing no expense and thinking well outside the metaphorical box in its efforts to market its new search engine named “Bing.” The corporation is buying prominent placement in television programs and the online video hub Hulu.com as part of their efforts to raise awareness about their new search engine. In fact, Microsoft plans to air an hour-long “Bing-a-thon” on Hulu.com, matching the new search engine with the old marketing standby - the infomercial. Tired of having its old search engine a perennial afterthought to the undisputed champion of the search engine Google, the Microsoft Corporation is believed to be spending between $80 million to $100 million on advertising to give Bing a running start on the competition.

Microsoft is willing to invest in all this Internet marketing in their new search engine because Internet marketing has become such an effective way to build brand management, attract targeted, qualified traffic to a Web site and drive sales. In addition, search engine market share has become increasingly coveted because online ad spending has held up much better than most other types of media in a tough economic climate. It’s fair to say that Microsoft is implementing all this Internet marketing for Bing to get a bigger chunk of Google’s share of ad revenue.

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president for the online services division of Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, said, “It’s a very tall marketing challenge and a very tall product challenge…It’s going to take multiple steps to get where we want to go,” he added, “and this is the first step. The key will be whether we deliver a product and connect with people emotionally in the advertising.”

Mr. Mehdi added that to achieve the second point, “You have to do something a little bit more surprising.”

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With the explosion in popularity that social media and social networking sites like facebook, twitter, youtube, videojug, and linkedin have recently enjoyed, many attorneys are faced with the question of whether or not to invest the time and money involved in creating and maintaining profiles on these sites. Can tweeting 30 times a day and having hundreds of followers to your profile increase the number of great cases you get? Will it cause your phone to ring more often?

The answer, in most instances, is a resounding ‘no’, but that does not mean that these sites don’t serve a purpose. The real value of these types of sites becomes obvious when you view your name (and your law firm’s name) as a trademarked brand name. A brand name that like any other in the business world, needs to be protected.

While it is true that you don’t have to devote large resources to social media sites, you do have to protect your brand name and trademarks by registering or ‘claiming’ your profiles. Almost all of the profiles that you create on the most popular of social networking sites are free. It just takes time and a valid email address. By taking the time to create profiles for yourself and your firm, you successfully claim your virtual identity online preventing brand and trademark abuse while contributing to your legal Internet marketing efforts.

Another variable here is the potential that some of these social networking sites have for exploding in popularity. Let’s not forget the story of facebook.com, a social networking site that started very small. Originally the site was intended to be a networking tool for Harvard students. As it’s popularity increased, other colleges and high school were allowed to join its ranks as well. It wasn’t until late 2006 that the site actually opened its membership to non-students. Today the site has more than 200 million active profiles. Who knows which social networking site will enjoy similar success? By claiming as many of these profiles as possible you insure that you are well positioned to take advantage of future success.

Additionally, and this is actually the most important factor from an SEO standpoint, social media sites can rank very highly in the search engines, especially for people’s names. If you’ve ever done a search for an individual you know that very often the first page of results can be dominated by myspace, facebook, youtube, and linkedIN profiles. The pages where the profiles are listed can also have very high page ranks, offering valuable links back to your firm’s website.

The most attractive part of this plan of action is that it costs virtually nothing. Any intern or office administrator can log into these sites and create profiles for your firm. The potential benefits far outweigh the time invested, and protecting your brand name on a prime domain can reap substantial benefits to you and your firm’s online identity.