Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Keith Yau

Keith Yau

Keith Yau Follow yubis_keithyau on Twitter

Currently working in ecVision, leading supply chain management software company, focus on providing open source IT Solutions, Drupal professional. Specialist in Drupal scaling & system integration. Degree in CUHK information Engineering,1 year with HSBC iSeries server performance team. Keith is interested in technology and self-motative to learn new IT skills. Especially on Linux, networking & virtualization. With experience in IT technical areas, he was invited by HK productive Council, Hong Kong college of Technology and IBDS to organize courses about online marketing, networking & Security, open source strategy for SME and eCommerce.

Drupal Adding apache solr index for field-collection

If images / content are bounded by field collection module, you can try approach below to index to solr

enjoy

 

//Index product images

$field_collection_items = field_get_items('node', $node, 'field_image_set');

$field_collection_item_ids = array();

$i = 0;

foreach ($field_collection_items as $field_collection_item){

$field_collection_item_ids[$i] = $field_collection_item['value'];

$i++;

}

$field_collection_item_fields = entity_load('field_collection_item', $field_collection_item_ids);

$image_fields = array();

$i = 0;

foreach ($field_collection_item_fields as $field_collection_item_field){

$image_fields[$i] = field_get_items('field_collection_item', $field_collection_item_field, 'field_image');

$i++;

}

 

$i = 0;

foreach ($image_fields as $image_field){

foreach ($image_field as $image)

$path = file_create_url($image['uri']);

$document->setMultiValue('sm_field_image_'.$i++, $path); //Set multiple field_image values

}

 

Adding index to apache solr by Drupal apache solr hook

1. Add index by setMultiValue

function scp_solr_search_apachesolr_update_index(&$document, $node){
$document->setMultiValue('sm_field_xxxx',
$node->field_xxxx['und'][0]['value']);

2. Add modify query

function scp_solr_search_apachesolr_modify_query(&$query, $caller){
$query->params['fl'] .= ',sm_field_xxxx';

3. update solr and done ~!


* scp_solr_search is my module name Enjoy

Online marketing in China

Recently, I met my friend's cousin. She comes from ShangHai - A first class city in China. I went to ShangHai two times and really feels opportunity out there. I believe many people are headache about getting into China market. It is harsh to setup retail business or making any sales. Due to the great firewall, social network services & many online marketing stuffs are blocked.

BTW, with my friend's cousin - Nico, she is an online marketer in China who responses to brand New balance / North Face, I start to realize how to make things works in China. Firstly, we should make a mapping on SNS

Foreign SNS China SNS Description
Facebook renren.com More on college students
Twitter t.sins.com.cn (微博) More on superstars, feel link up with other websites
MySpace www.kaixin001.com (開心網) For all people
Linkedin www.wealink.com (若領) More on mainland jobs
Posterous *Still have room for competiton
YouTube tudou.com (土豆) Many anime, do not have copyright at all

All knows technology are the same

You will find China SNS and foreign SNS nearly take no difference on technology behind. But, content has big different.
Since nearly no foreign people in China SNS, the culture is China only while foreign SNS is a global mixture. Unlike foreign SNS, China people take very serious on making online friends. They  afraid of be traded, advertisement, fake good .... etc. Don't ever think to make friends like twitter - Follow some people, like others' post, find common interest / expertise .... Spirit communication not that useful at all. 

If you are making online business

Everything in kaixin need money, commonly like facebook group/page, it need money to create. No free advertising even you have many collections. The budget in China online marketing should be higher than using twitter / facebook.

The only way is to ask your China friend to share his/her network 

I have to say, if you can add friends in China SNS you already know, it will be much better. In China, online or offline, like you find a job, you cannot find a job about your good experience but making good friends matter. This culture goes on to Internet. Just like twitter followers -- Provided that your followers are famous, you must have great power of influence.

Not many management tools available

I don't know the reason, TweetDesk not supporting kaixin / t.sina or you are going to make one !

It is really slow ...

I'm talking about the network, especially overseas... If you are remote control like in US / UK, you better have an proxy ! You may left your message and I get one for you.

How to make things work?

Other than hiring China writers, SNS operators ... you still need to make good decisions in a very very rapid changing market... Further, A China law said foreign business should be cooperate with local business in order to setup in China. Frankly speaking, it cannot be done on your own, since you don't have time to understand, to learn and to pay for the totally different China culture. It is hard for me even I am a Hong Kong 80afters. Not kidding, left your message and I introduce Nico to you, you will safe your life.

Update

When I get more understanding, I will come back and share about how to deal with China people over Internet ~

Thanks

Search Engine Optimization / online marketing - Content is King

Remember in SEO, content is King, coding is just about the performance

Last Friday, a client called me for SEO service. After scanning his website, there is just 3 pages < 2000 words and a webform.
A simple system to let people ask for quotation about his machines. The previous web developer should know something about SEO, the website has

  1. img alt code - *No words inside
  2. meta keywords - *More than 10 words
  3. added Page titles - *always the same page title
  4. News / Blog function - *nearly no update

In the case, 1/2 of the basic functional requirement about SEO is ready, the matter is that it doesn't contains enough text. And the website do not have traffic.

The result is that, the programmer is not about IT things, but basic marketing kits. If the client want to get more visitors, he should have much rich content in text. For more attraction, videos / slides are appreciated.

Will you trust the content created by someone not in your industry ?

Some clients will also ask me for help about creating good content ~ wait ! Any conflicts? Your content is your core business, should it relies on other ? For an IT company like me, I can help you to create content faster, better information flow and performance. And really not about what to write on the website.

SEO is about the whole planning of visitor flow and information flow

You may ask yourself first

  1. Where are your target customers online? Any famous website in your industry ? Or Forum ?
  2. Your target age group ? Will they blogging / twitter / facebook ? If yes, you can add their group
  3. If you are buying paid ads, the visitor is just going into your front page or the right landing page ?

Before you goes on with your SEO / Website development, you should have a picture like below

Simple_seo_plan

It means You want your target customers come from forum, search engine (Both SEM & SEO) and facebook (SNSs)to visit your blog, share your posts and visit the product page. Finally contact you via email at "Contact us page".

You have to target a market segment. Remember, Target all means targets nothing

And you need a table like below and get focus on your source (Channels), usually it is where your budget spent

Target_your_source


Finally, How to attract people ? That is why Content is King

In today's Internet, you have to be the influencer and your content matter ! For SME, you may feel trouble to create content (Articles, image, blog, course outline, demo ... etc) Anyway, you have to know, even without the Internet, it is also what traditional marketing department are doing. It is not the matter of online marketing or offline marketing, it is what you should do for marketing.

You may not try this before, because the budget is very high on traditional marketing channels (TV, magazine, ads, posters, direct mail, radio ...).

The Internet lower the cost barrier of distribution channels NOT the quality of content

If you are about to understand what is going on, please beware something you may currently doing

  1. You don't have news update and you are paying for PPC (Pay per click)
  2. You are doing broadcasting & burning money, not target marketing
  3. Advertisements always bring visitors to the front page, not the page where they want

What to do if Bosses / Sales really do not want to write your content

Here are some ways that Enterprise are doing

  1. Hire technical writers and meets with your company's technicians / Sales
  2. Read good articles online and modify them, repost on your own
  3. Outsource to marketing firms with a good enough budget

If you are budget limited, what to do ?

  1. A habit of posting, like me, post my just hot experience
  2. Find a marketing partner
  3. Locate your industry's bloggers, read their post, digest and you write your own much easier

Keith Yau, Project Consultant in Yubis - Specialist of Drupal, Online marketing, Server solutions and IT training.

Email Keith Yau Yubis  Yubis