Popular Articles on Business 2 Community |
- The Ultimate Whitehat Guide To Building Backlinks
- Your Website Sucks
- Crowdfunding Trends 2014
- 5 Reasons To Start Blogging In 2014 And How To Start
- Why Finding an Advertising Agency Is Not an Easy Task
- The 7 Rules of Social: What Every Media Company Should Know
- Facebook News Feed Changes & What They Mean for Businesses
- The Search Marketer’s 2014 Guide to Survival on Google
- 3 Metrics to Measure Year-End Social Media Results
| The Ultimate Whitehat Guide To Building Backlinks Posted: 25 Dec 2013 06:30 AM PST One of the reasons more and more webmasters prefer whitehat backlink building every year is that it doesn't require as much maintenance as blackhat backlink building. You're not trying to outwit Google, you're working with Google to promote your high-quality content. But that doesn't mean that things don't change. We've already seen Google introduce what might be a game-changer for backlink building—Google Authorship. And the Penguin update has moved some greyhat techniques into blackhat territory. Here's what you need to keep increasing your traffic in 2013. The Basic Rules Stay The SameYour backlink building should still focus on quality over quantity, and the best way to get high-quality backlinks is still guest posts to other sites in your niche and related niches. (But keep reading for why that might not be true in 2014.) The Penguin update seems to have penalized links coming from outside your niche, so 2013 is the year you stop making directory submissions or otherwise encourage random strangers to use your content. Focus on getting targeted backlinks. You may also want to be careful about your go-viral strategy. Although a few days of high traffic can be a great payoff, unless that traffic converts well, you could end up with a bunch of low-quality inbound links which will eventually look to Google like paid backlinks. Instead of investing in content which may go viral, look at the costs involved in targeting very high page rank sites in and around your niche. You may need to pay someone a fair amount of money to produce a completely top-notch guest post, webinar, infographic, or other piece of content to get on your target site, but a single backlink from one of the highest ranked sites in your niche can significantly improve your ranking. RIP: The Link WheelThe link wheel debuted in the Warrior Forum a couple years ago as a whitehat/greyhat link building technique. It offered a simple method to quickly build natural-seeming links: 1. Create a bunch of free accounts on blogging sites. 2. If you were whitehat, post mediocre content to your free blogs. If you were greyhat, post spun and other low-quality content to your free blogs. 3. Occasionally link the free blogs to each other. 4. If you were desperate for a better rank, occasionally link the free blogs to your main site. If you were less desperate and more worried about Google penalties, occasionally link the free blogs to about three cutout sites you controlled and then link the cutout sites to your main site. The link wheel seemed like a cunning way to fool Google, but its popularity was its downfall. As various SEO outfits began to systematize the link wheel and use lower and lower quality content, Google eventually wrote an algorithm which reliably detects link wheel content. Some SEO companies still claim their link wheels work—and they may be telling the truth. But those link wheels are automatically built by computer programs who don't mind registering for hundreds or thousands of accounts. Spending hours of your time trying to create a link wheel sophisticated enough to fool Google will probably not be a good investment of your time. The link wheel is dead. Commenting Like Its 2009Just in case you haven't been keeping up, hiring someone at a ridiculously low rate to post comments linking back to your blog doesn't work anymore. Every blog content management system uses rel=nofollow for comments these days and almost nobody clicks comment author links. Comments can still be a viable strategy, but you will need to take the time (or pay someone the money) to write blog comments which attract the attention of the author of the blog. My favorite way to do this is to find a noteworthy error in the blog post—if the author agrees that it's an error, they'll often update the blog and link your name to your site in the update notice—giving you a real link. A more reliable commenting method is to simply use comments to build a relationship with the blog author before your offer to guest post on his or her site. But this too requires high-quality comments. (So please stop hiring people to post low-quality comments on everyone elses blogs.) Google Authorship—Does It Change The Game?Google Plus Authorship—the little picture of you Google puts next to your search engine results—is leading Google's next-generation spam detection engine. Right now, Google authorship is a novelty which may help you get a little extra traffic. But soon it may be practically required. Google wants to know who wrote what so it can promote content from high-quality writers over content from anonymous people who are probably spammers. We can debate the privacy implications elsewhere, but the implications for backlink building are huge. Google Authorship, or a similar system from other search engines, will eventually massively devalue unattributed content. That includes guest posts—if you post to a site and there's no authorship information, Google will not give the backlink to your site the same value as other links from that site. A site which never includes authorship information may have less effective links than a site which does include authorship, even if both sites are in the same niche and have the same pagerank. Conversely, getting a highly-searched author to write for your site (provided you add authorship information) may help boost your ranking. As I write this in July 2013, it's still too early to tell what will happen. The first thing to wait for is how Bing and other search engines reply to authorship. The next thing is to see how many significant websites adopt authorship. Finally, we need to see if blackhat types can scam it. But if everything works out for Google, expect 2013 to be the last year unattributed guest posts work as a backlinking strategy.  |
| Posted: 25 Dec 2013 04:00 AM PST
Alas, Unison is unique. And their clients are rare. And their sites rock. I am going to rush through some of the most obvious ones that pop up to me. These are general mistakes, concerns, and issues—I haven't the time nor the impulse to collect and shame all of the perpetrators and perpetuators of this sort of thing, probably because I don't make my money from web application development. So, without further ado, here's my list of web application disasters and mistakes that very well should have been sorted out by last Thursday, 2013. Me? I am writing this post while I am procrastinating from updating and modernizing my consulting site, Gerris digital, which currently suffers from quite a few of the following—here we go: Your site is a decade old Let me count the ways. And, even if your aging site is findable, accessible, readable, and navigable via smart phone and tablet, it may well be hard for you, yourself, to access and update it using modern and free platforms like WordPress. Are you still sending your site updates to your IT guy in MS Word who then implements updates—eventually? Remove the IT department shackles and come into the 21st century: rich-text editing, spell-checking, hyper-linking, keyword-suggestion, and the ability to upload your own graphics and photos! WYSIWYG formatting! All kind of good stuff. Multiple-editors, workflow, and different levels of access and editing credentials. I mean, we've come a long way since Frontpage. Your site is 5 years old or more A lot has happened in five years—time to upgrade in a big way. And not just technology, usability, interfaces, accessibility, or interface, but also content. What you did five or more years ago may well be the same but maybe a lot has happened in the interim. And not just process or relationships or narrative but also the language of what you do. When I started out in 2003, my space was called new media, my work, new media marketing. Nobody says that anymore. Now, it's content marketing, digital PR, social media marketing, etc. Even authors rewrite, re-edit, and revise their dead tree books in order to remain relevant and saleable. With very few exceptions, people very rarely buy the oldest business books. So to, people often reject outdated (or seemingly outdated) websites, and they'll dismiss you, too, if you're using Ye Olde Busyness Lingoe instead of the most current language, testimonials, references, case studies, client list, and white papers. My old company, the company I founded and left on March 8, 2012, hasn't updated its site at all in the last 22 months. A lot changes in 22 months. Even if a website is merely a formality, it surely means a lot to Google when it comes to reliability, reputation, organic search, and Google Authorship. Your site's insecure Your site is cookie-cutter And, if your real-life brand looks like crap online, it might look like crap on the site of your building, your stationery, and your business cards as well, then it's time to do a complete branding makeover. Your site is slow-ass If you're running on a local box, in a basement, or even in your building, and if you don't know how much RAM, how many processors, what your server's latency is, how close your box is to the Internet's backbone, or whether you have a caching or content delivery network (CDN) strategy, then you may very well need to upgrade your service level (can you budget at least $25- or $50-a-month?) or change either your web hosting company or Internet service provider—or both! If you can't get your site to show up on the first page of Google no matter what you do with SEO, content, marketing, advertising, promotion, social media marketing, or shilling, then your site is probably a chronic slow-ass. Your site is too static What are you doing now? What will you be doing next week? Your site can no longer afford to just be brochureware. It needs to become a communications platform, as real, vibrant, and alive as are your offices, as interesting as it would be to grab a drink with you. Because if your site sucks, why would anyone actually want to meet you for a meeting, a meal, or a drink. Since the Internet has commoditized simply everything and anything, you yourself are the only value added. You are the person—you—who is the difference between a $200, $2,000, $20,000, $200,000, or $2,000,000 engagement. Can your products and services be replaced by a robot? By an offshore or outsourced denizen of oDesk, eLance, or Amazon Mechanical Turk—prove it! And start proving it on your website. Your site is too dynamic I do recommend you try a modern, easy-to-edit and engage, content management system (CMS) if you don't have the ability to support the sort of site load associated with success and many visitors. If you need to go on the cheap, consider static site generators like Movable Type, BlazeBlogger, Jekyll, Phrozn, Hyde, Sculpin, Bonzai, Winter Smith, Pie Crust, Middle Man, Nanoc, Gumdrop, and Stasis. If your website still sucks, then this solution is way over your head—so just be sure you know about these tools and words like Ruby, Python, PHP, and Perl in order to impress your techiest friends at parties. Your site is stale Your site is broke-ass Your site ignores the robots Your site ignores the visitors Or, are you a total dick by embedding too many CAPTCHAs or impossible-to-decrypt anti-spam prevention strategies that might pretty much keep your INBOX completely EMPTY (because every single spam email is like sulfuric acid in your eyes), because you've made contacting you enough of a pain in the ass that your sweet visitors with a $100k budget accidentally puts in the wrong email or CAPTCHA and the email never makes its mark. And if you post your email addresses as graphic files, expecting your visitors to transcribe the email address from GIF to Gmail, then you're a total douchebag and have a self-destructive streak that might require a little bit of Jungian therapy. Your site doesn't share Your site doesn't tithe (to Google) Forget Bing, Ask, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, AOL, or any of that stuff. Appease Google and be sure that Google knows who you are, the person behind the brand, and also let Google know the names behind your staff, your associates, and be sure to information architect your site more for Google than even your visitors. Most visitors have very low expectation for corporate sites, believe me, but Google's expectations are always high, especially if your one true dream is to make it, organically, to the top of Google search. Your site isn't social Your site is too shallow You can also ruin your site by making it too shallow by emulating the iOS or Android interface too well. Or the Apple.com website. Apple will always be a destination. Apple is a Global Brand, beloved, and also spends billions of dollars on ads, commercials, stores, promotions, and product placements. We, the other half, need to use asynchronous guerilla tactics. On the web, you need function over form. Like minimalism, it takes a lot of money to do it right. Minimalism isn't just an empty room. Well, maybe you are more visual than textual. Maybe you're an artist or designer. Well, I was a photographer, and guess what Corbis and Pacific Stock, my stock photo agencies, made me do: they made me label, describe, keyword, tag, categorize, and oftentimes things like "vertical" or "horizontal, "dominant blue" or "dominant yellow." I couldn't just take the photos and throw them at my photo editors in New York and expect to get my royalty check. I was the only person who knew where I was when I took the photos as well as what photos I took were of and when. See what I mean? Your site is invisible Your site is overwhelmed from visitors or robots or a denial of service attack, or maybe you've forgotten to pay your hosting, your domain name registration fee, of maybe your Internet is broken and you need to reboot your wireless router or call Comcast. Your site is too graphical Your site is fugly And, if you'll notice, Wikipedia and even Google.com are pretty fugly and they're possibly the best sites on the web. Your site is boring Your site is elusive And, if you're smart, you'll probably want to make sure that all your most important content is conveyed "above the fold"—what's that, man? Come on, you know! Take a properly-printed newspaper, keep it folded in half, and then think about that half as your browser (and assume your browser isn't a big screen, flat screen, monitor, but a 12.1″-14″ screen on a laptop). Then, be sure that everything you need to convey is in that window and doesn't require any (or not too much) scrolling. Your site is confusing Your site is pop-uppy Unless you're Brian Solis or Chris Brogan and already superstars, you're just pissing people off. Well, maybe just me. OK, that last one was a little self-indulgent but hopefully the rest of them will be useful for you. No matter how social media-centric I am, no matter how I would love everyone to live in the (social media) space in-between, we all know — or should — that your website is where you want everyone to end up. You want both people you know, people you have yet to meet, and people who bump into you randomly when they're surfing across the socialsphere to have a very useful, comprehensive, easy-to-navigate destination for all of that and that could be your website or your blog, but somewhere you control. Remember, at the end of the day that you don't own your content on any of the social networks — not really. If you can, you need to start spending some of all that time you lavish on other people's sites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, et al) on your own. And, if you start tracking all the money you're spending on all the staff and support and tweeters and Facebookers and AdWords and Facebook and Twitter ads and reconsider your website. Reconsider what you can spend, what you can afford, rather than just what you want to spend or think you should be spending. You're nobody's fool. I promise you that the moment you underpaid for your website the last time you really did get what you paid for — admit it to yourself! And, don't feel bad, either, OK? When you spent your big money and produced your decade old website ten years ago your website was something pretty nice to have but it wasn't really something anyone needed. It wasn't essential services. It couldn't replace the brick and mortar; it couldn't change the office dynamic. Your website was like your boat rather than your car, your minivan, or your home. But not anymore. In 2014, your website is everything.  |
| Posted: 24 Dec 2013 02:51 PM PST Crowdfunding has become a buzzword among entrepreneurs, inventors, and the creative community. Impressive growth has occurred In preparation for the Aspen Global Investment Forum, the first major industry conference in 2014, I'd like to offer my two cents by looking at the trends I expect to see in 2014. · Rewards/Donations-Based Crowdfunding · Fast growth internationally, especially in less-developed countries. Those interested in the topic are invited to read the recently published report of the World Bank Crowdfunding's Potential for the Developing World. · At the same time, I expect slower development in the United States. While the market will continue to grow, we will see more fatigue and scandals related to funded products that are not being delivered or are of significantly inferior quality. Besides that, from my personal experience as a crowdfunding consultant as well as from comments made by several other people in the industry, I see a growing trend of companies using crowdfunding (mostly Kickstarter) as part of their marketing strategy to attract media attention and to approach professional investors (business angels and venture capitalists). In this case, they use their own money to create fake pledges and simulate high market demand/popularity of their product. I have already written about this subject in my post, and I will examine the phenomena in-depth next year. · I expect to see more interesting developments among niche platforms providing industry expertise and additional services, such as hardware and university crowdfunding, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) crowdfunding. Dragon Innovations was a pioneer in employing crowdfunding into the existing business model of an established company. I believe we will witness the entrance of other large companies, for example, publishing houses or e-commerce sites. As for DIY crowdfunding, we have already seen several projects that managed to raise millions of dollars without a middleman. The platforms follow the trend, and some of them have started offering or will soon offer an option of independent crowdfunding. Crowdtilt in the US is using it already, and Australian Pozzible and Canadian Fundrazr will present it soon. · Another trend that has started from Pebble Watch and which I expect to continue is an interest from the business angel and venture capital community in products succeeded in crowd funding. Some of the most impressive 2013 VC deals were funding of Misfit Wearables ($15.2 million), Ouya ($15 million), and Oculus ($91 million in two rounds of financing). · Established global companies have included crowdfunding in their marketing and HR and R&D activities. It will be also adopted by a significantly larger number of corporations. Current participants include IBM, Phillips, Honda, Square Enix, the Mexican subsidiary of Coca-Cola, ING Direct, Warner Brothers, and ABN-Amro. · Equity Crowdfunding Equity crowdfunding will certainly see many interesting developments in the US and globally. · In the US, the recent lifting of the ban on general solicitation will lead to a significant increase in investment marketing activities (mostly hedge) funds. Accredited investors will have much better access to information about private placements, which is supposed to stimulate their interest in small-business financing. · Increased publicity may result in a wider adoption of crowdfunding by angel groups. We have seen this year the creation of a crowdfunding platform in the UK by the investors' network AngelDen. AngelList syndicates will become an important player in the private placement market in the US. · At the same time, Title III, while expected to become a law, in its current edition, is not going to create too much excitement or generate fresh money to fuel start-ups. On the entrepreneurial side, it carries too many regulations and potential costs (up-front as well as annual), making any raises over $500,000 prohibitively expensive. On an investor side, while it is supposed to attract "average Joes" to invest in local start-ups, the investment limitation of $2,000 or 5 percent of an annual income makes it impossible to build a diversified portfolio. Considering the high failure rate among start-ups, diversification would be the most reasonable strategy to protect an unsophisticated investor from financial loss My company, Crowdfund Productions, has hosted several conferences in different states with tens of founders of crowdfunding platforms speaking. Most of them express no interest in moving forward with Title III crowdfunding. · Common dissatisfaction with Title III regulations has caused local authorities to step up. We have seen more and more states implementing their own intrastate crowdfunding exemptions. Almost ten states have now either legalized crowdfunding for the general public or are discussing the bill in their individual state congress. · Considering my limited expectations for Title III crowdfunding and growing interest in the concept at the state level, I wouldn't be surprised if JOBS Act 2.0 is debated in the 2016 presidential campaign. · While still in their infancy, niche equity platforms, especially in real estate, have shown significant growth. We are witnessing an emergence of new real estate crowdfunding portals almost every month, and this trend will continue in 2014. Realty Mogul, the most publicly active US real estate crowdfunding company, has facilitated more than $10 million in investments in less than a year. American Homeowner Preservation, offering investments in a distressed mortgage pool, was able to close their first offering of $4,660,000 in less than two months. Next year will be the time for education about crowdfunding for real estate developers, lawyers, and realtors. · This year we have seen active legal debates about equity crowdfunding in many countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and France. I am sure these will continue in 2014 and, in addition, the Western world will learn about Asian models (for example, South Korean crowdfunding). · Debt Crowdfunding Currently, debt crowdfunding, particularly peer-to-peer lending, represents the largest segment of the crowdfunding market, being responsible for more than half of all money invested. While other countries have their own laws (often more developed and favorable for the new industry than in the US), we have only two major options available to nonaccredited investors nationally (with several states being exempt): Lending Club and Prosper. Other lending platforms are limited to working only with accredited investors and financial institutions. · I expect rapid growth in the social lending industry to continue next year. Besides the most common consumer credits, we will see further developments in student loans and, most importantly, the peer-to-business industry. Lending Club recently announced its entrance into the small-business loans niche. While Prosper hasn't indicated the same interest, more than 10 percent of its current portfolio is dedicated to personal loans for small businesses. · Title II of the JOBS Act now allows lending portals to openly promote their activities, and Title III, when enacted, may affect the peer-to-business industry by bringing additional sources of funding. There is a significant need, however, for regulatory changes, and I hope some will occur next year. · Financial groups and investment funds have already started outsourcing some of their activities (for example, loan originations by local banks) to lending platforms. With further progress in technology and significantly lower overhead costs for social lenders, I expect major institutions will adopt this common practice. · Recent research has indicated a movement among many wealthy families and accredited investors toward impact investment, which gives companies originating business loans for clean tech and alternative energy (such as Solar Mosaic) a big advantage in attracting sources of funding. I believe new lending marketplaces will emerge that are devoted to supporting responsible business practices. Generally speaking, we will see continued growth in all categories, with development of less-mainstream businesses, such as future earnings exchange, royalty-based crowdfunding, and peer-to-peer foreign currency exchange. A growing market will lead to activation of merges and acquisitions and possible adoption of the mechanism by established companies. Next year will be a time of active cross-border partnerships and expansions. We've already seen this trend this year: Kickstarter has opened its operations in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; Pozzible (the largest Australian rewards-based platform) has started its activities in the US; Fundrazr (a Canadian rewards-based platform) is actively engaging European customers; the British P2B lending platform Funding Circle merged with the US Endurance Network; Australian ASSOB, Israeli OurCrowd, and Dutch Symbid are actively pursuing opportunities in the US; American Crowd Valley has expanded into the UK through its partnership with Sapphire Capital Partners LLP; and British Seedrs has offered its services across Europe. Crowdfunding will lose some of the "newcomer" shine and will be less intimidating for a wider investment community. Venture capital firms and business angels will be more comfortable investing in crowdfunding platforms and crowdfunded businesses. According to the research conducted by Alex Feldman from CrowdsUnite, $866 million has been invested by VCs and angels into crowdfunding platforms. As far as I know, the data is incomplete, and with recent additional funding of CrowdTilt ($23 million, the second round in 2013) and $125 million for an emerging P2P platform FreedomPlus created by Freedom Financial Network, the amount of VC and angel funding will exceed a billion dollars. Next year I also expect to see several large-scale projects initiated by civil or scientific organizations or maybe even government entities. This year's most ambitious projects include Ubuntu Edge, which was trying to raise $32 million on Indiegogo; Star Citizen, which has reached a record $35 million in pledges by now; and Wikipedia currently trying to raise $50 million. All of these developments will bring crowdfunding into the mainstream and significantly increase the number of industry stakeholders. I hope 2014 will be a year of healthy growth and exciting new developments for the private investments industry as well as for the worldwide entrepreneurial community.
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| 5 Reasons To Start Blogging In 2014 And How To Start Posted: 24 Dec 2013 05:10 AM PST It was once said: "The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live." Every human has a skill and strength that is as unique as their thumbprint. The true tragedy is not leaving that imprint on this world. No matter what your new year resolutions are for 2014, I hope after this post "start a blog" will be added to your list. Blogging is not reserved for wanna-be writers or techie teens or big brands. Blogging is solid leadership in a new medium. Blogging is one of the most powerful marketing strategies in the 21st century. And in today's hyper-connected culture, it's never been easier to launch a blog. Don't allow your passion to die within you, share it…blog it. 5 Reasons To Start Blogging In 2014
2) Enhances learning. Blogging forces you to think critically, research and field questions/comments surrounding your chosen topic. 3) Personal brand boost. Consistent blogging increases your visibility on Google. As Google becomes your "shadow resume" it's important to demonstrate your value, thought leadership and credibility through a blog. 4) Doors open. When you begin to contribute, it becomes easier to connect with like-minded people and experts of your topic. We must give before we receive. Blogs give. 5) You'll regret not starting. In a world of over 200 million blogs, sharing nothing communicates everything. Not having a blog gives the impression you have nothing to contribute, are ignorant to technology or selfish in your experience. Common Excuses
3 Options To Get Started*
2) Easier: Visit Squarespace and use offer code: "Catalyst" for 10% off. Or use Tumblr to set up your blog. 3) Easiest: Start micro-blogging via Twitter or LinkedIn. Question: What will you blog about in 2014?  |
| Why Finding an Advertising Agency Is Not an Easy Task Posted: 24 Dec 2013 04:00 AM PST
I look for agencies all the time when I am conducting an agency search, and it is not an easy undertaking in the New Normal. Sure you can find the usual suspects, but I want to go deeper than that and find emerging talent. Then again many established agencies are invisible. Finding an Advertising Agency that's Right for YouRecently I have met with some clients who are looking for a one stop approach but don't have the budget for multinational fees. They are frustrated by having too many touch points. They may have a traditional agency, a digital agency, a media agency, a PR agency, a social media agency. You get the picture. Instead of managing the brand they are managing the process. But finding an advertising agency that can do it all is tough, and I have an advantage since I have an extensive network and am out there networking and posting more than most agencies. Since I have conducted a number of agency searches, I know some places to look where others may not go. But what's a client to do who is trying to find an agency partner that could have a direct impact on their career going to do? In Southern CA, where I live, they may go to a Book of Lists and turn to the Advertising Agencies section. Looks like there are plenty of choices here but looks are deceiving. I have also looked at the Book of Lists in many cities and some listings make me chuckle. The data tends to be at least a year old or more…a lifetime in the New Normal. I see agency listings that say they have 280 employees and they aren't even around. Companies that lose large accounts get out of town quick. I see agencies listing clients that they don't have. I see an agency that I heard hired actors when a prospect came to visit their shop so they would look bigger. The Right Agency May Be Hard to FindWhen I see agencies that look promising, I send them an email and mostly never hear back. Then I call them and get a message that nobody is there right now. How can an agency with 35 people supposedly not have anybody in the office? I don't make this stuff up. When finding an advertising agency, many websites aren't kept up to date and may not contain the experience that you looking for even though they may have it. So your ships will pass in the night. There will be no reflecting on what might have been. Also, many up and coming agencies position themselves as strictly digital shops. They are great at what they do, but they don't do traditional work and consumers still look at outdoor boards and watch over twenty hours of TV a week. The stats are there. You can try doing a Google search on the agencies that you find, but since agencies don't market themselves very well there won't be much there or new news for most. Even Google can't reveal what is behind their doors if they don't put it out there. There are also agencies that are easy to find. They reach out to you so often when you don't have a need that you are too tired of them and already don't like them even though you have never met them. Being too needy is never good in dating or New Business. There is a similarity to both dances. You would think finding an advertising agency would be easy to do. It's a precarious dance.  |
| The 7 Rules of Social: What Every Media Company Should Know Posted: 23 Dec 2013 03:34 PM PST The media industry has undergone a profound transformation in how we engage our audience. Now, with the mass adoption of Internet-connected devices and social platforms, companies can instantly access millions of people at once, and this unprecedented shift has huge implications for media companies. Social complements the radio request line and listeners are encouraged to respond in real time via posts, texts or tweets. Similarly, comment threads on websites enable readers to share their thoughts immediately. For media executives, it's especially critical to keep up with how audiences choose to communicate. To succeed in this ecosystem, companies must rethink their internal organization as well as their overall business operations if they’re truly committed to bringing social media to the forefront. Here's how: 1. Give every personality a voice At Clear Channel we're able to speak to our diverse audiences in a number of ways: Through our national brand, our local radio personalities, our digital platform and the artists we work with. We embrace the plethora of voices available to us and the diversity that they bring to our social presence. Showcasing many perspectives and reaching a variety of audiences through individual Twitter handles, Instagram feeds and personalized wall posts is an important differentiator, so use it to your advantage. 2. Encourage authenticity Issuing a script and asking everyone to disseminate via social does not work. While there may be some key points that need emphasis, talent and social media staff need to speak in their own personal voices. With talent (artist or DJs) it is essential that the content, the frequency and the social channel are all authentic and natural to how the person likes to communicate with their fans. 3. Use the Big Three Social Platforms It's not enough to create a hashtag, place it at the bottom of a TV screen and hope that people will use it. Rather, authentic engagement requires a thoughtful strategy and targeted execution. To succeed at social, media companies must build a presence on multiple channels, starting with the Big Three social platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Each of these platforms allows you to connect with your audiences in unique ways. Facebook is the "branding voice" because it's the most effective medium for your company to release consumer-facing news. Twitter is great for the "individual voice" as it allows personalities to engage with their audience through short, snappy dialogues. The "visual voice" is Instagram, where it's important to capture the aesthetic that best reflects the look and feel of your company and its representatives. 4. Match the content to the platform Each of the channels above offers the opportunity to tap into a new voice and cater to different audiences. For example, Facebook reaches an older demographic than Instagram. Twitter acts as middle ground in terms of age demographics and its brevity lends itself to short, time-sensitive news items, like announcing a contest or quickly interacting with fans. Instagram skews younger, so it's optimal for reaching today's youth – especially since they're comfortable in a visual-first world. Your Instagram presence should be highly polished, featuring thoughtful images that convey a style that matches with your overall brand. 5. Embrace organic moments We can learn a lot from Oreo's epic Super Bowl tweet, not the least of which is that being nimble on social media has huge rewards. Capitalizing on the biggest news of the moment, whether a fashion faux pas or a power failure, will drive interactions and engagement across all channels. By taking advantage of unexpected live moments, you'll create a more memorable presence. Remember, social is not nine to five – it's 24/7. 6. Respond in a timely fashion Not responding to a consumer on a social platform is like not picking up the phone – yet surprisingly, some companies aren't making this connection. A 2012 study by StellaService found that of the top 25 retailers on Twitter, only two – Zappos and L.L. Bean – replied to 100% of daily customer service questions in a 45-day period. Social is the new customer service line, and users appreciate prompt responses. By addressing comments and complaints immediately, you'll win more followers, friends, likes and brand ambassadors. 7. Look for the next big thing At iHeartRadio, we're bullish on using new platforms to reach our fans and listeners, and we continue to experiment with emerging social media sites like Tumblr, Vine, Pinterest, and Flipboard. For example, the iHeartRadio Music Festival earlier this year generated 2.3 billion impressions, double vs. prior year. We also leveraged Instagram in 2013 and generated significant buzz as a result: This photo-sharing experience accounted for 23% of all social media activity, as compared to less than 1% in 2012. As you begin to expand your social presence, look to young, urban audiences to help you identify the next big thing, as they are often ahead of the curve. It's best to hedge your bets early: If the site reaches the mainstream, your brand's presence is already established; if it fades, shift your energies elsewhere. Social platforms are becoming more vital to businesses every day and it's imperative that you craft a strategy that works for your company. If you're able to follow these seven tips, you'll be well on your way to becoming one of the best in the industry.  |
| Facebook News Feed Changes & What They Mean for Businesses Posted: 23 Dec 2013 12:09 PM PST Facebook has recently updated its News Feed ranking algorithm with the goal of showing users more relevant content in their News Feeds. According to Facebook's newsroom post, this change will mean you will see more content in your News Feed that others have read, liked, and commented on as well as "high quality" content published by authoritative websites. So, what are the specifics of all these changes, and what do they mean for your business? Facebook Changes News Feed Algorithm Since August, Facebook has changed its News Feed algorithm so it is now "bumping" stories to the top of the News Feed that have had an activity such as a comment posted to them. The explanation for this is to resurface content to users that they may not have seen the first time it was posted. Users on the desktop have already seen this feature roll out, but Facebook recently enabled it for mobile users. While this feature can be useful, the down side is that users may also see bumped stories in their feed that are no longer timely or relevant. In addition, the Facebook News Feed algorithm is highlighting articles that are related to other articles you or others in your network read, in order to help you find more content you might find interesting. Now, after you click on a link to an article, you may see up to three related articles in your News Feed. Facebook has recently updated its News Feed ranking algorithm with the goal of showing users more relevant content in their News Feeds. According to Facebook's newsroom post, this change will mean you will see more content in your News Feed that others have read, liked, and commented on as well as "high quality" content published by authoritative websites. So, what are the specifics of all these changes, and what do they mean for your business? Changes Impact Businesses on Facebook In the past few weeks, these changes to the Facebook News Feed algorithm appear to be favoring content from publications while hampering the organic visibility of posts from brands and businesses who use Facebook to share content with their fans. Although the update is meant to highlight quality content and downplay meme-related content, especially for mobile users, publishers like as Buzzfeed and Upworthy have actually seen increases in their site traffic since the update, while brands and businesses have seen a huge decrease in traffic from their native posts on the site. A Facebook study conducted by social media marketing agency Ignite reported a 44% decline in reach, on average, from branded News Feed posts on Facebook. The Takeaway? Businesses that use Facebook as a marketing tool may no longer be able to get by using only the "free" part of Facebook — News Feed posts — to promote their content. Instead, they need to start investing in creating engaging, relevant content much like publishers produce, promoted posts, and targeted Facebook ads to reach their audience, in light of these new changes. Here are a few tips for your Facebook strategy in this new News Feed environment: 1. Create Share-Worthy, Engaging News Feed Content These changes mean that highly-engaging, relevant content is more important than ever before. According to an article on Forbes, Facebook's News Feed algorithm will focus on content that "keeps people coming back to Facebook to discover something new and then share it with their friends." And, since News Feed bumping means users will start seeing content their connections have engaged with, it benefits your business to create content that compels people to like, comment, and share your posts. These changes emphasize an important content marketing reality: your posts are literally competing for attention with every other piece of content, news story, post, or picture on Facebook. If you think like a publisher and create content that truly compels your audience to action, these changes can actually help increase the visibility of your posts. 2. Publish Relevant, Timely, Credible Articles So, what kind of content does Facebook favor in the new News Feed ? According to Facebook for Business, the new algorithm favors content that is timely and relevant, and from a credible and trustworthy source. Since the new algorithm highlights or bumps content that is liked and shared, publishers of "viral" content, like the aforementioned Buzzfeed and Upworthy, have seen an uptick in traffic since the update. So, take a page from their marketing style and try creating content for Facebook that contains headlines that are timely, targeted, entertaining, or even controversial. It's also important to build authority with your audience by sharing content that is useful and informative that your audience is likely to read and share. 3. Encourage Fan Engagement As a result of story bumping, it's even more important than ever to ask fans to engage with the content you post on Facebook. So, in addition to creating content that is inherently engaging, but you should ask people to like or comment on your posts or share them with their friends. Types of content that can generate a lot of engagement are: questions, requests for user-generated content (such as photos, captions, or predictions), contests, local events, community involvement, and promotions. Posts that receive a great deal of engagement can then be bumped up in people's News Feeds, giving users another chance to see and take action on your content, helping boost the organic reach of your posts. Another tip for helping boost your engagement is to review your Facebook insights to see which types of content are driving the most engagement, so you can create more like them. 4. Boost Your Posts to Pay for Visibility Also known as promoted posts, boosted posts are essentially News Feed updates that you can pay to enhance their visibly in the News Feed, so more people are likely to see them and engage. While you can boost anything from a basic update to a photo or video, a good rule of thumb is to boost a post that already has a high amount of organic views and engagement or a post that generates a meaningful result, like traffic to your site through links. For instance, you could boost a post that will receive a lot of likes and shares, such as an offer, or one that will drive comments and fan engagement, like a contest or a special event. You can boost a post for as little as $5, and the amount you spend will determine the approximate number of impressions your post will receive. It's also important to know that you can boost your content through the "Create an ad" link under your settings tool, which gives you more options and targeting capabilities than a generic boosted post. Simply select "page post engagement" as your ad type, select the page and post you want to promote, and follow the prompts from there! 5. Reach More Readers Through Facebook Ads Chances are, your organic reach through News Feed posts has already taken a hit, as many reports are indicating. That's why it's important to include advertising on Facebook to enhance your reach on the site. Here are some types of advertising you can take advantage of on Facebook:
If you are advertising directly through Facebook, you can target your ads to specific audiences based on a number of factors, such as their location, age, gender, and interests. The more you narrow your ads, the more targeted the audience that sees your ads will be. Have you seen a change in how many people your News Feed updates are reaching? What are you doing to increase engagement with your business?  |
| The Search Marketer’s 2014 Guide to Survival on Google Posted: 23 Dec 2013 12:03 PM PST Search engines are getting smarter, making it harder for marketers to do their job. But, who doesn't love a challenge? Search marketers wouldn't be in the business if they didn't love an ever-evolving landscape that consistently requires new strategies and tactics. Right? And, there is no more volatile environment than Google. But despite the obstacles Google puts up, there are always work-arounds and, honestly, we wouldn't' have it any other way. At The Search Agency, we're constantly looking for a better way to approach search marketing, and how to anticipate the next big thing, which is why we compiled this survival guide for the new year to share with our greater marketing and advertising brethren. Keep this guide handy and you'll start 2014 off on the right foot. Lines Between Paid and Organic Begin to Blur Based on all the major algorithm overhauls to clean up the results page these past couple years, all culminating in Hummingbird, search is a clear priority for Google. With the expansion of the amount of results Google will own via the Knowledge Graph, ultimately, it wants to push the user to a paid ad or provide the answer organically. At the end of the day, no matter how you arrive to it, Google is trying its best to provide you the answer for your query, whether they make money on your search or not. And, because Google is just like any other business seeking revenue opportunities, search marketers will see a continued evolution of the SERP to drive clicks to paid listings versus organic listings. Elements like image ads, display tests within search, and the inclusion of a tags highlighting paid ads as "ads" on mobile will give Google greater flexibility to drive users towards paid clicks versus organic clicks. For search marketers, this will of course make it even harder to optimize primarily by keywords or impressions and will continue to push them (a good thing) to consider other factors such as user persona, intent and goals. Seeing "SEO" as the effort of getting a specific set of keywords to rank or perform well, and measuring success based exclusively on that, will all but vanish. Increased User Focus 2014 will be the year of the user. If Hummingbird taught us anything, it's that the focus on the context of search will create the need for further personalization of search results. SEO has been toeing the water in user intent and personas of users, and away from keywords and rankings, for a while now; but next year it will really take a plunge. Audience Targeting in Search While you should prepare to increase emphasis on audience targeting, don't expect the search keyword to completely vanish like its cousin the organic keyword has. Refinements in targeting have allowed more precise categorizations of searcher intent, and ultimately a better user experience and greater conversions. On-site User Engagement And, as such, keep in mind that keyword positions will constantly fluctuate. Instead of worrying about what keyword(s) brought visitors to your site, focus instead on the actions visitors are taking once they're on your site. Start asking questions like, what pages are most people landing on from the SERP's? What page do they move to next? Are visitors engaging with your site (downloading a PDF, providing their email, buying products etc.)? If there is no engagement, there's room for improvement for your site to start offering engaging content, products or services with which visitors will want to engage. User-Specific Analytics Once marketers begin to evolve in their understanding of user intent, they will need more advanced tools like multi-channel-funnels and attribution to foster the entire consumer decision journey, not just the "paid clicks" vs. the "organic clicks." And, as mobile becomes even more ubiquitous than it already is, it will also become more necessary than ever for cross-device attribution to become a reality. Because of this, Enhanced Campaigns will continue to evolve; it's expected that AdWords will roll out and incorporate more advanced user-specific targeting options. Tangentially, we should anticipate AdWords to continue to expand its ad extension repertoire and integration with Google+. We predict to see Helpout extensions in 2014, as Google tries to align revenue-generating ads with the type of informational search queries that typically have little ad competition today. Expansion of Feed-Based Products Though not typically a widely discussed topic, feed-products are pretty important, and will continue to grow in the coming year. Following Google's acquisition of Channel Intelligence, we can definitely expect to see Product Listing Ads become a richer ad format, as well as further integration with AdWords. In addition, marketers and advertisers should look for expanded support of non-e-commerce marketing campaigns. Smart marketers will continue to evolve in their utilization of feed-driven ad units to provide custom, dynamic ad units. This automation of some creative and targeting tactics will allow marketers to focus less on procedure and more on strategy, answering important questions like "Am I reaching the right audience with all of my digital tactics, and are all of my channels unified?" Additionally, Product Listing ads will continue to play a growing role in retailers marketing efforts, because the major search engines will continue to push that way. Recent evolution in campaign types, through which PLAs can be managed, as well as growing SERP space for this ad unit, point to feed-style results growing in importance. Social Impacts Search Through + Remember Google+? Not only is it still a thing, but it is continuing to gain increasing importance, if not necessarily prominence. The decision to make Hangouts the default hub for all kinds of messaging, including SMS, within Android 4.4. KitKat, will drive some additional adoption outside of the search world, but not to a massive extent. Media views will continue to denigrate G+ as a failed copy of Facebook, but in reality its integration with Android, Google Now, Google Search and Knowledge Graph etc. will allow it to successfully grow in importance without really pushing to take over the casual social market owned by Facebook. And, although social traffic may not have a direct effect on search, it does correlate. More brands should be active on Google+ because shared articles on Google+ have their own canonical URL that likely passes link authority to the referred article. One thing is certain for Google in the coming year; it's all about the user. Whether you're focusing on your organic or paid strategies, considering the personalization and localization of your target user is the main priority. If you are able to provide what your audience is looking for, your brand will be found. So, in 2014, be prepared and get ready to get friendly. It's a jungle out there on Google, but with this survival guide, you'll be ready for it.  |
| 3 Metrics to Measure Year-End Social Media Results Posted: 23 Dec 2013 03:02 AM PST  Are you measuring the metrics that matter? As we approach year-end, are you curious as to how your online marketing performed for your business? I'm about to make it stupidly simple. I'm a huge advocate of the 80/20 rule: 20% of your effort generates 80% of your business. So we'll be measuring the top 20% of your promotional tactics to see what drove the most results. Not everything. Not a 10-page spreadsheet in tiny mice font. You'll identify only the top results that you need to do more of in 2014. Here are the three key metrics to measure to discover your most powerful marketing tactics of the year. (If you want to dig deeper, knock yourself out. For the rest of us, this will do nicely, thanks.) 1. How Much Traffic Did Online Marketing Drive to My Website?One of the biggest questions you need to answer is this: what impact did online marketing have in driving customers to my website? Whether your business is online or local, you need a simple way to analyze where they came from. This is easy if you've integrated Google Analytics (GA) into your website. My instructions for adding GA are here. Google tells you how many of your website visitors are coming from social media. From the GA screen, select Acquisition>All Referrals:  Google Analytics tells me that Facebook is my #1 referrer of traffic from social media My own numbers tell me that my top social networks driving traffic to my site are Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Those are definitely where my primary focus should be in 2014. 2. What Were Your Best-Performing Posts?Once you've discovered which social networks are the most powerful generators of traffic to your website, next you need to identify what you did to motivate them to visit you. Which posts stopped people from enjoying Facebook photo albums & Pinterest recipes to click-through to your website? For Facebook & YouTube, review the Insights they provide (see my Facebook Insights post here, and for more detailed help, refer to Lesson 20 of Facebook 101). For the social networks that don't provide measurement data, you can still return to trusty GA to see what's working for you (you can also use it to review any network results). Here's how: From GA, go to Acquisition>Referrals>Facebook (or whatever social network you're checking), as shown below:  Nov. 8 drove the most traffic from Facebook. What post was that? GA displays two timelines: the bottom one is traffic from All Visits, while the top one (in blue) is from Facebook only. I can immediately identify that Nov. 8 showed the largest spike in traffic from Facebook. My next step: identify the post that drove all those visitors to my website. I do this in Facebook, either by scrolling down my Timeline or viewing my Insights. Which post was it? Take a look:  My best-performing Facebook post of 2013 Not surprisingly, it was a post that offered a freebie: a $10 Gift Card to anyone who commented on the post. I was celebrating 2,000 fans and wanted to reward my fans. Again, this is definitely a tactic I should use in 2014. It drove the most visitors to my website of any post I did on any social network. Now you can repeat this process for each of your top social networks. 3. Measure Sales & Compare with Traffic: Is There a Correlation?The simplest way to measure the sales you receive from your online marketing efforts it to track your sales over the course of the year, and compare them to the chart you see in step 2. Did that spike in November traffic also correlate with higher sales? This method offers a correlation between sales and online marketing. If you need to scientifically accurate data, you'll need to set up goals in GA for product sales, phone calls, newsletter sign-ups, or other actions you want visitors to take from your website. Goal setup is a more complex process, and since we're keeping this simple, let's leave it at the correlation. That's good enough to see if your online marketing is having a positive impact on your sales.  Sales were high in Nov, correlating with increased traffic from Facebook What we see from this revenue chart is that sales were indeed high in November; however, they weren't the highest total month overall. Why? Probably due to people receiving their gift cards but not redeeming them immediately. Your Action ItemsNow it's your turn: measure these three simple metrics for your own business using this step-by-step lesson. You need to identify:
Share your results in the comments below!  |
For the last year, I had been acting Director of Social Media at Unison, probably one of the most fashion-forward, innovative, creative, and tech-savvy web application development companies I have ever worked with. Their sites were responsive before the responsive website was a thing. They produce swipeable, tablet-optimized sites and make sure that brands that retain Unison for design, branding, development, and strategy are universally-accessible. What's more, they've integrated social media, e-commerce, accessibility, usability, and interface into a platform that can convey expertise, tell stories, and engage with both prospects and customers.
during the last couple of years, especially in rewards-based and peer-to-peer lending industries. In 2013 alone, we've seen significant progress in legislation regarding equity crowdfunding in the US, specifically in private placements involving accredited investors. While the general public is still learning about the phenomena mostly from articles about Kickstarter success stories, experts are divided into two uneven groups: those (the majority) who praise the great future of crowdfunding and those who expect an ocean of fraud and massive financial losses for unsophisticated investors and backers.
Now I can imagine that if you are an agency owner reading this you could be a touch frustrated. You might respond with "Look, I am right here. I am easy to find." But finding an advertising agency is not always an easy task.
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