Popular Articles on Business 2 Community |
- The Law of Large Numbers is the Digital Marketer’s Friend
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| The Law of Large Numbers is the Digital Marketer’s Friend Posted: 04 Feb 2014 05:29 PM PST  Photo credit: Jenn Durfey Here's the most poorly-kept secret in the marketing, PR, sales, and religion world: conversion is a numbers game. Whether it's getting into the NY Times or, going viral on YouTube, getting retweeted by @katyperry, or appearing on the 4th hour with Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. Numbers matter and we depend not only on the generosity of strangers to keep the lights on, we also depend on the law of large numbers to make sure we reach enough people in general through our ads, our mentions, and reviews to make our end-of-month, quarter, and yearly numbers so that we secure that sweet bonus and the pool we promised the family. Eyeballs, viewers, readership, ratings — it's all about getting in front of as many of the right people as humanly possible. N'est pas? Why would it be any different when it comes to blogger and influencer outreach marketing? The conventional approach in outreach marketing and PR relies on converting just a handful of highly-influential journalists, online writers, and bloggers who have a well-established popularity and readership. The strategy here is to cajole, seduce, and woo between one and twenty-five blogger-journalists to report and write on your behalf and in their favor. The idea is that if you're able to influence a top influencer and thus garner her influence to earn the support of your product, mission, ministry, or message, then you will win direct, endorsed access to the impossibly large number of readers, followers, fans, and friends who hang on their every word. The expectation is two-fold: the reputation of the A-lister will rub off on the messaging, bringing with it a (tacit) endorsement and then unfettered access to a fan base that often does base a lot of their decisions on what the most popular reviewers are saying. If I can get someone like the esteemed and popular Mr. John Brownlee to blog about my cool new designerly products, who knows how many people will queue up to place an order. And they just might. I know I would, if John Brownlee thought it was cool. But there are a number of catches to this perfect world: 1) How much time do you have? 2) How many A-listers do you already know? 3) How awesome is your product? 4) How compelling is your news? 5) How generous is your "gift"? 6) What is your goal? and 7) Is it OK to fail, to fall flat on your face with a couple snake eyes? OK, if you're going to do a top-down outreach where the goal is to influence top influencers, you'll need some time, especially if you aren't already in bed with the top influencers in your industry already. Dropping a tip, cold, into the tips@ drawer at Mashable is not the way this business works. There are exceptions, but all the top A-list successes I have had have always been warm and hot calls. So, how many A-listers do you know and when do you need to launch the grand announcement? I mean, everything relies on not only the quality of your produce or message but also whether it's newsworthy. And, if it is newsworthy, what's in it for me, for the blogger, for the reader? Will the post or article lend prestige or bragging rights to the author of the piece? Are you Aston Martin and did you lend your blogger a 2014 V12 Zagato sports coupe? Or, are you just trying to get someone to notice your new Android app; and, if that's the case, are you prepared to ship out a bunch of prepaid Nexus 5s with that app already installed for their testing pleasure? That V12 Zagato's a pretty generous gift, even if it's just a day at a local Aston Martin dealership and test drive (or maybe even a ride). Also, remember that there's a lot of money, a lot of power, and a lot of big brands and global agencies vying for that limited time. Can you compete? Are you able to get through all the noise? Do you have the chutzpah? Besides, what's your goal? Are you trying to drive brand awareness? Are you trying to drive sales? Or — be honest — are you doing it for SEO and link-building (there are a lot of you guys hiding there in the shadows). OK, finally, it is OK to fail? The numbers game goes both ways. The fewer the bloggers you pitch the lower the chance that anyone at all with pick up your story. There's a chance that if you don't have an in, you'll come up with goose eggs at the end of your campaign. I know you'll still cash the check — it's not your fault, right?, it's the fault of the product, the campaign, the messaging, the client, the timing, the jerks at Gizmodo who just don't get it or the folks at Mashable who have doubled-down on Native Advertising and are so done with earned media and greedily have their advertising hands out (totally uncool). You're on your way to losing your shirt, campaign, your client, and your reputation! Oh, what to do? While I call the alternative to top-down, A-list blogger outreach "Long-Tail Blogger Outreach," "B-Z-List Blogger Outreach," the "Bottom-Up Approach," and "Doing the Full Cluetrain," — I really need a better title for this sort of blogger outreach (how about just "Blogger Outreach?"). How does this address the problems? Well, it turns everything around. Instead of 1-25 powerful gatekeepers barring you from accessing their hundreds of thousands of potential eyeballs, you instead discover, collect, and message thousands of weak gatekeepers who are only barring you from accessing hundreds of their friends, families, and sometimes thousands of followers and readers. There's this thing called Internet Rule 34 I like to quote, "If it exists, there is porn of it." Same was with blogs: if it exists, there're blogs, bloggers, and passionate readers — no matter what the topic may well be. Be assured of it. And, when you do find them, there are probably hundreds or thousands of them — and their associated hundreds or thousands of followers, readers, friends. And, since they are, generally-speaking, a lot further down the totem pole, a lot less used to corporate or brand-attention, and probably have been playing the lottery known as blogging in the slim but motivating hope that some day someone would notice their blog and validate them through appreciation, engagement, and attention. Come on, every fashion blogger would love to be tapped by Gucci or Hermès to review their bags, every tech blogger wants to be tapped to test out Google Glass. All bloggers want to be discovered, and when you take the bottom-up approach, where you reach out to multiple-thousands of bloggers, most of whom are too low-caste to ever have been kissed by a single brand manager or social media team, many of whom haven't yet been "ruined" by a blogger conference that brainwashed them into believing that their nascent blog is mature and profitable enough to not accept earned media pitches but only paid media and paid posting (it seems the be happening more and more). If you get deep enough into the vox populi — the voice of people, the many instead of the few, the real citizen journalists — then you can find the people who are really exploring their own passions, interests, hobbies, sports, and obsessions. The way I do it is simple. I collect as many as possible, but only the blogs and bloggers who are germane to the outreach, to the campaign. And only those bloggers who want to be engaged. I assume that if a blogger wants to be contacted, he or she'll have his or her name and email somewhere on the blog. So, I personally reach out via email pitch, and I often pitch upwards of four-, five-, six-, seven-, even eight-thousand bloggers in one go. While I generally earn between seventy and three-hundred blog posts when I reach out with this method, I also earn hundreds of tweets, retweets, Facebook and Google+ posts, and also having had message upwards of eight-thousand bloggers who will have personally been messaged by you, your brand, your client, your offer, product, service, news, and whatnot. And, what's more, is the secondary effect, which is in organic search AKA SEO. Earned media mentions makes Google very happy. Having several hundred earned media mentions discussing your product, service, brand — you — will have magical effects not only on where you rank on Google (like a unicorn, and actually white hat version of link farming) but also when it comes to defending your reputation online. All of these blog posts and mentions can really seize control of your first couple pages of Google, pushing out all the negative and irrelevant content. What's more, you can use a long-tail blogger outreach campaign to insure against the A-list goose egg, the celebrity snake eyes, the all-your-eggs-in-one-basket fiasco of striking out with the top blogs. Even if you fail with the big boys, you surely can't loose with the B-Z-listers, even if all of your multiple media mentions are deep in the D-Z instead of the A-C. Coming up empty is way worse the coming up a little light, believe me. And, in my experience, if you can get a buzz started deep down in the feeders, the farm teams, the minor leagues, you can actually reach the attention of the heavy hitters from down below. Newsmakers are always doing the 2014 equivalent of keeping up what's coming over the news wire, and that's often what's flowing down their Facebook wall, their Twitter stream, their Feedly feed, or their Flipboard magazine. Journalists and A-list bloggers are generally curators of deeper news. If you can get to the deeper news sources by starting the buzz amongst the people then there's a good chance that you could well be the earthquake that (incidentally) resulted in a tidal wave. The equivalent of starting a wildfire of gossip through your own whispers. In my experience, priming the pump by reaching out to B-Z bloggers through a long-tail blogger outreach can then bubble up so that when you do reach out to John Brownlee, Om Malik, Robert Scoble, or Guy Kawasaki, they may well do a cursory Google or Twitter search and see they they're quite a bit behind the wave (that you created by seeding that groundswell). Pretty cool, right? You bet your ass it is! The law of large numbers (LLN) is our friend when it comes to bringing people around to your way of thinking.  |
| Google Unmasks the Anonymous With Google Authorship Posted: 04 Feb 2014 01:30 PM PST  ANONYMOUS (Photo credit: Andrewww26) Google has a goal in mind and it has more to do with visitor identification as it relates to targeted advertising than it has to do with improving the quality, speed, or usefulness of searching or finding. This demands drawing out as many anonymous visitors as possible. This includes members with false names, stage names, brand names, noms de plume, and noms de guerre. Google wants to triangulate real name with as much online behavior as possible. Google's apps, products, phones, OSes, and services are just elaborate strategies to lure Internet denizens out of the cold and into the system. The greater the number of points of reference connecting that user with online behavior the better. And it's all for market data. It all comes down to revenue generation: AdWords, ad networks, and back-office partnerships and deals with other ad networks and revenue-generating schemes. So, there are many points of pain when it comes to unmasking the anonymous online, and it includes quite a lot of very expensive, elaborate, and foundational alter-nets (shadow webs) that are completely simulated linking networks — hundreds and thousands of elaborate sites, including review sites, blogs, online publications, newspapers, newsletters, e commerce sites — an entire Las Vegas of fake content (sort of like those entire Chinese cities that replicate Paris or New York City) dedicated to fooling Google into latching on to and indexing these vast simulacra as real and true. However, these cities are designed for robots, spiders, and bots and are meant to pass the muster of well-paid human Google auditors as well — but they're not really meant for human consumption, per-se. That said, it's pretty amazing. And Google makes quite a lot of money on the ads that are being run on many of these sites. Also, there's affiliate money being made, there's reputation management money being made, there's SEO money being made. And while they've all been balkanized separate online properties, they've been partnering together and so these investments have become giant flotillas. And, in their growth, they've also influenced and effected "proper" and "legitimate" content through text-link advertising and through SEO strategies that very effectively hook in to this giant SEO-optimized flotilla for quite a few very profitable SEO benefits (that can make or break a publication, store, nonprofit, or brand). Google's conflicted. On one hand, it really needs to break this all apart. It really wants to audit the Internet and give preference to authentic, honest, claimed, verified and authenticated online properties over robot armies and link farms. On the other hand, Google makes so much money from many of these online mega-properties and mega-flotillas that these quasi-black-hat, stealth, for-robots-only, link-building, link-sharing entities have quite a lot of leverage over Google — and Google's bottom line. It's my opinion that Google's getting quite a lot of pushback from the push towards Real Names, from Authorship, and from "Glout" ratings. Glout is my cute way of suggesting that Google's keeping a reputation score on each member of the Google User Family, a de-facto "Clout Score," that synthesizes your Page Rank, your popularity on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus (of course), the quality of how your content is being shared, followed, Liked, and re-shared, and which publications, magazines, blogs, and sites you're not only associated with but on which you have a byline, an official "authorship." None of this stuff was originally designed into the system. Getting onto Google News was, maybe, as was optimizing for linking and interlinking, keyword linking, trend-surfing, and all the rest of it was, but in order to turn on a dime, the way the most recent changes to the Google algorithm demands, is almost impossible for such a huge, rudderless, aircraft-carrier-class, robot zombie vessel to accomplish. So, Google's in the process of doing three things when it changes its algorithm so aggressively: 1) firing a shot over the bow of Big SEO: "we're not joking here, you've been warned — we'll back off on the algorithm for now, but Google just wants to show you what's to come," otherwise they would never invest to make these changes — a lot of money has been lost in the last couple years by Bad Actors who have not listened to — or not understood — Google when it threatens to enforce its Real Name, anti-Black Hat revisions 2) Taking three hills in order to keep two: Facebook always does this, too — do three really bold and controversial things (with privacy or advertising or ToS) knowing that people will probably freak out, then you back off, but only cede one or two of the three hills you took in the battle. Take three, give only one or two back. And really only deeply want the one, anyway 3) Flushing Grouse! Sometimes you need to really send out the flushing hounds! Make everyone scared enough that they'll come out of the cold on their own, comply, and offer up all of their info, their personal contact info, associations, friends, family, company-associations, and actually commit to participating on the new YouTube and actually joining Google+, for fear that they, too, may become a casualty of the Google's Stalinistic (black hat) SEO purges. So, Google's trying to get to where it wants to go, ultimately turning the Google World into a Real Names Online accountable semi-walled playground. They might say it's to help prevent online cyber-bullying (that's just good PR) but it's really because Google needs to become the number one big-data company on the planet and that requires that they're able to effectively cross-reference as many data points about you (and me) as humanly possible — and it all needs to be based on as close to the Social Security Number, Citizen ID, DNA version of you as possible (the born 1970, grew up in Hawaii, went to St. Louis boy's school, attended GW, and lives in Arlington, VA, Chris Abraham, and not the Toronto, Canada, award-winning, theatre director Chris Abraham). Like a Chevy Silverado 2500HD trying to pull up a stump, Google's pulling as hard as it can, loosening the roots, letting off, slacking the rope, then pulling hard again, letting slack, for as many times as it takes to get the stump out, intact. Google's doing the same thing with this shadow web SEO flotilla. Slowly but surely, sorting out which accounts, sites, blogs, and profiles are human and which are robot zombies, and then doing the long slog of separating chaff from wheat, eventually sorting out, to an even more uncanny degree, exactly who, what, when, where, why, and how each and every one of us are — and how best to access us, reach us, appeal to us, advertise to us, and then sell us. That's what I think Google Authorship is about.  |
| The Party Guide to Social Media Management in 20 Tips Posted: 03 Feb 2014 05:38 PM PST Social media has become a SEO standard for businesses in 2014. The question is no longer if or why, but how to break onto the social media scene. Just how do you establish and manage your social media to get the most out of it? Have you ever felt like you're standing in a room packed full of people, screaming at the top of your lungs and no one hears you? If you've had difficulty managing your social media, this is exactly how you feel. There you are, tweeting and Google Plus-ing like mad, but you're not seeing any tangible results. What could you possibly be doing wrong? Business owners, freelancers, even marketers have been asking this question, regardless of their experience. Let's take a look at 20 tips designed to help you successfully and masterfully manage your social media: Start by Joining the Party Let's state the obvious: social media is all about being social. When's the last time you threw a party? Did you mingle with your guests? Of course you did! In fact, you likely struck up some sizzling conversations with your fellow partiers over a delectable slice of cake. Social media is the same idea! Think of your followers, fans and circles as the guests you've invited to the party. You're going to—in fact, you're expected to—mingle with them over a scrumptious piece of content cake. You wouldn't snub a guest, who talks to you at your party, so don't snub a comment about your business on social media. Be social by responding to what people are saying. You can setup a profile on every social media platform known to mankind, but if you can't keep up with regularly posting and responding to comments on each profile, it's a waste of precious time. Every platform caters to a unique demographic. You can choose the best platforms to use for your business by researching which demographics hang out where and comparing them to your target audience. Google+ is currently the only exception to this rule. It's hailed as the "SEO pick-me-up" site. Posts are almost instantly crawled and added to Google's search engine results. This platform will benefit every small business, regardless of their target demographic. Tip 2: Choose the Perfect Profile Photo. A picture is worth a thousand words, and while Internet content doesn't have a cover, people will judge your book (your online profile) by its cover (your profile pic). The perfect profile picture is none other than your company logo. If you lack a logo, first of all, GET ONE! Second of all, until you get one, use a professional headshot. Tip 3: Use Quality Images. Social media profiles give you plenty of space to add company images that support and brand your company. A few examples include: • Banners Think of these images as opportunities to accessorize. The images will likely be bigger than your profile picture and give you a marked chance to engage your audience. Sizing can be the obstacle to uploading quality images. Thankfully, you can use this guide to social media imagery to remove the headache of guessing at image sizes. Tip 4: Create a Username that is Easily Identifiable and Keyword-Conscience. It sounds like a lot of work, but your social media handle needs to be easy for customers to remember, recognize and spell. If your handle is something off-the-wall and has no relevance to your company, people aren't likely to recognize you on social media platforms. They'll overlook your posts, thinking you're not that important. Keyword placement is also important in your username. For example, if you're a web designer, you might consider foregoing the use of your company name in favor of "ChicagoWebDesigner." If adding "WebDesigner" to the end of your company name leaves the handle recognizable, you might consider add the keyword after your company name. Tip 5: Using Consistent Taglines and Descriptions. Your company taglines and descriptions should promote consistency, as this will keep your brand easily recognizable. Once a tagline, long description and mission statement have been crafted, be sure to use the same general content across your social profiles and website. By keeping this information uniform, you will emanate the same business voice, regardless of the venue. Tip 6: Ensure Your Business Information Is Consistent. Consistent; there's that word again. People spot inconsistency faster than you spot typos. The smallest inconsistency can cause them to question your credibility and reliability. Be sure that the contact information and hours posted on your website are the same across all of your social media platforms. For example, you can create a polished Facebook URL by making a custom username for your page. Instead of being located at http://www.facebook.com/yourbusiness/3456789098765587, you'll be located at the more appealing http://www.facebook.com/yourbusiness. Claiming a vanity URL can take some work, especially when the platform has requirements for claiming a custom URL; Google+ is a good example of this. However, the extra effort is well worth the reservation of your unique online location. Optimizing Your Social Channels Social optimization is all about attracting your target audience to your online location. Your goal is to help people find you, connect to you and share your content. So, how do you create a figurative sign that says, "Hi, I'm located here! Come on in!"? Tip 9: Connect your profiles to your website. Just about every business website features a handy bar somewhere on their website or page that has a convenient link to every social media profile they use. All your audience needs to do is click on the link and add you. You can even add a more visual touch with a Twitter feed that displays your latest three to five tweets or a Facebook like area that displays a handful of your followers. Tip 10: Make it easy for people to share your content. One of the easiest and best ways to optimize your social channels is to allow people a single click method for sharing your blog and webpage content. You can build in a simple bar at the bottom of your content that allows people to instantly share your webpage or latest blog to their favorite social channels. Using Your Profile Regularly Creating and advertising your social profile is only half the battle. The true challenge is posting to these profiles regularly so that they stay active. The content you post must be both relevant and useful. Here's how you can find and keep your social voice: Tip 11: Creating and maintaining a consistent personality. Before adding your first post to any social platform, you need to know the voice of your company. If you've established it via your website, carry it over to your social media. If you haven't established a voice or style, think long and hard about it. Once you start tweeting, you'll need to consistently display the same personality or voice and carry it over to your other social media profiles and website. Tip 12: Share consistent content. Your fans and followers are going to expect a certain type of content from you. Once you establish the kind of content you share, stick to it. For example, if you're a wedding planner and you choose to share content about the various aspects of planning a wedding, stick to this type of content. If you suddenly throw in a post about saving animals at the local shelter, your followers are going to wonder what is going on. Throw in enough inconsistent content and you'll see your following begin to shrink. Tip 13: Link to SEO-friendly websites. 2014 is the SEO year of quality content. Don't fall down on quality by linking to websites that aren't SEO-friendly. You can utilize the MozBar, a free SEO tool, to determine just which websites fit the bill before you accidentally link to a bad egg. Using Social Media to Be Social It sounds obvious. If you're going to setup and post content to a social channel, be ready to be social. You'd be surprised just how many businesses fail to do this! If you don't engage and get interactive with your fans and followers, you might as well hold a party and lock yourself in the bathroom. Here's how you get social and stay social on social media: Tip 14: Invite the right guests. The key to a great party is who is on the guest list. The same is true of social media. You want to connect to people, businesses and organizations that share your industry interests and are capable of carrying on intelligent conversation. You can invite these people to join your social networks by responding to their needs, encouraging them to check you out and offering them valuable information. Tip 15: Timing is everything. Don't we all love the person who masters the art of arriving to the party fashionably late? They are the "cooler than cool", the masters of gaining just the perfect amount of attention. Timing is critical for ensuring your social media posts are seen and shared. The Huffington Post published a stunning guide to optimal Facebook and Twitter post timing. It's a great place to start researching optimal times to published content to social feeds. Tip 16: Engage in the conversation. Don't be rude! Look at social media as a prime opportunity to showcase your awesome customer service skills. Respond to people who post about you! This kind of speedy, personalized touch will build customer trust and loyalty while showcasing your commitment to them. Keeping up Appearances You are now armed with 16 proven tips for choosing and creating your social profiles, populating them with the right content and staying social with your fans and followers. It's now time to manage all of your hard work so it doesn't go to waste: Tip 17: Plan for consistency. Consistency; there's that word, again! Once you've established yourself on social media, the biggest trick to successfully managing it is to plan to stay consistent. You can accomplish this by planning content and social posts in advance. Schedule your upcoming social media releases so that a steady, consistent stream forms. Tip 18: Call in the cavalry. If you think the most successful social profiles are manned by a single individual, you are mistaken. Most businesses have an entire department dedicated to their social media. Once you implement your plan and schedule from Tip 17, be ready to call in the troops for backup to ensure the plan and schedule stay on track. Tip 19: Enlist the best tools. Posting to multiple social media platforms can be one overwhelming task. Thankfully, there are lots of free tools out there designed to make posting a simple process. You can even use tools that allow you to auto and bulk schedule. Tip 20: Hire an Epic Manager Remember Tip 18: call in the cavalry? One of the most useful and awesome tips out there is to hire an epic, social media manager. Social Media Directors or Managers are professionals who eat, sleep and breathe social media. They keep up with the latest trends and news. They intricately understand how to manage your social presence from top to bottom. Think of them like a party planner, they make the planning process easy and grab the bull by the horns, so you don't panic when something crazy happens. They just might be the best investment you make as you successfully manage your social media in 2014.  |
| Big Data: Big Advantage For Context Marketing (Infographic) Posted: 03 Feb 2014 12:09 PM PST The advent of the Internet brought about a big data revolution that has fundamentally changed the way marketers communicate with their audiences. Armed with big data, marketers no longer have to settle for "spray and pray" messaging, throwing ads at a wall haphazardly and hoping something sticks. Instead, they can dissect audiences to a granular level and tailor messaging to specific niches based on thoroughly developed personas. This concept of context marketing is the way of the future — and big data is making it all possible. Embrace digital personas before it's too late Digital personas are not developed in the same way as traditional personas, largely because much more data is available to marketers through analysis of digital channels. Traditional personas account for attributes like demographics (age, location, gender) and psychographics (personality, values, interests), but there's still a lot of meat left on that marketing bone. Digital personas developed with big data account for these attributes, too, but they also consider behaviors, online channels, buyer journeys, devices, geo fencing and more. As the distribution of consumer behaviors continues to widen, marketers must respond with context marketing — and that means embracing big data. Big data + personas = context marketing Marketers who aren't developing digital personas yet may be overlooking one of the most important objectives of marketing: to develop an intimate relationship with the consumer. Marketers should aim for one-to-one marketing as much as possible. This means not only knowing the consumer intimately but executing effective context marketing by delivering the right content at the right time on the right channel. Consumers of the digital age have come to expect this; personalization is the most effective way to ensure that your messaging resonates with your audience. The following infographic from Pardot, a Salesforce.com company, outlines some of the benefits and opportunities that can be realized from personalization. These facts and figures give even greater support to the need for big data analysis in marketing. Want to learn more about how big data can improve persona development? Marty Muse, Vice President of Client Solutions & Success at DigitalRelevance, will address top business, academic and governmental leaders at the Indy Big Data conference at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis next Tuesday, February 11, at 1:30 pm. He will present alongside representatives from Oracle, ExactTarget, Teradata and the University of Notre Dame. The one-day event is being presented by STLogics, a leading information technology solutions company with offices in Indianapolis and Boston. The Indy Big Data conference is the first-of-its-kind event to be held in Indianapolis, and over 500 business stakeholders are expected to attend. Muse's presentation, Embracing Digital Personas, will examine some of the differences and similarities between traditional and digital persona development while exploring targeting from 1955 to the present day. In addition, the presentation will explore how technology and big data have impacted marketers as they decide who they want to market to and how. With IT industry forecasters expecting worldwide data to grow 800 percent in the next five years, STLogics hopes to educate decision makers about best practices using predictive analytics. Thanks to advancements in cloud computing that make the cost of data storage more affordable, companies are able to find out actionable insights based on real-time data information. Technology experts at the conference will share their big data success stories in industries ranging from healthcare to professional sports to national security. If you're in the Midwest and would like to attend, sign up at http://indybigdata.com/register/ using the discount code "wm124″ and save 10% on us! For more information, visit www.indybigdata.com, call 317-456-0007, or email info@indybigdata.com Image credit: InformationWeek.com The post Big Data: Big Advantage for Context Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on .  |
| How to Use Social Media to Engage With Customers and Build Your Brand Posted: 03 Feb 2014 06:56 AM PST You hear it all the time: 'Engage customers!' Sounds like pretty solid advice, right? But how, exactly, do you do that? Every business is different and so there's no step-by-step manual to follow. But, there are a few things you can do that, when combined with intuition and common sense, can really help you gain traction and start conversation in the social sphere. After all, engagement helps your brand and is a crucial step towards a sale. These tips will help you get started. Your business acumen will take you the rest of the way. What does your audience want? Listen to what they're saying to find out.Read all the comments on your Facebook page. Set up a keyword/hashtag monitoring stream in HootSuite and watch what people are saying about you, your industry, and your competitors. This will give you incredible insight into what your demographic is thinking and feeling, thus creating opportunities to engage them. Ask questions to start conversationsBut make sure they're good questions. Real questions. Thoughtful questions. Questions you actually want answers to. What defines a good question depends on your type of business. But as a general rule, keep them open-ended, positive, relevant to your business, and most importantly, appealing. So, less "What's your favourite Happy Scoops flavour?" and more "What should Happy Scoops' next flavour be?" Answer questions to start conversations, tooYour audience will ask you questions through social channels. You should always address them, even if you don't have the actual answers. It shows both the person asking and the rest of your audience that you're paying attention. You can also answer tweeted questions about your industry, even if they aren't specifically for you. Criticism: Not necessarily a bad thingIn a perfect world, everything said about your business and brand would be positive. You'd be showered with rose petals while meandering past line-ups of people who can't wait to exchange their hard-earned dollars for your product or service. But that's not the case. Customers will criticize and complain. Every comment and complaint represents a great opportunity, though–an opportunity to fix the problem, and do it publically. Or, at the very least, show empathy. Be easy to find and follow so that people can, well, find and follow youMake sure your Twitter, Facebook, and other social profile icons are visible on all of your digital communications and websites. Not in a so-large-that's-all-you-see way, but big enough to catch the eye while scrolling down the page. This makes it extremely easy for a customer to 'like' or follow you, and reach out to you for any reason. Promoting others' content creates communityIn addition to promoting your own content, feel free to share other people's. Whether it's a tweet, a blog post, or even something a competitor did, sharing stuff from other people is what creates a community. And, it makes members of that community far more likely to share your content, too. People like talking to real people, so talk like a real personFor the average consumer, it's often easy to forget that there's an actual human being behind every Facebook and Twitter profile. Use every interaction as an opportunity to change that perception by using their name, your initials, and employing a tone that doesn't resemble a 80s-era corporate memo. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to doSometimes efforts to engage fall short. Other times, they're downright patronizing. Condescending Brand Page's presence on Facebook is a great example of some of the more obtuse social media efforts by businesses big and small alike. (Some posts may contain language considered not safe for work. Your discretion is advised.) Engaging customers through social media can be intimidating to businesses. But it's the first step in creating sales, loyal customers, and brand ambassadors–people who come back to you time and time again, and even promote your business for you in earnest. It tells consumers that you care, that you're listening, and that you want to be involved. Social media engagement should be a pillar of your business strategy. These will provide you with the basic know-how to get started.  |
| Grading The Super Bowl Ads Using Big Data (Infographic) Posted: 03 Feb 2014 06:13 AM PST This year, we decided to do something different for our Super Bowl ads grades. We wanted to see if the selected advertisers' post-Super Bowl ad Twitter followers matched their target markets. Using the Pipl Search API, we analyzed the new followers' professional & demographic details to see which brands were spending their money wisely. The results are pretty interesting – Budweiser added the most new followers (3,455), but most of them were women (75%). Bud Light hit their target with almost 60% of their new followers between the ages of 21-34. Pepsi acquired followers from across the country and Squarespace got their money's worth. See the report cards below. The 2014 Super Bowl ads grades |
| Cross-Screen Marketing: How Twitter Will Bank In 2014 Posted: 03 Feb 2014 05:52 AM PST
You're probably thinking to yourself, sure, what's so unique about that? Well, to put it simply, there's A LOT that's unique about TV advertisers pushing tweets and hashtags. It's something we haven't seen much of, if any, before in the marketing industry, and it's only happening now because of the recent onset and widespread usage of mobile devices. Everyone who's anyone has a mobile device these days. Whether it's a smartphone, tablet, iPad or just a laptop, it has become common behavior in our culture to simultaneously watch TV (which we do a lot) while scrolling on a mobile device. This behavior has paved the way for advertisers to try their hands at cross-screen marketing tactics, many of which are geared toward social campaigns, and, wouldn't you know, that's exactly what Twitter is doing this year. The Rush to Beat Facebook There's been a lot of talk about Facebook within online media lately, and that's for good reason. The social media giant has recently introduced autoplay videos into their newsfeed, creating an entirely new goldmine for advertisers who can now, potentially, deliver video content through Facebook automatically, without any hindrance from the user. But that's not all Facebook has changed. They've applied some major updates to their news feed algorithm in the last two months, changing it from a kind of 'free market' for advertising to more of a 'pay to play' sort of platform. While Facebook users are seeing autoplay videos from their friends right now more than anything, that could change in the next few months. It seems like it's only a matter of time before advertisers run with the idea of unhindered video content with guaranteed delivery. But Twitter has a plan for that. They've spent much of 2013 developing and pushing their symbolic (and in some ways symbiotic) relationship with TV, and now, in 2014, they're ready to show off their advertising capabilities to the biggest brands. The Grand Intersection: Video + Data Due to signed non-disclosure agreements, no one is allowed to reveal much about the 2014 Twitter advertising strategy. However, one agency executive said that Twitter is most "bullish" when it comes to video and data, and they will focus on the "intersection of data and video" in the coming year. Twitter has been pushing their unique capability to gather useable data and insights from online conversations about specific TV shows within the Twittersphere to big brands and agencies a lot lately. This valuable data gives brands the opportunity to reach those viewers, a service that could be considered so useful that it's invaluable within the marketing industry. In fact, Twitter purchased Bluefin Labs last year (a social TV analytics company) to up the ante on their TV targeting capabilities. If that doesn't give you an idea of how serious they are about cross-screen (or second-screen) marketing, we're not sure what will! As one ad agency exec put it, "They have the ability to reach people simultaneously on TV and Twitter. It's a second-screen option that's not happening elsewhere." In addition, it's not just prime-time hashtags you'll see with this new Twitter-to-TV push. It will evolve far past this, according to how many brands plan to increase their Twitter spending in 2014. SMART Content Marketing Content marketing is a subject that's been talked about so much in the last couple of years that many people are tired of hearing about it. But, that doesn't mean it's not extremely important to your business. It's a proven, effective way to increase your reach with your target market, which will help you get more customers, make more money and ultimately, build your business. So, where does content marketing come into our conversation here? Well, say you're sponsoring a big televised event. You can take your printed ad copy once the event is over, and simply upload it onto your Twitter account (in 140-character chunks, of course), delivering the same content to more people in different ways, and thus, increasing your reach by an incredible amount. THAT is content marketing. Taking your original content and repurposing it to gain more traction. And, it's SMART. Essentially, advertisers are viewing “Twitter ads” as an extension of TV buying, and many big advertising brands are going giddy over the ability to use it, as well as tripling their budgets to do so. While these advertising dollars could be going to Facebook, especially considering that fact that Facebook still has a broader reach than Twitter, it will come down to the race of who can target users more effectively and thus, truly lay claim as the major second-screen advertiser. We will just have to wait and see who wins that race. Image via Shutterstock  |
| Don’t Be In a Hurry to Raise Money for Your Startup – Here’s Why Posted: 03 Feb 2014 03:31 AM PST Seems like every day there is another huge news story buzzing around the startup world. Somebody just filed for an IPO, so-and-so raised $100M in funding, Company X acquired Company Y for $1.5B, etc. If you follow the startup scene at all, you’ve undoubtedly seen these stories. They all tend to glamorize startups, entrepreneurship, raising VC money, and ultimately getting rich. As a young entrepreneur, hearing about all the success can give you a sense of awe and inspiration to do whatever it takes to get your own startup VC backed so you can reach that mega exit. But in reality, startups are so much harder than they look, and not even millions of dollars in funding will make it easy. In fact, raising a ton of money too early can actually be the worst thing to happen to a young company. Here’s why. Funding is Not a Measure of SuccessThere’s no doubt that raising money validates your concept to some extent. If an investor (especially one that isn’t a family member or friend) is convinced that your company is on the right track, there’s a good chance that it actually is. But, there will almost always be aspects of the business model that are still unproven at that point. Chances are, your company is anything but successful. Meanwhile in the media, 7/10 startup articles are just stories about who raised money from whom, giving people the false impression that raising money is an actual measure of startup success. It’s not, so don’t treat it that way. Look at all the startups that raise money, and then look at how many of them ultimately become successful and how many more of them fail. You will quickly see that raising money does not equal success. Your focus early on needs to be on customer development, finding product market fit, finding effective and affordable growth channels, and finding a business model that works repeatably and is scalable. Raising money is really just a distraction from all these things, which are the real heart of growing a business. Having Money Leads to Careless SpendingSuccessful businesses are built on cashflow and profits. In other words, it all boils down to the ability to make more money from customers than you spend in the process of acquiring those customers and delivering goods and services to them. Simple enough, right? The problem is, when you raise a ton of money, it becomes very tempting to go out and spend it. This causes problems for startups, where products and processes aren’t exactly at the point of maturity yet, and everything costs twice as much and takes twice as long as you think it will. Too many startups take their money and go out and lease a big, expensive office or rush to hire a bunch of employees that aren’t the best fits (or both). Committing to a major, ongoing expenditure like a lease or employee salary is a huge decision to make, and one that can be vital in determining whether your company stays afloat or not. When you have too much money too early, it’s easy to make these kinds of mistakes without thinking about the consequences. When you don’t have money, you’re forced to be frugal and stretch every dollar to its absolute limit, and then some. Maintaining laser focus while you’re on limited budget leads to better decision making, and ultimately helps you figure out how to make your company a success. When You Have Money, You Lose Some Inner DriveStartups require scrappiness, grit, passion, and hustle. As an entrepreneur, you have to be completely self-motivated and driven. No one can make your company succeed but you. And you’ve got to be committed for the long haul because nothing is an overnight success. No, not even Instagram. When you raise money too early, the natural tendency is to relax a little. You take your foot off the gas a bit because now you have money to put to work for you. You start to feel more at ease, and you start to forget that you are the only thing that can make your company succeed. It’s kind of like in professional sports, when a player lands one of those unheard of, hundred million dollar multiyear contracts and then two years later isn’t even a contributor to the team. Something about the money just takes a slight edge off – that killer instinct. It partly comes from the media-driven “raising money equals success” mentality, but it’s deeper than that too. In the early days of a startup, you need every little bit of hustle and drive that you can conjure up because you are literally creating something from nothing. For whatever reason, money just seems to eliminate some of the fire burning inside. Just look at the turmoils of Color and Clinkle and other companies that raised massive amounts of money early on, but haven’t shown much promise since, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. Don’t be in a hurry to raise money for your startup. Money is great, and it can make a world of difference when the timing is right, but it’s not what you need to succeed as a startup. So in the early days, forget about raising money and stay laser focused on the things that really matter. All you really need is a strong entrepreneurial spirit…hustle…grit…drive…passion…whatever that thing is, whatever you want to call it…if you’re bound to be a successful startup entrepreneur, it’s already inside you.  |
| 3 Ways Mobile Advertising Can Be Effective Posted: 03 Feb 2014 03:25 AM PST Mobile marketing and advertising are at the forefront of most analysts' predictions for what will be pivotal in 2014, and it's not a far-fetched proposal. In 2013 there was 75% growth in mobile advertising, according to AdAge Mobile Fact Pack. No longer is mobile marketing and advertising a peripheral issue for businesses—rather, it's being seen as an essential component of any marketing strategy. Think this doesn't apply to small businesses? Think again. Mobile advertising is extremely important to small businesses, because of the rising importance of localized searches on mobile devices. Beyond the huge general growth of mobile advertising in 2013, the following statistics also point to its importance:
Smartphones are no longer just for the elite or people in certain areas of the world—they're for everyone. Think about being in an airport, a store or a subway stop. Nearly every person there has their face buried in a mobile device, and the same notion extends to countries around the globe. More and more marketing experts are realizing the key to putting themselves directly in front of their targeted customer is via mobile advertising. How to Make Mobile Advertising Effective Despite the overwhelming evidence that mobile advertising is important, it's still a relatively new concept, and many businesses are unsure of how to approach it. It's not just any mobile advertising that works—there are clear indications of what affects the consumer, and what doesn't, making strategy important.
The Takeaway While 2013 was a year of huge growth for mobile advertising, it appears it's only the beginning. Now is a great time for businesses of all sizes and types to take advantage of available opportunities, by creating and honing mobile advertising techniques that are powerful and effective, and incorporating them into their overall marketing strategies on a regular basis.  |
| The Value of Picking Up Where You Left Off: Consumers Call for Omni-channel Customer Service Posted: 03 Feb 2014 02:43 AM PST Ninety-one. The percent of American consumers who say they should be able to pick up a customer service interaction about the same issue right where they last left off. Thirty-nine. The number who say they have actually been able to do so.* The gap is alarming to say the least and it has not gone unnoticed. More and more, consumers are pushing brands to make the necessary changes to remedy their service dissatisfaction, as they are plagued with sounding like a broken record to get resolution. In fact, 89 percent are annoyed when they have to repeat themselves about a customer service issue. Perhaps this frustration is why 80 percent are calling for a big change in customer service. But what is that change? Omni-channel. Omni-channel customer service is the ability for customers to begin an interaction on one channel or device and seamlessly continue on another without feeling alienated, forgotten or having to start all over again – all channels, all the time, all devices, fully integrated. But it doesn't just benefit the consumer. Omni-channel creates business value by building higher customer retention and loyalty because of the differentiated care shown by the organizations who deliver it. Because omni-channel customer service can develop unique and personal relationships with customers, it is the next horizon in customer service. Stepping up to the omni-channel plate requires consistency, knowledge and openness.
It's clear that omni-channel is what consumers are calling for. And ignoring this call is futile for any brand that wants to keep up with its ever-changing customers. *According to an online omnibus survey of 2,201 Americans who have contacted customer service. The survey was created by Aspect and compiled by TNS.  |
| Google Hummingbird Algorithm – Deeper Insight & What It Means For You? Posted: 02 Feb 2014 10:17 PM PST On its 15th birthday, Google announced the release of Hummingbird, a new search algorithm based on semantic search. Designed to provide more precise and faster search results, Hummingbird focuses more on user intent and interprets an entire string of text (long tail keywords) instead of individual search terms. More on Hummingbird Hummingbird is rolled out with the intent to improve the results generated on the basis of search queries. Unlike Penguin or Panda; the updates to already existing algorithms, Hummingbird is the new algorithm by Google; faster and more precise. With Hummingbird, Google will be able to handle the influx of longer and more complex search queries in a better way. Hummingbird will be focusing lot on “conversational search”, ensuring that the entire query – be it entire sentence or a whole conversation, is taken into account. Hummingbird for SEOs and Marketers Till now, no drastic impact of Hummingbird on search rankings has been noticed by SEOs and marketers. If you have adopted the right SEO tactics and serving the content more from user’s than search engine’s perspective, Hummingbird will not require you to make real changes to the way you have been doing SEO. It is essential for marketers & SEOs to understand that all the signals that haven been important from ranking perspective haven’t changed post-Hummingbird. What has changed is the way Google will now process these signals. Remarkable content and stellar user experience will now be given even more weightage by Google. What Should be your Content Strategy? Google gives preferences to websites that serve relevant content as per the users’ need and Hummingbird too revolves around the same concept. But, how would you know what your consumers want? Use Social Media Connect – You can use a social media platform to connect to users and ask what do they need or want. Industry Forums & Blogs – Comments section in a blog or forum can turn out to be a great source of information about what users want to find and what they are being served with. Keyword Research – Look beyond the traditional two-three word phrases. Long tail keywords are given more preference by Hummingbird. Best Content Practices When it comes to content creation, adhere to the best practices:
The content that you create should be deep and rich, so that Google considers it to be the most relevant piece of information for a related query. Hummingbird gives more credit to websites serving content that answers the most comprehensive questions. While, your website should be rich on content, it should be well-designed & maintained so that Google spiders can crawl it easily. Authorship will be Important Since, Hummingbird will be paying the most emphasis on content, authorship is likely to become more important factor in optimization. Google has released several notable changes recently. The complete integration of secure search eliminated the keyword data from analytics. Google+ later rolled out a change to authorship, making it easier to attribute content to the author. So, when you are planning a Hummingbird strategy, do take the authority into account. Ensure that you create profiles, update them, and attribute for all the content that you develop. The Future Hummingbird update is a clear move of Google towards a more semantic web. According to Google, the update covers 90% of the search queries worldwide and is going to fundamentally change the search in long term. Marketers and SEOs should be careful as the update brings bigger inferences from an operational & technical stance. It is apparent that Google is pushing the World Wide Web to a place where “Content is the King” and understanding users’ needs is the key to your web success.  |
If you've watched any prime time football on your TV in the last few months, you've probably seen one of the new hashtag commercials that some major brands are using to promote their Twitter campaigns pop up. Even if you're not a sports fan, it's pretty likely you've seen one of these advertisements urging you to tweet using a specific hashtag, and thus, join the conversation online.
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