marketing

5 Ideas For A Social Web Marketing And PR Strategy

jim wilde — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:31:55 +0000

All social media activity should be mindful of search engine optimization. We use Drupal for our client sites, so managing seo ties in nicely with web analytics.

1. Identify audience

Identify who it is you are trying to influence. Once you've defined them, start to gather data about them. Your potential data sources include, but are certainly not limited to:

Current website analytics
Google search trends
Data aggregation (apps like BlogPulse and Trackur)
Data analysis (apps like Radian 6 and Techrigy)

After you've uncovered the data, what exactly do you do with it?

2. Define objectives

What are your end goals from this audience? What is it you want from them? Just a few example objectives I've worked with include:

Increase organic leads
Build thought leadership
Inspire publicity
Increase organic search engine traffic

Of course, your objectives will vary depending on your business. Social media marketing application is only limited by your creativity.

3. Develop strategy

After audience is identified and your objective(s) are fleshed out, you are now ready to define a strategic approach. This is driven by audience data + objective + industry insight + creativity. All tactics implemented in the next steps should be driven by the strategy. Consider common digital strategy development mistakes prior to finalizing this.

4. Implement tools/tactics

Only at this point should you define tools/tactics. As Matt Dickman stated previously â€“ if you want better digital strategy, ban these 7 dirty words. Most marketing and PR pros skip immediately to this step. And while it makes sense to experiment with different tools/tactics, they should still roll to the strategic approach (which needs to be locked down first).

Activate SEO intersection

All social media activity should be mindful of search engine optimization. 5 basic tips to keep in mind include:

Create a social media keyword glossary of popular social terms, cross reference with your search keyword glossary.
Title/tag social content appropriately.
Conduct digital asset optimization on images, PDFs, and videos.
Leverage/repurpose content across channels.
Create linkbait/social media friendly content.

Of course feed your content into your social channels, but ultimately realize your community has greater power to do this than you. Inspire a group to organically raise your brand's search equity naturally.

5. Metrics/measurement

Measurement is key with a social web strategy, and defining the KPIs that matter to your brand is vital.

Some potential metrics to measure include:

Number of subscribers
Overall unique visitors
Conversions/conversion sources
Branded searches/non-branded searches
Search engine traffic
Visitor to subscriber conversion ratios
Followings in outposts
Referral traffic
Quality and quantity of engagement across platforms

For much more details on measurements/KPIs, check out my post at Online Marketing Blog on web analytics reporting.

I snagged these ideas from futurebuzz. "The Future Buzz provides the latest insights, trends and strategies to help you build buzz." From futurebuzz by Adam Singer, "Architecting A Social Web Marketing And PR Strategy"

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Online Marketing - Search and Email Work Best

jim wilde — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0000

Survey results also show a definitive move toward leveraging online audience marketing measurement tools, and a focus on emerging digital and social channels for reaching target audiences.

"Each year, Datatran Media conducts its annual survey to capture insights from marketers around the globe. This year, Datran Media asked marketers to address their toughest challenges in this increasingly difficult economy. The results of the survey reveal significant optimism towards 2010 marketing and advertising spending, after a decline in 2009. "

Online Audience Analytics Marketers are focused on quantifying ROI this year:

72.8% say they now use audience measurement and analytics to assess the success of their digital campaigns, while just 21.6% do not.
Over one-half (54.4%) of marketers say they have optimized campaigns based on audience measurement analytics, while 29.6% have not done so as yet, but plan to in 2010 or beyond.
Most marketers cite clicks (72%), conversions (59.2%), and impressions (58.4%) as the three most important metrics:

Driving Brand Awareness and Revenue with Analytics

Nearly one-half 46.4%) of marketers say accurate online audience measurement is very important for driving increased brand awareness, revenue, and better campaign performance, while another 40.8% say it is somewhat important.

Among the greatest challenges to conducting online audience measurement, marketers cite the following:

Accuracy: 29.5%
Lack of ability to take action on data: 23.2%
Wasted impressions: 9.6%
Standards: 8.0% Some 26.4% of marketers say they do not conduct online audience measurement.

Check out Avinash Kaushik's blog about web analytics and website optimization. His ideas on web analytics data helps marketers and web analysts (like us) get actionable insights from their data.

Read more about the marketing survey over on Marketing Profs, Marketers: Shifting to Digital; Email, Search Perform Best.

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Business Development Ideas

Marketing - Competing On Not Bad And Well Priced

jim wilde — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:19:13 +0000

Selling things that aren't bad and cost a lot less.

"...Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad he said that, if a product wasn't far better than what was already out there, it had no reason for being.

For Apple, which has enjoyed enormous success in recent years, build it and they will pay is business as usual. But it's not a universal business truth. On the contrary, companies like Ikea, H. & M., and the makers of the Flip video camera are flourishing not by selling products or services that are far better than anyone elses but by selling things that aren't bad and cost a lot less. These products are much better than the cheap stuff you used to buy at Woolworth, and they tend to be appealingly styled, but, unlike Apple, the companies aren' trying to build the best mousetrap out there. Instead, they're engaged in what Wired recently christened the good-enough revolution. For them, the key to success isn't excellence. It's well-priced adequacy."

Soft in the Middle by James Surowiecki (author of the "wisdom of Crowds".)

We don't really sell any products - just services. Does any of this, "good-enough revolution", apply to services? In our case I think it does for the web development and design area since we use a lot of open-source software and good-enough web design (see my delicious bookmarks for lists of web designs from leading designers). Who benefits - people that have information about open-source and knowledge of web design. In other words - an educated consumer.

Disruptive technologies, Clayton Christensen fans will recall, gain their foothold by being adopted by the low end of the market, where they are not as good as the market leader but are cheaper, more convenient, and "good enough."

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine from wired.

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the good enough revolution

apple

Small to Medium Businesses Get more Traffic From Facebook Pages With Video & Images

jim wilde — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:42:48 +0000

Video clips, pictures prove more effective for driving traffic for small and medium size businesses.

Business owners who are wondering how best to attract the attention of Facebook users might want to favor video and images over lots and lots of text. Fresh Hitwise data shows that Facebook users prefer broadcast media over print sources when it comes to news.

Heather Hopkins recently looked at what news and media websites Facebook users most often visit after getting their social media fix. The list includes the Weather Channel, CNN, Yahoo News, MSNBC, People Magazine, Fox News, Google News, AccuWeather, Topix, and the Drudge Report.

Hopkins observed that, "A larger proportion of Facebook's News and Media traffic is directed toward Broadcast Media websites compared with Google News. The following chart illustrates this point nicely. The chart shows upstream visits to Broadcast Media websites from Facebook and Google News over the past year."

Small and medium size businesses that have Facebook pages and can produce videos cheaply should consider the option using more video and images.

See my previous post on, Google Releases B2B Marketing Best Practices Guide for Youtube

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Google Releases B2B Marketing Best Practices Guide for Youtube

jim wilde — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:35:52 +0000

Are You Missing Out on Opportunities from the 2nd Largest Search Engine? How-to Youtube marketing guide for businesses.

Google has put together a best practices paper for B2B marketers who wish to utilize YouTube as a tool in their strategies. The paper, which is free to download covers basics about using YouTube for marketing. "YouTube: Best Practices for the B2B Marketer".

YouTube is a destination not just for youth audiences and tech enthusiasts, but for the business community as well.

â€¢ 1.5 million business searches daily on YouTube globally, making it the second most visited destination for business-related searches after Google2

â€¢ 1.4 million out of 3.4 million UK small business owners visit an online video site each month - they are 32% more likely to visit an online video site than the average user3

â€¢ YouTube reaches half of online UK small business owners, more than 7 times the reach of FT.com3

â€¢ 47% of IT professionals watch videos to research technology solutions on YouTube4

â€¢ 25% of C-level execs prefer video format over text.

Specifically, the paper gets into:

- Uploading all video assets

- Creating great content

- Getting found

- reaching your target audience

- building a home for your brand on YouTube

- tracking, analyzing, and improving - innovating and integrating.

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web, and that is reason enough not to ignore it, unless you have a business that simply doesn't cater to interesting videos (the key is to make them interesting...I know...easier said than done).

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how-to youtube for business

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social media

Intuitive Usability Testing Smackdown

jim wilde — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:36:35 +0000

Website optimization and usability testing is a must these days if you are concerned with conversion rates.

Seth Godin, marketer, author, and blogger, has a great post about basic web usability.

"If you approve or create online forms or deal with consumer interactions, I hope you'll think about the following:

1. If you have more than seven items in a pull down list, you have failed."

Read about it over on Seth's blog - The magic rule of seven (and the banality of alphabetical order)."

The last thing any website marketer wants is a bad conversion rate on the first page a visitor comes to. What's a bad conversion rate? "I came, I puked, I left.".

I don't know if Seth is using his intuition, but let's say he is, about web usability or user interfaces to support his hypothesis. It has been my experience as a web developer, web optimizer/tester that intuition in most cases is usually wrong. A better approach is to take a data-driven one and use web analytics.

To fix usability problems and conversion rates - the best game in town is Google Analytics. You can do all of the a/b and multivariant testing you want. You can test any element on a page including the whole page. FREE.

Here are some more ideas about website optimization.

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5 Business Goals Your Website Should Aim For

jim wilde — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:24:34 +0000

Suggestions to help small to medium size business managers/founders make better websites.

We've seen many business websites get lost in content about the business, caught up in graphics, and focused on how great they are. Many sites lose the business value proposition message altogether. Here are five questions to consider when planning your website or redesign to help keep you on track.

How will this website help us:

Strengthen our online presence, lower costs, and increase revenue?
Find new and better ways to satisfy the needs of our customers?
Expand our marketing reach?
Become more innovative?
Improve employee communication and productivity?

Don't get complacent about your website. Your competitors aren't.

Check out: Compare your site to your competitors or try this one Hitwise .

Web 2.0-Based Marketing Strategies for Small to Medium Businesses

From SCORE, Determine the Goals for Your Small Business Web Site

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What is Social Media?

jim wilde — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:35:05 +0000

Social media enabled websites and social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) are playing a big role in driving traffic and converting site visitors to customers.

The all-knowing Wikipedia defines social media as "Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings." But really, social media is about connecting, interacting, and sharing online.

From a promotional and marketing perspective, things are not so clear cut or easy. The biggest problem is that some people think of social media as just one more channel to push sales. You can but you have to do it gently and with your customers interests first. This is not a position for an intern.

SEO - Social Media Search - Real-Time Search - Online Marketing

I snagged the above graphic form readwriteweb. They have a great post about, Google's New Social Search Is A Big Chess Move Against Facebook.

Web 2.0-Based Marketing Strategies for Small to Medium Businesses

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Website Promotion Overview

jim wilde — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:42:14 +0000

Website promotion is about getting visitors to come to your website.

Our website promotion services will help you get more of your target audience and improve your conversion rates.

Promoting your website using search engines and social media will grow your business .Website promotion and search engine optimization (SEO) is a big DEAL. SEO is a process - it is not a one shot activity. Too many website owners and marketing people underestimate it and miss opportunities because they don't do enough web analytics. Check out Avinash Kaushik's blog about web analytics, and website optimization. Both of these topics play a gigantic role in measuring the effectiveness of SEO.

We provide these SEO and SEM services:

Keyword Research
On-Page Optimization
Website Content development
Blogs, Social Media
Increasing the Conversion Rate of Your Website

Customer acquisition
Sitemaps
RSS Feeds
Site speed
SEO Testing
Usability and A/B testing

Making an SEO plan and figuring out the real costs of acquiring customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM - PPC).
Social Media - Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Blogs, Reviews, Recommendations, RSS - What is social media and real time search?
Newsletters - manage subscriptions, create newsletters, segment subscribers - email blasts - manage campaigns
Web Content Development, Copywriting, Editing Project documentation â€¢ Content audit/inventory â€¢ Site map â€¢ Wireframes â€¢ Style guide
Website Optimization Testing

Organic Search - Content is king - Website Content Development.

If a tree falls in a forest... You may have the best content on the Net, but if people can't find it, it may as well not exist. Our SEO services and website development content can improve the searchabillity of your content, leading to increased hits to your website. Search engine strategies - 5 ways to promote your website.

We provide website development content writing services to improve your content and keywords. In addition, we'll make your information more actionable (sociability) so that is gets placed on 3rd party services such as twitter, facebook, etc.

Great SEO and Online Marketing Resources

Web 2.0-Based Marketing Strategies for Small to Medium Businesses
Google Insights for search. See what people are searching for.
Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik. A great source for SEO /SEM as well as inspiration. He writes a lot about analyzing the web analytics data.
Don't forget to identify head keywords (ask me about the longtail of search) for your competitors! Using compete.com
The Search Engine Marketer (SEM) Toolbox: 79 Tools and Tips Every Search Marketer Must Have
Definition of SEO and other marketing terms.
The Internet Marketing Handbook, this is from SEOmoz and is a collection of articles and tools.

Feel free to bookmark, print, or download this pdf file about web content development.

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Web 2.0 website development

Open Source CMS

search engine optimization

Web Content Development.pdf

Search Engine Optimization

jim wilde — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:42:16 +0000

In addition to basic SEO / SEM, we'll help you tackle tough problems like poor conversions and high bounce rates.

Search engine optimization takes time and cost money. It is an on-going practice. How much is a sale worth?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.

The overall practice of SEO is a blend of art and science, and the 'art' portion writing compelling copy, crafting effective headlines and meta tags, obtaining high-quality links.One key area is the use of taxonomies. We use them to categorize content and products. Category terms are indexed by all of the search engines. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence. Learn more about, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from Google.

SEO is not a one time shot. It is an on-going practice. Your competitors are not standing still.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.

How we practice Search Engine Optimization - Online Marketing - SEO NYC - Competitive Analysis

Develop the organic search strategy

Review all relevant material or attend meetings to gain a full understanding of your marketing/site goals and objectives
Translate marketing goals into a responsible and successful organic strategy based on knowledge of the search engine algorithms
Communicate strategy directly

Create detailed SEO recommendations

Develop keyword strategies for optimal on-site performance
Provide detailed site analysis
Provide actionable competitive analysis
Develop detailed recommendations for site changes
Develop a comprehensive linking strategy

Monitoring progress and adjusting the optimization strategy accordingly

Establish SEO audit baselines
Establish SEO performance baselines
QA all SEO recommendations, before and after launch
Analyze monthly search engine performance reports to determine if new optimizations are needed
Monitor site and competitor site changes

We continuously Improve our SEO expertise

Stay updated with new search engine algorithm changes and tactics
Write client-ready POVs and internal SEO standards documents
Keep abreast of latest search engine trends and news
Recommend and research new tools and offerings (e.g. social search, reputation mgmt., local search etc.)

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seo

cms

content management systems

promotion

keywords

sem

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Web 2.0-Based Marketing Strategies for Small to Medium Businesses

jim wilde — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:53:39 +0000

SMB's Plan Increase in use of Web 2.0 Features

I can certainly agree with BIA/Kelsey about the explosive growth of twitter, facebook, ect., in the enterprise. At least in the small to medium size enterprise anyhow. I do a lot of web 2.0 website development using open-source as well as website promotion for the smb market. Most of the sites are using api's to hook in to twitter and FB for marketing and cross-promotional purposes. The days of the static net are over. Web 2.0 and dynamic websites are here and growing. Advantages of a Web 2.0 website.

"9% of SMBs Currently Use Twitter to Market Their Businesses, According to BIA/Kelsey a study from research firm BIA/Kelsey.

According to the latest wave of BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor study, 9 percent of small and medium-sized businesses currently use Twitter to market their businesses. In addition, 32 percent of SMBs indicated they plan to include social media in their marketing mix in the next 12 months by using a page on a social site such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. Furthermore, 39 percent of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites, and 31 percent plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.

SMBs also intend to use a diverse range of new Web 2.0-based capabilities in the next 12 months: 39% plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their websites; 23% plan to incorporate video on their websites; and 31% plan to include links or ads place on social sites or blogs."

Here is one more article about the explosive growth of web 2.0 tools - twitter, Facebook, and others in the enterprise. It is from CW, Business use of Twitter, Facebook exploding.

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Internet Trends 2009 - Web 2.0 Conference - Mary Meeker

jim wilde — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:36:47 +0000

Mary focuses on the economy and mobile Internet in this presentation.

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker gives an excellent macro Internet presentation at Web 2.0 Summit each year. Internet trends and the economy - mobile impact on markets, retailers, advertising, e-comm.

Mary Meeker's Internet Presentation 2009

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Social Media Influences Searchers

jim wilde — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:18:54 +0000

Two ad impressions are better than one - get higher conversion rates.

"Research has shown that display ad exposure can lift consumer response to paid search. Data from comScore, GroupM and M80 indicates searchers are also more likely to keep a brand in mind if they have seen a combination of paid search ads and social media.

The research firms found a 19-percentage-point lift in searches on the campaign brand among users who saw social media relevant to the brand in addition to the campaign's paid search ads compared with those who were exposed only to the search placements. And there was a further 13-point lift among those exposed to social media influenced directly by the brand.

"Every day consumers express their intent via search. Now, we better understand how that intent is established via social media and the interplay between the channels," said Chris Copeland, CEO of GroupM Search The Americas, in a statement.

The effect was even more pronounced when it came to searches for product terms rather than brand terms. Users were almost three times as likely to search after seeing influenced social media plus paid search, compared with paid search ads alone."

Above info is from eMarketer -"The Synergy of Search and Social Media"

If your website Drupal, check out Drupal SEO.

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples

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Tips for Measuring Display Ads

jim wilde — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:55:36 +0000

Is the long-used click-through rate now officially useless?

(AdAge.com) -- The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, according to the most recent "Natural Born Clickers" study from ComScore and media agency Starcom. As the pool of people who click on banner ads rapidly decreases, it begs the question: Is the long-used click-through rate now officially useless?

What to Measure? Only16% of the Web Is Clicking Display Ads

Tips for living in a post-click world:

...it's important for marketers to ask their agencies how display ads fit into the larger marketing plan. "With the media mix, how do you set up overall metrics?" he said. "It's unrealistic to look at one element of one media for success. Since online media is so trackable, it's is held to a higher standard. The reality is no one looks at print advertising like that. You can't measure print that way or TV because they don't have built-in capacity. It's a little unfair that display becomes the whipping boy."
In the digital space, look at how elements like display and search coalesce, Mr. Spanier said. How do people end up at a website to make a purchase? Look at sales of a product on-site with consumers' exposure to ads. "There is no way display advertising is wasting money," he said, "even if people don't click."
Clicks are a direct-response measurement. For display campaigns, look at brand-awareness studies, purchase-intent lifts and engagement rates. "Users might work with an ad, but not click on it," said Paul Gunning, CEO of Tribal DDB Worldwide.
Look at display view-through rates. "CTRs have a value, there is still a hand being raised, but view-through is more important," Mr. Gunning said. "How many people actually end up where you wanted them to? How much time are they spending?"
Look at the creative. While consumer attitudes online have undoubtedly changed, think about how messaging does or doesn't demand clicks. If you want to measure success against click-throughs, include strong calls for action. Or, if you have a rich-media experience, other metrics such as engagement time are probably more telling. And that may be the case as more banners include innovations such as embedded video and rich media, said Atmosphere BBDO's Warren Griffiths, group account director for Visa, Emirates Airlines, Hertz and Starwood. "More banners have become the destination. I don't believe that would account for a 50% drop in clicks, but this may have had some impact."

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Social media requires a real budget

jim wilde — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:42:13 +0000

It's not really cheap, or free.

This is great... " While many social media tools are free, knowing how to use them takes experience and perspective. " Sez B.L. Ochman. She has a great post on Adage, "Six Reasons Companies Are Still Scared of Social Media". Check it out if you have second thoughts about social media.

Here's more... "The boss' friend's high school or college kid can't integrate social media into the company's overall marketing. That requires experience and perspective. Having a large social network and a stellar online reputation helps too.

Just as there are carpenters who can knock together a bookshelf and master carpenters who can create objects of genuine and lasting beauty, there are thousands of social-media gurus (of all ages) who've never worked for an actual client. Hire them at your own peril."

Although, B.L. is talking about social media and how it applies to marketing, the same can be said about using the so-called free tools, especially the open-source ones. Many people now the basics but few know how to integrate them with CRM and other applications as well as "create objects of lasting beauty".

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